High fares - The issue that won't go away

[35B]

If you're citing them as an example of an operator sorely in need of this type of regulation, then I agree with you.

No, I'm citing them as an example of how setting a cap on prices has the effect, in fairly short order, of ensuring that prices settle at the limit of the cap. And, before we look in the direction of government, let's not forget that they are following government direction to push fare income.

 

[yorksrob]

No, I'm citing them as an example of how setting a cap on prices has the effect, in fairly short order, of ensuring that prices settle at the limit of the cap. And, before we look in the direction of government, let's not forget that they are following government direction to push fare income.

A cap would certainly need to be set to remove the crooked fares trial.

Other than that, I'd need to know more about this existing cap on that line as I've never heard of it before.

My experience of the ECML is that I would generally not use long distance walk-on fares, but where off-peak fares still exist they've been just about doable if I've needed to travel at short notice.

 

[Starmill]

I haven't got accurate mileages to calculate properly but some of the fare for York-Eaglescliffe definitely look overpriced to me. York-Whitby looks good value, but it's certainly not the cheapest I've seen. See the maps the Dutch use for pricing for a way in which mileage on a community route (mostly the routes that avoided Beeching on hardship grounds) can be artificially reduced by changing the nominal section length. Or you can price the Esk Valley (and other routes popular with tourists) at the same rate you're charging the rest of the network (because you might say that tourists should pay their way, unless you're trying to manage traffic and parking) and offer a local residents' railcard.

But York - Eaglescliffe and York - Whitby costs the same for the Off Peak Day Return at £23.30. Eaglescliffe - Whitby costs £12.30 single and £12.40 return. So that would imply a cut in the Eaglescliffe - Whitby route section to around £10 return and an increase to around £35 in the cost of York - Whitby, while maintaining the current York - Eaglescliffe price. Hard to see how that serves anyone well.

 

[AlterEgo]

Have you got a better idea? Because the chaotic status quo doesn't work. The fact that almost everyone is splitting their tickets (which sometimes comes with unintended consequences) is testament to that.

Yes, a better idea is for Britain to get used to paying a lot more taxpayer subsidy for its railways, for one. Another is to stop the culture of over-engineering everything on the railway. Ashley Down is a simple two platform station that cost £73 million. That is insanity.

The idea you'll stop people splitting their tickets by just pricing per mile misses the point entirely; that isn't the problem at all. It's that Britain has so little spare capacity on much of its network - and much of what we have is poorly utilised - that almost none of this thread's premise is worth bothering electrons to put to screen.

Are you expecting some kind of discount for going via Northampton? There isn't one at the moment.

There is; there's a lot more availability for Advance fares that way, for a start. There's a huge load of wasted capacity via NMP because of station dwells, destroyed connections and a lack of interest in providing a via NMP fare from many stations - but the latter is a function of ORCATS, the real villain in the room here (hello to the often totally wedged LNR services going via Weedon!).

Mileage based pricing is a deeply unserious proposal for the UK rail network. Capping is almost as bad, because as @35B says - prices float to the top when they are constrained in this way and you would find a series of unintended consequences if you try it. Should tickets be cheaper and more affordable? Would be nice - but not a priority in the current climate where the service is not good enough. This is just a "I would like my flexible train tickets I use on days out to be cheaper" thread.

 

[35B]

The idea you'll stop people splitting their tickets by just pricing per mile misses the point entirely; that isn't the problem at all. It's that Britain has so little spare capacity on much of its network - and much of what we have is poorly utilised - that almost none of this thread's premise is worth bothering electrons to put to screen.

There is a separate point, which is trying to get out of the “I don’t want to pay the going rate” discussion - and that is that for a range of reasons, fare structures have become unduly complicated. That allows those in the know to exploit the differences, and leaves most people more confused than ever.

The one thing that a basic distance based fare structure would provide, even if then overlaid by promotional/market bear fares, is a form of consistency that would make life a lot more simple. However, that would also mean acknowledging the heresy that some fares would need to rise to a common level, and that the splits that people on forums like this exploit would go, quite possibly increasing the fares that we actually pay.

 

[Krokodil]

Yes, a better idea is for Britain to get used to paying a lot more taxpayer subsidy for its railways, for one. Another is to stop the culture of over-engineering everything on the railway. Ashley Down is a simple two platform station that cost £73 million. That is insanity.

Neither of those things have anything to do with fares.

The current fares structure doesn‘t work (unless you're a Pricing Manager setting your TOC-specific day return 10p below the normal fare just to bypass ORCATS, then your creative accounting looks good on your annual appraisal). How would you fix it?

This is just a "I would like my flexible train tickets I use on days out to be cheaper" thread.

As I'm staff I'm not the one paying the silly fares, so I don't stand to gain personally. I'm just the one who routinely hears the intake of breath when a passenger is told the price of a return ticket to X, or who has to explain the full list of fares to a passenger travelling to Y because there's a TOC-specific SDR which is 20p cheaper than the CDR, which in turn is 90p cheaper than the Any Permitted SDR that the passenger would need if they want to return during the afternoon peak on the other operator's service. Or I'm charging someone £22 for a single ticket to Z because they selected "Open Return" on Trainline's app and didn’t comprehend the complicated restrictions on the ticket they bought (such as it only being a day return for operator A which will require a connection into a service which is two-hourly at best and the last one departs early in the evening - and it would have been no good anyway because it expired two days ago).

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Yesterday at 19:57 ==

The one thing that a basic distance based fare structure would provide, even if then overlaid by promotional/market bear fares, is a form of consistency that would make life a lot more simple. However, that would also mean acknowledging the heresy that some fares would need to rise to a common level, and that the splits that people on forums like this exploit would go, quite possibly increasing the fares that we actually pay.

Exactly. No reason that you can't offer advances on top of making the walk-up fares more consistent.

 

[modernrail]

Plenty of countries have different rates for IC and local trains which would deal with that. Plus you could adjust the tariff kilometres for those two to make them the same.

Yes I often think it would be much better if we had a really clear differential to move passengers off the long distance trains to the local ones.

It is the one thing I find most odd about our system, that we allow long distance services to get clogged up with commuters at a series of ‘outer london’ stations. They are good stops for people to get off but it would be much better if people were incentivised to not get on with a standard differential of say 30% to encourage them to use stoppers/express peak busters.

 

[redreni]

Yes I often think it would be much better if we had a really clear differential to move passengers off the long distance trains to the local ones.

It is the one thing I find most odd about our system, that we allow long distance services to get clogged up with commuters at a series of ‘outer london’ stations. They are good stops for people to get off but it would be much better if people were incentivised to not get on with a standard differential of say 30% to encourage them to use stoppers/express peak busters.

You're far from the only person who thinks that. Personally I've always found it puzzling. If I'm a long distance passenger coming from York into London and a load of people get on at Stevenage, what do I care? I've already got my seat. The fact some of the Stevenage passengers get on the 'fast to Kings Cross' train helps those trying to get on the stoppers at stations south of Stevenage, who currently have a fighting chance of doing so, but might not if all the Stevenage passengers were to be nudged successfully onto the stoppers.

There seems to be some "you don't belong here, this isn't that sort of train" thinking at play which I don't really get?

I understand it a bit more going out of a major city, but even then, in the unlikely event a long distance passenger doesn't have a reserved seat and is denied a seat by somebody who's only going 10 miles or so, they're not going to be denied a seat by that person for very long, are they, because after a few minutes that person is going to get off.

There may be particular examples where it's desirable to shift demand from faster onto slower services, but overall I am not convinced you make the railway better by making it harder for people to use it as they reasonably want to. Moreover you make fares more complicated when you try to introduce these kinds of price differentials to a railway that hasn't typically had them before.

 

[35B]

You're far from the only person who thinks that. Personally I've always found it puzzling. If I'm a long distance passenger coming from York into London and a load of people get on at Stevenage, what do I care? I've already got my seat. The fact some of the Stevenage passengers get on the 'fast to Kings Cross' train helps those trying to get on the stoppers at stations south of Stevenage, who currently have a fighting chance of doing so, but might not if all the Stevenage passengers were to be nudged successfully onto the stoppers.

There seems to be some "you don't belong here, this isn't that sort of train" thinking at play which I don't really get?

I understand it a bit more going out of a major city, but even then, in the unlikely event a long distance passenger doesn't have a reserved seat and is denied a seat by somebody who's only going 10 miles or so, they're not going to be denied a seat by that person for very long, are they, because after a few minutes that person is going to get off.

There may be particular examples where it's desirable to shift demand from faster onto slower services, but overall I am not convinced you make the railway better by making it harder for people to use it as they reasonably want to. Moreover you make fares more complicated when you try to introduce these kinds of price differentials to a railway that hasn't typically had them before.

Travelling out of Kings Cross, I’d love to lose the Stevenage crowd. The flurry of people makes the train feel very different for that leg, and makes sorting seats out much harder.

The reality, though, is that there always will be a hefty overlap. Places like Peterborough and Reading have differential fares for fast or slow, and still carry very high loads because people aren’t willing to take the slow option.

 

[Haywain]

these kinds of price differentials to a railway that hasn't typically had them before.

Erm… GN only and Any Permitted on the south ECML, LNR only and Any Permitted on the south WCML, and loads more.

 

[redreni]

Erm… GN only and Any Permitted on the south ECML, LNR only and Any Permitted on the south WCML, and loads more.

Yeah, and each one that we already have adds complexity to fares that wouldn't exist if we didn't have them. And each new one that might be introduced would (a) add still further complexity and (b) introduce that complexity to a bit of railway that hadn't had it before, thereby confusing people who use that bit of railway.

Which is not to say I want to scrap the cheaper route or TOC-restricted fares where we have them and retain only the dearer Any Permitted. Give me complexity over fare increases any day.

It's just I interpreted @modernrail 's suggestion as effectively introducing a supplement for using faster trains where none exists currently, which I wouldn't want to see, personally.

 

[Hadders]

As a member of the 'Stevenage crowd', it's about using the capacity at peak times.

I quite like using the 17:33 or 18:33 LNER on my way home from London. They're busy trains and I could (and sometimes do ) get the 17:12/17:42 or 18:12/18:42 non-stop peak extras from Kings Cross. But if the LNER train didn't convey passengers to Stevenage then the GTR trains would be over crowded - as they are they're often standing room only. In my experience the 17:33 and 18:33 often have passengers standing in the vestibules but not normally in the seated part of the cars themselves. I almost always manage to get a seat in coach C. The 19:06 LNER is an issue but that is because it's a 5-car Azuma and id the first off-peak train for stations north of Stevenage.

The LNER trains will have to call at Stevenage anyway (to pick-up and drop off passengers to/from the north) and while you could make them pick-up/set down only that is practically unenforceable.

 

[Brubulus]

As a member of the 'Stevenage crowd', it's about using the capacity at peak times.

I quite like using the 17:33 or 18:33 LNER on my way home from London. They're busy trains and I could (and sometimes do ) get the 17:12/17:42 or 18:12/18:42 non-stop peak extras from Kings Cross. But if the LNER train didn't convey passengers to Stevenage then the GTR trains would be over crowded - as they are they're often standing room only. In my experience the 17:33 and 18:33 often have passengers standing in the vestibules but not normally in the seated part of the cars themselves. I almost always manage to get a seat in coach C. The 19:06 LNER is an issue but that is because it's a 5-car Azuma and id the first off-peak train for stations north of Stevenage.

The LNER trains will have to call at Stevenage anyway (to pick-up and drop off passengers to/from the north) and while you could make them pick-up/set down only that is practically unenforceable.

In the long run, the Stevenage calls could be moved to Tempsford or done away with entirely. There's 4 fast Thameslink services and hour off-peak and 4 GN in addition to that during the peak. That should reasonably be enough to deal with London-Stevenage demand.

While Stevenage calls are useful for Cambridge Line passengers, apart from that the number of people who benefit is relatively limited, and if they were reduced/ended the impacts would not be that substantial. However this has nothing to do with fare policy, for which a start could be made by generally equalising fares across London commuter routes, such that commuters on each route pay a similar amount for distance travelled.

The policy should be to fill the maximum reasonable number of trains at the maximum reasonable length, and price fares to avoid excessive overcrowding, and while this will be slightly different on each route, there is no reason why certain routes should cost double as much as others for similar distances on similar trains to London.

 

[crablab]

Is there lots of overcrowding on Paddington to Reading at the moment?

To answer this question for GWR services:
- Monday and Friday peak is generally dead
- Tuesday - Thursday from 8am is busy (I sit in the vestibule most days), before then it is quiet
- Evening peak is generally not super busy
- Off Peak is pretty much always rammed, except the very middle of weekdays & in the late evening

I class "busy" as limited/no seats available. I class "rammed" as people standing in the aisles and vestibules.

EL is pretty much always rammed during peaks in/out of Paddington. Usually empty at Reading (it's not really intended you take it all the way to London)

A *lot* of people get on & off at Reading in general, whether interchanging or leaving.

(Of course there is some variation, YMMV etc. This is my general observation from personal experience over the last few years. This is excluding special events like Reading Festival and Glastonbury where it's just chaos.)

 

[Krokodil]

To answer this question for GWR services:
- Monday and Friday peak is generally pretty dead
- Tuesday - Thursday from 8am is busy, before then is quiet
- Evening peak is generally not super busy
- Off Peak is pretty much always rammed, except in the late evening

Which confirms what I thought about the peak fares being grossly overpriced for the post-pandemic world.

 

[crablab]

Which confirms what I thought about the peak fares being grossly overpriced for the post-pandemic world.

I agree, and have said as much elsewhere.

For a long time I have shifted my work day and travelled at 0930 and 1900, given it's 50% cheaper. I would suggest many others who can also do so (I don't at the moment, but I will go back to doing so).

 

[Brubulus]

Which confirms what I thought about the peak fares being grossly overpriced for the post-pandemic world.

It's also where fare regulation is most required from a social perspective - lower paid workers often less likely to be able to vary work hours to avoid peak times.

 

[Hadders]

In the long run, the Stevenage calls could be moved to Tempsford or done away with entirely.

GNER proposed replacing Stevenage calls with a new station at M25 Parkway . I don't think LNER Stevenage calls will be going anywhere any time soon, the number has actually increased over the last 10 years suggesting there's a demand.

There's 4 fast Thameslink services and hour off-peak and 4 GN in addition to that during the peak. That should reasonably be enough to deal with London-Stevenage demand.

Do you travel out of London in the evening peak?

While Stevenage calls are useful for Cambridge Line passengers, apart from that the number of people who benefit is relatively limited, and if they were reduced/ended the impacts would not be that substantial.

The loading look healthy to me, especially passengers alighting from southbound services and joining northbound services (which isn't the Stevenage commuter crowd).

However this has nothing to do with fare policy

Agreed. Further discussion is probably best in a separate thread.

 

[modernrail]

As a member of the 'Stevenage crowd', it's about using the capacity at peak times.

I quite like using the 17:33 or 18:33 LNER on my way home from London. They're busy trains and I could (and sometimes do ) get the 17:12/17:42 or 18:12/18:42 non-stop peak extras from Kings Cross. But if the LNER train didn't convey passengers to Stevenage then the GTR trains would be over crowded - as they are they're often standing room only. In my experience the 17:33 and 18:33 often have passengers standing in the vestibules but not normally in the seated part of the cars themselves. I almost always manage to get a seat in coach C. The 19:06 LNER is an issue but that is because it's a 5-car Azuma and id the first off-peak train for stations north of Stevenage.

The LNER trains will have to call at Stevenage anyway (to pick-up and drop off passengers to/from the north) and while you could make them pick-up/set down only that is practically unenforceable.

Where to start. The obvious long distance thing peak capacity is clearly being suppressed by the high fares, resulting in a very low utilisation of the seat at a low fare by a Stevenage passenger. Meanwhile our northern economy is starved of highly valuable reasonably priced peak capacity.

A 5 car service in the first off peak. Actual madness and an infuriating waste of capacity.

That example sums up a lot about what is wrong with current capacity and pricing structures on long distance routes.

I still don’t understand why we don’t have express peak busters following a peak long distance from places like Stevenage. It seems to be that we have these stations in a radius around London with very significant load, perhaps a unique feature of the UK railway, and we throw away perfectly good EMUs instead of them being kept as express peak busters.

Yes there would need to be a timetable recast but in the age of AI maybe the ECML planners can be saved from their own failure rate on recasts.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Today at 00:51 ==

GNER proposed replacing Stevenage calls with a new station at M25 Parkway . I don't think LNER Stevenage calls will be going anywhere any time soon, the number has actually increased over the last 10 years suggesting there's a demand.


Do you travel out of London in the evening peak?


The loading look healthy to me, especially passengers alighting from southbound services and joining northbound services (which isn't the Stevenage commuter crowd).


Agreed. Further discussion is probably best in a separate thread.

It has a lot to do with fare policy. The policy is price people off because there isn’t capacity but there is. A better solution would be to standardise a fare policy that attracts customers to the non-long distance services.

Except apparently in the peak apparently the policy isn’t price people off. It is believe in a fairytale where hardly anybody wants to travel at peak times so you rip off those who must. Then as soon as the clock turns off peak you need to price people off because suddenly everybody wants to travel. There is of course no possibility whatsoever that the reasons the off peaks are overcrowded is because they are full of people avoiding the peaks. The reason the first off peak train is so busy is total coincidence.

It is ridiculous and won’t stop being ridiculous until somebody has a proper cup of coffee and sorts it out.

 

[crablab]

I still don’t understand why we don’t have express peak busters following a peak long distance from places like Stevenage.

We do - they are the semi-fasts between Paddington and places like Newbury, Didcot and Bristol Parkway.

They aren't usually very well advertised and sometimes don't arrive on the "right" platforms (eg. 10/11 at Reading).

For a long time the 1912 12 car to Bristol Parkway was "peak", and consequently totally empty.

Notwithstanding, they are generally seem to have a fair number of people on them

There is of course no possibility whatsoever that the reasons the off peaks are overcrowded is because they are full of people avoiding the peaks. The reason the first off peak train is so busy it total coincidence.

I entitlely agree with the sentiment - the arbitrary peak/off peak is archaic and does not meet current passenger needs.

 

[modernrail]

We do - they are the semi-fasts between Paddington and places like Newbury, Didcot and Bristol Parkway.

They aren't usually very well advertised and sometimes don't arrive on the "right" platforms (eg. 10/11 at Reading).

For a long time the 1912 12 car to Bristol Parkway was "peak", and consequently totally empty.

Notwithstanding, they are generally well used.


I entitlely agree with the sentiment - the arbitrary peak/off peak is archaic and does not meet current passenger needs.

The reason this is so important, to me anyway, is that the first principle of the railway should be absolutely maximise the number of passengers you carry having paid the incredibly high fixed costs of a the workforce and maintenance of the infrastructure. That means your first answer should never be price people off. Some on here seem to just go to that answer as a lazy first port of call and then object to anybody who questions it. What else can we do? There is no capacity. In the same breath people then complain numbers are not at pre Covid levels in the peaks.

It just doesn’t add up and smells of the railway having got itself awfully confused.

Another point I don’t understand is why is the subsidy running at roughly double pre covid levels when revenue is at about 80%. The current subsidy feels like it is out by around £3 billion. That is massive. Where is it going?

 

[JonathanH]

However this has nothing to do with fare policy, for which a start could be made by generally equalising fares across London commuter routes, such that commuters on each route pay a similar amount for distance travelled.

Exactly what problem would be solved by making fares equal by distance across London commuter routes?

The capacity for commuters to travel from Essex Thameside to London is completely different from the capacity for commuters from the Thames Valley, given the need to also accommodate passengers from further west. The markets and what fares they will bear are different. House prices are different.

An anytime day travelcard from Southend Central is £36.50. An anytime day travelcard from Reading is £71.30. The off-peak differential is £30.90 to £35.40. What is the common price going to be for 36 miles from London? People make their choice about where they want to live, work and commute from

 

[yorksrob]

Yes, a better idea is for Britain to get used to paying a lot more taxpayer subsidy for its railways, for one. Another is to stop the culture of over-engineering everything on the railway. Ashley Down is a simple two platform station that cost £73 million. That is insanity.

The idea you'll stop people splitting their tickets by just pricing per mile misses the point entirely; that isn't the problem at all. It's that Britain has so little spare capacity on much of its network - and much of what we have is poorly utilised - that almost none of this thread's premise is worth bothering electrons to put to screen.


There is; there's a lot more availability for Advance fares that way, for a start. There's a huge load of wasted capacity via NMP because of station dwells, destroyed connections and a lack of interest in providing a via NMP fare from many stations - but the latter is a function of ORCATS, the real villain in the room here (hello to the often totally wedged LNR services going via Weedon!).

Mileage based pricing is a deeply unserious proposal for the UK rail network. Capping is almost as bad, because as @35B says - prices float to the top when they are constrained in this way and you would find a series of unintended consequences if you try it. Should tickets be cheaper and more affordable? Would be nice - but not a priority in the current climate where the service is not good enough. This is just a "I would like my flexible train tickets I use on days out to be cheaper" thread.

While I agree that we still ought probably to be paying more for subsidy (this is where benchmarking against sensible continental neighbours ought to be done) I dispute that as a society we ought to be waiting for a "sometime/never" uplift in services that may or (likely) may not ever happen. As I've mentioned previously, the bus services are pants, yet we seem to be paying for travel to be affordable on those, and very popular and transformative it is too.

I also dispute the idea that the railway service is that terrible as it stands. There are pinch points and areas where it should do better (the rolling stock situation is clearly broken looking at XC for example, but even there I usually manage to avoid them) but rail fares are very much a priority for those who don't already receive free or discounted travel.

In terms of a per mile cap, I'm still struggling to see how a cap set to avoid the worst excesses of the main lines would suddenly make it commercially or politically desirable to hike prices and empty out the trains in somewhere like the west country.

Lastly, there are many options for making rail fares affordable as seen in different parts of this country and abroad. Just defending the status quo against any and every potential alternative, just doesn't cut it.

 

[35B]

Where to start. The obvious long distance thing peak capacity is clearly being suppressed by the high fares, resulting in a very low utilisation of the seat at a low fare by a Stevenage passenger. Meanwhile our northern economy is starved of highly valuable reasonably priced peak capacity.

A 5 car service in the first off peak. Actual madness and an infuriating waste of capacity.

That example sums up a lot about what is wrong with current capacity and pricing structures on long distance routes.

I still don’t understand why we don’t have express peak busters following a peak long distance from places like Stevenage. It seems to be that we have these stations in a radius around London with very significant load, perhaps a unique feature of the UK railway, and we throw away perfectly good EMUs instead of them being kept as express peak busters.

Yes there would need to be a timetable recast but in the age of AI maybe the ECML planners can be saved from their own failure rate on recasts.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Today at 00:51 ==


It has a lot to do with fare policy. The policy is price people off because there isn’t capacity but there is. A better solution would be to standardise a fare policy that attracts customers to the non-long distance services.

Except apparently in the peak apparently the policy isn’t price people off. It is believe in a fairytale where hardly anybody wants to travel at peak times so you rip off those who must. Then as soon as the clock turns off peak you need to price people off because suddenly everybody wants to travel. There is of course no possibility whatsoever that the reasons the off peaks are overcrowded is because they are full of people avoiding the peaks. The reason the first off peak train is so busy is total coincidence.

It is ridiculous and won’t stop being ridiculous until somebody has a proper cup of coffee and sorts it out.

You haven’t actually looked at the timetable, have you. The 19:06 is the third off peak train, following closely behind the 19:00 Edinburgh (non stop York) and 1903 (non stop Peterborough) using the standard on the hour flighting pattern. It also serves Lincoln, providing an end of day service to there, and clears quite a bit of traffic to Grantham and Newark. The preceding 1848 Hull Trains service does quite a bit of lifting too, while the 1933 clears a lot of capacity for Stevenage and Grantham while, to judge by reservations, delivering a serious demand for West Yorkshire. All at off peak prices.

My experience, using these trains, is that they’re not heavily laden because they’re the first “cheap” trains but because they serve a combination of later running commuters and tourist traffic (there is always plentiful evidence of matinee programmes and Selfridges bags).

 

[modernrail]

You haven’t actually looked at the timetable, have you. The 19:06 is the third off peak train, following closely behind the 19:00 Edinburgh (non stop York) and 1903 (non stop Peterborough) using the standard on the hour flighting pattern. It also serves Lincoln, providing an end of day service to there, and clears quite a bit of traffic to Grantham and Newark. The preceding 1848 Hull Trains service does quite a bit of lifting too, while the 1933 clears a lot of capacity for Stevenage and Grantham while, to judge by reservations, delivering a serious demand for West Yorkshire. All at off peak prices.

My experience, using these trains, is that they’re not heavily laden because they’re the first “cheap” trains but because they serve a combination of later running commuters and tourist traffic (there is always plentiful evidence of matinee programmes and Selfridges bags).

Yes I am aware of the timetable. I am also painfully aware of the ridiculous overcrowding on the last off peak and first off peak trains. It has been a feature of my life since privatisation and one that has severely impacted on travel plans. As somebody who runs a small business it has also severely impacted on plans to travel for meetings and many have not happened over the years because of peak pricing.

I hated it when the peak trains were absolutely full but I do not think anybody should be accepting it when they are not.

It is very interesting that you think there just happens to be a big natural peak straight after the peak whilst there is not enough demand to fill peak trains in the ….. peak.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Today at 08:03 ==

There are some mad people in this country who think that rail travel should not be priced on the basis of what better off people will just about grin and bear, but instead on what a reasonable cost is bearing in mind the average salary and other living costs. This a subsidised public service.

It is a real feature of modern Britain that we put no thought into that, each separate silo instead being stuck in its silo mentality.

If the result of such analysis is that lower fares should be in place, the very first place to look for the revenue position to fun it is to double down on dealing with the vast inefficiencies in the railway industry that produce truly mind boggling costs for a whole range of activity in what increasingly looks like a corrupt industry, especially at the consultancy and leadership levels. Hence HS2 has failed in so many ways. There is severe feathering of nests occurring.

 

[JamesT]

The reason this is so important, to me anyway, is that the first principle of the railway should be absolutely maximise the number of passengers you carry having paid the incredibly high fixed costs of a the workforce and maintenance of the infrastructure. That means your first answer should never be price people off. Some on here seem to just go to that answer as a lazy first port of call and then object to anybody who questions it. What else can we do? There is no capacity. In the same breath people then complain numbers are not at pre Covid levels in the peaks.

It just doesn’t add up and smells of the railway having got itself awfully confused.

Another point I don’t understand is why is the subsidy running at roughly double pre covid levels when revenue is at about 80%. The current subsidy feels like it is out by around £3 billion. That is massive. Where is it going?

Total fares income for 23/24 was £10.4bn. If that’s only 80% of pre Covid levels then you are short by £2.5bn. Costs have not fallen, hence the increased subsidy.

 

[JonathanH]

There are some mad people in this country who think that rail travel should not be priced on the basis of what better off people will just about grin and bear

There is severe feathering of nests occurring.

Would subsidy to people who can 'just about grin and bear' the current fares represent 'feathering of nests' as well? It would seem to represent just paying money straight from central funding into the pockets of users. Is it the best use of subsidy?

Targeted campaigns to make effective use of spare capacity would be welcome but I'm not sure what 'across the board' changes achieve.

 

[yorksrob]

Would subsidy to people who can 'just about grin and bear' the current fares represent 'feathering of nests' as well? It would seem to represent just paying money straight from central funding into the pockets of users. Is it the best use of subsidy?

Targeted campaigns to make effective use of spare capacity would be welcome but I'm not sure what 'across the board' changes achieve.

If we look at the railway as a resource to benefit the greater well being of the Nation and its economy, then there has to be a consistency in what is offered, rather than just offering value at the convenience of the railway.

This is the problem with this debate - too often it's framed around what the railway can provide, what revenue the railway can make or lose etc...

The railway doesn't exist in a vacuum, it exists to serve society as a whole, so having the railway picking and choosing who it wants to offer value for money to, doesn't really fit with that objective.

 

[Hadders]

Where to start. The obvious long distance thing peak capacity is clearly being suppressed by the high fares, resulting in a very low utilisation of the seat at a low fare by a Stevenage passenger. Meanwhile our northern economy is starved of highly valuable reasonably priced peak capacity.

A 5 car service in the first off peak. Actual madness and an infuriating waste of capacity.

That example sums up a lot about what is wrong with current capacity and pricing structures on long distance routes.

I still don’t understand why we don’t have express peak busters following a peak long distance from places like Stevenage. It seems to be that we have these stations in a radius around London with very significant load, perhaps a unique feature of the UK railway, and we throw away perfectly good EMUs instead of them being kept as express peak busters.

Yes there would need to be a timetable recast but in the age of AI maybe the ECML planners can be saved from their own failure rate on recasts.

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It has a lot to do with fare policy. The policy is price people off because there isn’t capacity but there is. A better solution would be to standardise a fare policy that attracts customers to the non-long distance services.

Except apparently in the peak apparently the policy isn’t price people off. It is believe in a fairytale where hardly anybody wants to travel at peak times so you rip off those who must. Then as soon as the clock turns off peak you need to price people off because suddenly everybody wants to travel. There is of course no possibility whatsoever that the reasons the off peaks are overcrowded is because they are full of people avoiding the peaks. The reason the first off peak train is so busy is total coincidence.

It is ridiculous and won’t stop being ridiculous until somebody has a proper cup of coffee and sorts it out.

We were talking about the 17:33 and 18:33 departures from Kings Cross - these are peak departures and they leave Kings Cross full (with some standing in the vestibules). Lots get off at Stevenage and quite a few get on heading north. The trains don't leave Stevenage conveying fresh air, far from it based on my regular observations.

There are evening peak capacity busters for Stevenage - they leave Kings Cross at xx12 and xx42 and run non-stop to Stevenage. But these are normally full and standing as well!

The 19:06 is the first off-peak trains for Peterborough and stations north (there are (currently) no evening peak restrictions to Stevenage!). It is a bit of a faux-pas this train being a 5-car BUT in fairness to LNER it is a Lincoln train so only calls Stevenage, Peterborough, Grantham, Newark and Lincoln, it's not as though it's going to Edinburgh.

 

[35B]

Yes I am aware of the timetable. I am also painfully aware of the ridiculous overcrowding on the last off peak and first off peak trains. It has been a feature of my life since privatisation and one that has severely impacted on travel plans. As somebody who runs a small business it has also severely impacted on plans to travel for meetings and many have not happened over the years because of peak pricing.

I hated it when the peak trains were absolutely full but I do not think anybody should be accepting it when they are not.

It is very interesting that you think there just happens to be a big natural peak straight after the peak whilst there is not enough demand to fill peak trains in the ….. peak.

I’m not saying there’s a separate peak, but that there’s a shift in the demand pattern. As a commuter, the difference in custom is noticeable. When I travel earlier, the full loadings are very noticeable.

I choose to travel on the 1933 because I can reduce the cost to my employer while also getting a 91/Mk4.