West Midlands Trains cuts season ticket prices by 3% below RPI for 2020

West Midlands Trains (WMT) have agreed not to increase season ticket prices for the 2020 fares round following a request to freeze fares by Mayor Andy Street, as per the Shropshire Star (not the best source I know, but that's where I found it) —

EDIT: WMT's press release (see below) confirms it is a decrease of 3% relative to other operators' prices.

Season tickets on West Midlands Railway services will not rise in January as beleaguered bosses compensate passengers after months of train delays and cancellations.

West Midlands Trains, which operates the services, has faced mounting criticism, including from West Midlands Mayor Andy Street, over its poor performance.

Mr Street said the operator should be stripped of its rail franchise if its "woeful" performance does not improve by the end of January.

The operator, which also manages London Northwestern Railway, will offset the national train fare rise of 2.8 per cent, which is due to come in from January 2.

Instead there will be a three per cent reduction in the cost of weekly, monthly and annual season tickets. But other fares are expected to rise.
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It's not clear whether it is purely fares for West Midlands Railway branded services will be frozen or whether all West Midlands Trains (ex London Midland) fares will be frozen. If it is the latter, then I think that's the first operational differentiation since the franchise introduced the two brands.

It's certainly the first fares freeze in the area for as long as I can remember (except when RPI was negative after the 2008 financial crash), perhaps ever? I'd be interested if someone could correct me there, but I don't recall a fares freeze being in the news since I moved to that part of the country (well, sort of) 26 years ago.

It's also curious that only season ticket prices have been frozen but not other tickets - and it's not clear whether this includes fares subsidised/set by the West Midlands Combined Authority, such as zonal WMPTE season tickets.

I can only assume that, since the effect of a fares freeze is to permanently reduce the franchise's fares income going forward (unless it is reversed, which would be very unpopular), this must be part of a franchise renegotiation with the Department for Transport (DfT) or whichever other Quangos have a say in this franchise.

All the fares have already been published, nearly four weeks ago. And they were in industry data several weeks before that. Are new fares about to be published? What about anyone who has already renewed a season ticket at next years higher prices (probably not many though)? Or were the fares that were published a few weeks ago already the reduced fares (I haven’t checked)?

alistairlees said:

All the fares have already been published, nearly four weeks ago. And they were in industry data several weeks before that. Are new fares about to be published? What about anyone who has already renewed a season ticket at next years higher prices (probably not many though)? Or were the fares that were published a few weeks ago already the reduced fares (I haven’t checked)?

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I've now found a press release on WMT's website, which details the "freeze" a little more. The freeze is actually a decrease in prices of 3% compared to previously published 2020 prices as far as I can understand - i.e. WMT season tickets will have a relative decrease of 3.0% compared to other companies' season tickets:

Season ticket holders, on West Midlands Railway (WMR) and London Northwestern Railway (LNR) services, will not have to pay the upcoming national fares rise. West Midlands Trains (WMT) has announced a discount on season tickets that more than covers the annual 2.8% increase.

Following a drop in train performance since May, WMT pledged to compensate passengers and have now announced this measure will take the form of a 3% reduction in the cost of weekly, monthly and annual season tickets, offsetting the upcoming national fares rise on Thursday 2 January 2020.

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I have updated the thread title accordingly. This is a more significant step than previously thought, though not entirely unprecedented (given recent news on Transport for Wales' patch).

Wonder if this will include any discounts for the nNetwork tickets or not... They're the type I use! Student termly one went up by £5 last year, but at the point of the new academic year, will be interesting to see what happens for me on that one!

gwrtimetable19 said:

I've now found a press release on WMT's website, which details the "freeze" a little more. The freeze is actually a decrease in prices of 3% as far as I can understand - i.e. WMT season tickets will have a relative decrease of 5.8% compared to other companies' season tickets:


I have updated the thread title accordingly. This is a more significant step than previously thought, though not entirely unprecedented (given recent news on Transport for Wales' patch).

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I'm not sure that is the implication. It suggests the 3% drop "covers" the 2.8% rise. A 2.8% rise and a 3% drop would result in a net reduction of 0.3%.

I agree - I think it means that the increased prices will be reduced by 3.0%. In other words, a slight reduction on this year’s prices.

alistairlees said:

I agree - I think it means that the increased prices will be reduced by 3.0%. In other words, a slight reduction on this year’s prices.

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Ah, I see where my mistake was. It would have helped if they'd given some examples!

Only valid for seasons bought / renewed in January 2020

trentvalley said:

Only valid for seasons bought / renewed in January 2020

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Where have you seen this?

Albion91 said:

Where have you seen this?

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it was what I was told but have now seen that it applies for 12 months from 2nd January 2020

Thanks - that's quite a relief!

gwrtimetable19 said:

It’s also curious that only season ticket prices have been frozen but not other tickets.

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Likely fear losing regular commuters who are tired of being unable to reliably get to/from work. Irregular commuters are less likely to be put off by disruption as they don’t experience it on a daily basis.

It sounds as if the reductipn is being offered in the same way as a Passenger's Charter discount - so passengers can expect to face an effective above-inflation price increase next year, of 5-6% or so. Don't imagine that will be very popular.

trentvalley said:

it was what I was told but have now seen that it applies for 12 months from 2nd January 2020

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Yes, was told this at Spring Road this morning, it was the first one the booking office did, the monthly season was reduced by £16 after the booking office put in a code - which was actually about £2 lower than the monthly season in the previous year. Of course, that means it will go up by about £30 a month next year.

centraltrains said:

Wonder if this will include any discounts for the nNetwork tickets or not... They're the type I use! Student termly one went up by £5 last year, but at the point of the new academic year, will be interesting to see what happens for me on that one!

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Is that on a Swift? The line coming out of WMR is they're "working with TFWM" to work out how to achieve this for Swift card holders.

I'm not holding my breath on that one...

CharlieSpotted said:

Is that on a Swift? The line coming out of WMR is they're "working with TFWM" to work out how to achieve this for Swift card holders.

I'm not holding my breath on that one...

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Yes, it's on Swift but I think it can be purchased as a ticket too.

Seems the answer is nNetwork doesn't get a discount. It's understandable that they might want to do something different for nNetwork because of the bus/tram component, but to just totally block all nNetwork holders from any discount, given they often have the same rail validity as the nTrain tickets is pathetic.
https://www.westmidlandsrailway.co.uk/compensation

centraltrains said:

Yes, it's on Swift but I think it can be purchased as a ticket too.

Seems the answer is nNetwork doesn't get a discount. It's understandable that they might want to do something different for nNetwork because of the bus/tram component, but to just totally block all nNetwork holders from any discount, given they often have the same rail validity as the nTrain tickets is pathetic.
https://www.westmidlandsrailway.co.uk/compensation

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Personally, I think they are opening themselves up to a claim under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 if they refuse to give at least some discount to nNetwork season ticket holders whilst giving a discount to almost all other ticket holders. But hardly anyone will even think of that so they probably don't consider that a very significant risk, and even those who do complain can probably be fobbed off with little risk.