2016 Fares Revision

[plcd1]

Does anyone know if implementation work on the TfL and National Rail fares revision for Jan 2016 has commenced despite the lack of a public announcement from the Mayor of London / McLoughlin / Osborne? We are now well under the normal 12 week lead in for a revision with nothing having been announced.

Given the supposed level of increase is fixed, as a result of statements made during the Election campaign, I am left wondering why nothing has been announced. I do hope we are not back into another year of late implementation due to political game playing.

 

[Andrew1395]

In recent years it has all been altered by the Chancellors Autumn statement in November. I expect this year to be the same.

 

[plcd1]

In recent years it has all been altered by the Chancellors Autumn statement in November. I expect this year to be the same.

The difference though is that in past years the policy position has been RPI+3% nationally and RPI+2% for TfL and then that was pulled back for political reasons. It was then RPI+1% in policy terms but overridden to RPI last year. During the election campaign it was changed to RPI only - even Boris said that for TfL even though policy remained as RPI+1%.

You may well be right that the Chancellor wants to remind people of his generosity (hah!) in the Autumn Statement but I can see any change from the RPI policy so what's left to announce? I don't expect to see fares being *reduced* although I have sneaking suspicion something is going to be pulled out of the hat for London (probably on bus fares). I also expect something about Smart ticketing extensions but that can be announced anytime and be separate to the fares increase (as has happened recently).

 

[Andrew1395]

This is the best year for the government to renegede on the RPI promise, as it is the furthest away from a General Election, plus Johnson is not running for Mayor next May. Just a thought.

 

[Stats]

The earliest fare rises have ever been announced in the last 12 years is 16 November and was usually around 20 November before the political interventions in recent years.

As for an announcement by Government, they took the opportunity to reannounce their policy when the RPI figures were released in August. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/earnings-outstrip-rail-fare-increases-for-first-time-in-a-decade

 

[plcd1]

The earliest fare rises have ever been announced in the last 12 years is 16 November and was usually around 20 November before the political interventions in recent years.

As for an announcement by Government, they took the opportunity to reannounce their policy when the RPI figures were released in August. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/earnings-outstrip-rail-fare-increases-for-first-time-in-a-decade

Boris Johnson let slip, in a BBC London interview yesterday, that the new TfL fares will be announced on Thursday 12 Nov. This is therefore slightly earlier than the date you outlined above. I think my brain is still stuck in the 1980s when we used to get fares decisions out of the way in September or October! It seems most odd to me that we have to wait until November to announce something that everyone knows is coming.

I think there may be a surprise or two in the package - Boris was very coy about what might be announced. While his reticence is understandable there was a slight glint in his eye that we may get more than the usual dull x% increase.

 

[telstarbox]

Fares have been announced today.

Children under 11 will now be able to travel free on National Rail services within Greater London.

Stratford, Stratford High Street, Stratford International DLR station, West Ham, Canning Town, Star Lane and Abbey Road will change from Zone 3 to Zones 2 and 3.

 

[Be3G]

Unless I missed it, I didn't see any mention of what's happening to the off-peak refund-only caps; I would have thought they would see a price rise in line with all the other caps, so it makes me wonder if they're going to be quietly abolished.

 

[OwlMan]

full details at http://www.london.gov.uk/mayor-assembly/mayor/mayoral-decisions/MD1562

This paper sets out Transport for London’s (TfL’s) fare change proposals to be implemented from 2 January 2016. The proposals will freeze TfL fares overall in real terms relative to the 1.0% annual increase in the Retail Price Index (RPI) in the benchmark month of July 2015. The revised changes to fares are expected to raise £43m per year for TfL, an increase of 1.0%.
Travelcard season ticket prices increase by slightly less than 1.0% on average, reflecting the link with National Rail (NR) fares and the latest general guidance from the Secretary of State for Transport that no regulated NR fare should rise by more than RPI in January 2016.
The bus ‘pay as you go’ (PAYG) single fare is frozen at £1.50 while the One Day Bus cap increases by 10p to £4.50, the same as the cost of three single fares. The One Day Bus and Tram Pass is frozen at £5.00. The Bus & Tram Pass season price increases by 0.9%. The overall increase in bus fares is 0.8%.
On the Underground and other TfL rail services, PAYG single fares in Zones 1-6 are frozen, except for Zone 1 only and Zone 1-2 off-peak fares, which increase from £2.30 to £2.40. The all day multi-mode PAYG caps, which last year were reduced to become 20% of the 7 Day Travelcard price in Zones 1-6, increase by 10p, proportionally in line with the increases to Travelcard Seasons.
The Off-Peak Zones 1-6 Travelcard and the All Day Zones 1-4 Travelcard increase from £12.00 to £12.10 while the All Day Zones 1 to 6 Travelcard increases from £17.00 to £17.20.
The overall increase in TfL rail fares is 1.1%.
TfL will provide £0.5million funding to Train Operating Companies to extend free travel for Zip card holders aged 5-10 to National Rail services in London.
Stratford and a number of adjacent stations are moving from Zone 3 to the Zones 2/3 boundary on 2 January 2016. The effect of this is allowed for separately in TfL’s budgets and forecasts............

 

[JonathanH]

It seems somewhat benign that there is no significant attack on paper tickets this year.

Anyway, given today's announcements when is the 2016 version of this document likely to be available?

https://tfl.gov.uk/cdn/static/cms/documents/adult-fares-table-2.pdf

 

[MikeWh]

It seems somewhat benign that there is no significant attack on paper tickets this year.

Anyway, given today's announcements when is the 2016 version of this document likely to be available?

https://tfl.gov.uk/cdn/static/cms/documents/adult-fares-table-2.pdf

Those pages are usually updated during early December. Both versions then run alongside each other until Jan 2nd.

 

[bb21]

Can we not turn this into another North v South argument please?

 

[ainsworth74]

North vs South has been done, to death, on this forum and this thread is not going to be derailed into a multiple page extravaganza of 'we've got it worse' 'no we've got it worse' 'no you need to pay your way' 'no we pay our way you need to pay yours' and on and on.

If people wish to discuss that please start a new thread otherwise this one should be for talking about changes to fares in 2016.

Any further North vs South posts are liable for deletion.

 

[plcd1]

It seems somewhat benign that there is no significant attack on paper tickets this year.

Anyway, given today's announcements when is the 2016 version of this document likely to be available?

https://tfl.gov.uk/cdn/static/cms/documents/adult-fares-table-2.pdf

Such a low percentage increase overall makes it very difficult to make radical changes without there being dire consequences elsewhere. We had that for 2015 with the capping changes meaning a massive price hike on Day Travelcards. TfL's own briefing document says they couldn't contemplate a further big price rise on Day Travelcards after last year. There was a lot of political fall out.

The few changes that are being made have been funded outside of the fares revision package. The TOC child travel concession is a shift of TfL money to the TOCs, the zone changes are funded separately. The only remaining big change is to peak day caps for Zones 7, 8 and 9 which move to the 1/5th of the 7 day T/Card rate. This means a big reduction in those caps down from £20 to lower rates. However to fund that PAYG fares all rise in Z7-9 compared to a freeze for almost all PAYG fares in Z1-6.

 

[Howardh]

How did we go on under British Rail when inflation was 10-20% (or greater) pa? Could BR just put up fares as and when they liked, ie. several times/yr or did it need government/treasury backing and could only be done once pa?

 

[Stats]

Raileasy are saying book before December 4th to beat the fares increase, so I think we can assume that is the day of the announcement.

 

[Solent&Wessex]

Raileasy are saying book before December 4th to beat the fares increase, so I think we can assume that is the day of the announcement.

It is also reportedly the day they will be announcing the TPE (and presumably Northern) franchise winners, so could be a big announcement day, or try to mask out some bad news with some good news.

(No pacer replacement because there is no money masked out by "but there will be no fare increases next year" announcement for example).

 

[CyrusWuff]

Raileasy are saying book before December 4th to beat the fares increase, so I think we can assume that is the day of the announcement.

Possibly...There's another explanation as well. In the run up to a fares change date (fixed as 2nd January for some time now), existing fares apply for tickets starting on or after the fares change date until 4 weeks before.

A handy chart was provided in the printed Fares Manuals to explain this, which I've attempted to create a facsimile of below:

/------------------+--------------+------------+------------\
|Date of Travel -->| On or before | 05/12/2015 | 02/01/2016 |
|                  |  04/12/2015  |     to     | to approx. |
| Date of Purchase |              | 01/01/2016 | 14/05/2016 |
+------------------+--------------+------------+------------+
| On or before     |    NFM 22    |   NFM 22   |   NFM 22   |
| 04/12/2015       |              |            |            |
+------------------+--------------+------------+------------+
| 05/12/2015 to    |xxxxxxxxxxxxxx|   NFM 22   |   NFM 23   |
| 01/01/2016       |xxxxxxxxxxxxxx|            |            |
+------------------+--------------+------------+------------+
| 02/01/2016 to    |xxxxxxxxxxxxxx|xxxxxxxxxxxx|   NFM 23   |
| approx 16/04/2016|xxxxxxxxxxxxxx|xxxxxxxxxxxx|            |
\------------------+--------------+------------+------------/

Dates for the last row and column are based on the usual mid-May Fares Change Date, but I'd need to check actual dates to be sure.

 

[SickyNicky]

There's another explanation as well. In the run up to a fares change date (fixed as 2nd January for some time now), existing fares apply for tickets starting on or after the fares change date until 4 weeks before.

You are correct. That's the reason they're tweeting it. If you buy tickets before 4th Dec for travel after 2nd Jan, you will pay the old price.

I'll put a fare rise calculator on TrainSplit on the 4th December, but am not allowed to do so before then. I'm not expecting too many surprises, but you never know.

 

[Solent&Wessex]

I have heard about a substantial revision to time restrictions relating to Off Peak fares set by TPE, but have no further details. I suspect this will be the introduction of a morning time restriction to the return portion of a SVR ticket, so effectively meaning that anybody who buys the evening before and returns the next morning before a certain time will need to pay the higher SOR fare for example.

EDIT : Not implemented it seems, word reaches me it wasn't approved at this stage in the franchise game.

 

[Romilly]

Price rise on "Advance" tickets for journeys on Virgin Trains East Coast services when bought from the VTEC website seems to be 3%, as the 1% or so expected increase appears to be accompanied by abolition of the 2% online discount for buying those tickets from their own site.

 

[northwichcat]

Northern Rail seem to have done a lot of 10p increases whether it's a £4.50 ticket going up to £4.60 (2.22% increase) or an £11 ticket going up to £11.10 (0.9% increase.)

 

[Goatboy]

Rail fares up.

Cost of using car still falling.

Madness. How are we ever going to get people to ditch polluting and congestion causing private cars if we keep hiking rail fares?

 

[mikeg]

Cross-country seem to have slapped a 2v restriction on more SVRs. Namely the ones formerly priced by EMT. Can't say I'm not disappointed but certainly not surprised.

 

[Starmill]

Cross-country seem to have slapped a 2v restriction on more SVRs. Namely the ones formerly priced by EMT. Can't say I'm not disappointed but certainly not surprised.

Some of the SORs they've bullied away - sorry, inherited from EMT have gone down in price interestingly. For example, Derby to Todmorden. You'd be mad to pay either price of course.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Rail fares up.

Cost of using car still falling.

Madness. How are we ever going to get people to ditch polluting and congestion causing private cars if we keep hiking rail fares?

The Government couldn't be sending a clearer signal that they don't care about the environment, our dependence on fossil fuels or reducing our carbon output.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

EDIT : Not implemented it seems, word reaches me it wasn't approved at this stage in the franchise game.

You would know better than me of course, but it sounds like a relatively trivial change? TPE priced SVRs are very expensive per mile (compare, say, VTWC).
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Northern Rail seem to have done a lot of 10p increases whether it's a £4.50 ticket going up to £4.60 (2.22% increase) or an £11 ticket going up to £11.10 (0.01% increase) which should give an average rise of 1%.

They have done a lot even worse, things going from £2.00 to £2.10.

 

[Stats]

Price rise on "Advance" tickets for journeys on Virgin Trains East Coast services when bought from the VTEC website seems to be 3%, as the 1% or so expected increase appears to be accompanied by abolition of the 2% online discount for buying those tickets from their own site.

So the only reason to buy online from VTEC now is for the half price super off-peak single.

 

[talldave]

Northern Rail seem to have done a lot of 10p increases whether it's a £4.50 ticket going up to £4.60 (2.22% increase) or an £11 ticket going up to £11.10 (0.01% increase) which should give an average rise of 1%.

You need a new calculator!

 

[northwichcat]

You need a new calculator!

No I need to add the correct number of zeros back in when my calculator says 9.09 times 10 to the minus 3.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

They have done a lot even worse, things going from £2.00 to £2.10.

I thought they might have done but I was checking the increase on tickets that I know I'm likely to be buying next year, which doesn't include anything under £4.50 for me as I don't live in a PTE area.

 

[Minilad]

Rail fares up.

Cost of using car still falling.

Madness. How are we ever going to get people to ditch polluting and congestion causing private cars if we keep hiking rail fares?

Really?
Not from where I'm standing it's not

 

[ashworth]

Cross-country seem to have slapped a 2v restriction on more SVRs. Namely the ones formerly priced by EMT. Can't say I'm not disappointed but certainly not surprised.

I notice that a journey I occasionally do from Alfreton to York has gone up from £28.10 to an amazing £70.20 if I now travel before the 0944 departure. I was always surprised that there were no peak time restrictions on this Off Peak Return and kept quiet about it in these forums. I suppose they were bound to notice the anomally eventually but it wil be a huge shock for anyone who regularly does that journey.

My immediate reaction was that means going by car and using Park and Ride from now on. Then I discovered it can still be done for approx £33 by splitting.