ORR release 'Fares and ticketing – information and complexity' report'

[yorkie]

It seems what might be required is airline-sized tickets (which we had in APTIS days) with all the information printed on them and posters up, not just highlighted bits in the timetables, saying when off-peak tickets are not valid from that station.

Airline size? as in the size of an aircraft?

Or perhaps a standardisation on the BR times for peak and off-peak accross the country.

You mean SVRs to non-London area destinations being valid on any train, and return portions of SVRs always being valid on any train? I can't see the TOCs agreeing to that, without being handed over a few million quid extra.

The only standardisation we'd get would be bad for customers, of that we can be certain (given the policy of both the current and previous Government).

There are NO 'highlighted bits in the timetables' at my local station.

Good - because they are misleading!

The only ways to find out if your specific train is 'Off Peak' is to ask....

Note that a train is only "peak" or "off peak" in the context of a specific ticket. There isn't such thing as an 'off peak train' as a blanket concept.

I must admit to being one of those people who often buy an 'Anytime' ticket just in case, particularly if I am in a hurry.

If you reasonably believe the Off Peak may be valid, and find out when on board that it isn't, you should be charged the excess to the Anytime, without being penalised.

However, off-peak restrictions do need sorting, some of them are getting absurd. I'd suggest anything arriving before 0930 and anything departing between 1630-1830 would be sensible.

If you meant to say "arriving" then I am unsure what that means.

Assuming you meant to say "departing", XC did just that, although for their longer distance SVR tickets there is no evening restriction, and their CDR restrictions are a bit different, being 1530-1815.

So, following your model, and as implemented by XC, passengers from Par to York on the direct morning service (returning within 1 month) used to pay the cost of an SVR priced at £161.00, but are now asked to pay £333.00. However what people can do is buy a return to somewhere like Cheltenham (£73.70) and then Cheltenham-York (£81.90) totalling £155.60 however under your proposed system the Cheltenham ticket would inflate massively so they'd need an Anytime Day single to Bodmin Parkway (£3.20) plus a single back, and then Bodmin to York SVR priced at £155.70, so the total under your system would be £161.70.

If your system comes into effect across all operators, passengers will need to split at the first station their train calls at after 0930 (sometimes it may be better to split at a subsequent station).

Is this progress? Do the benefits (whatever they are) outweigh the dis-benefits?

I think one thing to think about is how the current situation appears to the 'Casual Traveller'. There is a discount system in place that is sufficiently complex for them to be unsure of when it applies. This can leads to two things;

a) Journeys on which they are both asked to pay more than they had been led to expect and severely embarrassed in front of other passengers and the friends, family and/or children they are travelling with[1].

If someone has an Off Peak ticket and is asked to pay an excess to an Anytime ticket, this excess could be quite small, and I do not agree it would be severely embarrassing.

b) Journeys where the passengers knows that they probably paid more than they had to, despite the railway[2] advertising the availability of lower fares.

That happens to all of us. Sometimes I find out about, or come up with, a cheaper fare than the fare I paid. It happens in other areas too, such as shopping generally.

In either case the passenger is left with a perception of a railway that is acting remarkably like firms that use deceptive trading practices.

'The railway' is actually several companies, some have fantastic policies and great staff, most are alright, but it is true that there are some who do use deceptive trading practices (I can think of one or two examples but they are worthy of topics of their own and have already been covered).

I do agree with your point [2] though that customers don't always realise this.

The good TOCs, and ATOC, need to be much more concerned when certain rogue TOCs act in a way that is not in the interests of the industry at large.

Yes, making the system less complex may well disadvantage those who are more regular travellers and know their way around the current system. But that is not the point of Off Peak fares and the majority of travellers do _not_ know their way around the current system and have no desire to learn when its much easier to simply start up the car and drive or not travel at all.

I'm not sure what you are saying here. Are you in favour of the actions taken by XC in their standardisation of Off Peak fares?

I'd also disagree that making the system "less complex" disadvantages people who "know their way round the current system". Taking the Par to York example, people who "know their way round the current system" would be splitting at Cheltenham anyway so are completely unaffected by XC standardising their Off Peak times! The only people who end up paying the price XC standardised to, are people who do not know how to find their way round the system!

 

[LE Greys]

What exactly were the BR restrictions? I seem to remember that departures between 06:30-09:30 in the up direction and 16:30-18:30 down were SOS/SOR, with everything else being OK for CD/SV and further restrictions for SSR. That seemed fairly sensible and was applied universally, which is why I think it ought to be revived.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Airline size? as in the size of an aircraft?

I may have been slightly facetious about that.

You mean SVRs to non-London area destinations being valid on any train, and return portions of SVRs always being valid on any train? I can't see the TOCs agreeing to that, without being handed over a few million quid extra.

The only standardisation we'd get would be bad for customers, of that we can be certain (given the policy of both the current and previous Government).

Thanks for answering my question. I'm afraid you're right.

 

[AndyLandy]

The only 'solution' that I can think of right now is remove the 'offpeak' fares entirely, so you can buy an open 'anytime' ticket and travel on any train, and extend the concept of 'advance' tickets, so there are cheaper 'booked train only' tickets that you can buy as singles at the ticket office before you travel. They aren't as flexible, but given you don't have to buy it until you're ready to travel, it might be workable.

Not that I'm convinced this is a particularly good idea, or any better than what we have currently. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's rubbish, but it would eliminate any peak/offpeak confusion...

 

[yorkie]

What exactly were the BR restrictions?

I'm not entirely sure.

I seem to remember that departures between 06:30-09:30 in the up direction and 16:30-18:30 down were SOS/SOR

I'd say this deserves a new thread if anyone knows the answers. I only know parts of it, if anyone wants to start a new thread I'll contribute.

with everything else being OK for CD/SV and further restrictions for SSR. That seemed fairly sensible and was applied universally, which is why I think it ought to be revived.

It would, however, go against one of the founding principles on what privatisation was based on (which, as we now know, was flawed).
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

The only 'solution' that I can think of right now is remove the 'offpeak' fares entirely, so you can buy an open 'anytime' ticket and travel on any train, and extend the concept of 'advance' tickets, so there are cheaper 'booked train only' tickets that you can buy as singles at the ticket office before you travel. They aren't as flexible, but given you don't have to buy it until you're ready to travel, it might be workable.

Would this even apply on Merseyrail services? I ask because it is my understanding that many departure boards in the area do not give departure times and merely give the number of minutes until a train is due.

What about unstaffed stations? Would you then be able to get an 'Advance' ticket from the conductor?

What about sporting events? How will you manage the queues at somewhere like White Hart Lane after a game, trying to issue them all Advance tickets to Seven Sisters/Liverpool St etc? And what if someone wanted to travel to, say, Milton Keynes, would the clerk then have to estimate the time it would take to get to Euston? And what if the queues turned out to be longer than the clerk estimated, would you have them going back to queue to get the times changed?

I'm trying to imagine how this could work, and am struggling!

 

[Failed Unit]

Back to my point about Nottingham and the different operators peak. You leave Nottingham and 1000 to go for a trip to derby with an off-peak return. You get excessed on the return to an anytime because you return at 1700 and use a EMT train both ways. Next week you go to Lincoln again depart after 1000 knowing you need to return at 1700. You buy an anytime because you were excessed by an EMT gaurd. I know if you booked at the ticket office you would not have a problem the clerk would not sell the wrong ticket. The TVM would. Would the railway refund the difference once you had found out? It is all too confusing to the causal traveller. Do I want to see EMT and XC standardised? No as they will follow XC. I also wonder how many people get used to thier own restrictions and think they are nationwide? Would someone from Scotland buy an anytime if the travel at 1700 expecting all TOCs to have the same restrictions?

After my little rant. I really would not want another attempt to change. Look how many fares were increased after "simplification" including most of east coasts as the saver became the super-off peak!

 

[Class83]

Assuming you meant to say "departing", XC did just that, although for their longer distance SVR tickets there is no evening restriction, and their CDR restrictions are a bit different, being 1530-1815.

So, following your model, and as implemented by XC, passengers from Par to York on the direct morning service (returning within 1 month) used to pay the cost of an SVR priced at £161.00, but are now asked to pay £333.00. However what people can do is buy a return to somewhere like Cheltenham (£73.70) and then Cheltenham-York (£81.90) totalling £155.60 however under your proposed system the Cheltenham ticket would inflate massively so they'd need an Anytime Day single to Bodmin Parkway (£3.20) plus a single back, and then Bodmin to York SVR priced at £155.70, so the total under your system would be £161.70.

If your system comes into effect across all operators, passengers will need to split at the first station their train calls at after 0930 (sometimes it may be better to split at a subsequent station).

Is this progress? Do the benefits (whatever they are) outweigh the dis-benefits?

What I meant was for the morning to restrict the earliest time you could arrive at the destination so for passengers from both Par and Cheltenham the first permissible train to Birmingham would be the same train, but if the restriction was arriving after 0930 to get on the same train the Par passenger may well board at around 7am, but the Cheltenham passenger not until around 9am*.

Currently there is not even standardisation on whether the restriction is on departure or arrival time, even if the specific times vary this could do with standardisation.

For the evening it would be based on departure time.

There are also a lot of off-peak tickets where there are no restrictions (as far as I can determine) on the time of travel, these could be removed and the peak ticket priced at the same level (does anyone currently buy the peak tickets on these routes) though I doubt the TOCs would particularly like that or would try to bump the prices up a bit.

 

[Failed Unit]

BR on the ECML

Blue saver - Monday - Thursday only. Not valid into London before 1100. Nor out of London from 1600 - 1830. (except north of Newcastle)
White saver - all week not valid into London before 0930 except on the "Humber-Lincs Cleethorpes - Lincoln departures and hull executive hull - google departures) returns no restriction. Outbound not valid 1600 - 1830

No restrictions say Edinburgh - Peterbourgh apart from blue savers not valid on Fridays.

Wasn't really that simple but BR did issue leaflets at the stations as only London flows had restrictions. Lincolnshire didn't have cheap day returns. Long distance were savers with no time restrictions unless travelling via London.

 

[yorkie]

What I meant was for the morning to restrict the earliest time you could arrive at the destination so for passengers from both Par and Cheltenham the first permissible train to Birmingham would be the same train, but if the restriction was arriving after 0930 to get on the same train the Par passenger may well board at around 7am, but the Cheltenham passenger not until around 9am*.

So you would restrict tickets passing through Birmingham based on arrival time at Birmingham. Interesting. What would you do with tickets to stations short of Birmingham?

Also, what would you do with Cardiff to Crewe fares?

There are also a lot of off-peak tickets where there are no restrictions (as far as I can determine) on the time of travel, these could be removed and the peak ticket priced at the same level (does anyone currently buy the peak tickets on these routes) though I doubt the TOCs would particularly like that or would try to bump the prices up a bit.

Ah, that answers my question regarding Cardiff to Crewe. I agree the TOCs will not like that. Anyone going from Bristol to Birmingham would be best off buying a Cardiff to Crewe ticket, which would become a good value Anytime Return!

So yes, your system may be a bit simpler, but would cause revenue loss to the TOCs, therefore it will not happen. The prices will still be higher than they were under BR, but the TOCs need them to be, in some cases, around 5 times higher and still need more subsidy.

 

[GadgetMan]

Press release is here; the full report (pdf) here.

Unsurprisingly, the ORR have found that it's Advance tickets, off-peak restrictions and TVMs which are found to be the most complex issues faced by passengers.

Few things of interest pulled out from it:







ATOCs plans in their response to the ORR include:

It would be interesting to see how many revenue staff also get bamboozled with off peak restrictions. I absolutely hate selling tickets to/via London on the train as I don't want to go for the easy option of selling the Anytime fare resulting in overcharging the customer, and at the same time I don't want to be left looking like an idiot when the passenger later gets excessed because I sold them a off-peak ticket when I shouldn't have.

The above is with access to a Avantix machine which is a pain in the **** to interpret confusing restrictions from especially when some restrictions say refer to restriction 'xx', on the Avantix you can't look up specific restrictions unless you can find a ticket it refers to.

So to read restriction 'xx', you would have to randomly carry out fare enquiries until you found the restriction you want.

Off-peak should be a blanket time nationally of say 9am.

As many long distance journeys have off-peak tickets which are valid after 4:30am, just get rid of the off-peak on those flows and rename those tickets Anytime at the current off-peak price. XC would need to back track and comply with this for long distance flows. To maintain an off-peak option, you could step the Super off-peak to the off-peak fare and give it the blanket 9am restriction.

Journeys involving to/via London could still have its own restrictions.


Going by the above it would then be pretty easy to understand the restrictions.

Anytime = anytime
Off-peak= after 9am

Journeys involving London = whatever they want but it must be universal to all TOCs.

 

[Failed Unit]

Problem is XC have less capacity than most operators into London.

The reason many of these restrictions exist on XC in particular is because they need to price of demand. I am sure they would rather run longer trains with less restrictions if it made them more money overall.

Can't believe I am defending TOCs but if you can fill a 12 car train cant add more capacity the fare level is correct. BR was doing this for years, and increased fares on lines to reduce demand for the 153s as an example. However paying full fare for Grimsby - Lincoln on the first train of the morning is not good, but then if a CDR existed would demand be better? I doubt it as people prefer to drive because of the poor frequency rather than the price.

 

[nedchester]

Problem is XC have less capacity than most operators into London.

The reason many of these restrictions exist on XC in particular is because they need to price of demand. I am sure they would rather run longer trains with less restrictions if it made them more money overall.

Can't believe I am defending TOCs but if you can fill a 12 car train cant add more capacity the fare level is correct. BR was doing this for years, and increased fares on lines to reduce demand for the 153s as an example. However paying full fare for Grimsby - Lincoln on the first train of the morning is not good, but then if a CDR existed would demand be better? I doubt it as people prefer to drive because of the poor frequency rather than the price.

But is it about restricting demand or increasing revenue.............

I think it says a lot about the sorry state the railways are in in this country.

 

[bb21]

What I meant was for the morning to restrict the earliest time you could arrive at the destination so for passengers from both Par and Cheltenham the first permissible train to Birmingham would be the same train, but if the restriction was arriving after 0930 to get on the same train the Par passenger may well board at around 7am, but the Cheltenham passenger not until around 9am*.

This then results in the following problem.

Assume Off-Peak Return only valid for trains arriving at the destination after 0930. A CrossCountry train calls at Birmingham New Street at 0920 and Wolves at 0940.

If you wish to go from Par to Birmingham New Street connecting into the service above, you need to purchase an Anytime ticket.

However you can alternatively purchase an Off-Peak ticket from Par to Wolves, and legitimately break your journey at New Street. This could be considerably cheaper.

This then means that break of journey will have to be banned if CrossCountry do not wish to lose revenue.

I'm not sure restricting by a uniform rule based on the arrival time is a good idea either.

 

[Matt Taylor]

APTIS machines issued standard credit card sized tickets, TRIBUTE did the airline type tickets.

 

[Class83]

So you would restrict tickets passing through Birmingham based on arrival time at Birmingham. Interesting. What would you do with tickets to stations short of Birmingham?

No the time would be determined by the final destination. Though this does for CrossCountry lead to the problem highlighted by bb21 (I'd suggest that for cross country removing stops near Birmingham and supplementing local services might help, but that's another issue) I agree that removing the outward 'break of journey' option seems the most obvious solution. For London you probably need to add a blanket 'no arriving at London terminals prior to 0930' rule.

Though sadly I agree that anything that costs the TOCs money is unlikely to happen, particularly as the government is committed to reducing subsidy.

 

[AndyLandy]

Would this even apply on Merseyrail services? I ask because it is my understanding that many departure boards in the area do not give departure times and merely give the number of minutes until a train is due.

What about unstaffed stations? Would you then be able to get an 'Advance' ticket from the conductor?

What about sporting events? How will you manage the queues at somewhere like White Hart Lane after a game, trying to issue them all Advance tickets to Seven Sisters/Liverpool St etc? And what if someone wanted to travel to, say, Milton Keynes, would the clerk then have to estimate the time it would take to get to Euston? And what if the queues turned out to be longer than the clerk estimated, would you have them going back to queue to get the times changed?

I'm trying to imagine how this could work, and am struggling!

Yup. For all those reasons, the idea is pretty rubbish. I could probably spend time working out easements and restriction changes to handle this stuff and the end result would probably be something similar in complexity to the existing system. Kind of defeats the point really.

 

[Matt Taylor]

BR on the ECML

Blue saver - Monday - Thursday only. Not valid into London before 1100. Nor out of London from 1600 - 1830. (except north of Newcastle)
White saver - all week not valid into London before 0930 except on the "Humber-Lincs Cleethorpes - Lincoln departures and hull executive hull - google departures) returns no restriction. Outbound not valid 1600 - 1830

No restrictions say Edinburgh - Peterbourgh apart from blue savers not valid on Fridays.

Wasn't really that simple but BR did issue leaflets at the stations as only London flows had restrictions. Lincolnshire didn't have cheap day returns. Long distance were savers with no time restrictions unless travelling via London.

Not forgetting Saturdays in July and August (and Bank Holidays) were white days.

 

[yorkie]

No the time would be determined by the final destination. Though this does for CrossCountry lead to the problem highlighted by bb21 (I'd suggest that for cross country removing stops near Birmingham and supplementing local services might help, but that's another issue) I agree that removing the outward 'break of journey' option seems the most obvious solution. For London you probably need to add a blanket 'no arriving at London terminals prior to 0930' rule.

It won't stop anomalies, e.g. someone taking the 0520 Plymouth - Birmingham would get a ticket to Dorridge (arr 0941), you can ban break of journey, but the customer would not be breaking their journey when walking from New St to Moor St, and you couldn't send an RPI to follow them to check they did go to Moor St!

So people will be able to get around such restrictions by buying beyond their destination and "finishing short" and it won't be enforceable (merely using station facilities is not a break of journey either, it wouldn't have to involve a walk).

 

[LE Greys]

What's the old joke?

"Well, if I were you, I wouldn't start from here."

Quite frankly, it seems that whatever you do, no solution can possibly fit everything. AndyLandy's idea might not exactly be ideal, but it might turn out to be exactly what we end up with as a 'least-worst option'.

 

[sheff1]

The only 'solution' that I can think of right now is remove the 'offpeak' fares entirely, so you can buy an open 'anytime' ticket and travel on any train, and extend the concept of 'advance' tickets, so there are cheaper 'booked train only' tickets that you can buy as singles at the ticket office before you travel. They aren't as flexible, but given you don't have to buy it until you're ready to travel, it might be workable.

Would this even apply on Merseyrail services? I ask because it is my understanding that many departure boards in the area do not give departure times and merely give the number of minutes until a train is due.

What about unstaffed stations? Would you then be able to get an 'Advance' ticket from the conductor?

What about sporting events? How will you manage the queues at somewhere like White Hart Lane after a game, trying to issue them all Advance tickets to Seven Sisters/Liverpool St etc? And what if someone wanted to travel to, say, Milton Keynes, would the clerk then have to estimate the time it would take to get to Euston? And what if the queues turned out to be longer than the clerk estimated, would you have them going back to queue to get the times changed?

I'm trying to imagine how this could work, and am struggling!

Systems with similarities to AndyLandy's suggestion are out there. In all cases that I am aware of they only apply to Intercity or Interregional type trains as opposed to local trains, where I don't see how it could work either.

They also require a clear (and widely understood) distinction between train types which is something which does not exist in the UK.

 

[kieron]

I think the measures to give more information on the tickets, and to provide receipts with additional information, should go some way to alleviate off-peak confusion. If it said something like "valid on trains leaving Stockport after 0929" on the ticket, then you know where you stand (and, perhaps more importantly, so will any railway staff you are likely to encounter).

In more complex situations (say, where some peak services leave after the first off-peak one), the machine could print out an itinerary for a valid journey, so that the customer knows of at least one valid route for that ticket.

One thing which surprised me about the report was the proposal to remove "Any Permitted" from tickets where no alternatives are available. If they do this, I think they should get rid of "Any Permitted" altogether, as you can't really expect the average traveller to understand why a ticket from Chester to Manchester says it, but one from Shotton or Flint doesn't.

 

[LondonJohn]

I'm sorry, but that research is utter bull****. Surely it would be better to ask advance ticketholders whether they knew they could only use the booked train. That might be far more useful.

What seems to have been forgotten here is that a lot of people on this forums are experts, rail enthusiasts or work in the railway industry.

Due to the complex nature of ticketing, who sets fares, split ticketing, rules, routing guides, and other things its very believable that the occasional traveller is not going to be as familiar with the rules and intricacies as a lot of the people on these forums. I would even go as far to say that occasional travellers will pay more for their travel than some of the "experts".

My parents in their mid 60s will be travelling by train for the first time in nearly 30 years. They have a choice of 2 stations for departure, and have total fares of their journey varying between £50 and £74 depending on the station they depart from and the time they travel. In once case, the difference in arrival time is just by a few minutes.

 

[Bakerbloke]

I agree with others who say that making fare restrictions less complicated will effectively result in real increases for travellers. I now consider myself pretty good at working the system of split ticketing and choosing routes not operated by XC to get very cheap fares - this is mostly from reading posts on this forum.

For infrequent travellers such as my parents - they go to their local manned station whenever they need to book tickets and they get some very good fares (and sound advice when best to travel). This of course breaks down at unmanned stations although for immediate travel I find many good conductors explaining to everyone in turn on how selling a cheap evening return is much cheaper than the standard single. Maybe if they make TVMs more friendly by telling users that they can save a specified amount by taking say the train departing in 15 minutes which will be super off peak.

So I think more personnel is the answer and a tobacco style health warning that " travelling XC may damage your finances."

 

[HowMuch?]

"Booked train only" WOULD be crystal clear. IF it SAID that. ON THE TICKET!

"Why should Rail Companies Bother?" I hope whoever wrote that doesn't work for a rail company.

 

[Scotty]

"Booked train only" WOULD be crystal clear. IF it SAID that. ON THE TICKET!

It does.

http://media02-ak.vivastreet.com/classifieds/9e/1/41469918/large/1.jpg

 

[LondonJohn]

I agree with others who say that making fare restrictions less complicated will effectively result in real increases for travellers. I now consider myself pretty good at working the system of split ticketing and choosing routes not operated by XC to get very cheap fares - this is mostly from reading posts on this forum.

For infrequent travellers such as my parents - they go to their local manned station whenever they need to book tickets and they get some very good fares (and sound advice when best to travel). This of course breaks down at unmanned stations although for immediate travel I find many good conductors explaining to everyone in turn on how selling a cheap evening return is much cheaper than the standard single. Maybe if they make TVMs more friendly by telling users that they can save a specified amount by taking say the train departing in 15 minutes which will be super off peak.

So I think more personnel is the answer and a tobacco style health warning that " travelling XC may damage your finances."

I also used to live close to a station where the booking office clerk was nothing but helpful with planning of journeys and this was in the days before the internet and you would often get a good deal from him. However as even travel centres at bigger stations are being demised due to more people
booking online and ticket office windows being shortened staff and service like this is going to be the exception rather than the rule.

Also, there would be an outburst from business travellers and people alike who turned up at the station wanting to buy a day return from Swindon to Bath if they had to wait 30 mins because the clerk in front went through all the options for each travellers journey to get them the cheapest fare..Its just not going to happen.

Basically the extra restrictions that have crept in here and there have been as a result of a number of back door fare increases on journeys where people used to travel.

 

[IanXC]

Airline size? as in the size of an aircraft?

I may have been slightly facetious about that.

Arguably in some cases you'd need the ticket to be a small aircraft to fit all of the restriction code information onto the ticket!

For me its about simplifying the restrictions - a good improvement, without some of the disadvantages would be if we had a situation where a said offpeak ticket could state in the validity field "Not before 09.30" or "09.00-16.00 or after 19.00".