A few bites.. hungry perhaps..
Surprised it took them so long to do that as the well known workarounds will be playing havoc with the actual trial data. Indeed, surprised they didn't do that to start with, and include any station that takes fares from those too, to avoid those being used as workarounds (as there will still be other ones to use).
Anyone have any figures on workaround sales? People 'in the know' think they will be huge, but 99% of customers search for the journey they're actually making to buy a ticket. It will be pretty simple to strip out workaround sales - any change will be noticeable given they're much smaller base markets vs the trial markets - but if the workarounds were really causing an issue, you'd be seeing a much wider expansion of off-peak fare removal. You notice the current 70min product is limited to LNER services but will now move to being valid on other operators, that probably says something as to why it didn't run like this to start with.
Presumably they know by how much sales of tickets to and from the workaround stations has increased, so they know how many people are using the workaround.
I hope people who had been using the workarounds will be disciplined and will collectively send a clear signal to LNER and DfT that they will not pay more. That means finding alternative workarounds where possible or else not using LNER at all.
The truth of the matter may well be that neither LNER nor DfT nor His Majesty's Treasury will care, as their real goal is not to get all of the existing passengers to pay more, it is to get some to pay more and price the rest off. They haven't told the truth about that in their propaganda, however, so it will be much more difficult for them to claim that this move is popular with passengers and that the trial has been successful if passenger numbers fall.
Aren't LNER still top of the tree in terms of passenger recovery? Have you travelled with them recently? The trains are packed out. They could easily fill EDB trains with just EDB/NCL London customers all paying what was the super off-peak and 1st off-peak fares. The truth is customers do pay that price and will pay more if the fare goes up, the demand is there. No operator wants to price customers out of rail, but they do want to shift volumes, make use of free capacity and minimise stretched capacity. Price is a key lever to do that.. it's just not a concept that some people will accept for what is rightfully considered a public service.
Don't forget this is supposed to spread passenger loads more evenly across trains by enabling passengers to realise their latent desire to organise their lives for the convenience of the railway.
Are you suggesting it's unreasonable for passengers to be asked for variable fares according to demand for each train? You would like everything to be 'get on any train' even for long distance and return to a world of unknown passenger levels, safety risks and poor travel experience? That's what we'd have without Advance tickets.. The railway cannot be 'convenient' for every customer. Other things we pay for aren't 'convenient' for each of us individually, we often pay an amount based on how convenient that thing is to us, affecting the option we choose based on willingness/ability to pay.
It seems to me that this is the model that DfT/RDG/GBR will use for long distance fares across the network.
If you want trains to operate like an airline then you’ll be pleased with this. But if you value the walk on railway with flexible tickets then it’s gone.
What makes you say that? Isn't this a trial? It's not one that could be easily rolled out everywhere. There will be other long distance trials too. It's not first idea wins with fares reform, I know other things have been that way, but let's wait and see how successful trials are.. You can still buy tickets and travel on the day.. just last week I saw a customer rock up to BWK ticket office unplanned and grab a £56 ticket (with railcard) for the next train to London.
but most European railways (aside from both colours of Eurostar) seem to at least keep the fares reasonable and manage quotas competently, and offer things like refunds and free changes on the "middle tier".
The UK model is a 'rail must pay for itself' model.. the comparison with Europe is constant and really unhelpful.. apples and bananas are quite different.
I'm not a fan of this trial, but it certainly could be made less unpalatable - however LNER seem content just to tighten screws from both ends at once - both conditions and heavily increased fares.
They released some stats.. 70min tickets selling in the tens of thousands, cheaper than the old flexible fare just as much as not (throughout the day, remember) - you may see it as screw tightening but if the current fares offer works for the majority then I think it may just be the case that change hasn't worked for your view of how rail should be in this instance.
I'm interested to see the actual long term effect. It's the sort of change where you can burn through new customers for about a year, and where even regular travellers won't necessarily get burned for a few months, but the first time they miss the train and have to pay Megabucks for a new ticket is likely to be the last day they bother looking at the rail option before planes.
Why miss the train? If you're worried about missing the train, buy the 70min product. £20 upfront investment so you don't have to worry about unexpected or high fees if you can't get there on time..
Even Ryanair and easyJet offer a "missed flight fee" where you can move to the next flight for a fixed fee that is usually less than a new ticket. It's bizarre LNER haven't offered anything similar as part of the trial.
It's not needed though is it? If you have the option of a £20 safety net and choose not to take it, you can't then expect a cheap 'missed train fee' to still be accessible too? Do you mean cases where there is no 70min ticket or in all cases?
This sort of move isn't about the long-term perspective. It's about cooking the books to gain an immediate revenue snatch so that the current leadership can look good fleetingly enough to convince their superiors to promote them
This extension is awful news for the passenger, and the fact they are having to block loopholes is telling about their attitude towards passengers. The very fact that customers are using ticketing workarounds tells you they aren't happy with the core product as it now is, but rather than admit that, they draconianly extend it to make workarounds harder (but they are of course still there in many cases). I suppose they can just blame the strikes when passenger number fall.
Passenger numbers aren't falling, you can see that on the trains! *Some* customers are using workarounds. There will always be workarounds in a pilot. Why are we all so focussed on workarounds?! There are lots of way to 'snatch revenue' - I'm not sure a costly trial would be first choice for folk just hunting for cash.
Surely the fact they they have done this proves the trial is a failure as people don't want it and are working around it?
I guess if they see a massive reduction in fares on these flows, replaced by a significant increase in people splitting they won't care (As long as the splits give them more revenue then previously)
A trial extension proves the trial has failed? Mind blown.. Workarounds could've been removed at any time. They weren't. The trial was extended. The cynical view is overriding your common sense view here. The world of operators going all out to grab a bigger slice of the same pie are soon to be gone. When GBR is finally called in, there will be more focus on growing the pie and not just trying to slice it up differently. Split tickets then becomes a problem for all to tackle collaboratively.
Forum folk know the ins and outs better than anyone of course!