Knutsford-Birkenhead fare is bad value for money

[pemma]

Knutsford-Birkenhead without splitting is £17.50 for an Anytime Day Return, there is no Off-Peak Day Return.

Knutsford-Blackpool (a much longer distance) is £17.60 for an Off Peak Day Return.

The Knutsford-Birkenhead fare is appalling value for money at off-peak times.

 

[bb21]

Knutsford-Birkenhead without splitting is £17.50 for an Anytime Day Return, there is no Off-Peak Day Return.

Knutsford-Blackpool (a much longer distance) is £17.60 for an Off Peak Day Return.

Your point being ...?

The first one is priced by EMT, and the second is priced by TPE.

The Knutsford-Birkenhead fare is appalling value for money at off-peak times.

An EMT fare.

 

[pemma]

An EMT fare.

How? EMT don't even serve any stations along the route Knutsford-Chester-Birkenhead and the fare isn't valid via Stockport.

 

[yorkie]

How? EMT don't even serve any stations along the route Knutsford-Chester-Birkenhead and the fare isn't valid via Stockport.

But none of those factors stop the fare being set by EMT.

You're not suggesting the people who decided which TOC should set which fare looked at each individual flow in detail and determined which routes are permitted and what would be logical are you?

If Northern want to bid to 'own' that flow, there is a procedure for that.

 

[pemma]

But none of those factors stop the fare being set by EMT.

You're not suggesting the people who decided which TOC should set which fare looked at each individual flow in detail and determined which routes are permitted and what would be logical are you?

Out of interest who sets the Northwich to Birkenhead fare as the pricing seems inconsistent with Knutsford to Birkenhead?

The example I used to use when people talked about the non-availability of Off Peak fares was Knutsford to Stalybridge Standard Day Return used to be more expensive than Knutsford to Huddersfield Cheap Day return with Knutsford to Stalybridge having no off-peak fare. However, with price changes over the past few years Knutsford to Huddersfield Off Peak Day Return is now about 20p more than Knutsford to Stalybridge Anytime Day Return.

 

[ainsworth74]

Out of interest who sets the Northwich to Birkenhead fare as the pricing seems inconsistent with Knutsford to Birkenhead?

Via Chester is set by Northern and the Any Permitted is set by ATW.

 

[calc7]

Out of interest who sets the Northwich to Birkenhead fare as the pricing seems inconsistent with Knutsford to Birkenhead?

The example I used to use when people talked about the non-availability of Off Peak fares was Knutsford to Stalybridge Standard Day Return used to be more expensive than Knutsford to Huddersfield Cheap Day return with Knutsford to Stalybridge having no off-peak fare. However, with price changes over the past few years Knutsford to Huddersfield Off Peak Day Return is now about 20p more than Knutsford to Stalybridge Anytime Day Return.

See here

Via Chester priced by Northern; Any Permitted priced by ATW.

Knutsford to Stalybridge is priced by Northern, Knutsford to Huddersfield is priced by TransPennine Express. The latter has been reported as gradually tightening its restrictions and rising fares over years, as its routes are at capacity.

 

[pemma]

See here

Via Chester priced by Northern; Any Permitted priced by ATW.

That makes even less sense than EMT pricing Knutsford-Birkenhead. While it makes little sense I can just about work out why it would be under EMT's control: Mobberley to Liverpool valid via EMT, while Knutsford is near Mobberley and Liverpool is near Birkenhead. However, Northwich-Birkenhead under ATW sounds like when the FNW were handing across control of the fares for North Wales services they threw in a few bonus fares.

Knutsford to Stalybridge is priced by Northern, Knutsford to Huddersfield is priced by TransPennine Express. The latter has been reported as gradually tightening its restrictions and rising fares over years, as its routes are at capacity.

So that would have been a good example a few years ago.

 

[Wirral]

Merseyrail terrible value all over, cant get a return other than a day return. Leaving on a Monday and returning later in the week have to buy 2 singles.

 

[calc7]

Merseyrail terrible value all over, cant get a return other than a day return. Leaving on a Monday and returning later in the week have to buy 2 singles.

If you mean short journeys within Merseyside, then that is pretty much par for the course all over the country. There are flows of dozens of miles with no period returns. To/from airport stations tend to be exceptions.

Some believe it's to stop fraudulent use of tickets by using the same return portion many times in shorter journeys where the guard may not have an opportunity to cancel it.

 

[Goatboy]

Not as bad this one.

Plymouth to Great Malvern: £64
Plymouth to Hereford £70

You can go via Hereford to get to Great Malvern!

Plymouth to Evesham: £97.50 - Evesham is just 20 miles from Malvern and is closer to Plymouth! The reason of course is that the Evesham ticket is routed via Reading, which massively inflates the price. Just bizarre that there is no route Worcester ticket offered which would be considerably cheaper. The General Public want to get from A to B and neither know nor care about the intracies of ticket flow and routing points. BRFares does show a Route Worcester ticket - at 70 quid - but I can't get NRES to offer it even when forcing via Worcester and getting Plymouth > Bristol > Worcester > Evesham.

 

[calc7]

Not as bad this one.

Plymouth to Great Malvern: £64
Plymouth to Hereford £70

You can go via Hereford to get to Great Malvern!
.

Huh? You're comparing apples with oranges.

The £64 ticket is an Off-Peak Return, priced by CrossCountry - taking code GJ (valid after 0833 in most instances) whilst the £70 fare is an Anytime Return, valid on any train.

If you make these comparisons on some routes (say Manchester to London), the difference is 4x!

Interesting that this ticket takes GJ rather than 2V. I imagine it use to be a FGW-priced flow.

 

[bb21]

Just bizarre that there is no route Worcester ticket offered which would be considerably cheaper. The General Public want to get from A to B and neither know nor care about the intracies of ticket flow and routing points. BRFares does show a Route Worcester ticket - at 70 quid - but I can't get NRES to offer it even when forcing via Worcester and getting Plymouth > Bristol > Worcester > Evesham.

This fare is available, at £70.50, and I can get NRES to show it without any problem. The same applies to WebTIS, and thetrainline engines.

What times did you search for? You might have to check alternative departure times of the day as the FGW service between Cheltenham and Worcester is not very frequent.

 

[David]

That makes even less sense than EMT pricing Knutsford-Birkenhead.

EMT also used to price the Scunthorpe - New Street flow (rather strangely), something I took advantage off a few times. The XC restriction then is the same as now, "not valid before 0930". However, as EMT priced the ticket, the restriction was "not valid before 0900". The number of times XC guards pulled me up and tried to give me a UPFN (once threatened with an MG11 as well) as they noted that to have caught the 095bungle XC from Doncaster, I would have to have started my journey before 0930. Needless to say, none of them got very far.

But, the brfares website now shows the SCU - BHM flow is now priced by XC. Can anyone confirm that with advantix please?

 

[ainsworth74]

NFM 12 has SCU - BHM being priced by XC also.

 

[calc7]

XC seem to have a lot of success at taking fares off other companies (for instance SCU-BHM, lots in the South West, the Birmingham to Banbury corridor). Does nobody else ever challenge theirs, or because their increases are so high and restrictions so draconian do they just shrug and decide it probably means more revenue for themselves anyway?!

 

[Goatboy]

Huh? You're comparing apples with oranges.

The £64 ticket is an Off-Peak Return, priced by CrossCountry - taking code GJ (valid after 0833 in most instances) whilst the £70 fare is an Anytime Return, valid on any train.

If you make these comparisons on some routes (say Manchester to London), the difference is 4x!

Interesting that this ticket takes GJ rather than 2V. I imagine it use to be a FGW-priced flow.

But there doesn't appear to BE an Offpeak return to Hereford - so from a customers perspective, irrespective of the foibles of the system, if they wanted to travel to Hereford its cheaper to travel to Great Malvern via Hereford than it would be to use exactly the same trains to Hereford. Bizarre.

I stand corrected on the Evesham one though. But from a passenger perspective it's annoying to have to pay considerably more for railway geography reasons. It isn't really the passengers problem that you have to go via Reading to get to Evesham when Evesham is only 10 miles from Worcester, so to have to pay a shedload more as a result is not particularly fair. But then of course if they DID price it similarly to Worcs and allowed travel via Reading then you'd get people using that ticket just to get to Reading. I can see why its done by when looking at just getting from A to B you can see why it's annoying.

 

[yorkie]

But there doesn't appear to BE an Offpeak return to Hereford - so from a customers perspective, irrespective of the foibles of the system, if they wanted to travel to Hereford its cheaper to travel to Great Malvern via Hereford than it would be to use exactly the same trains to Hereford. Bizarre.

Yes, this does happen. Occasionally TOCs will fix these 'anomalies'. In nearly all cases they take the view that the cheaper ticket should be increased in price, and very rarely they will lower the more expensive fare. You could try writing to FGW to see what happens.

For this particular flow, there does appear to be a good case for introducing a lower priced Off Peak Return from Plymouth to Hereford avoiding Birmingham, however it seems too good to be true that FGW would actually do that.

 

[pemma]

Yes, this does happen. Occasionally TOCs will fix these 'anomalies'. In nearly all cases they take the view that the cheaper ticket should be increased in price, and very rarely they will lower the more expensive fare. You could try writing to FGW to see what happens.

In the case of Knutsford-Chester costing more than Knutsford-Frodsham via Chester, Northern have lowered the Knutsford-Chester fares BUT they've increased the more popular Knutsford-Manchester fares above the average regulated increase at the same time.
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Some believe it's to stop fraudulent use of tickets by using the same return portion many times in shorter journeys where the guard may not have an opportunity to cancel it.

Buxton to Manchester is a commuter route where a period return does exist.

An Anytime Return is £15.50, an Off Peak Day Single is £9.10 and a monthly season is £248.10.

In July there are 22 working days so the monthly season works out as £11.27 return per day.

The cost of one Anytime Return plus 21 Off Peak Day Singles would be £206.60 so Northern could potentially lose £41.50 from a fraudster if no ticket inspections took place on evening trains.

However, if every day one person tried to buy an Anytime Return with the hope of reusing the return part and there was a full ticket inspection every evening then Northern would actually gain £93.06 in revenue over them buying monthly seasons.