Fares system is impossible for the average person to understand

[Merseysider]

No, they have made two journeys. That could easily be handled by two tickets. It might be that one ticket could handle it, but if you go for single fare pricing there isn't going to be a significant penalty for just ticketing it as 2 parts.

You keep saying that single fare pricing won't financially penalise passengers, so what would you set the flexible Anytime fares at for these journeys, per single trip?

Liverpool - Chester
Manchester - London
Manchester - Manchester Airport
Edinburgh - Inverness
Milton Keynes - London

Too high and you price people off. Too low and standards will slip because no company will want to risk running a franchise that doesn't earn them money. Bear in mind that for at least two of those, Advance fares aren't plausible.

I think it would be workable for VT "IC" MK-London to be compulsory reservation if the rest of it was (or effectively so), as there are plenty of LM services to use if you don't want that.

So you are effectively shoving half of your passengers onto slower, crappy 350s because they don't know in advance which train they'll want. I'm sure that'll go down well.

I'd expect that regional services would *only* offer a highly simplified off peak walk-up ticket and no Advances.

As we're simplifying, are we simplifying to regional and Intercity only? I'm sure all of TPE's customers will be very happy there are no longer any £15 advance fares from Manchester to York. And if you get rid of Northern's £3.00 Advance fares between Liverpool and Manchester, or Leeds and York, why would anyone choose to travel with them if they can catch a faster TPE for the same price? And no Advance fares for the whole of Wales, because ATW are a regional operator? I don't think you've thought that through.

The TSA and regulation prevents it.

Why might that be?

Some will. Many may be attracted by the fares system being simple.

You keep saying that the fares system will be 'simple' but what else have you got besides scrapping the cheapest walk-up tickets? You've already said break of journey can go because most people don't need it, so this 'simplification' of yours is starting to look like a bonfire.

I would propose to regulate a fares basket, which would consist of fares in a number of categories. For Advances the thing that would be regulated might be, for example, the mean fare paid per passenger for a given journey.

Ah, so TOCs are no longer free to set Advance fares in relation to what the market will bear; rather, they must maintain them at an artificially low or high mean price simply 'because'. That'll see slightly more passenger spread, sure, but will mean some services will become economically unviable.

FWIW even if we do not make other changes to the fares system I would like to see regulation switch to that approach rather than being based on one specific ticket type. It would be fairer and would reduce Anytime price-gouging.

You expect Virgin to just keel over and accept a 75% price cut to their Anytime fares, and take away their right to charge whatever they want for Advance fares? Do you plan to force them, mid-franchise, to accept a new fares system that will ultimately raise inadequate revenue to meet the premiums they pay to the Govt?

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

"Virgin (or LM) tickets are not valid on this service" is now an all-pervasive announcement on the WCML.
But most tickets don't say anything about the operator.
What do people buying London tickets at Chester (an ATW booking office) think they have purchased?
What does "VTEC tickets accepted on XC services" mean?
It isn't at all obvious, and it isn't intuitive.

"Any Permitted" is a routing qualification, but the railway tries to turn it into an operator qualification.
eg "Via Shrewsbury" actually means "ATW only" in a Chester-Birmingham context.
"ATW & CH Only" tickets actually can include legs on LM (but not via Crewe).

Network Rail has been rolling out the same station PIS displays for 20 years, which do not tell you the operator of trains on summary screens, only on the detailed platform ones.
OK across most of SWT-land, but not very helpful in places with multiple operators on the same route (eg Crewe).

These are just examples of railway practice which I'm sure is lost on the uncertain or infrequent traveller or tourists.
There has been no attempt to "simplify" any of this, the reverse if anything.

 

[sheff1]

If you plan a journey on NRE, it will give you an itinerary and appropriate fare. Perhaps TVMs should have a "journey planner" mode to guide people who don't know the system through the process to make sure they get on the right train and have the right ticket? It can even tell them which platform to head to, and if the train is on time.

Of course the ability to buy any ticket should also be there, some kind of "ticket only" mode. The TVMs have a built-in PC anyway so it can't be beyond a company to build such a machine...

Such machines already exist and are to be found on virtually every station in Germany.

To save the usual suspects the bother of replying, I know "This is not Germany" and do not need to told that "Foreign practices will not work here".

Having to pay a higher Anytime fare or risk hanging around for ages would put many people off medium-long distance rail travel ...

Not necessarily if cheaper train specific tickets were available on the day of travel, as is the case already for some XC journeys - I have just checked and could book a single from Sheffield to Birmingham tonight on the 2129 (i.e in 30 mins time) for £14.70. An Anytime ticket would cost £43.20.

Of course there is a risk that the lower priced ticket might not be available at the time someone wishes to make a walk-up journey but , in my experience, I have never had to pay the Anytime fare for these sort of journeys on XC (splitting can be ignored for this discussion about what the 'man in the street' would do)

 

[Hadders]

Compulsory reservations on inter-city trains isn't really feasible in this country.

Consider the 0616 Euston to Manchester Virgin Trains service. I think we'dall agree this is an 'inter-city' service.

It's a relatively quiet service until it gets to Stoke on Trent at 0745 and Macclesfield at 0801 where it becomes completely wedged with commuters travelling into Manchester where it arrives at 0828.

You could ban the commuters from boarding the train. But they wouldn't all fit on the remaining Northern/ATW services. There isn't any rolling stock to lengthen other services or run additional trains. And there aren't any spare paths either.

How do you solve that?

 

[yorkie]

Yes, those would be your two options. Most people do not break their journeys; your requirement is a niche one.

Do you apply this to all modes of transport, e.g. car drivers tend to make one out & back journey, not visiting any other destinations, and anyone who uses their car to visit more than one place in a day is in a niche market?
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

No, they have made two journeys. That could easily be handled by two tickets. It might be that one ticket could handle it, but if you go for single fare pricing there isn't going to be a significant penalty for just ticketing it as 2 parts.

Good luck getting the DfT and ATOC to agree to making all existing Day Return (or, where Day returns don't exist, non-prefixed Return) fares half price for a single

I'd love to see it, but there is no way you will get them to implement it!

Sheffield - Derby £5.65 after 0859 M-F or at weekends, Peterborough - York £24.60 at weekends, St Pancras - Gatwick £4 at weekends? Yeah, good luck with that.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Network Rail has been rolling out the same station PIS displays for 20 years, which do not tell you the operator of trains on summary screens, only on the detailed platform ones.
OK across most of SWT-land, but not very helpful in places with multiple operators on the same route (eg Crewe).

It can be added as a note that displays on the summary screen - MKC highlights the VTs in that way.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

As we're simplifying, are we simplifying to regional and Intercity only? I'm sure all of TPE's customers will be very happy there are no longer any £15 advance fares from Manchester to York. And if you get rid of Northern's £3.00 Advance fares between Liverpool and Manchester, or Leeds and York, why would anyone choose to travel with them if they can catch a faster TPE for the same price?

You are well aware of my view on on-rail competition, so I don't overly care. Advance fares on those journeys are a total nonsense - two levels, a simple Anytime Single and Off-Peak Single with simple, standard restrictions, would be quite adequate for those short-distance, narrow-peaked regional flows.

And no Advance fares for the whole of Wales, because ATW are a regional operator? I don't think you've thought that through.

There weren't any years ago. I don't think their existence has caused much of an improvement. But then equally Wales does not have heavy peaks in most places, so a reasonable Anytime would probably be quite adequate. Indeed, to use one example, the Conwy Valley only has Anytime tickets. And the North Wales Coast appears to retain that stupid anomaly of "Off Peak" Returns being the highest-priced and unrestricted return fare - these should simply be changed to Anytimes and the Off Peak dropped.

(8A Off Peaks get my goat as they are utterly pointless complexity - someone just needs to run a batch job to turn them all into Anytime Returns)

You keep saying that the fares system will be 'simple' but what else have you got besides scrapping the cheapest walk-up tickets? You've already said break of journey can go because most people don't need it, so this 'simplification' of yours is starting to look like a bonfire.

When did I say BoJ could go? It would remain available on Anytime Single tickets and regional Off Peak Singles, and for Advances you can either at the time of booking plan in layovers or split your journey down to what you will do.

It really is a niche requirement, particularly overnight, and even more multi-day.

Ah, so TOCs are no longer free to set Advance fares in relation to what the market will bear; rather, they must maintain them at an artificially low or high mean price simply 'because'. That'll see slightly more passenger spread, sure, but will mean some services will become economically unviable.

Why? I propose regulation of a fares basket which would include Anytimes (which would be a de-facto cap in the way off-peaks are now). I think you don't understand what that means.

You expect Virgin to just keel over and accept a 75% price cut to their Anytime fares

Who said I would cut them that much?
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Do you apply this to all modes of transport, e.g. car drivers tend to make one out & back journey, not visiting any other destinations, and anyone who uses their car to visit more than one place in a day is in a niche market?

Au contraire. Single-fare pricing makes all kinds of complex multi-point and/or multi-route journey much easier and cheaper. Simply book single tickets for what you want to do, and enjoy not being ripped off for doing so as you would be at present in the UK (but curiously not in any other European country).

But yes, the vast majority of long-distance travel involves going somewhere and going back home again by the quickest route. (That the railway often likes to put people off the latter on occasions is far more of a bugbear than that it might make it a bit hard to take more awkward routes - it is a complete nonsense that it is often not possible to ticket the quickest way to make a journey on one coupon)

 

[Llanigraham]

Why? Megabus and National Express operate compulsory reservations.

They how come I can get on the London N/E. bus from Aberystwyth when it stops here without booking?

 

[Llanigraham]

Not "happy", no - but I would accept the loss of - or, more likely, a heavier subsidy of - some rural lines to facilitate a better, fairer and more equal system.

It's mad to think that it's a priority to keep lines like Whitby-Battersby open to prop up a woeful national fares system.

As usual, someone who is totally urbanocentric and proves they know nothing about living in a rural area.
Pitiful!!

 

[PeterC]

For as long as I can remember the press have been trying to convince the public that rail fares are "too complicated". It has even been said of the London Underground zones.

In any conversation with a non enthusiast the one thing that is striking is the lack of awareness of the operator. As far as the public are concerned it is just "the railway".

 

[infobleep]

I'm in complete agreement.

There are two very different stories here.

Fares in the UK are simple. You can obtain them easily, there are dozens of websites out there. If I need to go to Plymouth or Glasgow or Hastings tomorrow, I can find out a ticket and a time that I can use that ticket with no trouble.

However getting the cheapest fare isn’t always simple. For the vast majority of passengers, that’s not an issue because the flow that they use is fairly simply priced.

If I were travelling to Plymouth or Glasgow or Hastings, I wouldn't be certain that I were getting the cheapest fare. I may not be aware of intermediate points at which I could split tickets, I may not be aware of some other peak/ off peak splits I could use. There may be rangers or rovers to consider.

But I'd guess that over 90% of journeys that people make fall into the first category.

So if you want to bring in a new system, you are going to mess about a significant number of people doing stable predictable journeys (e.g. essential to work, where the ticket price is part of the price you pay for living and working in different places) for the sake of helping people making quirkier journeys. I think we should give more attention to the "dog" than to the "tail".

Plus, if you simplify things to give passengers on some routes significantly cheaper fares then do you have infrastructure that can cope? XC have tried to price people off their short trains. If you put all passengers on cheaper tickets (i.e. making the splits at Cheltenham/ Banbury etc the new "normal" fare) then how do you cram more people on to services that are already busy?

As someone who works full time, I don't have the time to faff about with all of the complicated splits and restrictions and will often pay the full price for journeys - that's a price I pay...



True.

But then again, if we take the £40 per passenger subsidy on the Far North seriously then... how much are we meant to subsidise passengers in rural areas (that may not necessarily be suited to mass transportation like heavy rail)?

The answer to XC is provide more rolling stock so can take more people. Maybe that would make more of a loss than doing what they currently do. By providing more rolling stock I'm including anyone who makes the decision, not just XC.

Sent from my SM-G925F using Tapatalk
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Having to pay a higher Anytime fare or risk hanging around for ages would put many people off medium-long distance rail travel and is part of the reason Off Peak tickets are so popular. If they went, Megabus and NatEx would win a lot of customers. And if you bring the Anytime fares down significantly to compensate, some TOCs won't be happy.

If it's profit making nutural then TOCs shouldn't need to complain. The question is could it be made revenue nutural for all TOCs?

Sent from my SM-G925F using Tapatalk

 

[Merseysider]

You are well aware of my view on on-rail competition, so I don't overly care. Advance fares on those journeys are a total nonsense - two levels, a simple Anytime Single and Off-Peak Single with simple, standard restrictions, would be quite adequate for those short-distance, narrow-peaked regional flows.

Incorrect. With just your two proposed fares, an Anytime Single and Off Peak Single, a number of Northern trains via Hebden Bridge or Harrogate will be carting fresh air around for frequent periods of time as the majority of these journeys are made end to end.

If you're suggesting that geographically route-restricted tickets should be abolished then explain how you'll manage Birmingham Stations -> London Terminals with only a single walk up fare. Should a passenger travelling on Chiltern via High Wycombe pay the same walk up fare as someone travelling on Virgin Trains?

Take away cheap Advance fares and leisure travel by rail will fall. Why the hell would anyone with a car pay ~£30 for your two singles when driving would come in at £10 return?

And no, you can't reduce the walk-up fares any lower than that or the already chronic overcrowding on TPE and Northern between 4pm and 7pm would reach unmanageable levels.

There weren't any years ago. I don't think their existence has caused much of an improvement. But then equally Wales does not have heavy peaks in most places, so a reasonable Anytime would probably be quite adequate.

Of course, if you can afford to pay Anytime fares for every journey you make then there isn't a problem. Sadly Neil not all of us are made of money. And not much of an improvement? Welsh passenger numbers have more than doubled in places over the last 10 years which is probably the most obvious improvement - organic growth - one could observe. But no, let's take a step backwards and do away with cheap fares because they're too complicated.

You still haven't put forth a sensible suggestion on how you're going to manage overcrowding in the peaks on regional trains (which you've just said wouldn't have Advance fares) without an Off Peak / Anytime differential.

Having just one walk-up tier works in Germany because you've got incredibly better capacity overall compared to sections of our rail network. Indeed, many suburban S-Bahn trains are longer than Virgin Pendolinos.

Indeed, to use one example, the Conwy Valley only has Anytime tickets. And the North Wales Coast appears to retain that stupid anomaly of "Off Peak" Returns being the highest-priced and unrestricted return fare - these should simply be changed to Anytimes and the Off Peak dropped.

Incorrect. Off Peak fares are currently tightly regulated and their year-on-year price increase capped. That wouldn't be the case with Anytime fares. Or are you that naïve that you think none of these Off Peak fares (which you've just converted to Anytime) would drastically increase in price if the pricing managers were allowed to do so? Or do you fancy regulating Anytime fares too - meaning they too could only go up by a small amount - and in the process suppress railway growth? There's a clear link between investment and revenue, as I'm sure you're aware.

(8A Off Peaks get my goat as they are utterly pointless complexity - someone just needs to run a batch job to turn them all into Anytime Returns)

Complex? The concept of a fully unrestricted ticket is probably the furthest from complex you could get.

When did I say BoJ could go? It would remain available on Anytime Single tickets and regional Off Peak Singles, and for Advances you can either at the time of booking plan in layovers or split your journey down to what you will do.

When did you say BoJ could go?

I'd once again suggest compostage as an effective answer to this. Once stamped, your ticket would be valid on the day of stamping only

Thats just making things even more complicated.

(source)
Bye bye overnight break of journey.

It really is a niche requirement, particularly overnight, and even more multi-day.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. Just because something may be a "niche" requirement doesn't mean it should go. The ability to change the route, class, destination or type of ticket one holds upon payment of the difference is a "niche" requirement which certainly shouldn't be scrapped.

If, in your 'simplification', you get rid of excess fares, you've thrown another passenger right onto the barbie. If you keep excess fares then it isn't a very effective simplification is it?

Why? I propose regulation of a fares basket which would include Anytimes (which would be a de-facto cap in the way off-peaks are now). I think you don't understand what that means.

I think you're too fixated on your pipe dream of a German-style fare system to see that it's not the best option in this country.

Who said I would cut them that much?

Well you'd have to, or it'd still be considered price gouging. At nearly £350 return, Manchester - London's Anytime fare really can't be the standard for your idea of walk-up only fares.

Au contraire. Single-fare pricing makes all kinds of complex multi-point and/or multi-route journey much easier and cheaper.

I'd say this is rather a niche requirement.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Incorrect. With just your two proposed fares, an Anytime Single and Off Peak Single, a number of Northern trains via Hebden Bridge or Harrogate will be carting fresh air around for frequent periods of time as the majority of these journeys are made end to end.

Then cut that service frequency/train length and get the resources used where they are needed!

If you're suggesting that geographically route-restricted tickets should be abolished then explain how you'll manage Birmingham Stations -> London Terminals with only a single walk up fare. Should a passenger travelling on Chiltern via High Wycombe pay the same walk up fare as someone travelling on Virgin Trains?

No, I did not suggest that routed tickets would need to be abolished.

Take away cheap Advance fares and leisure travel by rail will fall. Why the hell would anyone with a car pay ~£30 for your two singles when driving would come in at £10 return?

Random numbers again.

And no, you can't reduce the walk-up fares any lower than that or the already chronic overcrowding on TPE and Northern between 4pm and 7pm would reach unmanageable levels.

If TPE and Northern are considered regional operators, then they would have an Anytime Single and an Off Peak Single. The latter would not permit use in a standard evening restriction window, which would be something like "no departing big city between 4pm and 7pm Mon-Fri", as is the case in large chunks of the South East. Problem solved?

You still haven't put forth a sensible suggestion on how you're going to manage overcrowding in the peaks on regional trains (which you've just said wouldn't have Advance fares) without an Off Peak / Anytime differential.

I said regional trains would have an Anytime Single and an Off Peak Single with standard restrictions. InterCity would have an Anytime Single and a set of yield managed Advances.

Having just one walk-up tier works in Germany because you've got incredibly better capacity overall compared to sections of our rail network. Indeed, many suburban S-Bahn trains are longer than Virgin Pendolinos.

Please give evidence of an S-Bahn train which is longer than 11 x 24m. You won't find one, because there isn't one. The longest S-Bahn trains I know of are Hamburg's "Langzug" 9-car (9x23m) ones, and those are rare as not all lines can take them, with most running as a "Vollzug" (6x23m) or "Kurzzug" (3x23m).

Germany seems, from my observation, to be going towards ever shorter trains - just like we did a few years ago. Even the DoStos seem to be being used to shorten trains, not to increase capacity.

Incorrect. Off Peak fares are currently tightly regulated and their year-on-year price increase capped. That wouldn't be the case with Anytime fares. Or are you that naïve that you think none of these Off Peak fares (which you've just converted to Anytime) would drastically increase in price if the pricing managers were allowed to do so? Or do you fancy regulating Anytime fares too - meaning they too could only go up by a small amount - and in the process suppress railway growth? There's a clear link between investment and revenue, as I'm sure you're aware.

As I mentioned I propose regulating a fares basket, not a single fare.

When did you say BoJ could go?

(source)
Bye bye overnight break of journey.

I don't think *overnight* BoJ would be a big loss, no. Though it would perhaps be adequate to allow use on the day of compostage and one day afterwards - that would get well over 95% of use cases, and single-fare pricing would get the rest.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. Just because something may be a "niche" requirement doesn't mean it should go. The ability to change the route, class, destination or type of ticket one holds upon payment of the difference is a "niche" requirement which certainly shouldn't be scrapped.

If, in your 'simplification', you get rid of excess fares, you've thrown another passenger right onto the barbie. If you keep excess fares then it isn't a very effective simplification is it?

Excess fares should absolutely go, to be replaced with the ability to trade in a single fare against another single fare. A £10 admin fee would apply to doing this to an Advance, but not to a walk-up. The ability to remove the pointless complexity of excesses, which the vast majority of passengers don't even know exist and thus are paying over the odds for a journey out one way and back t'other, is one of the biggest benefits of single-fare pricing.

I think you're too fixated on your pipe dream of a German-style fare system to see that it's not the best option in this country.

And you think the present overcomplicated mess is somehow better? Just because you know how to play the system?

I know how to play it too, but can recognise that that is not a reason to keep the complexity.

Well you'd have to, or it'd still be considered price gouging. At nearly £350 return, Manchester - London's Anytime fare really can't be the standard for your idea of walk-up only fares.

About £120 single would seem a sensible level to me, FWIW, but that is really the outrider - the vast majority of passengers would be using Advances, which is the way it is heading anyway. (And that isn't as hefty as you might think - for instance most passengers are likely to be able to predict their outward train, it's the return one that is harder).

 

[Merseysider]

Then cut that service frequency/train length and get the resources used where they are needed!

Of course, it's that simple isn't it. By this line of reasoning Wick would no longer have a rail service, suburban Manchester lines would reduce to 1tph at most and several franchise agreements would need to be ripped up.

No, I did not suggest that routed tickets would need to be abolished.

By implication, saying that only one type of walk up fare would be available, yes you did. You haven't answered my previous question of how you plan to simplify ticketing between Birmingham and London.

Random numbers again.

Manchester to Leeds Anytime Return is £30 rounded up. A car achieving 30mpg would do each trip on approximately 4 litres, at £1.20 per litre, totalling around £10 for a return journey. I've done the maths for you but feel free to do it again if you want.

If TPE and Northern are considered regional operators, then they would have an Anytime Single and an Off Peak Single.

So you haven't simplified anything at all! :roll:

The latter would not permit use in a standard evening restriction window, which would be something like "no departing big city between 4pm and 7pm Mon-Fri", as is the case in large chunks of the South East. Problem solved?

Not really, as you'd have people split their tickets at the first calling point after the "big city" to get around that. Try again.

I said regional trains would have an Anytime Single and an Off Peak Single with standard restrictions.

No you didn't.

I'd expect that regional services would *only* offer a highly simplified off peak walk-up ticket and no Advances.

InterCity would have an Anytime Single and a set of yield managed Advances.

That's basically how Intercity works right now, except you've taken away the Off Peak fares and successfully killed a portion of spontaneous travel.

Please give evidence of an S-Bahn train which is longer than 11 x 24m. You won't find one, because there isn't one. The longest S-Bahn trains I know of are Hamburg's "Langzug" 9-car (9x23m) ones, and those are rare as not all lines can take them, with most running as a "Vollzug" (6x23m) or "Kurzzug" (3x23m).

Oops, I meant Voyagers. The Class 425 EMU is commonly coupled up in the Mannheim/Karlsruhe area to reach ~135m in length, longer than a 5 car 221. But that's going off topic.

I don't think *overnight* BoJ would be a big loss, no. Though it would perhaps be adequate to allow use on the day of compostage and one day afterwards - that would get well over 95% of use cases, and single-fare pricing would get the rest.

You can't justfiy a loss with the argument 'it's only a small loss'.

Excess fares should absolutely go, to be replaced with the ability to trade in a single fare against another single fare.

Now we're on the same page!

The ability to remove the pointless complexity of excesses, which the vast majority of passengers don't even know exist and thus are paying over the odds for a journey out one way and back t'other, is one of the biggest benefits of single-fare pricing.

Unless of course your journey begins at one of the hundreds of unstaffed stations across our rail network, in which case you'd need to pay twice and wait for a refund, rather than have an excess issued there and then.

And you think the present overcomplicated mess is somehow better? Just because you know how to play the system?

There's no 'better' about it. I liked the Deutsche Bahn system of ticketing whilst in Germany because it's a lot cheaper and simpler. My point is that such a system wouldn't effectively work in this country unless you looked at wider changes to the network such as subsidy, premiums, nationalisation etc. With a privatised rail network the TOCs are incentivised to extract as much money as possible from the passengers, not simplify fares.

I know how to play it too, but can recognise that that is not a reason to keep the complexity.

Not understanding how a system works is not a valid reason for abolishing it. If one takes the time to learn a little, one can end up saving money.

About £120 single would seem a sensible level to me, FWIW, but that is really the outrider - the vast majority of passengers would be using Advances, which is the way it is heading anyway. (And that isn't as hefty as you might think - for instance most passengers are likely to be able to predict their outward train, it's the return one that is harder).

I think that by suggesting the cheapest flexible return fare between Manchester and London should be £240 post-simplification you've ignored the fact that it'll still be cheaper to make the journey by splitting.

Or would you do away with split ticketing too because it isn't 'simple' enough?

 

[Master29]

I think I agree with the OP in that it does seem a bizarre system but with advanced fares so cheap with a railcard at times you won`t get any complaints here. I have often wondered why there are so many off peak variations available and inconsistent advanced fares travelling on different days, and I don`t mean fridays.

 

[AlterEgo]

Not understanding how a system works is not a valid reason for abolishing it. If one takes the time to learn a little, one can end up saving money.

Of course it's a good reason to change the system if almost nobody understands it! This is the railway here - public transport. It's incumbent on the people who run it to ensure that the ticketing is intuitive, simple, and that customers have confidence that they have the best deal for their journey.

Again the "well if you take some time to learn it you save some money" is a tiresome anti-consumer argument. It ensures that only committed enthusiasts know how to get the best deal and exploit holes in the system. Of course, very few people on RUK want that, but it's a self-selecting minority.

Consultation is already in progress with single fare pricing and, as long as it's properly implemented, will be a good thing.

 

[ainsworth74]

It's mad to think that it's a priority to keep lines like Whitby-Battersby open to prop up a woeful national fares system.

How are you going to get the kids to school? Roads can be impassable to buses (and cars) around there in winter so they have to use the train. One of the reasons that its a 156 almost religiously.

 

[Bletchleyite]

They how come I can get on the London N/E. bus from Aberystwyth when it stops here without booking?

You only can if it is not fully reserved.

There is no reason the railway could not issue Advance fares in that manner.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Of course, it's that simple isn't it. By this line of reasoning Wick would no longer have a rail service, suburban Manchester lines would reduce to 1tph at most and several franchise agreements would need to be ripped up.

The Far North has an Anytime and Off Peak that are a couple of quid apart for the full run - this is silly - better to have an Anytime only at the average of the two there. It also appears to have two levels of Advance but I get the feeling these are not used much. I doubt this would really be affected.

Suburban Manchester lines do not justify any more than an Anytime Single, an Off Peak Single and a Season (plus PTE day/area tickets). This is roughly what they have now, so no change.

By implication, saying that only one type of walk up fare would be available, yes you did. You haven't answered my previous question of how you plan to simplify ticketing between Birmingham and London.

There are a few ways it could be done - probably an Anytime Single per route and a load of Advances would do it.

Manchester to Leeds Anytime Return is £30 rounded up. A car achieving 30mpg would do each trip on approximately 4 litres, at £1.20 per litre, totalling around £10 for a return journey. I've done the maths for you but feel free to do it again if you want.

Cars cost more than the fuel to run. The model of just considering the fuel does work for marginal additional journeys, but not regular ones the car basically exists for. So not that simple at all.

Not really, as you'd have people split their tickets at the first calling point after the "big city" to get around that. Try again.

You're familiar with the way these restrictions work in the South East, right? It's generally on *trains* departing the big city at certain times, wherever you board.

Oops, I meant Voyagers. The Class 425 EMU is commonly coupled up in the Mannheim/Karlsruhe area to reach ~135m in length, longer than a 5 car 221. But that's going off topic.

I'm not sure what the sense in comparing short "InterRegio" trains with S-Bahnen is, they are two totally different things. DB do have some short tilting diesel InterCity trains too - the ICE-TD - and often run quite short LH ICs. Their maximum length for an IC(E) is longer than ours, I'll give you, but they also run very low frequencies - 3tph on two of our prime InterCity routes is only a dream to DB.

You can't justfiy a loss with the argument 'it's only a small loss'.

Yes you can. The railway would be better doing 90% (or even 70%) of use cases well than 100% badly.

Unless of course your journey begins at one of the hundreds of unstaffed stations across our rail network, in which case you'd need to pay twice and wait for a refund, rather than have an excess issued there and then.

TVMs need to be able to issue all tickets from that origin. Simplify things properly and they will be able to, and that "trade in" nonsense can go away.

If there's no TVM, you just buy on board.

Not understanding how a system works is not a valid reason for abolishing it. If one takes the time to learn a little, one can end up saving money.

But the uninitiated are ripped off, which is both unfair and damaging to the system's reputation.

Or would you do away with split ticketing too because it isn't 'simple' enough?

I'd probably do away with 19(c) as it exists at present, but really we should rationalise fares until it's not needed anyway (who would faff with splitting if they didn't need to?), then it could remain for the odd edge case for which it is justified, i.e. extending a season ticket journey, where it could exist in a much simpler form - combining *one* single ticket with *one* season ticket to extend a journey, and that scenario alone.

 

[infobleep]

Then cut that service frequency/train length and get the resources used where they are needed!



No, I did not suggest that routed tickets would need to be abolished.



Random numbers again.



If TPE and Northern are considered regional operators, then they would have an Anytime Single and an Off Peak Single. The latter would not permit use in a standard evening restriction window, which would be something like "no departing big city between 4pm and 7pm Mon-Fri", as is the case in large chunks of the South East. Problem solved?



I said regional trains would have an Anytime Single and an Off Peak Single with standard restrictions. InterCity would have an Anytime Single and a set of yield managed Advances.



Please give evidence of an S-Bahn train which is longer than 11 x 24m. You won't find one, because there isn't one. The longest S-Bahn trains I know of are Hamburg's "Langzug" 9-car (9x23m) ones, and those are rare as not all lines can take them, with most running as a "Vollzug" (6x23m) or "Kurzzug" (3x23m).

Germany seems, from my observation, to be going towards ever shorter trains - just like we did a few years ago. Even the DoStos seem to be being used to shorten trains, not to increase capacity.



As I mentioned I propose regulating a fares basket, not a single fare.



I don't think *overnight* BoJ would be a big loss, no. Though it would perhaps be adequate to allow use on the day of compostage and one day afterwards - that would get well over 95% of use cases, and single-fare pricing would get the rest.



Excess fares should absolutely go, to be replaced with the ability to trade in a single fare against another single fare. A £10 admin fee would apply to doing this to an Advance, but not to a walk-up. The ability to remove the pointless complexity of excesses, which the vast majority of passengers don't even know exist and thus are paying over the odds for a journey out one way and back t'other, is one of the biggest benefits of single-fare pricing.



And you think the present overcomplicated mess is somehow better? Just because you know how to play the system?

I know how to play it too, but can recognise that that is not a reason to keep the complexity.



About £120 single would seem a sensible level to me, FWIW, but that is really the outrider - the vast majority of passengers would be using Advances, which is the way it is heading anyway. (And that isn't as hefty as you might think - for instance most passengers are likely to be able to predict their outward train, it's the return one that is harder).

The vast majority of passengers won't be using advances I'd have thought as there are so many stations and routes for which no advances exist. Try getting an advance from Basingstoke to Hastings? That's just one example of hundreds if not thousands.

Sent from my SM-T810 using Tapatalk
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Of course, it's that simple isn't it. By this line of reasoning Wick would no longer have a rail service, suburban Manchester lines would reduce to 1tph at most and several franchise agreements would need to be ripped up.

By implication, saying that only one type of walk up fare would be available, yes you did. You haven't answered my previous question of how you plan to simplify ticketing between Birmingham and London.

Manchester to Leeds Anytime Return is £30 rounded up. A car achieving 30mpg would do each trip on approximately 4 litres, at £1.20 per litre, totalling around £10 for a return journey. I've done the maths for you but feel free to do it again if you want.

So you haven't simplified anything at all! :roll:


Not really, as you'd have people split their tickets at the first calling point after the "big city" to get around that. Try again.


No you didn't.


That's basically how Intercity works right now, except you've taken away the Off Peak fares and successfully killed a portion of spontaneous travel.

Oops, I meant Voyagers. The Class 425 EMU is commonly coupled up in the Mannheim/Karlsruhe area to reach ~135m in length, longer than a 5 car 221. But that's going off topic.


You can't justfiy a loss with the argument 'it's only a small loss'.


Now we're on the same page!


Unless of course your journey begins at one of the hundreds of unstaffed stations across our rail network, in which case you'd need to pay twice and wait for a refund, rather than have an excess issued there and then.


There's no 'better' about it. I liked the Deutsche Bahn system of ticketing whilst in Germany because it's a lot cheaper and simpler. My point is that such a system wouldn't effectively work in this country unless you looked at wider changes to the network such as subsidy, premiums, nationalisation etc. With a privatised rail network the TOCs are incentivised to extract as much money as possible from the passengers, not simplify fares.


Not understanding how a system works is not a valid reason for abolishing it. If one takes the time to learn a little, one can end up saving money.


I think that by suggesting the cheapest flexible return fare between Manchester and London should be £240 post-simplification you've ignored the fact that it'll still be cheaper to make the journey by splitting.

Or would you do away with split ticketing too because it isn't 'simple' enough?

But rail fares are simple. They issued a leaflet, was it in 2008?, saying so.

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[AlterEgo]

How are you going to get the kids to school? Roads can be impassable to buses (and cars) around there in winter so they have to use the train. One of the reasons that its a 156 almost religiously.

Right-o, because a few hundred kids need to get to school in the Esk Valley, that's why we shouldn't change the fares system. Eh? An irrelevant barrier to change.

In any case, I've said increased subsidy for rural lines would be more realistic for lines which don't make money (there are LOADS of lines that don't make money at present...).

People seem to forget the world didn't implode after Beeching, and it won't implode if you change the fares system. It will take a very long time, there will be a lot of compromise, and consultation, but change will and must happen.

There are over 19,000 separate threads just on *this* site about Fares Advice and Policy. It is self-evident that the system is not well understood.

 

[tbtc]

Whilst well meaning people are inventing their utopian systems/ trying to implement some Germanic solution onto our existing model, what do you do about Rangers and Rovers? They can distort ticket prices, they can create splitting points. So should they be scrapped?

What about TOC-specific tickets and Open Access? If you want “simpler” fares, then do we need to get rid of them? So no incentive to sit on a 350 down the WCML, when you could get a faster 390 for the same price? Less reason to use the “direct but slow” GC services from Sunderland/ Bradford to London?

Do you abolish Megatrain or other TOC incentives?

Where do people want to draw the line? If there’s no premium required on Gatwick Express then presumably there’s no cheaper tickets from London to Bristol on SWT? No incentive to use the slower Calder Valley line between Leeds and Manchester (against the busy faster route through Huddersfield)?

In the vast majority of cases, I reckon that passengers are buying a reasonable ticket for their journey. The problem is more "how do we get ticketless passengers to pay", rather than "how can we move from the status quo to a utopia where there will be no complexities or confusion".

The answer to XC is provide more rolling stock so can take more people. Maybe that would make more of a loss than doing what they currently do. By providing more rolling stock I'm including anyone who makes the decision, not just XC

The point I was trying to explain (perhaps not successfully) is that the “revenue neutral” argument is only part of the story.

You could bring in something “fair” that levels fares so that there’s no need to split your XC journey at Cheltenham/ Banbury and no incentive to take the cheaper priced “Settle & Carlisle only” tickets on many Anglo-Scottish journeys.

That would mean fewer people on the lightly used S&C services (because, with no financial incentive to take the slower route via Settle, they might as well use the faster ECML/ WCML routes – i.e. pushing them from quieter trains on to busier trains).

But it would also increase demand between northern England/ West Midlands and the Thames Valley/ south western England. Bringing fares down on the busy Cross Country route would see demand go up, but there’s not the spare capacity to accommodate that demand. At the moment, the fares are artificially higher to price passengers off (don’t blame Privatisation – BR used to do this trick a lot). But you can’t take spare Sprinter carriages off the S&C (even if you downgrade some services to a single 153?) and put them on the 125mph XC services.

So, for all the well intentioned stuff on this thread about balancing fares and removing the need for complex tickets (so that you wouldn’t need to split tickets, no incentive to take slower trains), you’d need to order millions of pounds of trains in advance to accommodate the changing demand patterns.

How are you going to get the kids to school? Roads can be impassable to buses (and cars) around there in winter so they have to use the train. One of the reasons that its a 156 almost religiously.

How many kids are we talking about, and what is the cost of providing a two coach 156 to get them to school?

Other rural areas (with narrow roads) manage without using heavy rail as a way of getting kids to school.

 

[najaB]

The thing to remember in all this is that simplification and simple aren't necessarily the same result. There are some oddities that need to be ironed out, but I really doubt we will ever have a simple system, simply because the UK rail network is many things to many people.

The ticketing regime that works for commuter railways doesn't work for regional, and what works for regional railways doesn't work for intercity.

Unlike other parts of the world we don't really distinguish between different needs and try to accommodate them all in a single 'national rail' super-brand.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Unlike other parts of the world we don't really distinguish between different needs and try to accommodate them all in a single 'national rail' super-brand.

And that's a big part of the problem. As part of "simplification" they simply renamed all the different types of ticket with the same name. It was simplified- there were much fewer ticket names- but it muddied the waters as different off-peak tickets had completely different rules.

In urban areas you really only need two or three types of ticket: a single and a return and/or a day ticket. In Germany these services would normally be operated as the S-Bahn with appropriate self-enclosed ticketing, but in this country they're in the same system as the long-distance intercity trains with through ticketing. But such simplified ticketing would not work on long-distance trains as people want different products depending on what type of travel they are undertaking.

Enclosing the likes of Merseyrail and WY MetroTrain into an S-Bahn self-enclosed system would be a lot more simple. But would it be beneficial to passengers? I'm not so sure.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Whilst well meaning people are inventing their utopian systems/ trying to implement some Germanic solution onto our existing model, what do you do about Rangers and Rovers? They can distort ticket prices, they can create splitting points. So should they be scrapped?

They are by and large not relevant to most journeys and most passengers neither know what they are nor need to know what they are. I suppose they could be remapped, or their issue could be moved to "mail order" to keep them out of the way of the masses. They are a nice thing to have to encourage enthusiasts, but their value for three-point journeys and the likes would near enough go away with single-fare pricing.

What about TOC-specific tickets and Open Access? If you want “simpler” fares, then do we need to get rid of them? So no incentive to sit on a 350 down the WCML, when you could get a faster 390 for the same price? Less reason to use the “direct but slow” GC services from Sunderland/ Bradford to London?

I am unconvinced of the value of Open Access - it appears to be largely abstractive which affects subsidy payment.

Do you abolish Megatrain or other TOC incentives?

I would certainly ban the likes of Megatrain, yes. There is no sense in having a hidden mainstream single fare product on a different sales channel. All single fares should be available via all sales channels.

Where do people want to draw the line? If there’s no premium required on Gatwick Express then presumably there’s no cheaper tickets from London to Bristol on SWT? No incentive to use the slower Calder Valley line between Leeds and Manchester (against the busy faster route through Huddersfield)?

Advances can, by and large, handle this kind of thing reasonably well without being complex to the end user. I don't see any good reason to incentivise people onto regional services where there is a faster one, though. Mostly this just causes overcrowding.

But you can’t take spare Sprinter carriages off the S&C (even if you downgrade some services to a single 153?) and put them on the 125mph XC services.

You indeed can't, but there are plenty of Manchester suburban services that would be glad of being able to be upgraded to 6-car!
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And that's a big part of the problem. As part of "simplification" they simply renamed all the different types of ticket with the same name. It was simplified- there were much fewer ticket names- but it muddied the waters as different off-peak tickets had completely different rules.

Yes - actually having strong brands for ticket types helped - the Saver, the Weekender, the Advance Saver, Virgin Value etc - that described what they were. Or, you've got the French option, calling them the "Bob", the "Ron" and the "Jim", i.e. names that don't bear a resemblence to what they are. It almost doesn't matter so long as people know what each name stands for. So what we have now is actually worse - the same numbers of layers of ticketing, but confusing dumbed-down names. The new names would only have worked, barring Advance which I find a bit confusing as other tickets can be bought in advance, had they been reduced to a maximum of 4 layers for any given journey (Anytime, Off Peak, Super Off Peak, Advance).

The one thing I think has worked is the unification of Advance ticket T&Cs. That should stay - but more usefully they'd be called something like "Value Advance" to give a stronger brand.

Enclosing the likes of Merseyrail and WY MetroTrain into an S-Bahn self-enclosed system would be a lot more simple. But would it be beneficial to passengers? I'm not so sure.

Merseyrail (Electrics) is an enclosed S-Bahn system, and does have an almost German-style ticketing system of only Anytime singles/returns and zonal day tickets. It would be good to see PTE zonal ticketing as the only means of ticketing on urban travel systems everywhere in my view. This can still be used on other services - it only becomes useful for splits if they overlap, which most don't.

The problem with IC isn't so much Stockport-Manchester passengers, it's more the cases where IC provides the only local service, e.g. outer reaches of the XC network, and the messy, overcrowded hybrid provided by TPE. But then Germany has an answer to that - ICs sometimes run as an IC to a point, then as an RE onwards. We could do that too, with walk-up off-peak fares only available for certain sections of non-overlapping route. So, for instance, everything in Cornwall might run as Regional, but become InterCity (dynamically priced, reservations effectively compulsory unless you like paying Anytime) on passing Plymouth.

 

[island]

If NRE gives you an itinerary, then it is valid. End of story, there's no need to figure anything out.

Until you find a guard or RPI who decides that the website is out of date, the printout is fake, or that it's his train and he decides what's valid.

 

[TUC]

Leaving aside split ticketing, surely the availablity of online booking has made an understanding of the ticketing system unimportant for most passengers to understand. Given you can input desired journey times and the online systems advises which is the cheapest ticket, as long as passengers bother to read any restrictions with the ticket then understanding the fares system is pretty unnecessary.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Leaving aside split ticketing, surely the availablity of online booking has made an understanding of the ticketing system unimportant for most passengers to understand. Given you can input desired journey times and the online systems advises which is the cheapest ticket, as long as passengers bother to read any restrictions with the ticket then understanding the fares system is pretty unnecessary.

In terms of if you use it like easyJet and book a ticket, whatever it is, with a reservation and itinerary, you don't have to worry about anything other than the price, yes. Your ticket may have other features but you don't have to use them.

But if you do that, you often won't pay the best price.

 

[TUC]

In terms of if you use it like easyJet and book a ticket, whatever it is, with a reservation and itinerary, you don't have to worry about anything other than the price, yes. Your ticket may have other features but you don't have to use them.

But if you do that, you often won't pay the best price.

Aside from split ticketing, assuming what most customers want is a ticket at the cheapest price for the time they want to travel, if the ticketing site is any good in what way would they not get the best price?

 

[yorksrob]

It's mad to think that it's a priority to keep lines like Whitby-Battersby open to prop up a woeful national fares system .

Actually I think it's absolutely the priority to keep lines such as Middlesbrough - Whitby open.

What's madness is the idea that we should allow routes, which are vital to local communities, to close, just so that we can embark on some sort of esoteric search for the ideal fares system.

 

[radamfi]

Whilst well meaning people are inventing their utopian systems/ trying to implement some Germanic solution onto our existing model, what do you do about Rangers and Rovers? They can distort ticket prices, they can create splitting points. So should they be scrapped?

Well Germany has many very good Rover-type day tickets giving unlimited travel within a state or part of a state plus of course day tickets covering the entire country using regional or local trains. I don't think people in Germany complain about that even if they cause possible anomalies.

Presumably some of the readers here also log on to German language rail forums. Are there many threads complaining about the fare structure in German speaking countries and wishing it was like Britain?

 

[yorkie]

Right-o, because a few hundred kids need to get to school in the Esk Valley, that's why we shouldn't change the fares system. Eh? An irrelevant barrier to change.

the line won't close if there vis a need for it, and the fares wont be allowed to be increased just to make things "simple".
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How many kids are we talking about, and what is the cost of providing a two coach 156 to get them to school?

Other rural areas (with narrow roads) manage without using heavy rail as a way of getting kids to school.

If you two want to propose closure of the Whitby branch, a new thread would be best for that. I'll respond there...