DfT and TOCs to trial radical fares overhaul

[LNW-GW Joint]

Crosscountry routes are the ones which come up most often when people talk about splitting.
But for the above route, due to the Tamworth ticket, Crosscountry come out looking very good!

That's because that fare is set by London Midland (and you can't use VT).
It also takes LM restrictions out of Euston.

 

[AnkleBoots]

More frequent is exceptionally dubious.

There are roughly 5 services per hour London to Doncaster, and 5 services per hour Doncaster to Sheffield, plus a handful more throughout the day via Retford.

However I see that many people will prefer to use the direct route, except on Sundays when there are more stops.

Your point about comfort is also incredibly subjective, given there is a strong likelihood of travelling on Northern between Sheffield and Doncaster, who as yet have no intercity standard rolling stock and you may even be on a pacer.

True. But I still think it is a good example of competition, as some will prefer to pay the £90 and have the extra flexibility.

 

[Bletchleyite]

If you're buying walk-ups *and* single fare pricing is introduced i.e. returns are 2x singles, there's less need for route flexibility as you can just buy the ticket for the route/TOC of your choice just before departure once you've decided. There are relatively few cases where people are likely to decide as they go along, and again with single-fare pricing they will have little cost disincentive just to pay to the decision point then rebook.

Indeed, with this being the case, I would use a lot more "Advances" if you could purchase them at a TVM on departure, French-style. That might indeed be a way to avoid confusion over off-peaks - abolish them, replaced by buying a train specific ticket on departure. Want more flexibility as you go along? Just buy to the point you want flexibility from.

What I don't like is not being *allowed* to take specific routes - though again with single-fare pricing a split is always possible, with return-fare pricing you are penalised for a split unless you want to go the same way in both directions.

 

[Old Yard Dog]

If Split tickets were to be made illegal, would we end up in the farcical situation where passengers had to get off a train at the "split" station and wait for the next service?

I remember having to do this on occasions in BR days when ticket offices couldn't sell tickets between any pair of stations in the country. And many a time, I would be in a panic about making a tight connection if I had to rush to the ticket office (e.g. at Doncaster or Shrewsbury) to buy my next ticket.

There are all sorts of complications connected with rover tickets which would need to be thought through. And there are also journeys where it is cheaper and legal to buy a ticket from A to C via B (or any permitted) when travelling from B to C. I use such an anomaly regularly but won't mention where in case this loophole is closed!

 

[dangie]

Apologies if this has already been posted on this or another thread, but this is taking split-ticketing to the extreme.....

Newcastle fan's train journey sees 56-ticket split......

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-38827931

 

[infobleep]

If you're buying walk-ups *and* single fare pricing is introduced i.e. returns are 2x singles, there's less need for route flexibility as you can just buy the ticket for the route/TOC of your choice just before departure once you've decided. There are relatively few cases where people are likely to decide as they go along, and again with single-fare pricing they will have little cost disincentive just to pay to the decision point then rebook.

Indeed, with this being the case, I would use a lot more "Advances" if you could purchase them at a TVM on departure, French-style. That might indeed be a way to avoid confusion over off-peaks - abolish them, replaced by buying a train specific ticket on departure. Want more flexibility as you go along? Just buy to the point you want flexibility from.

What I don't like is not being *allowed* to take specific routes - though again with single-fare pricing a split is always possible, with return-fare pricing you are penalised for a split unless you want to go the same way in both directions.

What about season tickets? You they choose the route in advance?

 

[Bletchleyite]

What about season tickets? You they choose the route in advance?

Yes, those may be an issue, I suppose an "also available" system could be used where you buy the most expensive route and get the cheaper one included. But they needn't use exactly the same system as single or return tickets.

 

[FenMan]

A couple of things.

I'm disappointed that, despite thedbdiboy's very clear statements to the contrary, some posters on here are veering towards conspiracy theories. Let's see shall we?

The trials are looking at long-distance journeys. The thicket of fares and restrictions for many of these journeys is causing severe resource v demand mismatches across the network. This needs to be fixed. I would hazard a guess that no solution exists that will please everyone, but I doubt what is going to be trialled will be intentionally designed to cause uproar. The government simply wouldn't stand for it. It has more than enough on its plate already.

And there are also journeys where it is cheaper and legal to buy a ticket from A to C via B (or any permitted) when travelling from B to C. I use such an anomaly regularly but won't mention where in case this loophole is closed!

Such anomalies (which I use too) are unlikely to disappear unless starting or stopping short is barred throughout the network and/or there is a drastic reduction in permitted routes. I would be very surprised if these trials will follow that line of thinking.

 

[Paul Kelly]

The other thing being played with is a change to how Advances are calculated, whereby instead of each quotaed "chunk" has to have the quota at the level of the overall ticket for one to be issued, you could sum based on what is available thus meaning splitting never makes sense.

I like this idea but I really can't see that happening for May; it's simply too complicated and would require unfeasibly big changes to how the reservation system works. The contract for maintaining the current reservation system expires in 2 years' time anyway: http://www.big4.com/news/capgemini-wins-10-year-uk-national-rail-reservation-systems-contract/ and my understanding is that procurement of the replacement system is already well underway.

I think more likely to be achievable by May is some limited form of split ticketing arrived at by summing the prices for individual legs of a journey, i.e. you only split tickets at stations where you change train anyway. If in fact the splits only happened at stations where you change from one TOC to another, I can see that actually being quite popular with some TOCs as they would have full control of yield management for the part of the journey that they actually carried the passenger for.

 

[pne]

Apologies if this has already been posted on this or another thread, but this is taking split-ticketing to the extreme.....

Newcastle fan's train journey sees 56-ticket split......

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-38827931

You want this thread: http://www.railforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=141522

 

[Bletchleyite]

I think more likely to be achievable by May is some limited form of split ticketing arrived at by summing the prices for individual legs of a journey, i.e. you only split tickets at stations where you change train anyway. If in fact the splits only happened at stations where you change from one TOC to another, I can see that actually being quite popular with some TOCs as they would have full control of yield management for the part of the journey that they actually carried the passenger for.

While it doesn't fix all the problems, I can see no issues with that approach, as it would stop people overpaying just because they wanted a ticket from Sandhills (Merseyrail) to London and they put that in the search. Advances are train-specific anyway, so it makes little odds to the passenger precisely how they are priced, provided there isn't a load of mass confusion caused by differing T&Cs. It would allow a massive simplification of the Advance fares "database" - TOCs would just need to offer what they wanted to offer, and the ticketing system would simply cobble each leg together from the cheapest available[1] single fares (be that an Advance or a walk-up), and issue the lot on one ticket. No need for &CONNECTIONS or any of that complexity.

FWIW, because of the large number of global-fare trains in mainland Europe, DB's booking office system has been able to do that since the 1990s. I recall on a few occasions booking through journeys from Hamburg/Munich to London Waterloo, where they'd just do a journey plan and ticket the lot (DB ticket, Thalys ticket and E* ticket) within about a minute if that.

That approach would be a massive nuisance for walk-ups - but for Advances I see no problem. Logically it would also check each TOC split[1], allowing a TOC to offer a through Advance fare with a change if they wanted for some reason to motivate people to go that way. Not a horribly complicated bit of IT, really. I could probably throw something together to query BRfares to do that in an afternoon.

 

[Agent_c]

If Split tickets were to be made illegal, would we end up in the farcical situation where passengers had to get off a train at the "split" station and wait for the next service?

I remember having to do this on occasions in BR days when ticket offices couldn't sell tickets between any pair of stations in the country. And many a time, I would be in a panic about making a tight connection if I had to rush to the ticket office (e.g. at Doncaster or Shrewsbury) to buy my next ticket.

There are all sorts of complications connected with rover tickets which would need to be thought through. And there are also journeys where it is cheaper and legal to buy a ticket from A to C via B (or any permitted) when travelling from B to C. I use such an anomaly regularly but won't mention where in case this loophole is closed!

IIRC Ireland blocks split ticketing and requires you not just to leave the train, but the railway.

 

[island]

IIRC Ireland blocks split ticketing and requires you not just to leave the train, but the railway.

Correct – though in practice it is rarely cheaper and still more rarely enforced. What they are hotter on is finishing short, which is prohibited when the fare for the journey made is more expensive than that of the ticket.

 

[Starmill]

There are roughly 5 services per hour London to Doncaster, and 5 services per hour Doncaster to Sheffield, plus a handful more throughout the day via Retford.

But only 1 has a connection to Sheffield that is actually quicker than a direct train. So it's totally irrelevant how many services from London to Doncaster there are.

The 1603 Grand Central and the 1606 East Coast both have a connection from Doncaster that beats the 1626 from St Pancras. Catching the 1715 and changing at East Midlands Parkway is quicker than waiting for the 1757 direct. But as far as I can see there is just 1 service all day where changing at Retford is quicker, which is if one catches the 2030 Hull Trains, which beats the 2055 from St Pancras by a whole 11 minutes.

 

[Kite159]

IIRC Ireland blocks split ticketing and requires you not just to leave the train, but the railway.

Is it in France and other European countries which require tickets to be stamped using platform equipment before boarding the train?

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Sounds like the trial could be interesting

 

[Bletchleyite]

Is it in France and other European countries which require tickets to be stamped using platform equipment before boarding the train?

Yes, though it isn't to dissuade splits, it's to dissuade ticket re-use without having to limit validity periods.