Should time restricted fares be abolished?

Terry Tait · 7 Oct 2019

Moderator note: Split from https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...nted-ticket-to-full-fare.193232/#post-4238279

Time to get rid of the time regulations from the railway, dp you want to encourage or discourage customers?

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Haywain · 9 Oct 2019

Terry Tait said:
Time to get rid of the time regulations from the railway, do you want to encourage or discourage customers?

That depends on what time of day it happens to be.

Bletchleyite · 9 Oct 2019

Terry Tait said:
Time to get rid of the time regulations from the railway, d you want to encourage or discourage customers?

Time to simplify excessing and allow any ticket to be traded for any other ticket, paying the difference if trading up and having it refunded if trading down, without admin fee provided you do it before travel.

yorkie · 9 Oct 2019

Bletchleyite said:
Time to simplify excessing and allow any ticket to be traded for any other ticket, paying the difference if trading up and having it refunded if trading down, without admin fee provided you do it before travel.

Not just before travel, and not the whole ticket if changing the route on a return fare.

Hadders · 9 Oct 2019

Terry Tait said:
Time to get rid of the time regulations from the railway, d you want to encourage or discourage customers?

Interesting. Fares from my local station to London are as follows (there are no Advance fares to cloud the issue):

Anytime Day Return £22.70
Off Peak Day Return £17.90
Weekend Super Off Peak Day Return £12.00

If time restrictions were removed what would the fare be? Passengers would want it to be £12 but the train companies would rather it was £22.70. The mean price paid by the majority of passengers is probably around £19 so if this became the fare there'd be no overall revenue loss but a massive increase in fares for leisure travellers at weekends.

Be very careful what you wish for....

sheff1 · 9 Oct 2019

Hadders said:
Interesting. Fares from my local station to London are as follows (there are no Advance fares to cloud the issue):

Anytime Day Return £22.70
Off Peak Day Return £17.90
Weekend Super Off Peak Day Return £12.00

If time restrictions were removed what would the fare be? Passengers would want it to be £12 but the train companies would rather it was £22.70. The mean price paid by the majority of passengers is probably around £19 so if this became the fare there'd be no overall revenue loss but a massive increase in fares for leisure travellers at weekends.

Be very careful what you wish for....

In that example, a fare of £19/20 valid anytime on a weekday might be seen as reasonable. Removing the weekday time restrictions would not automatically prevent the TOC from continuing to offer a cheaper weekend fare, as now.

Without knowing the exact ticket sales figures for this flow it is impossible to say what the 'correct' weekend fare should be. There could be an argument that the weekend fare should be more than £12 to compensate for the loss of revenue from Anytime time ticket purchasers, but this would be need to offset by (i) the increase from Off Peak weekday fares (ii) the likelihood that the vast majority of people travelling in the current weekday 'peak' would be season ticket holders who would mostly be no better off by switching to daily £19 tickets .... although. no doubt, there would be noises from some season holders that the season cost should decrease.

To summarise, removing time restrictions which are mostly (but not exclusively) only applicable Mon-Fri does not mean that cheaper offers on Sat/Sun must be withdrawn.

PG · 9 Oct 2019

Terry Tait said:
Time to get rid of the time regulations from the railway, dp you want to encourage or discourage customers?

From a TOC perspective you want to encourage [additional] customers when they can be accomodated without requiring additional resources. Hence why time restrictions, unpopular though they may be, are sometimes necessary.

Transport policy would have to change in order for restrictions to be abolished, though the current focus on the environment may yet lead (belatedly) to just such a change.

RJ · 10 Oct 2019

Terry Tait said:
Time to get rid of the time regulations from the railway, dp you want to encourage or discourage customers?

I don't think so. Peak time trains already carry a lot of people travelling on discounted tickets. The cost of running trains off peak is marginal so the idea is generally to encourage people to travel at times when trains are not full. Price is the most effective way of doing that.

Karl · 10 Oct 2019

I've never understood time restrictions. We're all going the same distance. How could it cost more to travel at a different time?

Alfonso · 10 Oct 2019

Karl said:
I've never understood time restrictions. We're all going the same distance. How could it cost more to travel at a different time?

It all depends how you allocate costs. Around major cities especially you need shedloads of capacity to get people in to work in the morning and home on the evening, most of the rest of the time you have lots of empty trains and tracks, so you might as well use them and charge cheaper fares to encourage discretionary travel.

717001 · 10 Oct 2019

Hadders said:
Interesting. Fares from my local station to London are as follows (there are no Advance fares to cloud the issue):

Anytime Day Return £22.70
Off Peak Day Return £17.90
Weekend Super Off Peak Day Return £12.00

Think you’ve probably also got weekday Super Off Peak Day return at slightly cheaper price to encourage evening return outside the busiest period (later start of validity am too).

Generally on busy routes, if you look at how many people get first train after price drops and then think about whether they would fit into earlier trains, it just doesn’t work.

AM9 · 10 Oct 2019

RJ said:
I don't think so. Peak time trains already carry a lot of people travelling on discounted tickets. ...

Many of them travelling on season tickets which are similar in price to off-peak returns.

RJ said:
The cost of running trains off peak is marginal so the idea is generally to encourage people to travel at times when trains are not full. Price is the most effective way of doing that.

There's this constant moan from regular peak hour travellers about how much less 'leisure' travellers pay and how 'unfair' it is. They should be mindful of what they wish for. If the same fare was charged all day, it wouldn't reduce their Anytime ticket prices, - there would be very few willing to pay Anytime prices to travel between the peaks. The peak trains would though become overloaded to the point of leaving passengers at the station. So, nobody wins and they would lose the most. Regular passengers who want to travel by train on the peak hours get a privileged deal anyway, so they'd be better just accepting it.

akm · 10 Oct 2019

Terry Tait said:
dp you want to encourage or discourage customers?

This isn't a dichotomoy - surely the only reasonable answer is 'both, depending'. Services arriving at London terminals in the morning peak are enormously oversubscribed, and ideally people would be encouraged onto other services. Or, which is the same, discouraged from these services.

Karl · 10 Oct 2019

London again!

Fawkes Cat · 10 Oct 2019

Karl said:
London again!

From personal experience, Liverpool or Manchester can be substituted and the sentence will still make sense.

Hadders · 10 Oct 2019

Karl said:
London again!

I gave an example of fares on a route I use extensively (I travel at different times of the day and week so regularly buy all of the different fares I quoted).

Feel free to do similar for a route you know well.

30907 · 10 Oct 2019

Fawkes Cat said:
From personal experience, Liverpool or Manchester can be substituted and the sentence will still make sense.

Or Glasgow, Edinburgh, Leeds, Birmingham.... anywhere where there are significant peak flows.
East Lancs is rather the exception here, and I can see a case for abolishing short distsnce offpeak fares from Bamber Bridge as these are only discounted by around 10%.. (there are some even smaller differentials round Shipley where I live).
Not that I am proposing this, I hasten to add.

Ih8earlies · 10 Oct 2019

*gets crayons out*

What about going the opposite way - make all tickets time restricted to specific trains.

No off peak/anytime etc just train specific tickets (Advance style)

This would include season tickets too.

Then if someone needs sudden flexibility - a supplement could be purchased for a set amount (say 75% of the cost of the held ticket AND a reservation for the new train selected) - providing the new journey also has seats available.

No more standing on commuter trains - if there are no seats left on the train you want to use - tough, either book for an earlier or later train that does have seats or look into car ownership.

Flip side of this system - passengers would finally be guaranteed a seat on their journey, and if things go wrong a full refund.

Ih8earlies · 10 Oct 2019

Ih8earlies said:
*gets crayons out*

What about going the opposite way - make all tickets time restricted to specific trains.

No off peak/anytime etc just train specific tickets (Advance style)

This would include season tickets too.

Then if someone needs sudden flexibility - a supplement could be purchased for a set amount (say 75% of the cost of the held ticket AND a reservation for the new train selected) - providing the new journey also has seats available.

No more standing on commuter trains - if there are no seats left on the train you want to use - tough, either book for an earlier or later train that does have seats or look into car ownership.

Flip side of this system - passengers would finally be guaranteed a seat on their journey, and if things go wrong a full refund.

I have no idea why half the text has a Strikethrough?

Kite159 · 10 Oct 2019

Ih8earlies said:
*gets crayons out*

What about going the opposite way - make all tickets time restricted to specific trains.

No off peak/anytime etc just train specific tickets (Advance style)

This would include season tickets too.

Then if someone needs sudden flexibility - a supplement could be purchased for a set amount (say 75% of the cost of the held ticket AND a reservation for the new train selected) - providing the new journey also has seats available.

No more standing on commuter trains - if there are no seats left on the train you want to use - tough, either book for an earlier or later train that does have seats or look into car ownership.

Flip side of this system - passengers would finally be guaranteed a seat on their journey, and if things go wrong a full refund.

"Sorry sir, your meeting/social gathering overran and you missed your reserved train back home, the next train with available seats is tomorrow morning, would you like me to reserve you a seat?"

All of a sudden car ownership and use will sky rocket.

------

As for getting rid of time restrictions during the week, where would you draw the line with some of the longer distance journeys on the West Coast which have a high difference between "peak" and "off-peak". It will get rid of the overcrowding of the first off-peak services, but what at what cost?

PeterC · 10 Oct 2019

Prices should be responsive to demand and demand varies over time.

Simple time based restrictions can be too blunt a tool for this as shown by the crowding on the first "off peak" departure on some routes. There are ways around this but it would eliminate some anomolies held sacred.

Starmill · 10 Oct 2019

Government policy should be to promote car alternatives - not have people "look into car ownership". It's also incumbent on people as individuals, as well as politicians and governments, to do everything possible to reduce their driving. People don't like hearing that they have a personal duty as well as the government having a duty to protect the environment, but it doesn't make it any less true. Such policies as will drive more people to driving are crackers.

sheff1 · 10 Oct 2019

RJ said:
The cost of running trains off peak is marginal so the idea is generally to encourage people to travel at times when trains are not full. Price is the most effective way of doing that.

Someone rolling up at Plymouth tomorrow morning seeking to buy a walk up return to Birmingham on the 0925 departure will be charged £273.50. Someone arriving for the next train at 1025 will be charged £129.80.

Is the 0925 train so full that a price more than double that on the next train is justified to encourage people to travel on the 1025 ? As the 1025 runs through from Penzance, whereas the 0925 starts at Plymouth, the likelihood is that the 0925 is actually the quieter one.

I also don't get how the cost of running the 1025 is "marginal".

Starmill · 10 Oct 2019

sheff1 said:
Someone rolling up at Plymouth tomorrow morning seeking to buy a walk up return to Birmingham on the 0925 departure will be charged £273.50. Someone arriving for the next train at 1025 will be charged £129.80.

Is the 0925 train so full that a price more than double that on the next train is justified to encourage people to travel on the 1025 ? As the 1025 runs through from Penzance, whereas the 0925 starts at Plymouth, the likelihood is that the 0925 is actually the quieter one.

I also don't get how the cost of running the 1025 is "marginal".

Indeed. The idea that Off Peak tickets are to encourage people to travel on less busy trains is an outdated one. They are to maximise short term revenue first and foremost. This frequently means that they are achieving the opposite effect of encouraging people to travel on the most lightly loaded trains. For example the 1900 London to Manchester train on Wednesday nights is probably one of the most crowded long-distance trains in the country, while the 1740 on the same night will have a large number of unoccupied standard seats. Which train may off peak London to Manchester tickets be used on?

tbtc · 10 Oct 2019

PeterC said:
Prices should be responsive to demand and demand varies over time.

Simple time based restrictions can be too blunt a tool for this as shown by the crowding on the first "off peak" departure on some routes. There are ways around this but it would eliminate some anomolies held sacred.

I agree in theory but the "practice" means a way of marrying up the idea of "demand responsive fares" and "simple fares".

We could probably smooth out demand between two places with a busy peak flow by staggering several levels of fare - say return fares varying from £10/ £20/ £30/ £40/ £50 - so that there's not the current "cliff" between FULL FARE and OFF-PEAK - and maybe having different "grades" apply on different days (e.g. the £50 departures from London midweek may be between 16:30 and 18:30 but maybe on a Friday they'd only be between 17:15 and 17:45 due to fewer commuters, with the trains at 17:00 or 18:00 "only" costing £30).

But then that would mean timetables with lots of restrictions, trying to explain to someone why their £40 ticket is valid some of the time but not at all times. It may also mean introducing some form of "premium" to busy departures at other times of the week - packed trains outside of obvious commuter times - maybe the Sunday evening departures from London would cost more than some weekday ones (since that can be a busy time with everyone heading back from a weekend in the capital). Maybe there'd be increased fares at times of big sporting fixtures? More expensive tickets on the final local departure of the evening from some large provincial cities (since that can sometimes be a drunken scrum)... Be careful what you wish for!

(I'm not saying I agree with all of the above, just that making prices "responsive" will also make trains more complicated and could lead to some unforeseen "tweaks"!)

Meerkat · 10 Oct 2019

Starmill said:
For example the 1900 London to Manchester train on Wednesday nights is probably one of the most crowded long-distance trains in the country, while the 1740 on the same night will have a large number of unoccupied standard seats

It would be much worse without the restrictions!

FenMan · 10 Oct 2019

Alfonso said:
It all depends how you allocate costs. Around major cities especially you need shedloads of capacity to get people in to work in the morning and home on the evening, most of the rest of the time you have lots of empty trains and tracks, so you might as well use them and charge cheaper fares to encourage discretionary travel.

Or adopt the model used by less rail-orientated cities in North America where there are no trains outside the peaks. Presumably the charges levied by the track owners, and limited availability of non-freight paths make it more economic to park the passenger rolling stock in sidings all day.

JonathanH · 10 Oct 2019

tbtc said:
We could probably smooth out demand between two places with a busy peak flow by staggering several levels of fare - say return fares varying from £10/ £20/ £30/ £40/ £50 - so that there's not the current "cliff" between FULL FARE and OFF-PEAK - and maybe having different "grades" apply on different days (e.g. the £50 departures from London midweek may be between 16:30 and 18:30 but maybe on a Friday they'd only be between 17:15 and 17:45 due to fewer commuters, with the trains at 17:00 or 18:00 "only" costing £30).

In theory you are just describing what they could do with advance fares. From the train operator's perspective, I think they would like to remove everything but the fare valid on all trains, just like the OP suggests and have everyone else travelling on some form of advance fare.

Having multiple tiers of walk up fare would go in the "train fares are too complicated" box that always gets rolled out by the general public, probably including the OP.

Starmill · 10 Oct 2019

Meerkat said:
It would be much worse without the restrictions!

The 1900 would be much worse if the restrictions barring the preceding trains were lifted? Or the 1740 would be worse than the 1900 is now?

Both claims would seem ludicrous, to me.

snail · 10 Oct 2019

I would get rid of TOC only fares. I can see the point of charging more for busy periods but there should also be flexibility on busy services.

Should time restricted fares be abolished?

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