LNER to pilot removal of Off-Peak tickets

[takno]

TOCS already have booking engines though and we have somehow managed to pay for lots of them rather than 1. That is a huge amount of duplication.

So we have duplication of similar functionality of booking engines in public ownership and a slightly better private sector effort that is attracting loads of custom because of its bit better UX but also because it feels like the one stop shop that the various and similar TOC engines don’t feel like. A unified public option would surely have been able to spend less overall in development than all the individual ones to get to a better place because it had more to spend per function.

If I use only LNER, which is a reasonable and functional booking engine (albeit not offering split ticketing) then my 5% is going directly back into the system isn’t it? Whereas if I use the Trainline it is leaking.

Okay maybe 1% of my 5% (if that surely) might be going on continuous improvement of the engine, hosting etc, but could it ever really cost 5%? 5% of an anytime fare is about £10. Even £5 per ticket feels like massive overkill as a genuine cost of sale. If it is £5 per ticket then close the bloody websites down and open some more ticket offices!

Depending on the proportion of different cards used, between about 1% and 2% would go on card and banking charges. On top of that you've got the costs of issuing physical tickets, which could easily be another 1-2%, plus costs of fraud which might be reasonably substantial for railways. Then you've got the costs of running the engine in terms of computing infrastructure, and the development costs which could quite easily be 1%.

I don't think the trainline is a particular positive, and ultimately I'm not sure that the competition actually has particularly driven quality, or that we have a noticeably higher-quality booking system than several other countries with a large network (although there are certainly worse ones). I don't think the amount we pay out to ticket agents is particularly unreasonable though.

 

[Haywain]

Lumo beg to differ.

Without the subsidies to Network Rail I doubt there would be a Lumo.

 

[800001]

Without the subsidies to Network Rail I doubt there would be a Lumo.

Don’t open access pay less to use railway that TOCs?

 

[ModernRailways]

TOCS already have booking engines though and we have somehow managed to pay for lots of them rather than 1. That is a huge amount of duplication.

Most TOCs use the Trainline booking engine, the First group TOCs use Worldline, Avanti and C2C use PICO4UK, GTR and SouthEastern use On Track Retail, and iirc Grand Central, Chiltern and TfW use Silverrail. LNER uses Vix and is the only TOC to do so.

Do we need 5? Which other countries have that many?

I could see an argument if they were competing to give you the lowest ‘booking’ cost by competing over the 5% resulting in an actual difference in cost of tickets (although 5% is not really enough to kick off proper competitive behaviour), but I really can’t see the point of that level of duplication where the only meaningful innovation is offering split ticketing (which feels more like a naughty try on that might get shut down any minute rather than a proper thing).

Most countries don't have many multiple companies operating the railway, but yes, even within Europe there are multiple different booking engines. As an example in Germany you have DB which uses Amadeus, but tickets for their trains can still also be booked through Trainline amongst other websites each with their own booking engines.

 

[Starmill]

Lumo beg to differ.

Erm, no they don't! Lumo are allowed under government policy to use state-owned infrastructure. Even if they were allowed to buy it all for £1, their meagre profits combined with GC and HT wouldn't come close to the cost of maintaining it, even a slimmed-down format.

 

[Adam Williams]

If I use only LNER, which is a reasonable and functional booking engine (albeit not offering split ticketing) then my 5% is going directly back into the system isn’t it? Whereas if I use the Trainline it is leaking.

Increasingly it's being spent on cashback/perks and odd looking puppets. And besides, LNER don't do anything themselves anyway when it comes to software. All the tech is outsourced to the private sector: Silverrail, Vix, FuturePlatforms, Softwire.

I 100% think some of the smaller retailers operate more efficiently. 3 people maintain TrainSplit's journey planning software. One of them works 1 day a week!

Whereas if I use the Trainline it is leaking.

If by "leaking" you mean funding new trials of technology with TOCs, actually powering most of the TOC apps/websites, paying UK staff (which means income tax, VAT on the discretionary purchases they go on to make), paying for a UK office, paying for the business rates for the office then sure - it leaks.

 

[bakerstreet]

This article may be of interest, albeit a rather depressing read. It was linked to on Linked In by Stuart Thomas Comms Director LNER. He is still of the view that the trial’s purpose is to shift passengers from air to rail.

(I’ve included all content in this poar, you don’t need to transfer to Linked In)

This was his post:

Stuart Thomas on LinkedIn: Is LNER's fares simplification really that bad?

Worth a read if you’re interested in a balanced view of our “Simpler Fares” changes. They’re all about making train travel more attractive, getting people to…

www.linkedin.com

Worth a read if you’re interested in a balanced view of our “Simpler Fares” changes.

They’re all about making train travel more attractive, getting people to switch from &✈️ and onto the train.

This is the article.

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/lner...&utm_medium=member_ios&utm_campaign=share_via

Is LNER's fares simplification really that bad?​

Richard Rowson

Richard Rowson​

Making travel better through technology​

Published Feb 17, 2024
+ Follow
In case you missed it, LNER recently launched the next stage of the long running programme of fares simplification.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the changes have received quite a negative reaction,focusing on the scenarios where customers will lose flexibility, or pay more. Commentators are either calling for the trial to be scrapped, or for the old fares to be maintained in parallel as an additional choice for customers.
I’ve no particular skin in this project – but having worked on previous fares change initiatives, I recognise the challenges, so rather than take the populist rail bashing stance, I’ll stick my head above the parapet and try to offer some more balanced thoughts.

Is there a need for fares simplification?​

I think there is a broad consensus at this point. Whilst some retail apps might do their best to hide the complexity from end-users, it’s hard to mask completely, and has impacts in other ways too. A well-known issue being the overcrowding on the first and last train of the off-peak period, vs lightly loaded last/first train within peak.

What is the pilot?​

The pilot is between Edinburgh/Berwick/Newcastle and London. It replaces the current fares with three new fares:

• Fixed – travel on the booked train only
• Semi-Flexible – travel on the booked train, or any train +/- 70 minutes to booked time
• Fully-Flexible – travel on the booked train, or any train up to 2 days from booked time

How does this differ from today?​

In case you’ve missed the commentary elsewhere – most of the objections to the trial focus on the removal of the “Super-Off-Peak” fare, and replacing it with the “Semi-flex” fare. So, let’s compare the two:

It’s worth noting that this builds upon previous changes such that all fares can be booked up until 5 minutes before boarding (subject to availability), and all fares are sold as singles.
LNER graphic showing how fares will have evolved since the start of the simplification programme

What is ‘wrong’ with the approach being trialled?​

The main objections are:

• Concerns that this a way of increasing cost of the journeys. There is no longer a single off-peak fare that is always available at off-peak times. Therefore, there are concerns that LNER could limit the availability of the cheaper “Fixed” and “Semi-Flexible” tickets to drive people to higher priced variants, or all the way to the “Fully-Flexible” fare.
• Concerns that those people not planning in advance, particularly those unable to, will pay more, as there is no guarantee that Semi-Flexible will be available on the day.
• Concerns that the Semi-Flexible ticket is not refundable.

There is also some inaccurate reporting, such as stating that the only fares available on the day will be the higher-priced “Fully Flexible” tickets. This might be the case by exception, but the general expectation is that all three products will be available to book on the day of travel.

Why not keep the Super-Off-Peak as well?​

Some commentators and consumer groups are calling for the Super-Off-Peak fare to be retained alongside the new fares structure.
Ironically, this is exactly how fares complexity breeds. The industry keeps adding new fares, but not retiring the old ones (often due to Political pressure), creating ever more “choice” for customers. But the reality is that “choice” is complexity.
Do it, or ditch it, but doing both is just adding complexity.

Be receptive to different ways to address concerns​

That’s not to say that there are not attributes of the Super-Off-Peak that we should seek to preserve – but let’s get back to the underlying issue and protect that, rather than simply call to retain Super-Off-Peak.
For example, if we are concerned that this will make on-the-day travel unaffordable, you could regulate that. The DfT could for example mandate that 10% of capacity must be available on-the-day at no greater than a regulated price point.
If we are concerned about the need for refundability, you could follow the model that many hotels offer where a simple £10 supplement at the time of booking allows flexibility to cancel until the night before.

Fare level vs fare complexity​

A lot of the commentary around changes to fares structure ends up inextricably linked to the cost regardless of structure. I think it’s important to separate out cost, as ultimately that is broadly a political issue for deciding on the taxpayer / fare-payer balance.
That said, initiatives that support the ability to better spread demand over the day should make better use of the railway, allow fewer empty seats overall, and therefore meet Government revenue targets from lower average fares.

Rose tinted spectacles?​

If you were reading many of the objections to the pilot, advocating the retention of the Super-Off-Peak ticket, you’d be mistaken for thinking that this was the utopian product that it would be heresy to remove. But let’s pause on that for a minute:
Off-Peak and Super-Off-Peak fares have over 100 different definitions of when they are valid. The definition of “super-off-peak” used previously by LNERhad 50 sub-restrictions depending upon origin station. They are frequently the cause of genuine misunderstanding where a customer thinks the ticket is valid on a train it is not, and has to pay the difference to an Anytime fare.
In my 20+ years of retail, and various trips accompanying train guards on ticket inspections, it is clear to me that customers understand the value proposition of both (a) train specific products, (b) fully flexible tickets. The confusion arises with the semi-flexible tickets: certain times only, on certain days of the week only, except in August, via this location, but only on this operator, unless your journey started west of Swindon, etc.
We should not lose sight of what LNER is creating here is three fares that a customer can understand without reference to a bible of restriction codes, and with no knowledge of a myriad of different peak/off-peak times.

It's not all bad​

It’s also worth calling out that the “Semi-Flexible” ticket has some benefits to the Super-Off-Peak. The most notable being the Super-Off-Peak was only valid in defined off-peak times. If you were unsure whether you would catch the 6pm or the 7pm train, previously you had to buy the most expensive “Anytime” ticket, or resign yourself to sitting around the station for an hour waiting for your booked train. Now you can book a "Semi-Flexible" for the 7pm train, and catch the 6pm if you arrive early.

Guaranteed seat, low fares, full flexibility​

Unfortunately, you can’t guarantee all three in a system with fixed capacity.
There are a lot of advocates of the so called “walk-up railway” who strongly believe in protecting the right to buy a ticket and turn-up and board any train at any time. Indeed, that’s an essential part of short/mid-distance rail. For long-distance rail however, that’s much more a double-edged sword. Anyone that’s worked on the frontline will know the problems caused when more people buy tickets than there are seats available. Customers themselves even complain – “why did you sell me a ticket when you knew the train was going to be full?” No one wants to be standing the whole way from London to Edinburgh, nor do people want to be seated in a train that’s so full they cannot access the toilets or get refreshments. Who gets on the train becomes a battle of who has the biggest elbows and fewest manners – certainly not a place you want to be trying to travel with a young family.
Walk-up has a role, but it is increasingly a niche role in long-distance. The railway should not be routinely selling more tickets than there are seats available.

No one is proposing this solution for short-distance journeys​

It is worth being very clear that the proposals being trialled on LNER are specifically targeting long-distance rail journeys. I don’t hear anyone in LNER, DfT, or GBR proposing that this would be the structure for short distance journeys. There, the need for flexibility and ‘turn up and go’ is much more part of the mainstream need.
The inflexion point for mid-distance journeys will need careful navigation.

You’ve heard you can avoid the new fares with split ticketing or buying a ticket to Haymarket?​

It’s a trial – so it only covers those specific routes and it’s only on LNER services, which create some anomalies with routes not included in the trial. We should distinguish between issues arising from the scope of the trial, and issues relating to the concept being trialled.

In summary​

The concept being trialled may not be perfect, but personally I believe we should give the trial a fair go.
Inevitably things will need to be refined, both in the proposition, and how the fare setting is regulated in the new structure. But, personally I believe this structure has the chance of being one that can work for the better, and therefore should be given the benefit of the doubt.
There have long been calls for simplification - and this structure is simple. Three products, that can be understood by customers without reference to any other sets of restrictions.
If the trial proves that wrong, then sobeit – the trial has served its purpose and we can write-off this idea from an informed position.
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Kofi Carvel
Rail Planning Consultant at AECOM
6h

The thing that I struggle with the most is that they are not being honest about charging more on full trains. The scheme will only work where yield can be increased on the busiest trains and more quota made available to the quieter ones (e.g. very late evening departures or weekday lunchtime ones). There may be certain benefits - people who can travel at a quieter time will get better availability of cheap tickets - but for the majority who will lose out, I think people could take the fact that they will be paying more if there were actually any honesty about that, rather than the current 'smoke and mirrors'.
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stephen warner
Head Of Business Intelligence - Arriva - UK Trains
7h

Well that is a suprise ..nobody could have predicted that outcome.. just wait till its trialled on urban fares... I think I can predict the responce to removing cheap day returns ..
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John Nuttall
Retired at last!
14h

Something that I haven't seen much in the whole debate so far is the question of connections. Most of the discussion has been about end-to-end journeys on a single train. I know this trial is limited to LNER but it's important to recognise that many (most?) journeys involve more than one train and often more than one operator. Delays to connections make life complicated. Assuming that the trial became the pattern for the whole railway, how might one manage, for example, a journey from Manchester Airport to Newcastle if the intended connection at York were missed?
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[KGX]

Guaranteed seat, low fares, full flexibility​

Unfortunately, you can’t guarantee all three in a system with fixed capacity.
There are a lot of advocates of the so called “walk-up railway” who strongly believe in protecting the right to buy a ticket and turn-up and board any train at any time. Indeed, that’s an essential part of short/mid-distance rail. For long-distance rail however, that’s much more a double-edged sword. Anyone that’s worked on the frontline will know the problems caused when more people buy tickets than there are seats available. Customers themselves even complain – “why did you sell me a ticket when you knew the train was going to be full?” No one wants to be standing the whole way from London to Edinburgh, nor do people want to be seated in a train that’s so full they cannot access the toilets or get refreshments. Who gets on the train becomes a battle of who has the biggest elbows and fewest manners – certainly not a place you want to be trying to travel with a young family.
Walk-up has a role, but it is increasingly a niche role in long-distance. The railway should not be routinely selling more tickets than there are seats available.

Whilst I definitely don't want to be paying anymore than I already am, it's very difficult to argue against this point.

 

[takno]

I just can't get over the nonsense of most overcrowding being caused by walk-up passengers. Every crowded train I've ever been on has been crowded because it's late and the previous 3 were cancelled or similar. Unless they're about to tell people that they just can't travel with their advance ticket when the train is cancelled then they will be stuck with overcrowding whatever. Airlines are on the hook for 200 quid compo plus accomodation, food and alternative travel costs every time they let somebody down. Is that something the railway really wants to commit to?

 

[Hadders]

Whilst I definitely don't want to be paying anymore than I already am, it's very difficult to argue against this point.

There is an argument for cumpulsory reservations on long distance trains (which I don't agree with) but there is no need for train comanies to engage in surge pricing.

 

[Starmill]

I just can't get over the nonsense of most overcrowding being caused by walk-up passengers. Every crowded train I've ever been on has been crowded because it's late and the previous 3 were cancelled or similar. Unless they're about to tell people that they just can't travel with their advance ticket when the train is cancelled then they will be stuck with overcrowding whatever. Airlines are on the hook for 200 quid compo plus accomodation, food and alternative travel costs every time they let somebody down. Is that something the railway really wants to commit to?

If the rule became that nobody may join the train unless there's a seat available for them to sit in, even in disruption, then yes, costs would undoubtedly baloon at the first sign of trouble - a far more serious issue than with an airline because most trains when fully reserved will carry an awful lot more people than a typical aircraft.

It would be a totally crazy rule.

Whilst I definitely don't want to be paying anymore than I already am, it's very difficult to argue against this point.

I certainly don't agree with it. This:

No one wants to be standing the whole way from London to Edinburgh, nor do people want to be seated in a train that’s so full they cannot access the toilets or get refreshments.

is a total red herring - nobody has ever been forced to join or remain on a train in either condition. They're 100% free to return to the platform and travel later. Even if you have an Advance ticket with a seat, you can't be penalised for exercising your right to sit down. In any case with overcrowding that severe train companies have a policy to give permission for travel on the following service, so a member of staff would be happy to advise. It's just not a problem in the real world.

 

[modernrail]

I just can't get over the nonsense of most overcrowding being caused by walk-up passengers. Every crowded train I've ever been on has been crowded because it's late and the previous 3 were cancelled or similar. Unless they're about to tell people that they just can't travel with their advance ticket when the train is cancelled then they will be stuck with overcrowding whatever. Airlines are on the hook for 200 quid compo plus accomodation, food and alternative travel costs every time they let somebody down. Is that something the railway really wants to commit to?

Bingo.

They are arguing against themselves at every turn. We have to do this because the walk up railway is causing daily Armageddon but don’t worry about getting rid of it because it is a niche sport, hardly anybody uses them anyway.

Which is it?

It’s neither. They are used by a reasonable number of passengers. Most standing results from disruption or massive events chucking people onto trains that are only going a few stops or because it’s Christmas or, and they are really struggling to get this one, because they sold too many cut price advances on a train that is able to take the higher off peak fare and instead of properly controlling the sale of cheaper advances and therefore losing revenue, they surpress demand at the higher fare.

Also, what is the ORCATS or whatever it is called angle here. Haven’t LNER just effectively banned a ticket for which monies were going into that pot and replaced it with one where the revenue is going only to them? Isn’t that part of their internal reasoning here?

Increasingly it's being spent on cashback/perks and odd looking puppets. And besides, LNER don't do anything themselves anyway when it comes to software. All the tech is outsourced to the private sector: Silverrail, Vix, FuturePlatforms, Softwire.

I 100% think some of the smaller retailers operate more efficiently. 3 people maintain TrainSplit's journey planning software. One of them works 1 day a week!



If by "leaking" you mean funding new trials of technology with TOCs, actually powering most of the TOC apps/websites, paying UK staff (which means income tax, VAT on the discretionary purchases they go on to make), paying for a UK office, paying for the business rates for the office then sure - it leaks.

I get all that but 5%? Seems very inefficient. It is not like there isn’t an underlying system with all the timetables etc etc that all this stuff feeds off.

It doesn’t make sense I am afraid. It is generating enough profit for the CEO of Trainline to be paid £1.71 million and is doing so well it can afford a massive share buy back when most companies are in the opposite position.

When the guy selling the tickets via a pretty simple system is getting paid nearly 4 times what the guy who is running a massively complex piece of infrastructure (network rail) something has gone badly wrong.

 

[Haywain]

When the guy selling the tickets via a pretty simple system is getting paid nearly 4 times what the guy who is running a massively complex piece of infrastructure (network rail) something has gone badly wrong.

The guy selling the tickets - Trainline - is selling a lot more than just train tickets, and is happily selling rail tickets at a premium by charging the unwary booking fees that TOCs aren't permitted to charge. But they are also a supplier of websites to many TOCs and get paid for that as well. So they are not only the biggest retailer in their own right, they are also a very significant supplier to TOCs and a retailer of European rail travel, coach travel, and business travel services. They are on a completely different scale to the TOCs wehen it come to retailing domestic rail tickets. And, unlike Trainline, Network Rail don't make profits or sell tickets.

 

[Adam Williams]

It is not like there isn’t an underlying system with all the timetables etc etc that all this stuff feeds off.

I think you underestimate the work involved in retail in rail - which is understandable, I did too. There's no central underlying system. There are some data feeds for fares and timetabled services, with data of variable quality, some specifications and documentation. A few systems for recording sales and other ancillary services. Journey planning? Do it yourself. E-Ticket PDF generation? Do it yourself. UI for letting users pick seats? Do it yourself.

It doesn’t make sense I am afraid. It is generating enough profit for the CEO of Trainline to be paid £1.71 million and is doing so well it can afford a massive share buy back when most companies are in the opposite position.

And how much of Trainline's income comes from the basic point-to-point commission vs the booking fee / other (e.g. business) charges? Supplying TOCs? European rail? Seasons?

I get all that but 5%? Seems very inefficient

Keep in mind you've gotta pay for the credit / debit card processing fees. These can be quite pricey, particularly if a business is buying tickets from you. Then you need to pay Rail Delivery Group for each E-Ticket barcode you issue, to fund the barcode scanners on gatelines. Want to offer tickets to pick up from a TVM? That'll cost you too. Customer picks it up from a manned ticket office? You'll be slapped with up to 3.66% of the ticket cost as a charge.

Seat reservations? Pay for each seat you book. Payroll for customer support and engineering to support the operation. Fixed costs for the privilege of using the system that lets you tell the industry what tickets you've sold.

Most of the 5% is gone before you know it! Plus it's going down soon.

 

[Joe Paxton]

[...]
Most of the 5% is gone before you know it! Plus it's going down soon.

What is it going down to, and when?

It wasn't that long ago that the commission was (I think) 9%.

 

[Mainline421]

Whilst I definitely don't want to be paying anymore than I already am, it's very difficult to argue against this point.

No it's very easy

No one wants to be standing the whole way from London to Edinburgh

I do, if the alternative is being stranded. It's better than standing in London just waiting to get to Edinburgh! That same logic could be applied to traffic jams, no one wants to be waiting in traffic.

The argument quickly falls apart for anything except discretionary leisure travel for people with a lot of free time.

 

[modernrail]

No it's very easy

I do, if the alternative is being stranded. It's better than standing in London just waiting to get to Edinburgh! That same logic could be applied to traffic jams, no one wants to be waiting in traffic.

The argument quickly falls apart for anything except discretionary leisure travel for people with a lot of free time.

The traffic jam analogy is a good one.

I have been thinking back to my ‘standing’ experiences. Bearing in mind I mostly off peaks and rarely book seats (just because I am happy to chance the unreserved carriage) I should be a prime stander.

Honestly, the times it has happened have been, I guesstimate, 90 % due to disruption and 10% because of it’s Christmas or Easter when the whole nation needs to do a little packing in like sardines. When it is the weekend I have generally taken myself down to first and paid a weekend upgrade. A damn site better value than the hideous proposition of paying an anytime fare in standard at the weekend. The very thought of actually having to do that makes me want to want to vomit.

 

[yorksrob]

This article may be of interest, albeit a rather depressing read. It was linked to on Linked In by Stuart Thomas Comms Director LNER. He is still of the view that the trial’s purpose is to shift passengers from air to rail.

(I’ve included all content in this poar, you don’t need to transfer to Linked In)

This was his post:




This is the article.

An overly rose tinted view of the trial.

So having the super off-peak fare "breeds complexity" but introducing a different type of advance purchase doesn't ?

This ridiculous price gouge needs to be terminated.

The traffic jam analogy is a good one.

I have been thinking back to my ‘standing’ experiences. Bearing in mind I mostly off peaks and rarely book seats (just because I am happy to chance the unreserved carriage) I should be a prime stander.

Honestly, the times it has happened have been, I guesstimate, 90 % due to disruption and 10% because of it’s Christmas or Easter when the whole nation needs to do a little packing in like sardines. When it is the weekend I have generally taken myself down to first and paid a weekend upgrade. A damn site better value than the hideous proposition of paying an anytime fare in standard at the weekend. The very thought of actually having to do that makes me want to want to vomit.

Indeed, and of course with off peak, if you do find yourself on a busy train, you can catch a later one or go a different route.

I just can't get over the nonsense of most overcrowding being caused by walk-up passengers. Every crowded train I've ever been on has been crowded because it's late and the previous 3 were cancelled or similar.

This is a key point.

 

[modernrail]

An overly rose tinted view of the trial.

So having the super off-peak fare "breeds complexity" but introducing a different type of advance purchase doesn't ?

This ridiculous price gouge needs to be terminated.




Indeed, and of course with off peak, if you do find yourself on a busy train, you can catch a later one or go a different route.



This is a key point.

You can catch a later train indeed, but honestly, I can’t think of a single time I have done that.

The other category of regular standee is the getting off in one or two stops only. To Leeds to Wakefield, London to Stevenage, Wigan to Warrington etc.

 

[yorksrob]

You can catch a later train indeed, but honestly, I can’t think of a single time I have done that.

The other category of regular standee is the getting off in one or two stops only. To Leeds to Wakefield, London to Stevenage, Wigan to Warrington etc.

It's possibly personal choice but I've done it on occasions.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It's possibly personal choice but I've done it on occasions.

I very commonly do something different than my booked journey on the return. On the ECML I suppose there's little variety though one might stop off for food and drop back. On the WCML there's lots of options - via Manchester and/or Birmingham for instance.

 

[modernrail]

I very commonly do something different than my booked journey on the return. On the ECML I suppose there's little variety though one might stop off for food and drop back. On the WCML there's lots of options - via Manchester and/or Birmingham for instance.

I definitely end up frequently doing something different on the return. One of the things I try and do if I do that is cancel the seat booking if I have one so somebody else can use it. The only way I have found of doing that is to message them on social media and I wonder if they actually cancel it. Perhaps that functionality and a social norm of doing it would have freed up a lot of seats a long time ago!!

Yorksrob I was more making the point that it is rare standing has been so bad that I have chosen to do that. Usually I bank on some of the train getting off at the next stop so I can shuffle in somewhere better.

Even on a hideously overcrowded X country just post Christmas that followed 3 cancelled trains I managed to get from standing in the vestibule to sitting in declassified first class by the end of the 2 hour journey.

 

[Adam Williams]

What is it going down to, and when?

It wasn't that long ago that the commission was (I think) 9%.

4.5% from next year.

Note that it's currently already 3% for B2B corporate.

It's 9% if you're a Ticket Vending Machine or booking office clerk making the sale.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Yes, and I suspect it's going to get one or two after the blatent shilling for LNER that constitutes about 10% of the latest (otherwise rather thin-feeling) issue.

Ford is the worst at it - as I said he's clearly rich and doesn't care what it costs as long as he gets a nice quiet train. You can see that on Twitter very clearly. I could be swayed in favour of compulsory reservation - it does have some benefits - but not this unreasonable approach to fares. (Remember, CR and airline style pricing are two separate things, plenty of railways worldwide have CR but fixed fares).

I think you're being very hard on Roger Ford, whom I suspect is not rich at all.
He doesn't usually get involved in the fares or customer experience debates (except for the technology behind them).
Anyway it's all worth it for his Informed Sources section, just read this month's piece on the WCML speed profile.

The railway press depends on interviews with senior figures like TOC MDs.
They are not going to bite the hand that feeds them precious morsels on inside knowledge or future plans.
I suspect the scheme was dreamed up by the faceless GBRTT team and then foisted on LNER as the useful idiot to trial it.
No doubt Avanti would also want such a scheme, but the implementation would be more complex, and GWR/XC even more complex.
The context is surely to improve the financial performance of long-distance TOCs.

Barry Doe used to do detailed pieces on fares in Rail, but he concentrated too much on fare anomalies and things like the detail of the Oyster system, and never seemed to discuss fares policy at all.
His BR-was-best style also grated, plus the fact he never flew or went abroad so his wider ticket retailing experience was limited.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I suspect the scheme was dreamed up by the faceless GBRTT team and then foisted on LNER as the useful idiot to trial it.

In my understanding it was LNER's idea and has been brewing for a while.

No doubt Avanti would also want such a scheme, but the implementation would be more complex, and GWR/XC even more complex.
The context is surely to improve the financial performance of long-distance TOCs.

At the expense of the passenger of course.

 

[yorksrob]

The context is surely to improve the financial performance of long-distance TOCs.

i.e to fleece passengers.

 

[Wallsendmag]

I suspect the scheme was dreamed up by the faceless GBRTT team and then foisted on LNER as the useful idiot to trial it.

Oi

 

[Starmill]

I think you're being very hard on Roger Ford, whom I suspect is not rich at all.
He doesn't usually get involved in the fares or customer experience debates (except for the technology behind them).
Anyway it's all worth it for his Informed Sources section, just read this month's piece on the WCML speed profile.

Maybe that was the case 20 years ago sure, but today he comments on fares policy on the regular on Twitter and LinkedIn. He also wrote an Informed Sources column about it for the first time a few years ago.

 

[modernrail]

i.e to fleece passengers.

Why can’t they just stop issuing cut price advances then and price everything and not lower than the off-peak fare?

I just cannot get my head around this mentality of cheap advance…. Then Russian roulette as to whether late comers get a travelling option at all and if they do, welcome to the most extreme version of cliff edge pricing in the world.

If they were remotely honest with the intention rather than lying, then perhaps an honest debate could be had about how best to achieve the aim.

The easiest way to manage congestion on a motorway would be to close the slip roads completely when it is too full.

The easiest way to increase revenues from motorways would be impose tolls.

The easiest way to stop motorways being a useful part of the transport system would be to make you pre-book a slot to use the motorway 3 months in advance or alternatively pay 10x that price if you have the audacity to think up a bloody travel plan a couple of days before you travel.

 

[Bletchleyite]

If they were remotely honest with the intention rather than lying, then perhaps an honest debate could be had about how best to achieve the aim.

It's this that gives me the main issue with it - it's deliberately obfuscatory and dishonest.

There is a problem on the long distance railway that has been bubbling for a long time, namely that business is moving away from travel entirely, so the "peaks" are no longer peaks and there aren't very many people willing to be fleeced for things like £350 Manchester-London Anytime Returns (I genuinely wonder how many of those they sell?). The actual "peaks" are Friday evening and Sunday afternoon plus school holidays, as can be seen from prices on easyJet and the likes.

However, if you made weekday mornings off peak and Friday/Sunday PM Anytime level, that would bring uproar.

What also brings uproar is the annual fares round.

The thing about moving to an all Advances policy is that it avoids both of those issues - you can easily tweak fares to increase income without it really being noticeable, and you get to avoid that discussion.

But maybe we actually should be having a discussion on the railway's new purpose as a primarily-leisure facility, and what that railway should look like. Which I suspect, if you did have that honest discussion, would be more about cheap capacity and tables for 4 aligned to windows for the family to sit in (e.g. LNR and Chiltern) than about fast pointy-nosed crack expresses* at high prices. There's also (as an aside) a need for that discussion about the purpose of First Class and what that should look like if it exists at all.

* HS2 is of course about fast pointy-nosed crack expresses, but doesn't have the same issue as the classic lines of those conflicting with more local services and freight.