High fares - The issue that won't go away

[Starmill]

"Their on-street parking"?

They don't own the road. Even immediately outside their house. We should stop pandering to motorists' belief that they do.

We should also challenge their belief that nobody subsidises them and therefore they shouldn't be expected to subsidise more sustainable modes of transport. The fuel duty they pay (which the most affluent motorists can now dodge by driving EVs) doesn't realistically reflect the very significant negative externalities of car manufacture and use (excessive energy use, air pollution and associated public health impacts, microplastc pollution etc). Vehicle excise duty comes nowhere near covering the cost of road construction and maintenance. Subsidies cover the gap. Rail users and advocates should not, in my view, fall into the trap of thinking rail subsidies are rightly controversial or hard to justify.

The high cost of running and improving our railways are in large part down to political mismanagement. It is enormously wasteful, for example, to build the Ordsall Chord, reprofile Victoria station but not complete the four-tracking needed to realise the benefits. It is wasteful to keep stopping and restarting electrification depending on the treasury's appetite to fund what it obviously sees as a luxury, rather than having a rolling electrification programme that just works it's way through the work methodically. And look at HS2.

I think much of what is said on this thread accurately identifies why the electorate, while it might be majority agree rail fares are too high, would not support increasing subsidy to pay for fare reductions. The majority is not correct in this particular case, though. Those of us who want a better railway with cheaper fares that carries more passengers and freight have perfectly respectable arguments we can and should make.

This is exactly the issue. The vast majority of people believe they're entitled to the space on the pavement and highway in front of their own house.

 

[Krokodil]

Oh to have a strong Mayor like Anne Hidaglo...

 

[yorksrob]

Not at all. The high fares which are the subject of the thread are only part of the issue - and in fact, a relatively small part, I feel.

I think you're quite wrong on this.

Fares are a major factor on whether people can or will use trains or not. The Government and Industry would prefer that all these other factors were more important because it means that they don't have to address the elephant in the room - high fares.

 

[AlterEgo]

I think you're quite wrong on this.

Fares are a major factor on whether people can or will use trains or not. The Government and Industry would prefer that all these other factors were more important because it means that they don't have to address the elephant in the room - high fares.

They’re not though. Most people don’t even know what the fares are. They don’t consider the train for lots of other reasons. My wife wouldn’t care what the fare from Long Buckby to Derby is; it’s slow, less convenient, toilet provision is poor, less amenable to taking small children in tow.

I’ve got friends who drive from Oxted to Long Buckby. They’d never use the train. You need to take three, involving a cross London transfer, and arriving on time or within an acceptable margin is much easier to guarantee with the car. They’ve no idea what it would cost by train.

High fares aren’t the elephant in the room! It’s the fact our trains don’t and can’t suit most people - and in many cases there simply isn’t the capacity.

 

[RailWonderer]

So what should those rates per mile be? And if they were reduced to whatever level is deemed non-extortionate, how would the railway then be paid for?

When discussing high fares, this is, and always will be, the essential issue; The railway is expensive to provide, maintain, renew and operate, and nationalisation will not have any material effect; As I said (much!) earlier in this thread, people complained about the cost of tickets when I was a booking clerk - In the early 1980s.

It comes down to political philosophy. It's never been a British idea that public transport should be affordable as it is in much of Europe but instead offers 1/3 savings for £30 a year for certain groups of people. The idea is that everybody else should pay their way for what is a faster (often) mode of transport and doesn't require your attention on the road at all times, and don't have to worry about traffic and parking. Reducing fares would require more subsidy, then as the railways would become a lot busier, more infrastructure, four tracking, signalling, tunnelling etc, would be needed to deal with a large uplift in capacity, which there will be no will to do.

 

[Hadders]

I want rail fares to be lower but it’s not all about the price of fares. Convenience is the biggest factor.

Going to London - the train will almost always win, hands down.

Going away for the weekend with my partner - depends where it is but normally the car for sheer convenience. Dump everything in the boot, and you’ve got the car with you for the unexpected afternoon jaunt to the cost or the countryside. Or to go to that nice restaurant 10 miles from where you’re staying.

Long distance day trip - rail or even fly. I’ve done Stevenage to Edinburgh for a day trip loads of times but equally I’ve also taken the plane from Luton to Glasgow.

To be honest, it’s horses for courses!

 

[Leogilbert007]

Ditto what @Hadders said, but for me a different angle since I can’t drive and lack a regular source of income.

as a broke student entering uni in September, for me the car=being uncomfortable vs a train (for me anyway) and without toilets/catering BUT no cost for me as my parents pay for fuel, whereas the train = being able to enjoy something I’m passionate about as a user of this forum, and being more comfortable (toilets, catering, ability to stretch my legs) and, crucially, the ability to go anywhere on the network independently and without my parents, BUT a prerequisite to all of these positives is spending money.
I have middle-class parents so can afford rail-fares and as a train nerd somewhat enjoy spending money on train fares, but recognise that not everyone’s as fortunate as me; I want rail fares to go down, but not at the cost of convenience and reliability.

 

[Starmill]

They’re not though. Most people don’t even know what the fares are. They don’t consider the train for lots of other reasons. My wife wouldn’t care what the fare from Long Buckby to Derby is; it’s slow, less convenient, toilet provision is poor, less amenable to taking small children in tow.

I’ve got friends who drive from Oxted to Long Buckby. They’d never use the train. You need to take three, involving a cross London transfer, and arriving on time or within an acceptable margin is much easier to guarantee with the car. They’ve no idea what it would cost by train.

High fares aren’t the elephant in the room! It’s the fact our trains don’t and can’t suit most people - and in many cases there simply isn’t the capacity.

I've said it before in response to yorksrob's not unreasonable points on the subject, realistically trains need to offer around double the capacity they currently do in order to achieve what he's looking for. That's obviously something I'd support strongly, as the absolute basics, not as a finished product. But unfortunately we're a very long way away from that.

 

[Dr Hoo]

I may have mentioned before that when I was with ScotRail around 1990 we commissioned market research (obviously not on trains or stations where people have just purchased a ticket).

The results made it blindingly apparent that people didn’t know what the bus or the train fare was for a trip that they were familiar with or what they might have paid last time they used public transport.

(This helped to underpin a commercial strategy that included regular ‘real’ fares increases to help dampen the rapidly-growing demand for our new Sprinters.)

 

[RT4038]

They’re not though. Most people don’t even know what the fares are. They don’t consider the train for lots of other reasons. My wife wouldn’t care what the fare from Long Buckby to Derby is; it’s slow, less convenient, toilet provision is poor, less amenable to taking small children in tow.

I’ve got friends who drive from Oxted to Long Buckby. They’d never use the train. You need to take three, involving a cross London transfer, and arriving on time or within an acceptable margin is much easier to guarantee with the car. They’ve no idea what it would cost by train.

High fares aren’t the elephant in the room! It’s the fact our trains don’t and can’t suit most people - and in many cases there simply isn’t the capacity.

Precisely this - trains (ours or anybody else's) don't and can't suit most journeys of most people. In my experience, most people complaining that train fares are too high and that is why they don't use them are just using this as an excuse to smokescreen and make them feel better about using their car - even if the trains were free they still wouldn't use them (both because of the convenience factor and that the trains experience would soon deteriorate).

In my case, as @Hadders points out, trains are for day trips to London [a few times a year]. I also use them (as well as, more often, buses) for local journeys because my wife needs the car. The cost of the fares rarely comes into the equation - it is all about convenience. Driving into London and parking is inconvenient, as is walking 10 miles because the car is unavailable. As for longer distance trips - I live 20 min walk from a major junction station very close to @AlterEgo - virtually every train is someway into its journey by then and on many departures it is a scramble for a seat (especially when travelling with Mrs RT4038) and any reserved seat is invariably occupied and a potential argument. That is before I get into multiple changes to get to destination and having to rely on others to get us around once there. Ball ache. Yes I do an occasional 'train bash' type of trip to meet distant friends or whatever, and the experience is more than a bit hit and miss. I could live without a car, but only at the cost of a completely different lifestyle, which I have no desire to change to.
I know the public transport system well and how to use it - those less knowledgeable (the majority) will have a much higher hurdle to climb.

I think it unlikely that reducing train fares would reduce road traffic appreciably - it would save existing users money and also generate more journeys by those existing users (not enough to pay for the reduction); but this would have the effect of overcrowding a proportion of trains. If money is going to be spent I would rather the service provided by the NHS or the Constabulary improved, for instance.

 

[AlterEgo]

Precisely this - trains (ours or anybody else's) don't and can't suit most journeys of most people. In my experience, most people complaining that train fares are too high and that is why they don't use them are just using this as an excuse to smokescreen and make them feel better about using their car - even if the trains were free they still wouldn't use them (both because of the convenience factor and that the trains experience would soon deteriorate).

There is this, but more relevant is that most people who complain about high train fares - and know what the fares are - are people who are using them regularly.

It’s a non-starter to say that there’s a huge suppressed demand because of fares. They don’t suit most people, and the people who moan about the fares simply want their own journeys to be cheaper. (The same people would also probably moan about trains which become too busy)

The answer is of course capacity. Add to this better station and on-train environments, and perhaps key connections being better protected, and you might start to get a few people out of their cars. So if you’re going to pull the financial levers to support rail, you’re going to have to prioritise those things, rather than subsidising the existing habits of existing users.

And by the way, if we’re talking about a magic million quid becoming spare - I’d rather the breast clinic at Northampton General be open five days a week so my wife could get her breast abscess treated rather than a new station building at Long Buckby. That’s cold hard political reality.

 

[Falcon1200]

My point is that even with the cost of rail transport at zero, I need a car for most of my travel needs, even those that are easily completed by rail. I know talking to my friends and colleagues who have similar free travel facilities that they are the same.

For the first 10 years of my adult life, working for BR I also had the great benefit of free travel. In 1988, for various reasons, I learnt to drive and bought my first car. And now? Despite still having free train travel, and as an old person free bus travel too, I would not be without a car, because the convenience of a means of transport which goes exactly where I want to go, at the times I want to go, outweighs the cost. The journeys I mostly make by car are not, never have been and never will be feasible by train (or bus for that matter), even if free.

 

[Starmill]

So if you’re going to pull the financial levers to support rail, you’re going to have to prioritise those things, rather than subsidising the existing habits of existing users.

The amount of money that you'd need to do that would make giving everyone unlimited free rail travel for the year look cheap. Sadly as we've seen with HS2 the current government will never support spending that much money on capital projects.

 

[Krokodil]

There is this, but more relevant is that most people who complain about high train fares - and know what the fares are - are people who are using them regularly.

Hmm. I hear plenty sharp intakes of breath when I tell people the price of the ticket they're after, that's definitely irregular travellers because regular ones would know the price, and the workarounds.

I also occasionally get collared by non-travellers. When on a cross-cover turn I had a taxi driver mention that they drove their own family down to London because the price was so steep. Socially I get asked about it too when people find out what I do for a living.

It’s a non-starter to say that there’s a huge suppressed demand because of fares.

It's not black & white. Demand is definitely suppressed or lost to other modes on some routes, on others a fare cut wouldn't make a difference. In some cases it has to be thus because of capacity. In others the capacity is there, but people are priced off (see the discussions about contra-peak trains on LNER).

If you do cut fares, publicity helps. When the A470 opened between Pontypridd and Cardiff BR got into some really cut-throat competition with National Welsh, and the local papers were all over it. Both companies had fares down to 90p at one point and were making more money than they had been before. Trains were wedged of course, but people didn’t mind with fares so incredibly cheap.

 

[Starmill]

Socially I get asked about it too when people find out what I do for a living.

I also have this regularly by people who think I can find them a cheaper ticket. Invariably all I do is check any railcard eligibility and then put what they tell me into Trainsplit and invariably they feel like it's terrible value for money. People who are considering the train as an outside possibility are actually pretty common, and who then choose something else because a higher price than driving was the straw that broke the camel's back.

Ultimately though it doesn't really change anything on the above - if this small segment travelled by train they'd have high expectations, quite reasonably and sensibly if they'd spent two weeks of their grocery budget on train travels for one weekend away! Invariably their journey would be either rubbish but tolerable or an absolute nightmare. Rail enthusiasts and staff are special because we're so innured to disruption, things that aren't disruptive but are very uncomfortable (such as no toilet being available) or other unexpected events, we don't worry too much about it. For other people who've paid a lot of money to use the train once a year they expect things to go smoothly and will do nothing but worry about it if it doesn't.

 

[BlueLeanie]

So: the train can be auicker, more comfortable, and free but we choose to use the car. Why?

It's just easier. We need a car as we are just outside Haddenham. Even if we were on top of the station, it's not much good if we are going anywhere that isn't served by Chiltern.

It's £5.50 to park for the day at Haddenham at the weekend. We've gone electric, and pay 7p a unit with Octopus (£5.50/0.07)*5km/kWh so we can travel 392km or 245 miles for the cost of simply parking at the station.

 

[sheff1]

The vast majority of people believe they're entitled to the space on the pavement and highway in front of their own house.

Not a surprise if they have had to pay for a permit to park on the street where they live.

 

[eldomtom2]

They’re not though. Most people don’t even know what the fares are.

People might not know what the precise fares are - but I think most people who don't use it think of the railway as "expensive". When I see people on general social media discuss the railways, expensive fares are guaranteed to come up.

 

[Sonic1234]

if this small segment travelled by train they'd have high expectations, quite reasonably and sensibly if they'd spent two weeks of their grocery budget on train travels for one weekend away! Invariably their journey would be either rubbish but tolerable or an absolute nightmare.

A lot of the "extras" are services the leisure market want - station staff, ticket office, platform staff, guard, customer service staff, catering, station shops. Commuters and regulars generally have little use for them (only to the extent some of them are involved in safety).

Is there any data from the 4 (?) Great Rail Sales? How did these impact passenger numbers and did they attract any new custom? Were they abstractive (people who were going to travel anyway bought sale tickets)? Did they encourage more travel (rail users make an extra journey) or did they grow the market to non-rail users?

 

[Adam Williams]

Is there any data from the 4 (?) Great Rail Sales? How did these impact passenger numbers and did they attract any new custom? Were they abstractive (people who were going to travel anyway bought sale tickets)? Did they encourage more travel (rail users make an extra journey) or did they grow the market to non-rail users?

I believe some of the restrictions added for the later rail sales (preventing Railcard discounts etc) were designed to make it less abstractive but I don't remember seeing much in the way of in-depth figures. It's possible DfT might have a document that would be FoIAble

 

[Bald Rick]

It’s a non-starter to say that there’s a huge suppressed demand because of fares. They don’t suit most people, and the people who moan about the fares simply want their own journeys to be cheaper. (The same people would also probably moan about trains which become too busy)

Well, quite, especially on this forum.

I think if a survey was done of 1,000 people asking the question “which 5 products and services would you like to be cheaper”, rail wouldn’t feature in the top 10 answers. You‘d get housing costs, energy bills, council tax, insurance, petrol, etc etc. Personally for me it would be Pinot Grigio and Caffe Nero, but I may be an edge case.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It’s a non-starter to say that there’s a huge suppressed demand because of fares.

Off peak there probably isn't. In the peaks on intercity type journeys I am confident there is. £400 Anytime Returns from Manchester to London (and the Advances aren't much cheaper) don't fill trains, they maximise income, because nobody in their right mind would pay that unless claiming it on expenses.

 

[Horizon22]

Whilst anecdote does not equal evidence let me offer some personal experience from a relatively rare standpoint which only a few people in this country now have.

For well over thirty years I have had free rail travel nationwide. This now applies to Mrs BR and the BR children. In all my time with it I have lived in various places, but always walking distance to a busy station with frequent services. The cost equation of rail vs car vs other modes is therefore very different for me.

And yet, my family has two cars. We routinely drive to places that are within walking distance of a station, and some of these journeys are well over 100 miles. The train is usually more comfortable (we can read / sleep, drink…) and in many cases the train is quicker, especially given the increasing congestion on the motorways for the journeys we have to use. So: the train can be auicker, more comfortsble, and free but we choose to use the car. Why?

Because of convenience and flexibility. Yes it costs more, might take longer and be less comfortable but it is worth paying that ‘price’ so that we can leave at a time of our choosing, stop when we like, go visit places we might want to visit en route, and have the flexibility at destination to make shorter journeys there at minimal expense. When I visit my parents (who live almost next to a station with a decent service), I am rarely just visiting them. I am also visiting other relations, or taking them to a pub for lunch, or going to B&Q to pick up some stuff for their garden, etc. All much easier with my car up there.

Very true.

I work with people who can get to work free or almost free. Several of them still drive to work, even then because of convenience and rail can never provide the same A-B, "go when I please" optionality. There's also an -unfortunate in my opinion - British cultural element of owning your own car and it being a status symbol

There are places that I would like to visit around the country which are decently connected to rail. But unless it is a "city break" solely, then I would want to travel around. That would mean hiring a car, which is very expensive, so I may as well drive to the location. A lot less stress trying to plan, even if I do feel a little bad for adding a tiny bit to congestion and the climate crisis.

Rail has always and will always be good for city-city transportation en-masse and commuter-style traffic to major hubs since that became a thing in the early 20th century and it is hard to compete in that regard. Where it will get improvements is better station hub facilities (a decent opportunity to hire a car which doesn't cost so much that it wipes out the rail fare or even cycle hire for smaller trips) and decent integration to reliable, frequent and extensive bus routes. Most places are not London however (where car ownership is considerably lower than the average) and providing such options becomes increasingly prohibitive and expensive as you run into issues with economies of scale (i.e population density).

 

[Bald Rick]

because nobody in their right mind would pay that unless claiming it on expenses.

And yet they do. I sat opposite a couple travelling London - Manchester last week, first class open tickets, en route back from Heathrow returning from holiday. (Anecdote rules apply). With their two together rail card it was £370 odd quid for the pair of them. A lot of money, yes, but in the context of a fortnight’s long haul holiday that almost certainly cost 20 times that, it’s noise.

Another point I meant to say earlier (unrelated to the quote above). I have heard a few fellow passengers recently commenting on how their tickets have been much cheaper than they expected. This tells me two things: 1) they are pleased with the value of the ticket, 2) they haven’t used the train for that journey (at least) for a while.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Sunday at 23:51 ==

a decent opportunity to hire a car which doesn't cost so much that it wipes out the rail fare

Yes car hire was something where the price rocketed post covid, and doesn’t seem to have dropped back in line subsequently. That has certainly affected my travel choices - before 2020 it was generally the same all in cost for me to train to Sctoland and hire a car up there as it was to drive my car the whole way. Since 2020, it has always been cheaper to drive the whole way - even when petrol was £2/litre. (Driving the whole way is about 2-3hr quicker door to door too, and more flexible on timings).

 

[yorksrob]

They’re not though. Most people don’t even know what the fares are. They don’t consider the train for lots of other reasons. My wife wouldn’t care what the fare from Long Buckby to Derby is; it’s slow, less convenient, toilet provision is poor, less amenable to taking small children in tow.

I’ve got friends who drive from Oxted to Long Buckby. They’d never use the train. You need to take three, involving a cross London transfer, and arriving on time or within an acceptable margin is much easier to guarantee with the car. They’ve no idea what it would cost by train.

High fares aren’t the elephant in the room! It’s the fact our trains don’t and can’t suit most people - and in many cases there simply isn’t the capacity.

Stand at any ticket office queue and listfn to how many people go "how much !".

There are some journeys people will never want to do by rail, as you say because they're impractical. It's the ones where rail would actually be a decent option, and people are still put off by the price that's the issue.

Only yesterday my father and sister had to get the train from Canterbury to Ashford at short notice (buses were all cancelled). They were complaining that it cost over twenty pounds for the both of them, whereas it would have only been three pounds on the bus. This is for a journey that's reasonably practical by both.

There's really no justification for such a disparity and frankly it kills the usefulness of the railway even where it ought to be practical.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Monday at 08:27 ==

Another point I meant to say earlier (unrelated to the quote above). I have heard a few fellow passengers recently commenting on how their tickets have been much cheaper than they expected. This tells me two things: 1) they are pleased with the value of the ticket, 2) they haven’t used the train for that journey (at least) for a while.

Which route was this on, out of interest?

As I said, it's not as though good value fares don't exist on the railway - just that its very patchy.

 

[Falcon1200]

There's really no justification for such a disparity

The huge disparity surely only exists thanks to the £3 bus fare cap! What was the bus fare before the cap was introduced?

 

[yorksrob]

Maybe someone more patient than me will reel off the list of European cities smaller than Manchester - many of them substantially smaller - that have metros (by which I mean actual, high capacity, high frequency underground railway networks, as distinct from trams branded as metros).

And try to find anywhere in Europe as large as Leeds with no trams and a comparable or worse suburban rail network.

Our public transport outside London is better than North America, but nonetheless the general picture is it is much worse than most of the rest of the developed world. It's also much worse than it was in 2010 - it is very reliant on buses, especially to fill the gaps and allow people to live car free if they chose. It's only the biggest cities that have largely retained usable bus services that don't just stop at 6ish.

This may all be well and true, but I don't see how it justifies having extortionate fares on so many routes ?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Monday at 08:40 ==

So what should those rates per mile be? And if they were reduced to whatever level is deemed non-extortionate, how would the railway then be paid for?

When discussing high fares, this is, and always will be, the essential issue; The railway is expensive to provide, maintain, renew and operate, and nationalisation will not have any material effect; As I said (much!) earlier in this thread, people complained about the cost of tickets when I was a booking clerk - In the early 1980s.

As I've said, around 18-20p per mile feels about right. Maybe a bit more for some commuter routes, but not much.

If we're paying 14 billion in subsidy for what even transport secretaries have called "a rich man's toy", how much more would it cost to have a system that the public finds affordable ?

As for the £10b figure of days gone by, I'm not sure it's particularly relevant. I think it would be far more informative to benchmark the cost of running the railway against neighbouring countries with similar transport systems.

 

[Hadders]

Only yesterday my father and sister had to get the train from Canterbury to Ashford at short notice (buses were all cancelled). They were complaining that it cost over twenty pounds for the both of them, whereas it would have only been three pounds on the bus. This is for a journey that's reasonably practical by both.

Are you comparing like with like? Was it a return journey? If so, the bus fare was £12 for the both of them compared to £21.40 using the train. With a Network Railcard it would be £14.20 for both of them which is competitive with the bus.

 

[yorksrob]

This is all very interesting debate, but fares are not going to be reduced. Fine tuned perhaps to better match demand to capacity in some routes, but not reduced en bloc. We have a pretty busy railway with fares at current levels; reducing fares to increase demand would simoly result in more overcrowded trains.

Whilst anecdote does not equal evidence let me offer some personal experience from a relatively rare standpoint which only a few people in this country now have.

For well over thirty years I have had free rail travel nationwide. This now applies to Mrs BR and the BR children. In all my time with it I have lived in various places, but always walking distance to a busy station with frequent services. The cost equation of rail vs car vs other modes is therefore very different for me.

And yet, my family has two cars. We routinely drive to places that are within walking distance of a station, and some of these journeys are well over 100 miles. The train is usually more comfortable (we can read / sleep, drink…) and in many cases the train is quicker, especially given the increasing congestion on the motorways for the journeys we have to use. So: the train can be auicker, more comfortsble, and free but we choose to use the car. Why?

Because of convenience and flexibility. Yes it costs more, might take longer and be less comfortable but it is worth paying that ‘price’ so that we can leave at a time of our choosing, stop when we like, go visit places we might want to visit en route, and have the flexibility at destination to make shorter journeys there at minimal expense. When I visit my parents (who live almost next to a station with a decent service), I am rarely just visiting them. I am also visiting other relations, or taking them to a pub for lunch, or going to B&Q to pick up some stuff for their garden, etc. All much easier with my car up there.

We do, of course, also use the train for many long distance journeys, but these are typically for what might be termed ‘city breaks’, ie a visit to a specific location with no need to travel locally when there.

My point is that even with the cost of rail transport at zero, I need a car for most of my travel needs, even those that are easily completed by rail. I know talking to my friends and colleagues who have similar free travel facilities that they are the same.

Naturally, a rail forum is going to have a higher than average number of people for whom rail is preferred simply for being rail, and who may well plan their life around availability of rail services. But that isn’t how the rest of our society or economy operates.

You make the point that even with heavily discounted rail travel that most of us could only dream of, you still find the car more convenient in most cases.

This is reassuring because it suggests that affordable fares aren't going to cause the sky to fall in in terms of overcrowding. In fact, they haven't where the climate ticket's been introduced in Austria and Germany for example.

Governments are prone to flannel on about rail being good value for "passengers and the taxpayer".

If they were genuinely concerned about value for passengers, a maximum cost per off-peak mile would at least go some way to removing some of the most egregious examples of passengers on line x being charged so much more than passengers elsewhere.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Monday at 08:56 ==

The huge disparity surely only exists thanks to the £3 bus fare cap! What was the bus fare before the cap was introduced?

Who knows, but the £3 bus fare was a policy choice. Affordable rail fares should be a policy choice as well.

Are you comparing like with like? Was it a return journey? If so, the bus fare was £12 for the both of them compared to £21.40 using the train. With a Network Railcard it would be £14.20 for both of them which is competitive with the bus.

It was for a single trip, so the comparison with the £3 bus fare was particularly apt.

If they'd got CDR's and the train each way, the fare would have been less bad, however they needed the single.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Monday at 08:59 ==

Hmm. I hear plenty sharp intakes of breath when I tell people the price of the ticket they're after, that's definitely irregular travellers because regular ones would know the price, and the workarounds.

I also occasionally get collared by non-travellers. When on a cross-cover turn I had a taxi driver mention that they drove their own family down to London because the price was so steep. Socially I get asked about it too when people find out what I do for a living.

So true. Outside of the railway bubble, people see fares as ridiculous - to the point where even those good value ones are obscured by the overall impression of poor value.

 

[Hadders]

It was for a single trip, so the comparison with the £3 bus fare was particularly apt.

Single fares on the train have hostorically been poor value which was a British Rail policy (for revenue protection reasons!)

As you know there is a move to single-leg pricing, which would mean the price of a single journey becomes more competitive.