How's that less complicated?
The people who get to decide what is or isn't complicated are the DfT, and it's driven by the sort of people who argue that Ryanair style pricing is the way to go.
What an utterly awful idea. Dare I suspect that the intention is that the feedback will be "that's complicated" and thus they can move to Anytime and Advance only?
Quite possibly; it's difficult to say.
That's me not using LNER then, not that I do very often anyway!
Book through the forum, select flexible, and we'll ensure you get appropriate splits, so you can retain flexibility. Or book from West Hampstead, rather than London, or Haymarket rather than Waverley, Metrocentre instead of Newcastle.
How will Fares Regulation be approached, using a fares basket? Or are they being given free rein to charge what they like?
The DfT get to decide the rules these days.
FWIW I note the trial has deliberately been done on the longer distance trips where people are less likely to want flexibility, rather than doing it on say Leeds where they might get a different outcome. Funny, that.
Well, we now know what "dynamic pricing" meant...kind of surprised the Anytime isn't also removed to allow them to go higher.
Yes, this is no doubt so they can justify calling it a "success".
But if they roll this out nationwide, but only for longer journeys, then people could circumvent the system by splitting. We'll offer that automatically.
Ultimately, they will want shorter flows to be done in this way too. So it's important to resist this now as it's the thin end of the wedge.
Disgraceful. But who is actually going to be able to stand up to this price hike (as that is what it actually is)?
Transport Focus? Oh, wait....
Oh god. It will be the end of London - Edinburgh rail travel for me and I will probably stop travelling.
I think they would like that; at busy times the trains are pretty full and the aim is to deter travellers.
Anytime tickets are simply not affordable for leisure travellers.
Their expectation is that everyone is going to be paying the Advance or Flex rate, apart from perhaps business users and people who are on the 'wrong train' and they're deemed fair game to extract as much money as possible from!
If I'm reading this right, you will now either have to buy an anytime ticket, or choose a service and be able to take one an hour either side of it (I presume the 70 minutes is to account for slight variations in clock face timings). This is not passenger friendly, and not really simplification, it's just an opportunity to increase revenue.
Correct, however the media gives exposure to people who argue that "(super) off peak" tickets are "complicated" and therefore they are able to (erroneously) argue that this is simplification.
The problem is that some simple minded people, who are highly vocal and given attention in the media, genuinely do believe that it is simple to either be told you have to travel at a certain time or be able to travel at any time; hence why the DfT are trying to prevent people purchasing tickets that are reasonably priced but allow travel at a wide variety of times.
It's a similar thing with permitted routes; some simple minded people think that we should be told the exact route we should take, as the concept of being given a wide variety of choices is "complicated".
The media gives publicity to these simple minded people because it will generate clicks/sales/views, and the DfT panders to this.
Presumably all flex tickets will be LNER only so the revenue will accrue 100% to them?
Yes they are LNER only.
