Introduction of West Midlands Trains "FlexCarnet"

[Bungle965]

WMT have (as part of their franchise obligations) to introduce a Carnet style ticket, which is what they have been trialling over the past few months on a few flows.

Now it appears that it is to be rolled out to/from London and all West Midlands Travel to Work flows.

The ticket looks rather similar to other carnet's valid anytime, self-date before boarding etc. While it gives you a whopping 5% off buying Standard Anytime Day Return tickets.

Oh and to go with the RDG loving everything to be "Smart" they can be retailed to smartcard.

 

[Bletchleyite]

So not worth it for anyone who has a Network Railcard (to use on the return half). Well done, WMT. Do you not think say 34% discount would work better?

I would like such a product but I'm not using it if it costs me more.

 

[Jurg]

This looks like it'll be of extremely limited usefulness. Tickets only valid for one month, and no break of journey allowed. Not likely I'll be partaking, despite me perhaps being in the target demographic of those who travel often but insufficiently to justify a season ticket.

Plus it's unclear how the tickets would be validated. My local station has no barriers and no "touch in" points. Are WMR going to be rolling out infrastructure onto all stations or rolling stock?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Only one month? Even more useless, then. Any such product should be valid for 12 months in my view.

Does anyone detect the bull and bluster of a TOC that's been told to introduce something but doesn't actually want to, and is therefore making it as useless as possible within the letter of the contract they signed on the matter?

 

[Bungle965]

and no break of journey allowed.

Break of journey outward and return journey is allowed.

 

[Jurg]

Break of journey outward and return journey is allowed.

Attached is a screenshot of brfares for the route I looked up. I looked up a few more random ones and they were the same. Unless I'm missing something...?

 

[Western Sunset]

I don't find the wording very clear at all. No break of journey is clear enough, but does it mean that the first journey one makes after buying the carnet has to be within one month, and others can be beyond that?

 

[kieron]

It's in the franchise agreement. They have to offer carnets for journeys between stations in the London Comuter Area and within the West Midlands Ticket Area by 1st April 2020. They don't have to make them good value.

The carnets are supposed to be for both anytime and off peak day returns, but I can only find standard and 1st class anytime ones.

 

[30907]

Struggling to find information online, or even an example on BRFares.
Any chance of a link?

 

[kieron]

brfares.com has data for an "ITSO CARNET 10" ticket here. They have a ticket here called a "GRAB &GO ANYTIME 1ST". I haven't found any reference to tickets being sold under this name, but the ticket code it uses is supposed to have had the name "CARNET PEAK 1ST" for part of last year.

The most recent thing I can find officially about it is something on the LNR site which says:

For those commuters who don’t buy season tickets, we are accelerating the launch of flexible carnet ticket, essentially a “10 journey ticket” where you pay a reduced rate for 10 return journeys but don’t necessarily need to travel on consecutive days, like a traditional season ticket. This will be launched on our new smart card when the new readers come on-line over the coming weeks.

I can't find anything to say the tickets have been launched, so I imagine this means they haven't been, and anything we can say now about these tickets is just speculation.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Presumably the reason for break of journey not being permitted isn't because they want to be objectionable about it, but rather because break of journey doesn't work with "touch in and out" type technology. While I think it furthers the need for a "Milton Keynes Group" for at least some tickets, for instance if you had a carnet to Birmingham on your card and one got used up because you touched out having travelled Euston to Bletchley having forgotten that that carnet had run out, you'd be a bit miffed at it using one of those instead. So "no BoJ" is probably the only practical implementation.

LU style contactless would of course be even nicer

 

[Wallsendmag]

brfares.com has data for an "ITSO CARNET 10" ticket here. They have a ticket here called a "GRAB &GO ANYTIME 1ST". I haven't found any reference to tickets being sold under this name, but the ticket code it uses is supposed to have had the name "CARNET PEAK 1ST" for part of last year.

The most recent thing I can find officially about it is something on the LNR site which says:



I can't find anything to say the tickets have been launched, so I imagine this means they haven't been, and anything we can say now about these tickets is just speculation.

i believe WMT may be doing a pilot with ITSO on Mobile

 

[Bungle965]

GRAB &GO ANYTIME 1ST".

From what I understand, "Grab and Go" was it's previous name, that's been dropped however.

I can't find anything to say the tickets have been launched, so I imagine this means they haven't been, and anything we can say now about these tickets is just speculation

They've been officially available since the end of March, however I can't imagine many people are going to be purchasing the ticket anytime soon, so perhaps that explains why there isn't much (or any) publicity about it.