End of the line for return rail tickets

[Richardr]

Whatever happens, anything to eliminate returns outside LNER sounds a way off - and will depend on how that goes. It didn't really live up to the earlier media reports.

Meanwhile, the extension of contactless in the south-east will continue. I assume that will have single fares only and only two fares - peak and off-peak. These will be in addition to the somewhat larger range of tickets that the operating companies will sell for the same journeys.

 

[Starmill]

Are you opposed to having cheaper Advance fares, or is that "over-commercialisation"?

I know you were asking yorksrob specifically, but lots of people have regularly posted the opinion that they're opposed to cheap advance tickets and expensive flexible tickets to be fair. It has been a frequent comment on these pages for at least a decade, probably two decades by now. Lots of people comment how the West Midlands Trains offer of very reasonably priced Anytime, Off Peak and Super Off Peak tickets, with only a very small quota of cheaper Advance tickets for each train, adds lots of value. It would be better if medium and long distance journeys followed that kind of structure. Unfortunately that doesn't give as much of an opportunity to maximise yield for the government.

Most people aren't going to want to have to book a journey like Peterborough or Grantham to London months in advance to get a sensible price relative to the cost of car fuel and parking for their group. They will want to book on the day, or perhaps one or two days before. Such competitively priced Advance tickets are therefore not realistically going to be available.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I don't recall any of these barring BOJ on the return including overnight - presumably because the InterCity/NSE pricing people didn’t see any revenue advantage in forbidding it. My point remains that very few people (even among enquirers here) take advantage of the facility, compared with those who are attracted by the discount.

FWIW I see no reason why longer-distance Singles should not have 3-day (or even 5-day) validity and no limits on BOJ.

The only long distance fares that have BoJ restrictions for same day break are ones where they undercut other shorter distance fares, e.g. Off Peaks being valid on Lancaster to London when they are not valid from Preston. All the rest don't, and other than those cases even where there is a bar it's not really enforced.

Three day validity would probably cause too much re-use, and it's not a major issue to split for a planned overnight break. Almost nobody breaks a journey overnight on an unplanned basis. I've done it once in my entire life, for instance. Normally one would book a hotel so can book singles in that direction to fit.

What I would like to see is an end to the admin fee, so people aren't penalised if they do have to change their return date but have already purchased. There's no actual admin done anyway, it's all done by a computer.

 

[Starmill]

I assume that will have single fares only and only two fares - peak and off-peak.

It hasn't been spelled out but this probably wouldn't work from the point of view of having cheaper Advance tickets, as capacity is going down rather than up. The only way to have cheaper Advance tickets with less capacity is not to have any Off Peak or Super Off Peak singles.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I know you were asking yorksrob specifically, but lots of people have regularly posted the opinion that they're opposed to cheap advance tickets and expensive flexible tickets to be fair. It has been a frequent comment on these pages for at least a decade, probably two decades by now. Lots of people comment how the West Midlands Trains offer of very reasonably priced Anytime, Off Peak and Super Off Peak tickets, with only a very small quota of cheaper Advance tickets for each train, adds lots of value. It would be better if medium and long distance journeys followed that kind of structure. Unfortunately that doesn't give as much of an opportunity to maximise yield for the government.

Most people aren't going to want to have to book a journey like Peterborough or Grantham to London months in advance to get a sensible price relative to the cost of car fuel and parking for their group. They will want to book on the day, or perhaps one or two days before. Such competitively priced Advance tickets are therefore not realistically going to be available.

I think it depends what sort of journey you're talking about. Up to a journey time of maybe an hour to 90 minutes with a frequent service, people do random day trips and change their plans about on a whim. Whereas hardly anyone in Edinburgh goes to London on a whim. On a long journey, even with a flexible ticket most people will reserve one train and stick to it so they can be sure of a reserved seat.

 

[Haywain]

Most people aren't going to want to have to book a journey like Peterborough or Grantham to London months in advance to get a sensible price relative to the cost of car fuel and parking for their group. They will want to book on the day, or perhaps one or two days before. Such competitively priced Advance tickets are therefore not realistically going to be available.

Equally, most people undertaking lengthy journeys are likely to book some time ahead of travel, and in such cases I don't see that a fixed price is necessarily appropriate. In such cases there is a need to attract customers and that is what such fares can do.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It hasn't been spelled out but this probably wouldn't work from the point of view of having cheaper Advance tickets, as capacity is going down rather than up. The only way to have cheaper Advance tickets with less capacity is not to have any Off Peak or Super Off Peak singles.

Advances aren't compatible with contactless, so I don't think Advances will really be a thing on regional and commuter services.

 

[Starmill]

Equally, most people undertaking lengthy journeys are likely to book some time ahead of travel, and in such cases I don't see that a fixed price is necessarily appropriate. In such cases there is a need to attract customers and that is what such fares can do.

That's fine if you only want to attract that kind of customer, of course it is. You're absolutely right almost nobody will want to travel London to Edinburgh without booking in advance.

However, the railway industry receives rather a lot of public money, and it's proposed that it will continue to receive many billions of pounds per year, likely 50% at least of its overall funding, from public funds. It is my view therefore that trying to, for example, attract more people with cheaper London to Edinburgh advance tickets, is unfair if it can only be done by pushing people travelling just from Peterborough or Grantham to London off the railway entirely by the high prices. It is absolutely fine for Ryanair to operate like that. But not a state corporation which is providing a publicly-funded service.

Advances aren't compatible with contactless, so I don't think Advances will really be a thing on regional and commuter services.

The post I replied to sounded like it was talking about LNER in the second paragraph to me. Perhaps I was wrong and the "outside LNER" in the first paragraph was intended to disqualify it.

 

[Bletchleyite]

However, the railway industry receives rather a lot of public money, and it's proposed that it will continue to receive many billions of pounds per year, likely 50% at least of its funding, from public funds. It is my view therefore that trying to, for example, attract more people with cheaper London to Edinburgh advance tickets, is unfair if it can only be done by pushing people travelling just from Peterborough or Grantham to London off the railway entirely by the high prices. It is absolutely fine for Ryanair to operate like that. But not a state corporation which is providing a publicly-funded service.

LNER's primary purpose is as a long distance InterCity operation. The primary service from places like Peterborough to London is provided by the regional operator, i.e. GTR. I can see a situation where LNER is a premium priced option for that, while GTR offer a cheap walk-up contactless option, a bit like the way it used to be from MKC before Avanti created their dedicated fares.

Grantham is maybe a bit less clear cut, but then that's because the LNER York semifast is basically the same thing as the LNR Crewe service on the WCML, and maybe needs different ticketing to the Edinburgh expresses.

 

[AlterEgo]

Here's a hypothetical situation. Supposing a long distance TOC such as LNER were to make all tickets advance only with compulsory resdervations, would they be able to cancel a train if loadings weren't high enough to justify running it? Coach companies routinely cancel day trips if they don't get enough bookings to make a profit so could the same thing happen on the railways if, say, the 0440 from York to London only had 10 passengers booked on it on a certain day?

They’d have to cancel the 0833 to Leeds at the same time, then. That train runs from the set which comes off York at 0440.

The purpose of the 0440 train isn’t necessarily to carry passengers but stock and human resource utilisation.

There are too many moving parts for this to be a realistic proposition.

 

[Starmill]

The primary service from places like Peterborough to London is provided by the regional operator, i.e. GTR

I don't think this is true at all. I think you've just made that up.

Also which is the "primary" service in your view from Grantham or Newark to London?

 

[Bletchleyite]

I don't think this is true at all. I think you've just made that up.

Also which is the "primary" service in your view from Grantham or Newark to London?

LNER's primary purpose is as a long distance InterCity operation. The primary service from places like Peterborough to London is provided by the regional operator, i.e. GTR. I can see a situation where LNER is a premium priced option for that, while GTR offer a cheap walk-up contactless option, a bit like the way it used to be from MKC before Avanti created their dedicated fares.

Grantham is maybe a bit less clear cut, but then that's because the LNER York semifast is basically the same thing as the LNR Crewe service on the WCML, and maybe needs different ticketing to the Edinburgh expresses.

 

[WelshBluebird]

LNER's primary purpose is as a long distance InterCity operation. The primary service from places like Peterborough to London is provided by the regional operator, i.e. GTR. I can see a situation where LNER is a premium priced option for that, while GTR offer a cheap walk-up contactless option, a bit like the way it used to be from MKC before Avanti created their dedicated fares.

Grantham is maybe a bit less clear cut, but then that's because the LNER York semifast is basically the same thing as the LNR Crewe service on the WCML, and maybe needs different ticketing to the Edinburgh expresses.

The thing is, as you allude to, it isn't that clear cut half the time.

Bristol to Bath is a great example where in theory it should be obvious that the London services are intercity and the regional / stopping trains should be the local services - but you try getting everyone who travels between the two cities on the regional services and see how far that gets you!

In the UK, intercity services are often fundamental to local travel too and ultimately changing that would either require spending significant amounts of money to improve the non intercity services, or would require pushing large numbers of people off the railway.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The thing is, as you allude to, it isn't that clear cut half the time.
Bristol to Bath is a great example where in theory it should be obvious that the London services are intercity and the regional / stopping trains should be the local services - but you try getting everyone who travels between the two cities on the regional services and see how far that gets you!
In the UK, intercity services are often fundamental to local travel too.

They are, and there are ways to do that such as having one coach that accepts contactless/regional tickets and doesn't have any reservations, as Thalys did between Aachen and Koeln before they had a big falling out with DB. Or in Germany you might have the Penzance ICEs switch to being REs past Plymouth.

It's arguable these days that the only InterCity service GWR operate are the Plymouth/Penzance and Cardiffs. The Bristols are decidedly "regional express with posh rolling stock", a bit like the Avanti Birmingham semifast.

 

[Starmill]

Grantham is maybe a bit less clear cut, but then that's because the LNER York semifast is basically the same thing as the LNR Crewe service on the WCML, and maybe needs different ticketing to the Edinburgh expresses.

OK so what about the trains to Leeds, Newcastle or Edinburgh that call at Peterborough, Grantham and Newark North Gate en route? Or are you saying there should no longer be any such?

 

[Bletchleyite]

OK so what about the trains to Leeds, Newcastle or Edinburgh that call at Peterborough, Grantham and Newark North Gate en route? Or are you saying there should no longer be any such?

If you wanted to use one of those you'd buy an e-ticket at the current Advance rate and reserve a seat.

It's not perfect, and I'm not advocating it, but other countries do it, ergo it is feasible. People for instance manage to book onto TGVs for local journeys on the Mediterranean coast.

 

[Starmill]

They are, and there are ways to do that such as having one coach that accepts contactless/regional tickets and doesn't have any reservations, as Thalys did between Aachen and Koeln before they had a big falling out with DB. Or in Germany you might have the Penzance ICEs switch to being REs past Plymouth.

It's arguable these days that the only InterCity service GWR operate are the Plymouth/Penzance and Cardiffs. The Bristols are decidedly "regional express with posh rolling stock", a bit like the Avanti Birmingham semifast.

You tie yourself in knots trying to defend your position that the UK should be more like Germany and its network of ICE services every single time this is mentioned, but you're still fundamentally wrong, because the Germans post-unification built billions of euros worth of modern infrastructure that enables that separation of traffic today. The UK has hardly any such separation.

If you wanted to use one of those you'd buy an e-ticket at the current Advance rate and reserve a seat.

So we're getting somewhere. You wouldn't do that though for a journey from Grantham to London. You'd simply drive to an Underground station and you know it. And that's the whole original point I was making.

It's not perfect, and I'm not advocating it, but other countries do it, ergo it is feasible. People for instance manage to book onto TGVs for local journeys on the Mediterranean coast.

Yes, it works in countries where the government has paid billions of euros to build new dedicated metro / tram lines or high speed lines. Note the general absence of both here.

HS2 would work just fine using this model. LNER does not. Who do you think carries most of the passengers between Doncaster and Leeds, Northern or LNER? Who carries most of the passengers between Peterborough and London, TL/GN or LNER?

 

[Bletchleyite]

You tie yourself in knots trying to defend your position that the UK should be more like Germany and its network of ICE services every single time this is mentioned, but you're still fundamentally wrong because the Germans post-unification built billions of euros worth of modern infrastructure that enables that separation of traffic today. The UK has hardly any such separation.

It does have it on most of the WCML (the one bit it doesn't is between Crewe and Wigan North Western), assuming you consider the TPEs a RegionalExpress type service, which they probably are.

The ECML would if that slow York was operated by a regional TOC, so it's close.

There are places we don't, but there are places Germany doesn't too!

So we're getting somewhere. You wouldn't do that though for a journey from Grantham to London. You'd simply drive to an Underground station and you know it. And that's the whole original point I was making.

Hang on a minute.

Grantham-London and Birmingham-London are about the same distance.

Are you telling me that nobody at all buys Advance tickets from Birmignham to London? Really? I think you would be wrong on that. Lots of people do, including on LNR where the walk-ups are very affordable.

 

[Starmill]

Hang on a minute.

Grantham-London and Birmingham-London are about the same distance.

Are you telling me that nobody at all buys Advance tickets from Birmignham to London? Really? I think you would be wrong on that.

No of course not, don't be ridiculous. I'm saying that somewhere with journey times an hour from London must have a decent option on flexible tickets or pay as you go where relevant. That could easily continue to be the case with Birmingham even after HS2, arguably especially because of HS2 the classic services can have cheaper flexible tickets. The Off Peak Day Return and Off Peak Day Travelcard from Grantham and Newark currently fill a market need, and I'm pointing out that need should be met by any state-funded system.

 

[infobleep]

Advances aren't compatible with contactless, so I don't think Advances will really be a thing on regional and commuter services.

Then one has the whole issue of what is Intercity what is regional and what is commuter. There is overlap across these too.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Then one has the whole issue of what is Intercity what is regional and what is commuter. There is overlap across these too.

It'll probably be more that contactless will cover given zones. For instance, the South East one is going on TfL's system, and the West Midlands might have a different one.

 

[Starmill]

It does have it on most of the WCML (the one bit it doesn't is between Crewe and Wigan North Western), assuming you consider the TPEs a RegionalExpress type service, which they probably are.

It doesn't though. You can keep making these false claims but it won't make them true. Avanti provide most of the capacity and carry the majority of numbers between Stoke-on-Trent and Manchester, Coventry and Birmingham, Crewe and Stafford, Lancaster and Preston and Penrith and Carlisle. The alternative operators services offer scant capacity in all cases except for Coventry to Birmingham, but even in that case if short-distance passengers were prohibited from using Avanti West Coast the alternative services would not have enough space for everyone to get on.

There are places we don't, but there are places Germany doesn't too!

Yes and funnily enough in those places your system falls apart because the local transport tariff is available to use on ICE trains between defined stations.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It doesn't though. You can keep making these false claims but it won't make them true. Avanti provide most of the capacity and carry the majority of numbers between Stoke-on-Trent and Manchester, Coventry and Birmingham, Crewe and Stafford, Lancaster and Preston and Penrith and Carlisle. The alternative operators services offer scant capacity in all cases except for Coventry to Birmingham, but even in that case if short-distance passengers were prohibited from using Avanti West Coast the alternative services would not have enough space for everyone to get on.

Who's talking about prohibiting short distance passengers? All I said was that they'd have to obtain an Advance ticket with a reservation, or potentially just a reservation. Avanti trains are basically never full north of Preston so this wouldn't be a massive problem, just as it isn't for TGVs on the French Mediterranean Coast.

Yes and funnily enough in those places your system falls apart because the local transport tariff is available to use on ICE trains between defined stations.

I've already explained that that used to be done by keeping a single coach spare on the Thalys which was entered as a Regionalexpress on the system. I don't see what the problem is.

 

[Hadders]

LNER's primary purpose is as a long distance InterCity operation. The primary service from places like Peterborough to London is provided by the regional operator, i.e. GTR.

Not really. LNER set the Any Permitted fare. Historically what is now GTR only went to Peterborough out of convenience, back in the day what is now GTR ran a 2-hourly DMU shuttle from Hitchin to Huntingdon to connect with inter-city services.

 

[infobleep]

Are you referring to fare evasion, where for example the train starts at Y, continues through X where the train gets busy and on train ticket checks usually start, before arriving at Z. Fare evasion is a different problem with only an indirect link to the ticketing complexity problem, although sometimes people do get caught out because of the complexity, which is not ‘evasion’ in the moral sense, although legally it may be classed as such.

Or are you referring to a journey where the route from X to Z would normally go via Y and a Y to Z ticket is more expensive than an X to Z ticket. In this case part of the fares reform would be to ensure that these anomalies are removed, if X to Z is artificially low then it needs to rise to reflect the typical fares per mile on that route, if Y to Z is high then lower it. These are outlier cases probably affecting a very small percentage of passengers overall, if you have been getting a massively discounted journey for years then tough, its been spotted and you will pay a more realistic price, if the Y to Z journey is excessively priced then that’s price gouging and as a generally subsidised public service should not happen.

I assume all tickets and routes are in a database these days, so writing queries to weed out the oddities shouldn’t be difficult, they can then be resolved. Couple that with a review of the routing guide to remove oddball routes that serve no purpose for normal passengers and only serve those ‘in the know’.

In general I would assign each segment (i.e. between two junction points or a junction and terminus) of route a pence per mile rate, and apply that to all journeys over that segment, with an offpeak discount where needed. Where multiple routes exist take the fastest, as you assume that is the route most people will choose. Advance tickets are a different case and can be demand priced to try and even flows and ensure less popular services are used where the travel is price rather than time sensitive. To take your X via Y to Z case X to Y + Y to Z would be the same fares as X to Z for all tickets types, i.e Anytime single, Offpeak and Advance. If advances are not available over part of the route, then the advance fare applies to the segments that have them and you pay the appropriate single fare for the remainder (This would probably mostly apply where your main leg is a busy inter city route and the start and/or finish is over a branch line). A simple set of rules which would ensure that some of the current issues are removed.

The next step is then to look at fares on all routes and decide if they are about right, too low or too high and offpeak/anytime times and discount are appropriate. I could even envisage routes where there would be no peak/offpeak difference, probably rural routes with a sparse service. Then make adjustments where needed, maybe to encourage use, or level out demand. Make these changes gradually.

There is still nothing to stop you from having specific promotions on routes, if you do then people buying tickets from outside the promotion route would still benefit as that segment would be cheaper, and advance tickets can include promotions like the £1 tickets that have been available in the past

I am basing this on the premise that the railways will always attract a government subsidy on routes that would otherwise be uneconomic, so in a lot of cases fares will not cover operating costs.

I'm not referring to fare evasion. I am referring to starting a journey short which is perfectly legal.

There are stations where cheaper prices can be found and this has occurred because prices from other stations have risen more since privitsarion. Take Woking for example, where prices are higher. I have read this is due to the Heathrkw rail air coach running from there.

So on one hand you have those seeking out cheaper fares and on the other TOCs looking to price gouge.

Both might be considered bad but some people but as pricing gouging has been allowed then others will do the opposite and seek out cheaper fares.

The only way to fix this issue is to change the routing guide and structure of fares across the whole country.

In past, I have come across fares that undercut other fares and they were only introduced in the last 10 years, so they aren't always historical issues.

 

[Haywain]

You wouldn't do that though for a journey from Grantham to London.

This is nonsense, because many people already do.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The only way to fix this issue is to change the routing guide and structure of fares across the whole country.

I wouldn't rule out that that exact thing would happen.

It's not like other countries haven't completely changed their fares systems. Germany has quite recently.

 

[infobleep]

It'll probably be more that contactless will cover given zones. For instance, the South East one is going on TfL's system, and the West Midlands might have a different one.

What happens if you live on the boundary of two systems?

I'm not saying it is a bad idea, just throwing the question out there.

I wouldn't rule out that that exact thing would happen.

It's not like other countries haven't completely changed their fares systems. Germany has quite recently.

I agree with you.

 

[Haywain]

back in the day what is now GTR ran a 2-hourly DMU shuttle from Hitchin to Huntingdon to connect with inter-city services.

Back in the day inter-city services called at Hitchin as well as Huntingdon.

 

[Bletchleyite]

What happens if you live on the boundary of two systems?

I'm not saying it is a bad idea, just throwing the question out there.

It's a good question. For what it's worth I'm not in support of South East contactless being in the TfL system for that exact reason, I'd rather we had a national system that charged relevant walk-up single fares, a bit more like "The Key" etc, or you could buy those same fares as e-tickets, or an e-ticket Advance if you'd rather. If you really wanted to do Penzance to Wick, why not? But this isn't a speculative thread, and what certainly is happening in the South East is an extension of the TfL system, probably ultimately to the whole Network SouthEast area, though the next extension only covers most of it rather than all.