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?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.
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.
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.Neil Williams said: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.
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.Neil Williams said:I'd expect that regional services would *only* offer a highly simplified off peak walk-up ticket and no Advances.
Why might that be?Neil Williams said:The TSA and regulation prevents it.
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.Neil Williams said:Some will. Many may be attracted by the fares system being simple.
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.Neil Williams said: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.
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?Neil Williams said: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.