IIRC booking office clerks are not allowed to mention that savings are available by splitting?
Joe public won't find these available on any TOC website either so the main ways that people buy tickets will still come up with the vast differences originally quoted by
@sheff1
Nope; customers are only supposed to be told for the fares they ask for, from origin to destination (unless there isn't through a fare for their intended journey).
Savvy customers will realise that for travel before 0930 on TOCs such as XC, you only need to pay Anytime rates until the first stop after 0930 (or use a fare not priced by XC)
I'm not convinced that the public really want that when they say they want simplification of fares.
What they want is for the lowest priced fares to be valid at any time. But that isn't going to happen unless subsidies are increased, more stock is procured and huge infrastructure projects occur. That isn't going to happen, so the public won't get what they want.
If the public are not going to get what they want, then any proposals, including the absolute detail and actual pricing and restrictions, shoud be available before people are then able to give their opinion on the actual proposals.
I will oppose increases in the affordable fares which people like me buy; reducing the cost of Anytime fares which I never buy anyway is not going to be a sweetener for me.
That level of fare (nearly three hundred pounds!) for a not to London Journey, not particularly at peak time either (probably getting to Birmingham at lunchtime) seems outrageous. Is there a large demand for such a journey at peak time that the fare has to be cranked to discourage travel?
XC have some business passengers who will pay it, which goes towards reducing the subsidy costs of the franchise.
Some people will be put off travelling by train or will go via London and avoid XC; XC need some people to do this because otherwise their short trains will be chronically overcrowded. XC are therefore happy that some people are put off travelling.
Just about everyone these days knows about split ticketing websites; so anyone who is price conscious will pay a reasonable fare on a split ticketing site.
This is effectively a form of yield management and XC are happy with this arrangement; it achieves extra revenue they'd otherwise not have and avoids the trains being too overcrowded. It's a win-win all round.
A "revenue neutral" proposal would reduce the price paid by business users on expenses paying Anytime rates (ie. a
minority of passengers would benefit by a
large decrease), but the price paid by
most users would
increase. The price would still have to be high enough to deter some prospective passengers, of course! Some people would welcome such a change, but others wouldn't.