Rail operators call for leisure fares (especially day returns) to increase

yorksrob said:

Your whole premise that off peak leisure travel is being subsidised by commuters is utter hogwash. The infrastructure and trains have to be provided throughout the day - not just when commuters want to travel, therefore without leisure travellers paying to use the train at off-peak times, the commuter railway would be a lot more expensive to run.

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I agree with you apart from your first sentence, and I have never said otherwise.

Commuters and business travellers pay more than their share for the running of the railways. Their fares are higher so of course they do. That's subsidising other users. That is unavoidable and necessary to some degree. The question is what is that degree. I refer you to the calculation in my post 65 and repeated in post 180. Maybe leisure travellers can pay a bit more, to ease the pain of commuters?

yorksrob said:

The railway industry needs people travelling off-peak, which is why NSE introduced the Network card.

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Of course it does. But the question is how do we maximise income from leisure travellers, as we do for business travellers with their magic expenses money tree? Are the current fares, and the current fares structure, absolutely the best that we can achieve? We don't necessarily maximise income by selling more tickets - 200 tickets sold at 10 pounds makes more money than 300 tickets sold at 5 pounds.

Now, I am speaking somewhat provocatively for effect. I'm actually in favour of subsidising the railways properly and attracting people away from more damaging forms of transport such as cars. But the current system is what it is, and the role of the TOCs is to maximise their income while meeting minimum service levels. To use a nice old proverb - what's good for the goose (business travellers and commuters) is good for the gander (leisure travellers).

Bletchleyite said:

Let's take that one for a minute. If you go for all tickets train specific, they already know which one they will be getting on, and that will have "maxed out" at the calculated point for full and standing and so no additional passengers will be able to book on it. Therefore, there would be no queue. Those who are on trains arrive for their booked train or get told to get lost for half an hour, those who aren't on a train get told to get lost as they cannot be carried that day.

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OK you've clearly not got a train after a major football match I'll just say this: the reality is different.

cuccir said:

I agree very much with Silverdale. What's really missing at the moment is very much the 'how' of all this - pages 71-73 on 'next steps' don't really offer any answers. The document is strong on principles but weak on detail I think.

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They don't want to discuss or see the detail because if we see what would actually happens to good value fares, they would get negative publicity.

Either they are hiding the facts, or their proposal is so half-baked they have not thought it through and do not realise what the impact will be.

Neither possibility bodes well though, does it?

cuccir said:

These are all great principles, but how does this cope with short-distance commuters on long distance trains? How does it cope with long-distance trains that are primarily used for local journeys? How does it cope with journeys that might be made by differing routes, which may be unknown before departing? How does it cope with trains that cross PTE zones where discounted fares may be offered? And how are the fleixble, train-specific fares offered in real time? Via apps? Via smartcards? Via ticket machines? And how is the technology to facilitate this rolled out, in a way which is fair for all users? And all of these questions to add to the many that have been posted already.

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Exactly. RDG are reading this; either RDG can give us the detail as to how their proposals would work, or they should admit their ideas have not been well thought through. Which is it?

cuccir said:

Some nice principles here but whether this is good or bad depends on how it gets implemented.

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Exactly. But there are enough clues to be 99% certain their proposals are NOT going to be implemented in a manner that is acceptable for people making flexible return leisure journeys.

Bletchleyite said:

Let's take that one for a minute. If you go for all tickets train specific, they already know which one they will be getting on, and that will have "maxed out" at the calculated point for full and standing and so no additional passengers will be able to book on it. Therefore, there would be no queue. Those who are on trains arrive for their booked train or get told to get lost for half an hour, those who aren't on a train get told to get lost as they cannot be carried that day.

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So if your a football fan going to say a FA Cup replay, where the game might go into extra times and might go into penalties, do you risk the game going into penalties to book on a later train only for the game to end after 90 minutes? (and hanging around a busy station for an hour for your booked train).

Makes using private transport much more appealing

anme said:

I am actually not clear what you're asking, but I'm going to assume it's about selling tickets for individual trains up to departure, including on routes where there are frequent trains and several operators. Is that workable? Well, it's not impossible. I actually suggested a way to do it - pay as you go with check in and out on the train, plus information on fares for that specific train on the platform departure board (and in smart phone apps, etc).

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I already said, a nationwide PAYG system is not on the cards. We have a separate thread about PAYG proposals. It's not going to be nationwide. The proposals for a national fares structure are different.

anme said:

I have never said the entire system is broken, although I am interested in ideas, including radical ideas, to improve or replace it. But this (the 350 pounds return on a half empty train on one of Europe's busiest railways) is a genuine problem that needs to be addressed. And like it or not, if a solution is to work *and* be revenue neutral, some people will have to pay more and some people will have to pay less.

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Exactly, so it is not going to be politically acceptable. To drop fares of the £350 variety significantly will take a lot of good value £12 type fares to go up significantly to make up the difference.

anme said:

I will follow your progress with interest.
Most seasons ticket prices - like many off peak tickets - are regulated. Their price has still gone up faster than inflation - and earnings - in recent years, and the prices are often eye-wateringly high compared to similar journeys in other countries. For many commuters, season ticket prices are a major drag on their quality of life. This is why I have more sympathy with commuters than leisure travellers, and if we have to help one group of people over another, I prefer that we help commuters.

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I created this thread to highlight the huge threat posed to leisure customers because it is very clear that affordable day return fares are under threat and are likely to increase substantially.

It is far less clear if commuters have anything to worry about. I do not think there is enough detail to know what is going to happen to those fares.

If you had simply said you are concerned about those too, I could agree and say that once more information becomes available one of us can create a thread about that.

But it looks to me that you are disagreeing with my concerns about good value day return fares. If you are disagreeing, that's fine, we'll agree to disagree. If you are not disagreeing then you are doing a good job of confusing me and making it look like you are!

anme said:

Commuters and business travellers pay more than their share for the running of the railways. Their fares are higher so of course they do. That's subsidising other users. That is unavoidable and necessary to some degree. The question is what is that degree. I refer you to the calculation in my post 65 and repeated in post 180. Maybe leisure travellers can pay a bit more, to ease the pain of commuters?

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That's not how market based pricing and yield management techniques work, but really this is a discussion for a different thread.

anme said:

Now, I am speaking somewhat provocatively for effect. I'm actually in favour of subsidising the railways properly and attracting people away from more damaging forms of transport such as cars.

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The new system is going to deter walk-up leisure passengers.

anme said:

But the current system is what it is, and the role of the TOCs is to maximise their income while meeting minimum service levels. To use a nice old proverb - what's good for the goose (business travellers and commuters) is good for the gander (leisure travellers).

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Except it's not true; the fact is that an Anytime Return from Sheffield to Derby is three times higher than an Off Peak Day Return, precisely because your statement is considered to be the opposite of the reality by the train company that sets that fare.

Kite159 said:

So if your a football fan going to say a FA Cup replay, where the game might go into extra times and might go into penalties, do you risk the game going into penalties to book on a later train only for the game to end after 90 minutes? (and hanging around a busy station for an hour for your booked train).

Makes using private transport much more appealing

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I think some people envisage about 40,000 people getting their phones out to book tickets on their way out of the ground, while estimating how long they are going to be in the queue for. It's fantasy.

yorkie said:

I already said, a nationwide PAYG system is not on the cards. We have a separate thread about PAYG proposals. It's not going to be nationwide. The proposals for a national fares structure are different.

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Yes I know! But pay as you go can be used for shorter journeys so could be part of a solution!
Please remember that not every solution has to be universally applicable to all journeys and all ticket types to be worthwhile. Look at Oyster and contactless travel in London.

yorkie said:

Exactly, so it is not going to be politically acceptable. To drop fares of the £350 variety significantly will take a lot of good value £12 type fares to go up significantly to make up the difference.

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Three points:
1. I disagree that it's not politically acceptable. What you mean is that you don't like it as you might have to pay more.
2. If we take the view that no leisure traveller can ever see their fare rise, then we can't solve any of these problems. (BTW I'll tell you secret - business travellers buy leisure tickets too, especially if they are 75% cheaper!)
3. We don't know how many 12 pound fares are sold on a train. A TOC could reduce the number from 10 to 2 and we would never know for sure.

yorkie said:

I created this thread to highlight the huge threat posed to leisure customers because it is very clear that affordable day return fares are under threat and are likely to increase substantially.

It is far less clear if commuters have anything to worry about. I do not think there is enough detail to know what is going to happen to those fares.

If you had simply said you are concerned about those too, I could agree and say that once more information becomes available one of us can create a thread about that.

But it looks to me that you are disagreeing with my concerns about good value day return fares. If you are disagreeing, that's fine, we'll agree to disagree. If you are not disagreeing then you are doing a good job of confusing me and making it look like you are!

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My point is very clear! I think your point is also now clear, thanks to your last post.
You think it is absolutely unacceptable for leisure travellers to ever see their fares rise. They must be set in stone as they are now, even if we have to raise more revenue. I don't agree with that.

yorkie said:

That's not how market based pricing and yield management techniques work, but really this is a discussion for a different thread.

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In what way is it not? My example is obviously highly simplified and based on walk up fares. But market based pricing is not actually about allowing you to travel for 12 pounds. It might do so, or it might ask you for 200 pounds for the same seat instead. It depends which will make more money, overall, for the TOC.

yorkie said:

Except it's not true; the fact is that an Anytime Return from Sheffield to Derby is three times higher than an Off Peak Day Return, precisely because your statement is considered to be the opposite of the reality by the train company that sets that fare.

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You are completely missing the point! My point is that, if we have to make difficult choices to raise more revenue, maybe we should consider getting leisure travellers to pay their share of that. Of course, this is subject to the (very highly simplified) formula I posted in #180 and #65 above.

I think we can summarise our differences in this way:
- You reject any increase ever in leisure fares, even if fares overall have to rise and increasing leisure fares would raise more money and make better use of capacity. Business travellers with their magic money tree and commuters will have to suck it up.
- I think that leisure travellers should share the pain of higher fares, if higher fares are necessary. This is subject to using the magic formula of to determine if higher leisure fares would actually raise more money, and also please note that I am not actually in favour of higher fares at all.

yorkie said:

I think some people envisage about 40,000 people getting their phones out to book tickets on their way out of the ground, while estimating how long they are going to be in the queue for. It's fantasy.

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I see you once again ignore the idea of pay as you go, which would probably solve the problem for a large proportion of the crowd.
(Which is not to say that I am in favour of this proposal)

anme said:

1. I disagree that it's not politically acceptable. What you mean is that you don't like it as you might have to pay more.

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Yes, this. I don't for instance object to LNR's change from anytime-off peak-advance to anytime-super off peak-off peak-advance. This has meant some journeys are more expensive and some cheaper.

My only fundamental immutable view on the new system is that implementation must be revenue neutral to start with - i.e. the TOCs must not be able to obtain more revenue than they presently do on day one.

I completely accept that to get the thing I fundamentally believe we need - single fare pricing - this will mean my simple return journeys increasing in price by 10-20% to offset the people who are paying outrageously over the top for journeys which only work by walk-up single. I consider this acceptable due to the massive extra flexibility it will gain me to do three point journeys, break my journey for 10 minutes or a year, take the routes I wish etc by simply buying singles as I go (or paying those single fares by contactless, even better) with no penalty for doing so.

I similarly do not accept that increased subsidy is affordable at the present time to offset this. If it was affordable, I would spend it on capacity enhancement, not reducing fares - such as increasing all Northern's new DMU order by one car each, making them all 3s and 4s.

squizzler said:

Or it falls into the rail enthusiast specific concerns that forget train operators need to serve other people too "oh no, having to pre book my trains will put the kibosh on my rail based pub crawls" despite the booking office we nowadays all carry in our pockets allowing reservation of trains in real-time, whilst getting ready to leave the bar.

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Did you actually read the post that you asked everyone else to? It was pretty darn clear that the 'walk-up' nature of the railway is to be protected.

Starmill said:

Did you actually read the post that you asked everyone else to? It was pretty darn clear that the 'walk-up' nature of the railway is to be protected.

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Yes, there was no suggestion that there would be a cap on tickets sold on a particular train, just that they would be dynamically priced up to an Anytime Single level.

Bletchleyite said:

I completely accept that to get the thing I fundamentally believe we need - single fare pricing - this will mean my simple return journeys increasing in price by 10-20% to offset the people who are paying outrageously over the top for journeys which only work by walk-up single. I consider this acceptable due to the massive extra flexibility it will gain me to do three point journeys, break my journey for 10 minutes or a year, take the routes I wish etc by simply buying singles as I go (or paying those single fares by contactless, even better) with no penalty for doing so.

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Aside from the pros and cons of single fare pricing, where is this mentioned in RDG's proposal? It says that fares will be based on a combination of single legs, but then discounts and premiums applied. Although it isn't made explicit, my presumption was that one of the discounting mechanisms could/would be for out and back journeys booked together in a single transaction.

anme said:

You are completely missing the point! My point is that, if we have to make difficult choices to raise more revenue, maybe we should consider getting leisure travellers to pay their share of that. Of course, this is subject to the (very highly simplified) formula I posted in #180 and #65 above.

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This is getting ridiculous. You've said this about five times even though we've been talking about this in terms of revenue neutrality. The question of whether the industry has to raise more revenue is a separate one, and it is related closely to costs which we can't discuss here.

I appreciate that writing long posts, implying that you have taken a position of the moral high ground and suggesting that have a clearer grasp of the facts than others might make you feel good about yourself (and that does seem to be the primary purpose of most of your posts in this thread), but it does not mostly seem to actually relate to these proposals.

anme said:

I agree with you apart from your first sentence, and I have never said otherwise.

Commuters and business travellers pay more than their share for the running of the railways. Their fares are higher so of course they do. That's subsidising other users. That is unavoidable and necessary to some degree. The question is what is that degree. I refer you to the calculation in my post 65 and repeated in post 180. Maybe leisure travellers can pay a bit more, to ease the pain of commuters?

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"Commuters and business travellers pay more than their share for the running of the railways." That is patently untrue as has been demonstrated in post #76 where sample of fares on all the main commuter lines into London (the region that has over two thirds of all UK rail travel), show that season ticket prices per journey are generally around the price of an off-peak ticket but are unrestricted both in time of travel and (usually) route and or TOC. Your next two assertions are just facile: "Their fares are higher so of course they do. That's subsidising other users." Well the £4000 season ticket holder is getting an average of 232 anytime return journeys for the same or less than a leisure person would pay for 232 restricted time return journeys. So the season ticket holder isn't subsidising anybody. If there were only leisure travellers, the requirement for longer and more trains, staff and very high cost capacity enhancing infrastructure upgrades wouldn't be there. Take the Thameslink programme, £6.5 BN to increase the capacity of commuter routes. Then look at the super high capacity trains between the peaks. There is fair flow of leisure travellers on them but they are often less than 25% loaded. That traffic is also very cost sensitive, - even for London area travel. If fares went up noticeably more than inflation, many of those outside the zones would drive to LU/LO railheads, bypassing the NR services. So that would throw the funding back onto the commuters who might then pay more like the going rate for their anytime travel. Be very careful what you wish for.

Starmill said:

This is getting ridiculous. You've said this about five times even though we've been talking about this in terms of revenue neutrality. The question of whether the industry has to raise more revenue is a separate one, and it is related closely to costs which we can't discuss here.

I appreciate that writing long posts, implying that you have taken a position of the moral high ground and suggesting that have a clearer grasp of the facts than others might make you feel good about yourself (and that does seem to be the primary purpose of most of your posts in this thread), but it does not mostly seem to actually relate to these proposals.

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It absolutely relates to these proposals! Let me also quote the title of the thread:
Rail operators call for leisure fares (especially day returns) to increase

and some relevant sentences from my earlier posts:
"Let's say a fare is 10 pounds, then a train of 100 passengers brings an income of 100*10 = 1000 pounds before the price rise, and after the price rise, the train of 95 passengers paying 11 pounds brings in 95*11 = 1045 pounds. So we have 45 pounds (4.5%) extra income we can use to cut the price of peak time travel, or for other investment."
In this example, we raise some extra money from leisure travellers which we could use to cut prices to business travellers and commuters (or for some other purpose). That's revenue neutral!
You can argue whether these numbers are realistic - i.e. whether a 10% off peak fares increase would result in 5% fewer off peak passengers. I actually have no idea and no-one has chosen to comment. My point is to illustrate how it might be done.

AM9 said:

"Commuters and business travellers pay more than their share for the running of the railways." That is patently untrue as has been demonstrated in post #76 where sample of fares on all the main commuter lines into London (the region that has over two thirds of all UK rail travel), show that season ticket prices per journey are generally around the price of an off-peak ticket but are unrestricted both in time of travel and (usually) route and or TOC. Your next two assertions are just facile: "Their fares are higher so of course they do. That's subsidising other users." Well the £4000 season ticket holder is getting an average of 232 anytime return journeys for the same or less than a leisure person would pay for 232 restricted time return journeys. So the season ticket holder isn't subsidising anybody. If there were only leisure travellers, the requirement for longer and more trains, staff and very high cost capacity enhancing infrastructure upgrades wouldn't be there. Take the Thameslink programme, £6.5 BN to increase the capacity of commuter routes. Then look at the super high capacity trains between the peaks. There is fair flow of leisure travellers on them but they are often less than 25% loaded. That traffic is also very cost sensitive, - even for London area travel. If fares went up noticeably more than inflation, many of those outside the zones would drive to LU/LO railheads, bypassing the NR services. So that would throw the funding back onto the commuters who might then pay more like the going rate for their anytime travel. Be very careful what you wish for.

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I think we will have to agree to disagree on the proportion of income paid by commuters and leisure travellers. I merely invite you to look at the loading on peak time trains (100%+ loaded) and off peak trains (25% loaded or less, according to you), and consider how many leisure travellers travel 232 times per year.

The rest of your post is just restating what I said in my magic formula quoted several times above. Of course there's no point raising leisure fares to a degree that reduces overall income.

The magic formula only considers fare income and ignores the differences in infrastructure costs between providing e.g. an extra train path into London Bridge at 08:30 versus 11:30. This also has to be considered if the question is whether peak-time users are paying their 'fare share' and/or subsidising those travelling off-peak.

Silverdale said:

The magic formula only considers fare income and ignores the differences in infrastructure costs between providing e.g. an extra train path into London Bridge at 08:30 versus 11:30. This also has to be considered if the question is whether peak-time users are paying their 'fare share' and/or subsidising those travelling off-peak.

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The magic formula does not tell us who is subsidising who. The magic formula tells us whether increasing leisure fares would bring in more income or not.

It's even more magic because it works for peak time fares too!

It's not actually perfect because the world is quite complicated. We also don't know what numbers to put in it.

An Oyster like system with a daily cap could emulate the price of a local station to Zone 1-6 Travelcard. As regards abolition of period returns, many stations in the former Network South East area don't offer these anyway for "local" travel.

A point about leisure travel though. Particularly on the return leg, you might feel able to commit to a particular day, but not to a particular train.

So having re-read the proposals this morning I have a couple of questions which I can't see the answer to in the document:

- How does the system change the current fares settlement for the TOC on routes compared to ORCATS? If by leg pricing is introduced does this limit revenue for TOC who provide the first part of a long journey e.g. Harrogate to London.

Surely we could end up with a situation where the more locally focused, heavily subsidised TOC e.g. Northern or TfWRail end up in an even worse position in terms of revenue. Thus requiring even greater subsidy.

- How would it be decided who set the fares for a particular flow? At the moment the setting is mostly historical, which leads to anomalies. I can see a situation in which travellers are disadvantaged because they are only served by an "InterCity" TOC who correspondingly have a higher price base even for local commuting services (see the XC Cheltenham-Birmingham example from my previous post.)

- How transparent is by leg pricing going to be without making for very complicated ticketing options for routes with multiple routing opportunity. E.g. Leeds - Glasgow has three obvious routes (ECML, WCML and Settle-Carlisle) and 5 possible TOC how is this explained to passengers without a huge range of possible fares with per leg pricing?

- Is the current lack of simplicity more actively a lack of education to consumers about how to excess route restrictions? If the default option was defined by all retailers as cheapest for defined time with an ability to excess easily would we have the current issues.

Randomer said:

- How transparent is by leg pricing going to be without making for very complicated ticketing options for routes with multiple routing opportunity. E.g. Leeds - Glasgow has three obvious routes (ECML, WCML and Settle-Carlisle) and 5 possible TOC how is this explained to passengers without a huge range of possible fares with per leg pricing?

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The practical answer to this one is "by way of a journey planner". Which is how the vast majority of "normal" users negotiate the present mess anyway, be that by using one themselves or by going to the station and the member of staff doing it for them.

People using TVMs to buy stuff are generally either expert users or just buying a return to the nearest large town or city.

yorkie said:

They want to rob Peter (a leisure customer on a tight budget) to pay Paul (who is on expenses). Madness!

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"On expenses" is not the same as "with a limitless budget" though. While you keep using this false dichotomy it will undermine any other argument you make.

Bletchleyite said:

The practical answer to this one is "by way of a journey planner". Which is how the vast majority of "normal" users negotiate the present mess anyway, be that by using one themselves or by going to the station and the member of staff doing it for them.

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To clarify my issue is how does that level of complexity display in a journey planner in an easily understood format? We already have accredited planners unable to offer fares (e.g. the ongoing saga of LNER SSU fares being unavailable in some planners.)

If RDG were to offer a single accredited back end system it would make sense in that all errors in planners could be corrected if an error was discovered quickly.

Likewise mobile ticketing would make far more sense if a single app was accredited and used by all TOC without extra charges. I.e. a National Rail app that also sold tickets. This is what is available in all of the EU countries I have used mobile ticketing in. However this is really a separate issue to the ticketing reforms despite attempts by RDG to link them.

sprunt said:

"On expenses" is not the same as "with a limitless budget" though. While you keep using this false dichotomy it will undermine any other argument you make.

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Although strictly true, there is the fact that a person travelling for their employer would often be travelling in company time, therefore there are different aspects to the effective cost to the employer:
Amongst all the above, the actual rail fare may be a minor consideration especially if the needs of the work is liable to under/overrun meaning that a low-cost advance/off-peak ticket might be wasted.

Randomer said:

- Is the current lack of simplicity more actively a lack of education to consumers about how to excess route restrictions? If the default option was defined by all retailers as cheapest for defined time with an ability to excess easily would we have the current issues.

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Do you mean something like a base fare between routed points, which can then be loaded with extras such as additional flexibility of travel time, use of specific fast or high-demand services or via a specific route?

If so, that is along the lines of what the RDG are proposing (and which they say means the existing TSA needs to be chucked), except that they seem want all the bundling to be done at the point of purchase and not 'on the fly' within the validity of the ticket.

sprunt said:

"On expenses" is not the same as "with a limitless budget" though. While you keep using this false dichotomy it will undermine any other argument you make.

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As I've pointed out these days it can be the precise opposite - my employer has a far more frugal policy on ticket purchase (requiring the use of Advances where they are an option) than I apply to my personal purchases (almost never using Advances and not unusually using First Class).

AM9 said:

Amongst all the above, the actual rail fare may be a minor consideration especially if the needs of the work is liable to under/overrun meaning that a low-cost advance/off-peak ticket might be wasted.

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True, but as suggested in this thread, there are alternatives to a non-flexible ticket that are cheaper than an anytime return - such as hiring a car for the day. I don't know how widespread use of such alternatives is, but it's possible that reduction in fares typically paid for on expenses could mean more businesses sending their people by train instead of car.

AM9 said:

Although strictly true, there is the fact that a person travelling for their employer would often be travelling in company time, therefore there are different aspects to the effective cost to the employer:

a) the fare for travel at the original intended time(s)
b) any additional costs resulting from a business need to subsequently alter the time of travel
c) the travelling time for which the employee will be paid
d) the pay rate of the employee
e) the facilities on the train which may or may not allow the employee to work during the journey
f) the net total of the above vs any alternative mode of travel, e.g. coach/car/fly​

Amongst all the above, the actual rail fare may be a minor consideration especially if the needs of the work is liable to under/overrun meaning that a low-cost advance/off-peak ticket might be wasted.

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In my experience most companies don't consider any of those things - they just look at the price of the ticket. Indeed, it's quite common to see "change and cancellation fees will not be reimbursed under any circumstances" and the likes in expenses policies.

Bletchleyite said:

People using TVMs to buy stuff are generally either expert users or just buying a return to the nearest large town or city.

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Is this really true? I often see people rock up at suburban stations in Greater Manchester in the queue in front of me buying tickets to London, Birmingham, Leeds, Brighton, Edinburgh...

sprunt said:

"On expenses" is not the same as "with a limitless budget" though.

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Is there any great call from business travellers that they desperately need lower fares? Is there any great call from leisure travellers that they feel they should pay more? No, to both. All of this is detached from the reality of the actual proposals. The railway is not an instrument to manage the equitable distribution of wealth between businesses and employees in their spare time. It is supposed to be a means of efficient and sustainable transport at a large national and international scale. Sadly it isn't doing either of these particularly well at the moment.

Bletchleyite said:

Indeed, it's quite common to see "change and cancellation fees will not be reimbursed under any circumstances" and the likes in expenses policies.

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I've seen this in businesses before. If the business requests this policy to be enforced, it seems to be a nice way for corporate travel providers to filter any Advance ticket out of their booking portal.

I've even heard of cases where the policy was set to permit return journeys to be fleixble (on the basis that people go straight home) but not outward, in a seeming attempt to save money. This had the effect that the corporate travel provider showed only Advance tickets for outward journeys, and only Anytime tickets for return journeys. Obviously this could result in a fare of double or triple the Off Peak Return on many routes.

AM9 said:

Although strictly true, there is the fact that a person travelling for their employer would often be travelling in company time, therefore there are different aspects to the effective cost to the employer:

a) the fare for travel at the original intended time(s)
b) any additional costs resulting from a business need to subsequently alter the time of travel
c) the travelling time for which the employee will be paid
d) the pay rate of the employee
e) the facilities on the train which may or may not allow the employee to work during the journey
f) the net total of the above vs any alternative mode of travel, e.g. coach/car/fly​

Amongst all the above, the actual rail fare may be a minor consideration especially if the needs of the work is liable to under/overrun meaning that a low-cost advance/off-peak ticket might be wasted.

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I am very regular business traveller, and this is something I can comment on based on some experience. Some of these points are fair, but some are less important than they might seem.

Regarding a) times - true to a degree, but meetings can be organised around cheaper fares. The start time of a regular meeting I attend in London has shifted later and later in the morning over the years, so people can avoid the most expensive fares. On another recent trip, I simply arrived 30 minutes late to the meeting to save 100 pounds. Most meetings don't start very punctually anyway. The higher the fares, the more likely it is that this will happen.

b) flexibility - every company I have worked for has had a strict policy of buying the cheapest available ticket for the chosen flights or trains. The logic is that most changeable tickets are not changed. It's cheaper overall, considering all business travel for the company, to buy the cheapest ticket, and buy another one on the occasions when plans need to changed.

c) and d) paid travel time - no company I know pays employee travel time outside of normal working hours. If they are very lucky, a few consultants might get paid for travel time, although not necessarily at full rate. This can be a mixed blessing. I've known companies insist that if they are paying a consultant's travel time, the consultant must travel at the time with cheapest ticket even if that's very inconvenient.

e) working during journey - this is a good point in theory, but in practice seems to make little difference. Employers suspect (correctly) that many employees don't work very much on the train, and will anyway do the work later.

f) total price versus other modes of transport - this is a key point, and it sets a limit on what rail can charge. Rail must also compete against people not travelling at all, and joining meetings via phone or video conferencing. I suspect this is how Virgin get away with 350 pound fares between London and Manchester. British Airways actually want a bit more even than this for flights tomorrow, although flights in a week's time are more reasonable.

Not to be a contrarian but my employer pays travel time outside of contracted hours as have several of my previous ones.

Or with one previous employer flexible scheduling took the travel time out of the hours for the period in question