What? There is flexibility on busy services - you just have to get a more expensive less restricted ticket. What grounds are there to make the journey more expensive for some passengers?
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Should time restricted fares be abolished?
- Thread starter Terry Tait
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What? There is flexibility on busy services - you just have to get a more expensive less restricted ticket. What grounds are there to make the journey more expensive for some passengers?
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The 1740 would have all the current people on it plus most of those using the 1900 because it’s cheaper
That's not a credible assumption. It would be more spread without the price cliff, which is deliberately vested on the travelling public by the privatised railway in order to short run profit maximise.
Wallsendmag
Established Member
I'd have to say yes, it would make may life so much easier, of course you need to be careful what you wish for.
It would be massively biased to the 17:40. Why is the 19:busy? Because people want to go as early as possible without paying extra, so without price pushing them later they would want the early train.
The solution to this is more variable pricing. If the proportion of advances isn’t enough to smooth it out that way then a way of short notice online excesses - if you have an off peak ticket but are available to go early then you go online to look for offers of ‘boosting’ your ticket to an earlier advance ( I think people are willing to pay more at that point - “ooh a tenner to go home right now...”)
LNW-GW Joint
Veteran Member
On many longer journeys, TfW have abolished time restrictions by only having one return fare.
This is an "Off Peak Return" (SVR) but with restriction 8A which means no time restriction.
The fare level is not extortionate but it is not Day Return level either.
Shorter distances (eg Manchester and Birmingham commuter distance) still generally have Day Returns but with heavy time restrictions (morning and evening).
This is an "Off Peak Return" (SVR) but with restriction 8A which means no time restriction.
The fare level is not extortionate but it is not Day Return level either.
Shorter distances (eg Manchester and Birmingham commuter distance) still generally have Day Returns but with heavy time restrictions (morning and evening).
Exactly right. So some people would get the 1700, some the 1740 and some the 1800. As such none would be quite as bad as the 1900 is today. There is a frequent service on this route.
Accordingly the 1900 is far worse than the natural peak would generate. This is because VT make a great deal of extra money from that train being so overcrowded.
The proportion of Advances would be enough to smooth out the peak - all that's needed is for cheaper tickets to be offered in greater numbers on the 1820 anx 1840. This isn't done though because VT are so worried about people on the Anytime Single at £175 switching to the £50 Advances. Changing the structure won't change the elasticity VT have calculated. Conditions on the 1900 are deliberately absolutely terrible, because it's profitable and within what the government allows.
The people cramming on aren't just the people who would otherwise be catching the 17:40. There will (obviously) be people whose business in London will finish in time for the 18:00, 18:20 and 18:40 trains. If that isn't the case, there wouldn't be any point in those trains being affected by the restriction.
Why though? Why that one and not the 1720 or 1800? These are almosteexclusively people going to places like Stoke-on-Trent, Wilmslow and Greater Manchester. One train offers calls in Tamworth and Lichfield. There is no real evidence that the 1740 would be the busiest.
Very true; people in positions such as yours have the potential to make a huge difference. Get it right and you will increase revenues, customer satisfaction and modal shift to rail.
Get it wrong and you could - depending on which way it goes - end up with decreased revenues, huge overcrowding resulting in dissatisfaction or pricing too many people out of the market resulting in modal shift away from rail.
The only way the OP's suggestion might be even remotely feasible is if huge amounts of additional infrastructure and trains were built to cope with demand at the times people really want to travel; there would be a correspondingly more sparse service outside those times. But even then, rail industry costs would increase, and the price paid by leisure passengers would skyrocket and the overall number of people carried might actually reduce. Many people would be put off by the overcrowding at busy times and the poor frequencies and at other times. Proposals to end cheaper fares to entice people onto ligher loaded trains really makes no sense at all.
Puffing Devil
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Look at the loading on a Friday when the restrictions are lifted.
Haywain
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You overrate the power he has.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
One thing I don't get in this kind of thread is why people have this obsession that in a fares change no one passenger must pay more. Of course there will be winners and losers in any (revenue neutral) change, and if it's not revenue neutral then the taxpayer is a loser.
Why are people not happy with simply revenue neutral, i.e. it improves something without netting the TOC a fat profit?
Why are people not happy with simply revenue neutral, i.e. it improves something without netting the TOC a fat profit?
Puffing Devil
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I think most people would be happy, though the devil, as always, is in the detail! Taking fares away from the franchise holders would be one step.
They're lifted because there's fewer people traveling on Friday.
Randomer
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That really doesn't tie in with my experience at Euston and Kings Cross before the restrictions were relaxed. Mid week could be very bad at times especially if there were events on. Friday I actively avoided travel on the first couple of services that allowed "off peak" tickets due to how overcrowded they were.
Personally I don't believe that not a single passenger must pay more, to me that would seem absolutely impossible. However, the nature of how fares have been regulated means that there is now a huge gulf between Anytime and Off Peak fares. If addressed by simply shifting more of the revenue burden on to off peak it will absolutely result in people who can just about afford to travel currently not being able to do so. People are using off peak fares not just for leisure journeys (indeed my last 3 off peak long distance fares were for job interviews.)
Now a system that manages to do demand pricing by having multiple levels of fares exists in advance tickets but also has absolutely no flexibility. There must be a middle way of having multiple levels of pricing but also the ability to excess to a more expensive journey without the pricing cliff that the current structure provides.
Haywain
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Because there are fewer business travellers, not fewer travellers overall.
Puffing Devil
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Agreed. Some good PR that sacrifices little revenue.
KevinTurvey
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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?
I was talking about the former peak services, not the off-peak ones. These are the ones that the previous later travellers can now move onto.
Because it costs a lot of money to provide rolling stock and track capacity that is only fully utilised for a couple of hours each day in each direction.I've never understood time restrictions. We're all going the same distance. How could it cost more to travel at a different time?
As for the original question - if fares were standardised they would inevitably be closer to the peak than the off peak fares. Off peak trains would then be even emptier than they are, and there would be great pressure to reduce frequency or even withdraw them altogether - along the lines of many cities in the US and Canada where trains ONLY run at peak times.
No, it is the kind of simplification people are 'crying out' for - uniform times for peak and off-peak travel.
Basically, CrossCountry imposed a blanket 0930 restriction on all of its off-peak return tickets with no easements to take account of the actual departure times of its trains - so people from Plymouth have to pay a peak fare and that same train from Totnes is available at off-peak fares.
In practice, if you travel from Plymouth to Birmingham on the 0925 you would buy an off-peak return to Cheltenham for £78.50 (fares set by CrossCountry but still applying GWR restrictions which are a bit more lenient) and another from Cheltenham to Birmingham for £26.90. If you wanted to leave Plymouth earlier, the anytime return to Cheltenham is £98.30.
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PG
Established Member
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
I'm not convinced that the public really want that when they say they want simplification of fares.
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)
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.
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.
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Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Would it actually need to be high enough to deter prospective passengers? LNR having reintroduced Off Peak validity on evening peak trains from London (albeit with a slight fare increase, but not one enough to be a significant deterrent) does not appear to have had any noticeable effect on crowding of evening peak services from Euston.
Everyone knows trains are busy in the "rush hour" and nobody with any sense is going to choose to travel then unless they have to, regardless of the fares. Just like nobody heads out in the car to their nearest big city aiming to arrive by 0830-0900 unless they need to arrive then because they know full well it's going to be grim.
Peak fares are, and always have been, purely about getting more money from those who have no choice of when to travel, and about price differentiation (a bit like the way M$ will let you have Office for cheaper if you're not a business). If they were about managing overcrowding, on the WCML all of Friday evening northbound and Sunday southbound departing from around 1500 to 1900 would be Anytime only.
The losers will be a lot of "ordinary" people who pay low fares, people on tight budgets, people who could be lost to rail if the prices rise.
The winners will be people who are currently paying for expensive Anytime fares.
For example York to London Anytime Return is £273; the Super Off Peak Return is £113.50. If the new simple fare is £120 that would lead to a lot of overcrowding at peak times. A lot of people would be paying a little more (but probably worth the extra). A much smaller number of people would be paying much less. There is no chance of that happening.
What might a revenue neutral fare be? Maybe £160? If so, that is a lot extra money for a lot of people! Yes business users will be paying £113 less, so businesses will be happy, but would this really be a good thing? The business trains will be much busier so people taking those trains may no longer get a seat; their time may therefore be less productive. The company paying for those tickets might actually lose out on lower productivity as a result.
It's not as simple a some people claim it to be!
Indeed - be careful what you wish for....
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