Price drop of Severn Beach line fares

[northken]

With the January 2020 fares change the price of a Clifton Down to Bristol Temple Meads single (using 16-25 railcard) went up by 5p to £1.05. Checking today, the price seems to have reverted back to the 2019 prices, as it's just £1 again.

See here: http://www.brfares.com/#!fares?orig=CFN&dest=BRI&rlc=YNG

At first I thought I was going mad, but I've checked my booking confirmations and they show that it was £1.05 for the same journey on 12th February.

What has gone on here? Any reductions are of course welcome, but I wasn't expecting any reduction, and especially not now as I thought the next fares revision would be in May?

 

[Fawkes Cat]

Is this route particularly well used by people in the 16-25 age bracket? I know a lot of students live round Whiteladies Road (or at least, they used to 30 years ago. Maybe things have changed), although I'm not sure why lots of them would be travelling from Clifton Down to Temple Meads.

And how are fares collected - by ticket machine, or by paying the guard? If it's paying the guard, it may be for sheer operational convenience - a fare of £1 is easy to pay and collect, but £1.05 involves small change and is even worse if someone pays with a five pound note (£3.95 change is harder to organise than £4).

 

[northken]

Is this route particularly well used by people in the 16-25 age bracket? I know a lot of students live round Whiteladies Road (or at least, they used to 30 years ago. Maybe things have changed), although I'm not sure why lots of them would be travelling from Clifton Down to Temple Meads.

And how are fares collected - by ticket machine, or by paying the guard? If it's paying the guard, it may be for sheer operational convenience - a fare of £1 is easy to pay and collect, but £1.05 involves small change and is even worse if someone pays with a five pound note (£3.95 change is harder to organise than £4).

It's well used by younger schoolchildren attending the school at Montpelier, for example, but it's not amazingly well used by students at University of Bristol and UWE in my experiences.

With the exceptions of Clifton Down and Temple Meads, no stations have TVMs or ticket offices, and the bulk of fares are collected by Ticket Examiners who are on the majority of trains; you may get the odd guard who collects fares too but they tend to stay in the rear cab.

I know the line used to have funding from the Bristol City Council, which is why the fares were so low. With a railcard it's been £1 single from Clifton Down to Temple Meads since at least 2012; a price increase was expected, but not a decrease!

Btw, it's not just the railcard fares which have reduced. The undiscounted adult fares have reverted back too I think, but I don't have a booking confirmation as absolute evidence of this.

Update: GWR Twitter has confirmed the price reduction, stating that the increase was erroneous.

 

[Mojo]

If you have a booking confirmation online it is possible that there was some sort of rounding error, as fares wholly on the Severn Beach line have not altered since May 2007, with the exception of the fact that the Railcard discount was reduced to the national standard of 34% rather than the 50% discount that applied for a number of years since May 2007; unfortunately I can't remember when the Railcard discount was reverted other than to say it was no earlier than 2014!

The reason for the lack of fare rises is that in May 2007, many fares were increased by quite significant amounts; in some cases in excess of 100%. As part of this, a derogation had to be applied by the DfT as these fares are regulated. This was done under the auspices of Community rail; accordingly there are a number of people who have to authorise any future fare increases and this has been put into the "too difficult" pile.

 

[northken]

If you have a booking confirmation online it is possible that there was some sort of rounding error, as fares wholly on the Severn Beach line have not altered since May 2007, with the exception of the fact that the Railcard discount was reduced to the national standard of 34% rather than the 50% discount that applied for a number of years since May 2007; unfortunately I can't remember when the Railcard discount was reverted other than to say it was no earlier than 2014!

The reason for the lack of fare rises is that in May 2007, many fares were increased by quite significant amounts; in some cases in excess of 100%. As part of this, a derogation had to be applied by the DfT as these fares are regulated. This was done under the auspices of Community rail; accordingly there are a number of people who have to authorise any future fare increases and this has been put into the "too difficult" pile.

Thank you for the explanation! I've always found it an oddity how cheap the fares are on this route - hopefully little will change in future.

It is interesting to wonder how much additional revenue they made whilst the erroneous fares were in place. Unlikely it went anywhere near covering their overheads anyway!

 

[Mojo]

Do you know if the undiscounted adult & child fares were wrong too, and if so, for how long?

Did this only affect online purchases?

 

[northken]

Do you know if the undiscounted adult & child fares were wrong too, and if so, for how long?

Did this only affect online purchases?

If I'm remembering correctly then I believe the price increase affected all fares, including the undiscounted ones. I specifically remember a Ticket Examiner charging £1.60 for a single from Redland to Temple Meads, and that brfares was showing a single for the same journey being £1.60 too (10p greater than the 2019 fare), with a return at £2.10.

I'm unsure of when the error was corrected, but it was likely to have been done during mid-February.

 

[I13]

I know the line used to have funding from the Bristol City Council, which is why the fares were so low. With a railcard it's been £1 single from Clifton Down to Temple Meads since at least 2012; a price increase was expected, but not a decrease!

If you have a booking confirmation online it is possible that there was some sort of rounding error, as fares wholly on the Severn Beach line have not altered since May 2007, with the exception of the fact that the Railcard discount was reduced to the national standard of 34% rather than the 50% discount that applied for a number of years since May 2007; unfortunately I can't remember when the Railcard discount was reverted other than to say it was no earlier than 2014!

It's already slightly been alluded to but the railcard single was 75p single, £1 return (so 50% discount) for quite a while. Haven't been able to find any bookings before 2017 so I would guess 2016 was when the change occurred.