How would you reform the Railcard system?

[yorksrob]

It certainly needs money. If one person pays £50, that is better than four paying £10 so it isn't just about filling trains at low fares. In the Cambridge example, it needs loads of people paying £45, not loads of people paying £8.70.

Yes, but you have more chance of some of the 4 paying £10 turning up.

Sorry, but the days when the £50 people could be guarenteed to turn up are probably gone.

 

[JonathanH]

Yes, but you have more chance of some of the 4 paying £10 turning up.

Sorry, but the days when the £50 people could be guarenteed to turn up are probably gone.

Right, so you need to get the 4 people paying £25 each - this is what introducing PAYG Contactless in the South East is all about, making it convenient for more people to pay slightly higher fares on the grounds of simplicity and convenience. Railcards don't feature in that consideration because they make it complex.

 

[RobShipway]

So I'd do the following.

Standardise what the Railcards offer in terms of discount. I would suggest 34% after 0930 M-F (all day weekend and public holiday) as a reasonable compromise. Perhaps before 0930 could be allowed in July/August as per the present 16-25. Discount offered on all point to point fares and Rovers/Rangers including 1st.

Bin the 16-17 Saver and extend child fares to 18th birthday.

GroupSave to offer the same discount as above for groups of 3+ (no upper limit), including the same off child fares (or consider up to say 3 or 4 children free when travelling accompanied by an adult). This near enough replaces the Family and Friends.

Offer the following "open" Railcards:
- National Railcard - approx £120 pa or £10/month by direct debit. Available to anyone.
- Anytime National Railcard - much higher fee, perhaps even £360 per year (or £30 per month) or even more, no time restriction on this one
- Either bin the Network Railcard or consider offering one for each region at the £30ish rate

All of these would allow discount for the holder and any one other adult travelling with them. (GroupSave would kick in for 2+ others off peak)

I think these do have value as like purchasing a car you have "sunk costs" so are encouraged to travel more.

And the following "demographic" ones, all at £30ish and with the standard time restriction, only offering discount for the holder unless stated
- 18-30 (no point having the two separate)
- Disabled (also offers discount for a companion)
- Senior (60+?)
- Maybe the Two Together
- Plus the other odd ones like Forces

I agree with what you said about the discount cards. However I would work it so that they are valid from 9am Monday to Friday and from 5am on Saturdays & Sundays.

The reason I would make it from 5am on Saturday's & Sundays, many people have days out at weekends which may mean that they are travelling more than 3 - 4 hours each way depending on where they are travelling from or too.

Discounting needs to be about filling capacity that can't fill itself. A railcard for all simply isn't focussed enough in the current age.

Surely it is down to the percentage being offered on the discount card for all? For instance I travelled from Seaford to Birmingham new Street. Without an discount that day return fare costs me £87.90 departing at 06:25 on a Saturday morning. If I left at 07:53 tomorrow, that same journey would cost me £221.60. Both are standard rail fare tickets. Most of the cost of both those tickets, you will find comes after travelling outside the old Network SouthEast boundaries.

Depending on what the percentage discount would be on either of those fare's with a discount card for all being used on a Saturday for a day out trip, you could probably reduce both by at least half and be more likely to be getting bums on seats on trains.

 

[Nova1]

I'm on a 16-17 railcard and to me it doesn't entirely make sense. It gives 50% off on most fares (not first class, not caledonian sleeper, and some other restrictions I've forgotten). This means I pay the same as a child ticket for a card that's £30 a year. Seems like a good deal - but why not just charge 16-17 year olds the child fare rather than involving a railcard?

 

[yorksrob]

Right, so you need to get the 4 people paying £25 each - this is what introducing PAYG Contactless in the South East is all about, making it convenient for more people to pay slightly higher fares on the grounds of simplicity and convenience. Railcards don't feature in that consideration because they make it complex.

Lovely idea in fantasy land, thinking people will be prepared to pay more for the priveledge of going through some whizzy app.

In the real world, people want to feel they have value for money. Railcards do that.

 

[py_megapixel]

Nothing wrong with a Network Railcard, so why scrap it?

Because @jonnyfan's proposal for a national railcard available to all would supersede it.

 

[Ianno87]

Network Railcard: Also give it discounts on Advance fares, which are now much more prevalent across "Network South East" than in the past.

 

[AM9]

Clearly there is merit in holding (supporting?) a Network Railcard for travel in the South East at present but when it is withdrawn, which it absolutely should be, it will just be one of those things and the Railway will be able to charge me a higher fare when I need or want to travel.

Lets take an example. The Anytime Day Return fare from Cambridge to London is £45.60. I would imagine that is pretty close to the economic cost of providing that train service. An off-peak day return is £27.60 and that becomes £19.50 if you go via the West Anglia line. At weekends, there are even cheaper fares at £18.80 via any route and £13.30 via the West Anglia line. This seems to have been set to be competitive without a railcard but a Network Railcard makes that latter fare £8.75.

It is preposterous that the Network Railcard is valid on that latter fare - it is effectively just discount (Network Railcard) on top of discount (Weekend) on top of discount (West Anglia route) on top of discount (Off-peak vs Peak). If the Contactless fare is set at £15 each way off peak and £25 each way peak, people will still travel and the railway will make more money.

Now, there might be some weeks in the year when the Railway notes that there are no events in the calendar likely to lead to people travelling and encourage use on those dates. That is when the railway should be offering discounts, not every week. [I note that there is nothing like Northern's off-season newspaper offer in the South of England - maybe that should happen on selected dates elsewhere - preferably on a day when it is raining and people don't all fill trains to the coast.]

Discounting needs to be about filling capacity that can't fill itself. A railcard for all simply isn't focussed enough in the current age.

The £13.30 ticket is designed to attract passengers to travel when generally trains are carrying some empty seats - effectively those seats cost money if they are not filled so there isn't really a discount there. The network card is a marketing tool just like all the others. If a passenger chooses to spend £29 per year on one to make a £4.55 per return journey saving on off-peak travel to London, that is their choice. They are committing to more than 6 of that journey per year, if they don't do that they lose money. Your argument sounds like that often uttered by embittered season ticket holders who think that they persoanlly are paying for lower off-peak fares. They are of course so wrong there because season tickets are heavily subsidised - usually almost down to saver off-peak levels (c 30%). Providing peak travel capacity is what makes most commuter rail travel in the developed world unprofitable.
Your assetion that the Network Card absolutely should be withdrawn is a personal opinion , certainly not an absolute need. For the record, I haven't carried a Network Card for over 12 years and won't again so it is not a personal interest driving my opinion.

 

[Ianno87]

The £13.30 ticket is designed to attract passengers to travel when generally trains are carrying some empty seats - effectively those seats cost money if they are not filled so there isn't really a discount there.

Debatable. In this instance Isuspect more about coming up as the cheapest fare on the ticket machine at Cambridge and getting people who were going to travel anyway a cheaper fare (but with all the revenue from it going to GA). GA services to Liverpool Street are definitely not empty once they get south of about Harlow!

The network card is a marketing tool just like all the others. If a passenger chooses to spend £29 per year on one to make a £4.55 per return journey saving on off-peak travel to London, that is their choice. They are committing to more than 6 of that journey per year, if they don't do that they lose money. Your argument sounds like that often uttered by embittered season ticket holders who think that they persoanlly are paying for lower off-peak fares. They are of course so wrong there because season tickets are heavily subsidised - usually almost down to saver off-peak levels (c 30%). Providing peak travel capacity is what makes most commuter rail travel in the developed world unprofitable.
Your assetion that the Network Card absolutely should be withdrawn is a personal opinion , certainly not an absolute need. For the record, I haven't carried a Network Card for over 12 years and won't again so it is not a personal interest driving my opinion.

As a Cambridge resident, the example given does show how many journeys I need to make to get the cost of a Network Card back:

-On a weekday, I basically have to go to at least London to get a meaningful Network Card discounted fare, due to the £13 minimum
-On a weekend, the Super Off Peak fares are already a bargain, so the further Railcard discount isn't all that much in absolute terms
-I rarely do/get chance to a much longer journey within the Network Card area that would bring a more substantial discount.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Personally, I'd extend the Network Card area to be consistent with the Annual Gold Card.

Interesting. Where's the geographic non-overlap between the two?

 

[Ianno87]

Interesting. Where's the geographic non-overlap between the two?

The Gold Card area is much more extensive and basically additionally covers all of East Anglia beyond Ely/Manningtree (to the Norfolk Coast), plus the West Midlands area (via Chiltern and the West Coast Main Line) to Shrewsbury and Stafford.

Edit: These days Peterborough and Corby would also seem like "obvious" additions to the areas of both.

 

[JonathanH]

The Gold Card area is much more extensive and basically additionally covers all of East Anglia beyond Ely/Manningtree (to the Norfolk Coast), plus the West Midlands area (via Chiltern and the West Coast Main Line) to Shrewsbury and Stafford.

The extra geographic validity comes at the cost of not being able to use Avanti between Euston and Milton Keynes and LNER between Kings Cross and Stevenage (or indeed further afield in the case of Avanti). Cross Country also not valid north of Banbury.

 

[Ianno87]

The extra geographic validity comes at the cost of not being able to use Avanti between Euston and Milton Keynes and LNER between Kings Cross and Stevenage (or indeed further afield in the case of Avanti).

Personally never bothered me - the alternative operators are basically almost as fast (and as, if not more, frequent) for those short sections.

 

[HSTEd]

Do we know what fraction of the farebox is raised from railcard issuance charges?

It certainly needs money. If one person pays £50, that is better than four paying £10 so it isn't just about filling trains at low fares. In the Cambridge example, it needs loads of people paying £45, not loads of people paying £8.70.

If you can get 20 people paying £8.70 you will dramatically increase the political importance of subsidising rail, so in many ways this is also a solution to the railway industry's problem.

 

[David Goddard]

Just create one National Railcard, available to all, to replace all existing types. Call it the Great British Railcard and charge around £40 per year, or three years for £100.

*One named cardholder, photocard required.
*34% off all fare types after 09:00 Mondays to Fridays and all day at weekends and Bank Holidays
*Take up to three extra adults with you for the same discount.
*Take up to four Children, also with 34% discount.

Simples!

 

[Hadders]

The Network Railcard isn't am especially generous deal really if you're travelling on your own, unless you can do some long runs (say Weymouth), especially with the Monday to Friday restrictions (min £13 and after 10am)

I disagree. A journey like Stevenage to London Off Peak Day Travelcard yields a saving of £9.10 per journey. This is hardly a long run.

...is the right answer. It completely complicates fare setting in the South East and gets abused to allow people to make I expect it will go with the extension of Contactless to a wider area.

I don't think an increase of 50% in the cost of rail travel for Network Railcard holders will go down well.

Removal of the network railcard is definitely something I'd support. Why is the south east more important than anywhere else for this purpose?

Fares in the South East are generally more expensive.

Standardise what the Railcards offer in terms of discount. I would suggest 34% after 0930 M-F (all day weekend and public holiday) as a reasonable compromise. Perhaps before 0930 could be allowed in July/August as per the present 16-25. Discount offered on all point to point fares and Rovers/Rangers including 1st.

I've regularly used the example of a young worked making a journey like Stevenage to London. £23.90 for a daily ticket or £4,068 for an Annual Season is too expensive for a young worker at the start of their career on the bottom of the career ladder. The opportunity for them to buy daily tickets at £15.75 per day is a good thing imo and is probably a reason why the Young Persons Railcard can be used in the morning peak.

Nothing wrong with a Network Railcard, so why scrap it?

Agreed. If anything we should be campaigning for it to be extended nationwide. I really don't get why some people want to abolish something that works for the benefit of passengers. Perhaps these people secretly work for the DfT

Clearly there is merit in holding (supporting?) a Network Railcard for travel in the South East at present but when it is withdrawn, which it absolutely should be, it will just be one of those things and the Railway will be able to charge me a higher fare when I need or want to travel.

Lets take an example. The Anytime Day Return fare from Cambridge to London is £45.60. I would imagine that is pretty close to the economic cost of providing that train service. An off-peak day return is £27.60 and that becomes £19.50 if you go via the West Anglia line. At weekends, there are even cheaper fares at £18.80 via any route and £13.30 via the West Anglia line. This seems to have been set to be competitive without a railcard but a Network Railcard makes that latter fare £8.75.

It is preposterous that the Network Railcard is valid on that latter fare - it is effectively just discount (Network Railcard) on top of discount (Weekend) on top of discount (West Anglia route) on top of discount (Off-peak vs Peak). If the Contactless fare is set at £15 each way off peak and £25 each way peak, people will still travel and the railway will make more money.

Now, there might be some weeks in the year when the Railway notes that there are no events in the calendar likely to lead to people travelling and encourage use on those dates. That is when the railway should be offering discounts, not every week. [I note that there is nothing like Northern's off-season newspaper offer in the South of England - maybe that should happen on selected dates elsewhere - preferably on a day when it is raining and people don't all fill trains to the coast.]

Discounting needs to be about filling capacity that can't fill itself. A railcard for all, like the Network Railcard, simply isn't focussed enough in the current age.

For every Cambridge there's a Northampton where an un-discounted Off Peak Day Return is too expensive at £34.90. Cambridge is very much the exception rather than the norm.

The railway needs to get bums on seats. The network railcard did that on the SE prior to covid, and it needs to continue to do that in spades. The same can be said of elsewhere now as well !

Agreed. Network South East did an excellent job of promoting the railway. Something similar is needed nationwide.

 

[Mikey C]

I disagree. A journey like Stevenage to London Off Peak Day Travelcard yields a saving of £9.10 per journey. This is hardly a long run.

Going the other way, an off peak return from Moorgate to Stevenage costs £15.90 before the discount, thus Mon-Fri you don't get a 1/3 off with a railcard, due to the minimum fare of £13

 

[Bletchleyite]

I've regularly used the example of a young worked making a journey like Stevenage to London. £23.90 for a daily ticket or £4,068 for an Annual Season is too expensive for a young worker at the start of their career on the bottom of the career ladder. The opportunity for them to buy daily tickets at £15.75 per day is a good thing imo and is probably a reason why the Young Persons Railcard can be used in the morning peak.

I don't think that is the reason at all, rather it is so they can make long distance trips without needing to wait to 10am. The minimum fare (as for the NSE) has not kept pace with fare increases and would have to roughly double to get there. That it has stayed low has made these cases possible.

If (big if) we want to offer more affordable commuting to younger people at the start of their career, there should be a discounted season ticket rate independent of any Railcard.

 

[Hadders]

Going the other way, an off peak return from Moorgate to Stevenage costs £15.90 before the discount, thus Mon-Fri you don't get a 1/3 off with a railcard, due to the minimum fare of £13

That’s the Anytime Day Single fare rather than a return. You’d get a £2.90 discount if you purchased that although the vast majority of passengers would make a return journey so wouldn’t buy this fare.

I don't think that is the reason at all, rather it is so they can make long distance trips without needing to wait to 10am. The minimum fare (as for the NSE) has not kept pace with fare increases and would have to roughly double to get there. That it has stayed low has made these cases possible.

If (big if) we want to offer more affordable commuting to younger people at the start of their career, there should be a discounted season ticket rate independent of any Railcard.

Why offer a season ticket discount to young people when in many cases the railcard does the job with day tickets. No faffing around with carnet type tickets either.

 

[SynthD]

For making train travel competitive, I'd like to see a no income tax railcard with a large discount and a basic rate income tax railcard with a smaller discount. These are what nationalised transport can do, they can pay for other parts of society (eg working further than you can walk/cycle/bus for better income) at a net gain.

 

[py_megapixel]

Fares in the South East are generally more expensive.

If the only reason they're more expensive is because there is a railcard available to discount them, then reduce them and get rid of the railcard.
If there's some other reason for people to pay more in the south east, then why wouldn't you make the railcard available to the rest of the country?
Overpricing fares then offering a discount is a bit illogical.

 

[Hadders]

If the only reason they're more expensive is because there is a railcard available to discount them, then reduce them and get rid of the railcard.
If there's some other reason for people to pay more in the south east, then why wouldn't you make the railcard available to the rest of the country?
Overpricing fares then offering a discount is a bit illogical.

There is no way the DfT/Treasury will allow fares to be reduced across the board.

Travel in the south east, especially where London is involved has always been more expensive than in the rest of the country. This in part is due to the cost of providing additional services to cover the peak periods that historically saw little use at other times. Network South East introduced the Network Railcard to promote the use of off peak travel which was very successful. This not only has benefits to the railway but to the wider tourism industry in London as well.

If you scrap the Network Railcard, those fares increase by 50%, what does that say about the value for money of rail fares. Fewer people will travel not more, this being a time when we need more to travel again not less.

I would be in favour of extending the Network Railcard across the country.

 

[Ianno87]

Do we know what fraction of the farebox is raised from railcard issuance charges?

I think the general idea is that Railcards are, in some sense, "loss leaders". The revenue from their sale isn't really relevant. It's once you have one you are then incentivised to travel more than you would have done otherwise.

I don't think that is the reason at all, rather it is so they can make long distance trips without needing to wait to 10am. The minimum fare (as for the NSE) has not kept pace with fare increases and would have to roughly double to get there. That it has stayed low has made these cases possible.

If (big if) we want to offer more affordable commuting to younger people at the start of their career, there should be a discounted season ticket rate independent of any Railcard.

Or, in these days of "Agile" working, consideration of whether the pre-1000 minimum fare for the 16-25 and 26-30 Railcards is still appropriate, to make purchase of daily fares for occasional shorter distance commuting more attractive.

 

[mmh]

Travel in the south east, especially where London is involved has always been more expensive than in the rest of the country. This in part is due to the cost of providing additional services to cover the peak periods that historically saw little use at other times. Network South East introduced the Network Railcard to promote the use of off peak travel which was very successful. This not only has benefits to the railway but to the wider tourism industry in London as well.

If you scrap the Network Railcard, those fares increase by 50%, what does that say about the value for money of rail fares. Fewer people will travel not more, this being a time when we need more to travel again not less.

Here in North Wales, I'm reading this assertion that the rest of the country has cheaper fares with more than a little bemusement. It would be interesting to know how many Network Railcards are sold, and their average use. My gut feeling is it's a rather niche product. Certainly in twenty years of daily commuting in the south east I don't recall ever seeing it advertised other than at the ticket offices of London terminal stations.

 

[Ianno87]

Here in North Wales, I'm reading this assertion that the rest of the country has cheaper fares with more than a little bemusement. It would be interesting to know how many Network Railcards are sold, and their average use. My gut feeling is it's a rather niche product. Certainly in twenty years of daily commuting in the south east I don't recall ever seeing it advertised other than at the ticket offices of London terminal stations.

You do see posters around advertising it.

According to Wikipedia (I know, I know), around 360,000 per year are sold.

Historically, the entire point of such promotions in the south east in particular was to fill the large amount of peak capacity otherwise running empty off-peak, with a far more extreme gap between these than the rest of the country, and generate some marginal revenue for relatively minimal additional cost.

 

[ABB125]

Or, in these days of "Agile" working, consideration of whether the pre-1000 minimum fare for the 16-25 and 26-30 Railcards is still appropriate, to make purchase of daily fares for occasional shorter distance commuting more attractive.

The minimum fare is the bane of my life! It makes splitting tickets pretty pointless for certain journeys, as you just have lots of £12 minimum fares to add up. Scrap it with immediate effect, and I'll be happy.

 

[JonathanH]

Travel in the south east, especially where London is involved has always been more expensive than in the rest of the country. This in part is due to the cost of providing additional services to cover the peak periods that historically saw little use at other times. Network South East introduced the Network Railcard to promote the use of off peak travel which was very successful. This not only has benefits to the railway but to the wider tourism industry in London as well.

In the south east, for the vast majority of 'normal' people, the train is something people use to go to London. The train operators on many of the routes (but not all) have actually made travel into London at 'super-off-peak' times very cheap. Having a railcard available to all that applies on top of those bargain fares, which are cheaper than fares in the rest of the country, is fairly illogical, and is perhaps what is preventing those cheaper fares being expanded to the other routes. (Long ago, around the time that the minimum fare was first introduced, I recall reading that the operators saw the Network Railcard as being one of the things which prevented them running other promotions.)

If you scrap the Network Railcard, those fares increase by 50%, what does that say about the value for money of rail fares. Fewer people will travel not more, this being a time when we need more to travel again not less.

So long as the people who are paying 50% more don't travel 33% less, the Railway gets more money. In my opinion, the concept of a Network Railcard offering discounts at all off-peak times should be replaced by promotions specifically targetted on 'quiet' days in the calendar, kind of like a soft form of 'surge pricing'.

 

[AM9]

In the south east, for the vast majority of 'normal' people, the train is something people use to go to London. The train operators on many of the routes (but not all) have actually made travel into London at 'super-off-peak' times very cheap. Having a railcard available to all that applies on top of those bargain fares, which are cheaper than fares in the rest of the country, is fairly illogical, and is perhaps what is preventing those cheaper fares being expanded to the other routes. (Long ago, around the time that the minimum fare was first introduced, I recall reading that the operators saw the Network Railcard as being one of the things which prevented them running other promotions.) ...

I dispute your assertion that off peak-fares in the south-east are cheaper than elsewhere in the rest of country, but I won't spend time looking up a selection of fares to prove that because it has been done so many times before in other threads on the subject. As Hadders says above (along with so many others) that the high cost of providing the high volume peak services that London depends on to get its workforce in place, has distorted the cost of rail travel in the region. Chris Green recognised in the mid-eighties that the rolling stock that was needed to supply those services for just one or two journeys in each peak period either sat in stabling sidings a few miles outside each central London terminal or carried fesh air around for the 6-8 hours between their inbound and outbound peak diagrams. So it was decided that if fares could be made economical enough to generate an off-peak demand, there would be a net gain (i.e. some low fares meant more revenue than virtually no full price fares. It was also seen that off-peak travel could become a 'habit' for many if there was a fixed-price entry fee such that for a relatively small annual outlay, (I think that the Network Card was originally £10 pa). This was a big sales pitch in the region and it paid off to the extent that many of the daytime services now have not insignificant loads all day. Take away the railcard and the higher prices will certainly hit demand.

... So long as the people who are paying 50% more don't travel 33% less, the Railway gets more money. In my opinion, the concept of a Network Railcard offering discounts at all off-peak times should be replaced by promotions specifically targetted on 'quiet' days in the calendar, kind of like a soft form of 'surge pricing'.

I don't think that will work, holders of Network Cards consider that the commitment is worth the discount and leisure travelling in the region has to a degree been normalised to rail, which is just as well because London proportionately has less motorway/high grade trunk road access, unlike provincial cities where there was considerable spending from central government on roads. The nearest that motorways get to central London is over 10km (both the M1 and M4 are over that distance), whereas several cities don't even have a built-up area with that radius yet have motorways running right through their centres.

 

[philosopher]

I don't think that will work, holders of Network Cards consider that the commitment is worth the discount and leisure travelling in the region has to a degree been normalised to rail, which is just as well because London proportionately has less motorway/high grade trunk road access, unlike provincial cities where there was considerable spending from central government on roads. The nearest that motorways get to central London is over 10km (both the M1 and M4 are over that distance), whereas several cities don't even have a built-up area with that radius yet have motorways running right through their centres.

I attend a lot of hiking meet-ups from London in the SE England, which will always be on weekends. Plus my sister lives in the Network Card area and I will usually visit her on weekends too. So I will end up using it at least twice a month. The Network Card is particularly useful for these journeys and it usually gets paid back within two to three months. The minimum fare restriction is not an issue for me as I only ever use it on weekends. So I would be quite out of pocket if it was not there.

It does seem rather unfair on those not living in London or the Southeast though.

 

[route101]

Scrap the pre 10am min fare .