Great British Railways suggestions

[Mgameing123]

A massive fare rise for off peak travel is almost certain, but it'll rather be by doing dynamic pricing and cranking up fares at times like Friday and Sunday afternoon/evening. You'll be able to go from London to Manchester for thirty quid, but only on a Wednesday lunchtime when nobody wants to do so even were it free.

Or how about affordable fares in general so people would travel more by train and boost the economy.

 

[JonathanH]

You'll be able to go from London to Manchester for thirty quid, but only on a Wednesday lunchtime when nobody wants to do so even were it free.

There is no evidence from the LNER trial that any fares will come down, so I don't think your Wednesday lunchtime example is correct

The advance fares have gone up across the board but more so at the times of increased demand. If the fares at popular times are put up, it means the fares at less popular times can also go up, but by less.

The cheapest one way fares from London to Edinburgh in November are £67. It isn't too long ago that that would be closer to £30-£40. On that basis, the cheapest fare from London to Manchester is likely to be around £50 one way.

 

[azOOOOOma]

Please can we rename Advances to be ‘Fixed’.

 

[Meerkat]

Please can we rename Advances to be ‘Fixed’.

Reservation Tickets would be more descriptive?

 

[azOOOOOma]

Just fixed would do nicely for me.

 

[Meerkat]

Just fixed would do nicely for me.

I wonder whether some would just think that was fixed price, rather than fixed train. IMO it’s not clearer than advance.

 

[azOOOOOma]

Booked Train Only or Fixed Train.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

What about scrapping different ticket agents (ie Trainline), scrapping dynamic pricing, so say a London to Manchester, same price any time ?

What have you got against Trainline?
Apart from their retail site, their systems are deeply embedded in individual TOC retail systems, and they have a European arm too.
3rd party retailers are here to stay, like open access.
The GBRTT has evidently turned its back on developing a single national retail site.
The fares will be the same whichever route you use to book.

 

[Rhydgaled]

Please can we rename Advances to be ‘Fixed’.

That or tethered as someone else once suggested (I think it may have been Graham Ellis of the 'Coffee Shop forum'). However, thinking about this the other day I wonder if they need to be called anything beyond just being a 'Single' ticket if provision of them as walk-up tickets can be improved significantly compared to CrossCountry's 'Advance Purchase On The Day' concept. If return fares are to be removed, do you really need anything beyond the following?

• Single
  • Booked/specified train (or trains, where changes are involved) only - if a connection is missed due to a delayed train automatically becomes valid on following service
  • where there is no ticket office open at the station, can be purchased from on-train staff who would automatically book you into the seat you are sat on, or the train if unreservable
  • if booked ahead of travel, various price tiers available
    • limited number of each tier available (total of all tiers set at say 60% of reservable seats on the service)
    • Open Access Operators can set their own tiers for their services, but must be bound by the overall rules and regulations (such as the total number available)
    • cheapest tier(s) not available at all on the busiest services
  • a walk-up tier to be set for each train (also available once all the above have been sold) - this to be a regulated fare:
    • for tickets booked in advance of travel while reservations are available (ie. within the remaining 40% of reservable seats on the service), a reservation fee (set at a maximum of £5 or 10% of the fare, whichever is lower) to be charged if you want to reserve a seat while limited reservable seats remain available
    • this means walk-up passengers without a reservation on a busy service will pay slightly less than passengers who reserve seats at short-notice
• Anytime Single (could be renamed 'Anytrain Single')
  • Regulated fare
  • Valid on any service along the permitted route(s) until 06:30 the following morning with no doubling-back allowed
  • Break of journey permitted
  • Plus possibly an operator-specific version for Open Access Operators
• Day Rangers
  • To include a (regulated) All-Line version (acting as a sort of daily price cap)
• 4-in-8 Day Rovers
  • To include a (regulated) All-Line version (acting as a sort of price cap on other fares)
• 8-in-15 Day Rovers
  • To include a (regulated) All-Line version (acting as a sort of price cap on other fares)
• 7 Day All-Line Rover
  • Regulated fare
• 14 Day All-Line Rover
  • Regulated fare

Reservation Tickets would be more descriptive?

Not really since you can have an 'Advance' ticket issued with one of those 'counted place' things (seat * coach *) instead of a proper seat reservation.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I'd go with a brand name rather than something that's trying to describe the ticket properly in one word. "Value Single" works reasonably well, or even "Saver Single" (yes, it's different from what that was, but DB used to have a walk up fare called a Sparpreis and now it's a quota controlled advance type fare). OK some of them aren't, but they are cheaper than Anytimes so it's not entirely silly.

The break of journey restriction should be removed on Advances. It is nonsensical to prevent people leaving stations mid-journey where the booked trains have a long enough gap to be worth popping to the shop, and just creates pointless arguments and fun for deliberately awkward staff. And if these are available on all journeys on relevant trains, as they would be, there's no reason to prevent starting/stopping short. Break of journey (i.e. leaving the station for any purpose) should, provided booked trains are used, be permitted on all fares. And if one wants to insert an hour's extended change to pop for lunch or similar, one should be allowed to do so at the time of booking without splitting tickets.

 

[ollyexe2808]

What have you got against Trainline?
Apart from their retail site, their systems are deeply embedded in individual TOC retail systems, and they have a European arm too.
3rd party retailers are here to stay, like open access.
The GBRTT has evidently turned its back on developing a single national retail site.
The fares will be the same whichever route you use to book.

I am interested to see how the decision pans out regarding GBRTT/DfT turning its back on a single national retail site. This decision was taken under the instruction of the previous government. Now TOCs are going to all be in-house, it would surely make sense to resurrect this idea? This is assuming that the TOC branding (including those under OLR/DfT management such as LNER/Northern and Southeastern) is going to be either simplified or homogenised. So the TOC retail systems will become redundant wouldn't they?

 

[Bletchleyite]

I am interested to see how the decision pans out regarding GBRTT/DfT turning its back on a single national retail site. This decision was taken under the instruction of the previous government. Now TOCs are going to all be in-house, it would surely make sense to resurrect this idea? This is assuming that the TOC branding (including those under OLR/DfT management such as LNER/Northern and Southeastern) is going to be either simplified or homogenised. So the TOC retail systems will become redundant wouldn't they?

And this isn't a massive job. Just pick one of the existing TOC systems and use that!

 

[JLH4AC]

What have you got against Trainline?
Apart from their retail site, their systems are deeply embedded in individual TOC retail systems, and they have a European arm too.
3rd party retailers are here to stay, like open access.
The GBRTT has evidently turned its back on developing a single national retail site.
The fares will be the same whichever route you use to book.

They are unnecessary middleman, TOCs have proven they are able to sell tickets and do so without changing booking fees.

As stated above by others the current government has moved away from the previous government's plans to keep the private sector involved in the passenger railways so a centralised GBR online ticket retailer could and should be back on the table. It would not be too hard for them to build it, they can over the next few years merge the DfT's TOCs' online ticketing systems into a single system (Likely by picking one of the existing systems and transferring accounts to it and for the remainder of the TOCs' websites lifespan redirecting to that TOC's website.) and when GBR launches transfer to the system to the GBR website.

 

[Rhydgaled]

They are unnecessary middleman, TOCs have proven they are able to sell tickets and do so without changing booking fees.

Agreed; if multiple booking sites remain once GBR is fully in control booking fees should not be allowed (I believe third-party ticket outlets get a portion of the revenue from tickets they sell as commission, so it's not like they wouldn't be able to make any money).

And this isn't a massive job. Just pick one of the existing TOC systems and use that!

It would not be too hard for them to build it, they can over the next few years merge the DfT's TOCs' online ticketing systems into a single system (Likely by picking one of the existing systems and transferring accounts to it and for the remainder of the TOCs' websites lifespan redirecting to that TOC's website.) and when GBR launches transfer to the system to the GBR website.

There are a few potential issues with that approach:

• Who owns the copyright for the existing TOC websites? I believe some of them use Trainline's system anyway so it might be difficult/expensive for GBR/DfT to obtain the rights to the TOC sites
• The various booking sites have their own pros and cons, usability issues, feature sets etc. Whichever one you choose, some users will not be familiar with it and will be confused and/or frustrated that they can't get what they want out of the system. For example:
  • I find the 'Mixing Deck' journey planner (now only used by GWR I think, but Chiltern and East Coast also used it previously I think) easiest to use for quickly finding the fastest service, but is a little restrictive for other uses
  • The ability to select a specific seat from a seat plan is limited to a few sites (such as this forum's booking site based on TrainsCanBeCheaper), with most TOCs who do provide this service only offering it on their own trains
  • Booking a journey (with reservations) via an unusual route, deliberately changing more times than necessary (such as what I try to do now to avoid sitting more than 90min on a Fainsa Sophia) or at specific stations (rather than the one the journey planner selected) is typically difficult or impossible (I think TrainsCanBeCheaper is the only site where I've been able to pull this off, and 'Mixing Deck' is so much nicer to use for simpler trips)

 

[Bletchleyite]

I can see no reason to remove the APIs for the third party sellers for those who prefer those. They have their niches and do them well.

I'd suggest for GBR the LNER one is probably the best to use as a base. It has flaws, but it largely works OK, they already have TVM software that looks identical to it (commonality is really valuable) and it has stuff like a seat selector and standalone reservations, both of which are very useful features that none of the others have (bar GWR for reservations but without selection). It is also I believe commissioned directly for LNER, which means DOR OLR Holdings effectively own it, which means it'll be an easier one to roll out across TOCs.

Trainline of course would remain, but there'd be fewer reasons to want to use it.

 

[JLH4AC]

There are a few potential issues with that approach:

• Who owns the copyright for the existing TOC websites? I believe some of them use Trainline's system anyway so it might be difficult/expensive for GBR/DfT to obtain the rights to the TOC sites

DOHL owns the copyright to the DfT TOCs websites, there may be copyrighted code behind the scenes that they only have usage rights to but that should not prevent them from modifying other parts of the system, from rebranding or from replacing said code with functional simliar yet none infringing code if the rights owner causes any issues relating to its continued use.

• The various booking sites have their own pros and cons, usability issues, feature sets etc. Whichever one you choose, some users will not be familiar with it and will be confused and/or frustrated that they can't get what they want out of the system. For example:
  • I find the 'Mixing Deck' journey planner (now only used by GWR I think, but Chiltern and East Coast also used it previously I think) easiest to use for quickly finding the fastest service, but is a little restrictive for other uses
  • The ability to select a specific seat from a seat plan is limited to a few sites (such as this forum's booking site based on TrainsCanBeCheaper), with most TOCs who do provide this service only offering it on their own trains
  • Booking a journey (with reservations) via an unusual route, deliberately changing more times than necessary (such as what I try to do now to avoid sitting more than 90min on a Fainsa Sophia) or at specific stations (rather than the one the journey planner selected) is typically difficult or impossible (I think TrainsCanBeCheaper is the only site where I've been able to pull this off, and 'Mixing Deck' is so much nicer to use for simpler trips)

GBR can improve the usability of their ticketing site/app and add missing features in response to customer feedback once a working version is online.

 

[Mgameing123]

Agreed; if multiple booking sites remain once GBR is fully in control booking fees should not be allowed (I believe third-party ticket outlets get a portion of the revenue from tickets they sell as commission, so it's not like they wouldn't be able to make any money).



There are a few potential issues with that approach:

• Who owns the copyright for the existing TOC websites? I believe some of them use Trainline's system anyway so it might be difficult/expensive for GBR/DfT to obtain the rights to the TOC sites
• The various booking sites have their own pros and cons, usability issues, feature sets etc. Whichever one you choose, some users will not be familiar with it and will be confused and/or frustrated that they can't get what they want out of the system. For example:
  • I find the 'Mixing Deck' journey planner (now only used by GWR I think, but Chiltern and East Coast also used it previously I think) easiest to use for quickly finding the fastest service, but is a little restrictive for other uses
  • The ability to select a specific seat from a seat plan is limited to a few sites (such as this forum's booking site based on TrainsCanBeCheaper), with most TOCs who do provide this service only offering it on their own trains
  • Booking a journey (with reservations) via an unusual route, deliberately changing more times than necessary (such as what I try to do now to avoid sitting more than 90min on a Fainsa Sophia) or at specific stations (rather than the one the journey planner selected) is typically difficult or impossible (I think TrainsCanBeCheaper is the only site where I've been able to pull this off, and 'Mixing Deck' is so much nicer to use for simpler trips)

Keep third party tickets. I still want be able to buy a ticket to a random station in the UK on the DB website.

 

[JonathanH]

GBR can improve the usability of their ticketing site/app and add missing features in response to customer feedback once a working version is online.

There will be a lot of pressure from passenger groups to keep the booking interface as simple as possible, with few additional features, as train booking is often seen as complex.