notverydeep
Member
- Joined
- 9 Feb 2014
- Messages
- 876
At the weekend I travelled from Welwyn Garden City to Westbury. I was surprised to be offered an 'Off Peak' ticket starting from WGC for the 1C91 1733 London Paddington to Paignton (https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/C20364/2019-11-15/detailed), even though such tickets were not available from Paddington. I made the booking complete with seat reservations. When it came to it, the conductor grumbled and said I needed a peak ticket, but when I pointed it out that I had been offered the train by GWR's own website and had made reservations he didn't press it further and went on his way. I assume I shouldn't have been able to make this booking and this was a data error as discussed on the following thread: https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/more-gwr-data-errors.195167/.
What surprised me even more was the train's loading. Even departing from Paddington at the height of the evening peak, the train (a 9 car 800/802) was only 2/3 full and from Reading 1/3 full and basically empty - perhaps 20% seat occupancy from Newbury. If my office is anything to go by, Friday peak travel is in free fall, as working from home increases and I imagine that the most enthusiastic home workers are those with longer commutes. I'm going to have a look to see what evidence I can find to quantify this.
There seems to be a real missed traffic opportunity for GWR and perhaps other long distance TOCs here. Given that long distance commuting is reducing on Fridays, long distance capacity that these commuters would have used on trains such as 1C91 could be opened up to 'weekend away' passengers with off peak (and the higher price end of advanced) tickets on earlier trains. This would increase the attractiveness of such weekend travel, enabling earlier arrival at the 'country end' destination and would reduce crowding on what is now the first train after the peak restriction ends (around 18:30 at Paddington if I remember correctly), improving things for those still leaving later.
What remains of peak revenue on Fridays could still be protected, by continuing to require 'Anytime' tickets for Friday AM Peak travel towards London. Even better, I assume that the way season tickets are priced means that even those travelling four days per week will stick with them and so that revenue is less threatened, although I know that there has been some move from season ticket to on the day tickets for those travelling less regularly. I would be interested to hear other observations...
What surprised me even more was the train's loading. Even departing from Paddington at the height of the evening peak, the train (a 9 car 800/802) was only 2/3 full and from Reading 1/3 full and basically empty - perhaps 20% seat occupancy from Newbury. If my office is anything to go by, Friday peak travel is in free fall, as working from home increases and I imagine that the most enthusiastic home workers are those with longer commutes. I'm going to have a look to see what evidence I can find to quantify this.
There seems to be a real missed traffic opportunity for GWR and perhaps other long distance TOCs here. Given that long distance commuting is reducing on Fridays, long distance capacity that these commuters would have used on trains such as 1C91 could be opened up to 'weekend away' passengers with off peak (and the higher price end of advanced) tickets on earlier trains. This would increase the attractiveness of such weekend travel, enabling earlier arrival at the 'country end' destination and would reduce crowding on what is now the first train after the peak restriction ends (around 18:30 at Paddington if I remember correctly), improving things for those still leaving later.
What remains of peak revenue on Fridays could still be protected, by continuing to require 'Anytime' tickets for Friday AM Peak travel towards London. Even better, I assume that the way season tickets are priced means that even those travelling four days per week will stick with them and so that revenue is less threatened, although I know that there has been some move from season ticket to on the day tickets for those travelling less regularly. I would be interested to hear other observations...
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