LNER to pilot removal of Off-Peak tickets

[Tester]

Reply to Hadders.....

I'm pretty confident that that is the answer to B), but that hasn't given me what I asked for in my imaginary transaction!

In the normal world outside railway ticketing, 'Valid to' is not the same as 'Must state the specific destination even if over twice the price'!

I am most definitely not a lawyer, but would the law regard the two terms as having the same meaning?

 

[styles]

I enjoy the bad comms around this.

When will the trial end?​

The trial is planned as a pilot for the new simpler fares structure on the LNER network, however, this is subject to a review of the results of the trial.
Should the trial prove successful by demonstrating its popularity with passengers and encouraging uptake of rail travel, a wider rollout of the simpler fares structure could take place across the LNER network.

That literally doesn't answer the question.

 

[ainsworth74]

It wouldn't have occured to me to use "surge pricing". Am I discouraged from using "fleecing", "price hike", "profiteering" or "rip-off"?

I'm sure LNER would be very unhappy with the use of such terms to describe their passenger friendly improvements to railway ticketing and could undermine the trial and risk the benefits of this scheme being hidden behind a cloud of unjustified negativity therefore they would, I'm sure, encourage all rail staff to embrace the changes and act as ambassadors for the idea with any customers that they may encounter.

There, I think that's my application to work for LNERs PR team successfully sorted!

 

[Bletchleyite]

I suspect this particular wording comes from the media, who have previously referred to the proposals under those kinds of terms.

It's a well-known (and hated) term in London which many of LNER's target market of young, carless Londoners (so no competition bar the airlines) will know and dislike well from when Uber crank prices up at busy times - it's actually the term Uber themselves use for it (which is refreshingly honest compared to LNER). But there is a more sensible basis for it with Uber - by increasing the prices you attract more drivers out to work, thus increasing capacity. It's not just about profiteering/pricing people off - indeed I believe much of it goes to the individual driver to encourage them to work.

I enjoy the bad comms around this.

That literally doesn't answer the question.

It's at least nominally a two year trial.

 

[trainstrainstr]

I enjoy the bad comms around this.


That literally doesn't answer the question.

It’s a two year trial, it’s on their website somewhere

My FOI here was certainly worthwhile... A shame they couldn't find the presentation which I've personally laid eyes on though (doubt that's done on purpose -- FOI is a very arduous role and LNER's FOI staff are very kind and always do their best in my experience).

What is also interesting is the DfT's FOI response to me, too (well, one of the three duplicates they sent): https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/regulated_fares_on_lner#incoming-2553800



So essentially confirming the fear of removing regulated fares, and replacing the concept with a promise that two-thirds of advances will be priced at no more than half the anytime fare.

Wonderful.

Why don’t you just email the FOI team directly and tell them exactly what you’re looking for? From my experience, when you search systems for information the results tend to be quite large but you can narrow it down with terminology that’s within a document. They don’t have “staff” they literally have one person and what’s the betting she’s about to quit her job - did you see the time they were responding! I had a look this morning after refreshing the page after midnight and some replies didn’t appear until after 1am.

 

[miklcct]

It’s a two year trial, it’s on their website somewhere


Why don’t you just email the FOI team directly and tell them exactly what you’re looking for? From my experience, when you search systems for information the results tend to be quite large but you can narrow it down with terminology that’s within a document. They don’t have “staff” they literally have one person and what’s the betting she’s about to quit her job - did you see the time they were responding! I had a look this morning after refreshing the page after midnight and some replies didn’t appear until after 1am.

My FOI request has also just been responded:

My request was below:

I would like the details for the regulated fares for the National Rail London - Edinburgh journey.
Specifically, I would like to know that, which ticket type (in terms of ticket name and 3-letter ticket code) is regulated and which fare basket it belongs to.
I would like the details of the regulated fare for the following fare revisions:
- The Jan 2019 fare round, before return tickets are abolished
- The current fare as of Jan 2024
- The fare with effect from February 2024, after super off-peak tickets are abolished

The response is below:

For the London to Edinburgh route any permitted flow, the Super Off-Peak product (Supersaver, code SSR) was used for regulation. In 2020 a trial of single leg pricing started on that route meaning the Super Off-Peak single (code SSS) was treated as the regulated fare
instead.

followed by the same thing mentioned in #1230:

Following the introduction of single leg pricing across LNER in June 2023, the majority of regulated fares on the ECML are super off-peak singles. These will remain the regulated fares for all routes apart from the three “Simpler Fares” trial routes listed above. On these routes the super Off-peak singles have been removed and alternative to the old regulatory model are being tested to ensure a wide range of affordable tickets remain available for passengers. LNER have committed to a set of assurances which are publicly available and can be found on their website at the following link https://www.lner.co.uk/tickets-savings/. I have reproduced them below for your convenience.

1. There is a maximum price: the “Fully Flexible” (Anytime) ticket.
2. A large selection of cheap seats: at least 2/3 of all “Fixed” (Advance) tickets sold will be priced at 50% or less than the price of the Fully Flexible (Anytime) ticket.
3. A maximum of 10% of all “Fixed” (Advance) tickets will be sold at 80% or more of the Fully Flexible (Anytime) price

These replace the previous regulation and form part of the contractual agreement between the operator and the Department which is being updated to reflect the new assurances above in relation to the trial flows.

 

[kkong]

Pilot Success Criteria

We will measure the success of the pilot primarily on customer satisfaction and commercial performance.

So no quantitative details provided of what "customer satisfaction" and "commercial performance" outcomes would be deemed successful.

That's convenient - for LNER.

 

[trainstrainstr]

So no quantitative details provided of what "customer satisfaction" and "commercial performance" outcomes would be deemed successful.

That's convenient - for LNER.

They can’t provide quantitative details if they don’t have them. That’s the point of FOI, it’s access to recorded information. And I am fairly certain after having a conversation with someone close to this that the KPIs are not currently defined, so there isn’t anything to provide. Might be worthwhile asking at the half way point - I’d hope that they evaluate at least then. Or am I too hopeful…

 

[AdamWW]

So no quantitative details provided of what "customer satisfaction" and "commercial performance" outcomes would be deemed successful.

I presume they won't limit this to people who can still use their services but also find out how many people have been pushed away because they can no longer afford the flexibility they need?

Then again they say "customer" satisfaction so perhaps that's not how it will work.

 

[trainstrainstr]

I presume they won't limit this to people who can still use their services but also find out how many people have been pushed away because they can no longer afford the flexibility they need?

Then again they say "customer" satisfaction so perhaps that's not how it will work.

Playing devils advocate - if you were trying to justify a new scheme, would you want to ask those people who had been affected negatively? Surely you’d just ask those people who had bought the ticket and you wouldn’t survey a general population. I’d be interested to know how fair and balanced they intend to make those reviews.

 

[AdamWW]

Playing devils advocate - if you were trying to justify a new scheme, would you want to ask those people who had been affected negatively? Surely you’d just ask those people who had bought the ticket and you wouldn’t survey a general population.

It would be nice to think that rather than trying to find evidence to justify doing what they want, they would actually conduct a fair trial.

The fact that they don't appear to have set the criteria they will judge it by doesn't suggest any attempt to play fair though.

Not really a trial in my view if you can't or won't say what success looks like ahead of time.

I’d be interested to know how fair and balanced they intend to make those reviews.

I'd be most interested to see the actual survey they used to justify this "trial".
When they concluded that the majority (just) think that 1 hour either way is enough flexibility, did they ask them how far in advance they were able to commit to this lack of flexibility?

They seem very keen to skate over the fact that the impact of these changes depends hugely on to what extent fares comparable to the previous off peak fares are available just before travel. And note that none of their "assurances" even touch on this. They could stop selling advances 21 days before travel and still meet all of them. (I don't think they would do that, but I could imagine part of the trial being to see what happens for a few months if they make anytimes the only fares available on the day of travel).

 

[AlterEgo]

Reply to Hadders.....

I'm pretty confident that that is the answer to B), but that hasn't given me what I asked for in my imaginary transaction!

In the normal world outside railway ticketing, 'Valid to' is not the same as 'Must state the specific destination even if over twice the price'!

I am most definitely not a lawyer, but would the law regard the two terms as having the same meaning?

It would be almost impossible to determine what the cheapest "valid" ticket would be as there are overdistance tickets, ones on bizarre routes, splits, etc etc. This is impartial retailing 101, we don't have to like it, but it has been the case for nearly 30 years now.

 

[AdamWW]

Something that just occurred to me on my lunchtime constitutional...

Make a mistake and get on the wrong train with one of those nasty old fashioned confusing off peak tickets and all they're supposed to do is charge you the difference.

Do the same thing with these new simple to understand "semi-flex" tickets and you're committing a criminal offence.

I wonder if they surveyed people to find out if they thought that would make their life better?

And if anyone is 100% confident that nobody would ever be prosecuted for getting on a late running train that was scheduled to leave before the 70 minute window but turned up later I suggest they look at the disputes thread on this forum.

 

[BRX]

Additionally, we have committed to the following assurances to provide a large range of good value fares within the simpler fares pilot.

1. There is a maximum price: the “Fully Flexible” (Anytime) ticket.
2. A large selection of cheap seats: at least 2/3 of all “Fixed” (Advance) tickets sold will be priced at 50% or less than the price of the Fully Flexible (Anytime) ticket.
3. A maximum of 10% of all “Fixed” (Advance) tickets will be sold at 80% or more of the Fully Flexible (Anytime) price

This is all a bit meaningless without knowing the proportion of Advance : Semi flex tickets made available.

If there were a ratio of one Advance to every nine Semi Flex tickets then of all the non-anytime tickets available:

- 6.6% would be guaranteed to be less than 50% of the anytime price
- 2.4% would be guaranteed to be less than 80% of the anytime price
- 91% of tickets could be anything up to the full anytime price.

(if I've got my sums right)

Furthermore, it doesn't say anything about how they can be distributed across services. So if you want to travel on a particular train there's no guarantee of anything being available at all, even booked long in advance and even if it would currently be considered an "off-peak" service.

 

[AdamWW]

This is all a bit meaningless without knowing the proportion of Advance : Semi flex tickets made available.

If there were a ratio of one Advance to every nine Semi Flex tickets then of all the non-anytime tickets available:

- 6.6% would be guaranteed to be less than 50% of the anytime price
- 2.4% would be guaranteed to be less than 80% of the anytime price
- 91% of tickets could be anything up to the full anytime price.

(if I've got my sums right)

Furthermore, it doesn't say anything about how they can be distributed across services. So if you want to travel on a particular train there's no guarantee of anything being available at all, even booked long in advance and even if it would currently be considered an "off-peak" service.

Hmm. I read that as that the semi-flexes being included in the totals when they say "fixed". I realise that's not what they say, but since semi-flexes seem to be charged as an advance plus a premium for the generous flexibility I suspect that's what they mean.

But never mind how they are distributed across services or how close to the travel date they're available - there is no committment to what percentage of seats will be available as advance tickets.

They could restrict advance sales to one train a week and still meet their "assurances".

They could also effectively become an all "advance" railway by putting the anytime fares up to £5000 in the next fares round - I don't think anything in principle prevents them from doing that.

Of course for commercial reasons they're unlikely do either of these and if they are selling advances they will then have some constraints thanks to these rules.

But they don't appear to have been set up in a very robust manner and they look as if they're designed to look as if they provide much more than they actually do.

Of course committment 1 isn't a committment at all - just a statement of fact.

 

[kkong]

They can’t provide quantitative details if they don’t have them. That’s the point of FOI, it’s access to recorded information. And I am fairly certain after having a conversation with someone close to this that the KPIs are not currently defined, so there isn’t anything to provide. Might be worthwhile asking at the half way point - I’d hope that they evaluate at least then. Or am I too hopeful…

I think you are misunderstanding what I am saying.

I don't expect them to have data at the start of the pilot.

What I do expect is for the success criteria of the pilot to be clearly defined (and documented) before the pilot starts.

If - as you say - the criteria are not yet defined, then that would indicate the pilot is a sham (as most of us suspect) and the success criteria will retrospectively be set so they match the results.

 

[BRX]

Hmm. I read that as that the semi-flexes being included in the totals when they say "fixed". I realise that's not what they say, but since semi-flexes seem to be charged as an advance plus a premium for the generous flexibility I suspect that's what they mean.

Maybe you are right... but if you look at other information on that same page...

 

[Bletchleyite]

Hmm. I read that as that the semi-flexes being included in the totals when they say "fixed". I realise that's not what they say, but since semi-flexes seem to be charged as an advance plus a premium for the generous flexibility I suspect that's what they mean.

The semi flexes appear to come from the same quota as the Advances but have £20 added on, at least at present. In effect (if not in implementation) you are paying a £20 supplement for the +/- 70 minutes flexibility, but otherwise buying the same Advance.

 

[bakerstreet]

[

Now this bit I do agree with !

(“PS these are the ones we want to scrap, all the best LNER.”)

Off-Peak/Super Off-Peak


For travel on any train outside of peak travel times (typically Monday to Friday), or on any train at weekends or on public holidays. In Standard Class, there may be Off-Peak or Super Off-Peak Single tickets available depending on your journey, and in First Class, Off-Peak Single tickets may be available. These fares offer the best value flexibility for customers who aren't sure exactly when they will travel.

 

[kkong]

These [Off-Peak & Super Off-Peak] ticket types offer large periods of flexibility for customers; however these are known to be the most difficult to understand and often provide far greater flexibility than customers need.

When did you ever hear a customer complaining that a product provided more flexibility than they (thought that they) needed at the time of purchase?

 

[Bletchleyite]

When did you ever hear a customer complaining that a product provided more flexibility than they (thought that they) needed at the time of purchase?

Some people do complain that off peak restrictions can be confusing, and they often are. There are ways around that, though - XC have standardised on 0930 which is clear and memorable, or you can make it easy to change the reservation online or on the app with only valid trains being offered (and if you select a peak one it showing you the appropriate excess and letting you pay there and then if you want that).

But again this isn't what it's really for - fare increases are what it's really for.

 

[kkong]

Some people do complain that off peak restrictions can be confusing, and they often are. There are ways around that, though - XC have standardised on 0930 which is clear and memorable, or you can make it easy to change the reservation online or on the app with only valid trains being offered (and if you select a peak one it showing you the appropriate excess and letting you pay there and then if you want that).

But again this isn't what it's really for - fare increases are what it's really for.

What you are describing is the "confusing" part, not the extra flexibility over and above what they thought they required at the time of purchase.

No customer is going to complain at being able to use a train (say) 2 hours later than they originally planned without having to pay extra.

 

[Bletchleyite]

No customer is going to complain at being able to use a train (say) 2 hours later than they originally planned without having to pay extra.

Of course they aren't. But the survey will have been about what the minimum you'd accept is, or about what you normally do with the intention of finding that out.

 

[kkong]

Of course they aren't. But the survey will have been about what the minimum you'd accept is, or about what you normally do with the intention of finding that out.

And of course, we don't get to see the (potentially leading) questions which were asked in the LNER commissioned survey.

All that LNER have disclosed is that slightly more than half of the respondents said that +/- 1 hour was either "about right" or "more than enough" (i.e. two results aggregated to give the slight positive result which LNER present).

And therefore 47% of customers and 45% of non-customers believed that +/- 1 hour was "less than enough" flexibility.

I am sure we can all agree that the blatant one-sided choosing of facts presented, spin and non-discussion of certain issues in this Staff Brief is disingenuous to say the least.

 

[Mainline421]

And of course, we don't get to see the (potentially leading) questions which were asked in the LNER commissioned survey.

All that LNER have disclosed is that slightly more than half of the respondents said that +/- 1 hour was either "about right" or "more than enough" (i.e. two results aggregated to give the slight positive result which LNER present).

And therefore 47% of customers and 45% of non-customers believed that +/- 1 hour was "less than enough" flexibility.

I am sure we can all agree that the blatant one-sided choosing of facts presented, spin and non-discussion of certain issues in this Staff Brief is disingenuous to say the least.

We do actually, although could be cherry picked to an extent and still doesn't look good for LNER either way. 35% of people said the supplement provides less flexibility than they need, and it wasn't even presented as a replacement for Off-Peak tickets https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/simpler_fares#incoming-2552001

 

[Bletchleyite]

We do actually, although could be cherry picked to an extent but still doesn't look good for LNER either way. 35% of people said the supplement provides less flexibility than they need, and it wasn't even presented as a replacement for Off-Peak tickets https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/simpler_fares#incoming-2552001

It wouldn't be my choice. I'd rather they didn't have that extra "tier" but instead added some flexibility to normal Advances, e.g. abolished the admin fee for changes. And maybe allowed a change within that sort of window at a fixed £20 fee payable only if you made the change (unless the fare difference was less in which case that). And remove the break of journey restriction.

 

[sheff1]

There are ways around that, though - XC have standardised on 0930 which is clear and memorable,

It has been pointed out more than once that XC have done no such thing. I don't know why you continue to say they have.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It has been pointed out more than once that XC have done no such thing. I don't know why you continue to say they have.

They almost universally have. Pretty much all their flows are 2V which is "Not valid for trains scheduled to depart after 04:29 and before 09:30." with break of journey permitted. There may be exceptions but it is by far their main one.

From some random checks 2V is used on:
Bristol-Manchester
Plymouth-Newcastle
Cardiff-Birmingham
Stamford-Cambridge
(I can't be bothered checking every single flow, but that encompasses some long and short distance ones - I'd be interested to know if any XC-set flows *don't* follow it, I've not found one yet!).

There are also cases where they've got other TOCs to follow for their flows, e.g. 9I (London-Manchester) contains "For journeys to/via Birmingham on Cross Country see restriction code 2V". This isn't completely universal but I've seen it on a few.

 

[Watershed]

From some random checks 2V is used on:
Bristol-Manchester
Plymouth-Newcastle
Cardiff-Birmingham
Stamford-Cambridge
(I can't be bothered checking every single flow, but that encompasses some long and short distance ones - I'd be interested to know if any XC-set flows *don't* follow it, I've not found one yet!).

There are quite a few where they don't, but I'm not about to name them here. It's fair to say the vast majority of XC-set SVRs have that restriction, but it's not universal by any stretch of the imagination. Many of their most popular flows are also not priced by them (e.g. journeys within the West Midlands or around Yorkshire) so the restrictions are necessarily different.

 

[sheff1]

I'd be interested to know if any XC-set flows *don't* follow it, I've not found one yet!).

There are plenty but detailing them on here is not a good idea.