Promise of cheaper rail fares put at risk by Whitehall in-fighting

[LNW-GW Joint]

I guess we can kiss goodbye to Fares regulation then. That would be a real sting in the tail.

My memory of BR was that there were at least 3 groups of fares, controlled by the sectors - ie IC, NSE and Regional (plus things like sleepers, international etc).
They are the ones who had their own time restrictions, decided whether (eg) Day Returns or Savers were available, determined the routes you could use, and set premium levels of fares wherever they could.
There was certainly no "standard" set of nationalised fares which worked across the country.
Then there were the PTE/LU fare structures and their local rules.

All that's really happened under privatisation is that several more layers of complexity have been built in, but the underlying BR structure is still there.
Today you have stronger localisation from PTEs, city regions, devolved authorities etc, plus a larger/more dominant TfL reaching further into "BR" territory.
It's still very difficult to perceive a single nationwide fares system with the need to integrate with all these disparate (but publicly owned) interests.
The extreme TOC-specific rules might well disappear, but we'll still likely have an over-complex system even under public ownership.

 

[Hadders]

It's possible that the government will now have a huge impetus to reduce prices once the post Covid-19 recovery begins. We are as yet a long off a recovery effort however so there's little attention on it at the moment.

There will be a clear need to try to encourage uptake once the road to lifting of restrictions is laid out. A significant number of people who've been asked not to travel during the crisis won't return immediately, or in some cases at all. This will partly be driven by those who have very sadly lost lives or jobs, by those who have transitioned into a new economy that doesn't call for daily commuting any more, those who chose to retire once the crisis has abated, and so on and so forth. Though the recovery will be very gradual at first, because there's some need to be slow and steady about the lifting of restrictions, there will be a very very different travel market at the other end of the tunnel. That might make part or even most of Williams irrelevant.

External factors will also have a significant impact, including the price of oil if it remains so low, and the way the airline industry recovers. The travel and tourism industries in general will struggle to pick up on the bow wave of demand - if you're a hairdresser who is closed for 3 months*, you can expect a full salon for weeks as eveyone still wants their hair doing. From a short closure, you might produce the same number of annual haircuts this year. Consumers won't make the same number of train journeys in 2020, though.

Companies like Hull Trains, who've shut down totally, will struggle even more to get through, unless they can provide long advance notice for when they'll resume services and open bookings well before they do. The crisis might not give them that luxury.

*an exceptionally optimistic closure period, admittedly

I doubt we'll see any reduction of fares. What I think we will see is a decent amount of promotional activity. For example:

Seat sales
Targeted % off campaigns
'Cheap' upgrades to 1st class
More Advance tickets available at lower tiers

If TOCs really want to be adventurous then maybe an East Coast style rewards scheme or even offering e-gift vouchers at say 20% off for a very short period of time.

My memory of BR was that there were at least 3 groups of fares, controlled by the sectors - ie IC, NSE and Regional (plus things like sleepers, international etc).
They are the ones who had their own time restrictions, decided whether (eg) Day Returns or Savers were available, determined the routes you could use, and set premium levels of fares wherever they could.
There was certainly no "standard" set of nationalised fares which worked across the country.
Then there were the PTE/LU fare structures and their local rules.

All that's really happened under privatisation is that several more layers of complexity have been built in, but the underlying BR structure is still there.
Today you have stronger localisation from PTEs, city regions, devolved authorities etc, plus a larger/more dominant TfL reaching further into "BR" territory.
It's still very difficult to perceive a single nationwide fares system with the need to integrate with all these disparate (but publicly owned) interests.
The extreme TOC-specific rules might well disappear, but we'll still likely have an over-complex system even under public ownership.

I agree that we'd still have a complex system, even after 'simplification'. You simply cannot have a simple system with 2,500+ stations with different routes used for inter-city, regional and commuting journeys. At least fares regulation, while not perfect, gives a degree of protection against 'here today gone tomorrow' TOCs who'd love to get rid of it , leaving us at the mercy of hugh fares increases.