Railcards to go up by £5

[Peter Mugridge]

The increase would be less than 10p per week.

Which if the holder is spending sufficient money on rail travel to justify a £30 per year card, is simply lost in the noise of other day-to-day expenditure.

Which particular financial pressures are disabled people under that the other railcard eligible persons aren't, that justifies them being given a 10p per week allowance?

Yes, it would be a trivial additional sum.

The media is full of stories about disabled people complaining at costs and additional difficulties; there's also been the recent high profile instances of disabled travellers being let down by the assistance process - that alone makes it politically very difficult to put the price up at the moment.

Politics doesn't go by if it's only an extra 10p a week; it goes by the risk of adverse headlines.

 

[infobleep]

I reckon I'd pay up to about £200 pa for a "National Railcard". Possibly even more if it was by monthly direct debit and/or allowed peak time use.



Monzo already do.

I did have my annual season ticket but in the end the savings over the Network Railcard weren't working out enough as I didn't travel between 9:30 am and 10 am enough or travel to arara covered by a Gold Card but not a Network Railcard. There was so the £2 bus fares, which meant some of my journeys now switched to being by bus.

Gold Cards do offer no minimum fare during the week but most of my tickets are over £13 with a Network Railcard discount.

If they offered a nation wide discount card that worked for people who haven't been lucky enough to have a partner/girlfriend/be married etc, I would go for it, providing it paid for itself.

 

[thedbdiboy]

The short answer is they just don't.

The longer answer is probably that RDG (or its predecessors) probably don't want to offer the discounts to those users as it would diminish the first class product, or that they don't want the discount to be used for peak/commuting travel in 1st, or the like.

RDG has no direct authority in the decision making role in Railcard pricing, it administers the scheme under which they are managed. In terms of the legal construction of the scheme, decisions are the collective responsibility of the participating TOCs based on votes and subject to a benchmarking regime against inflation. It is the TOCs' opinions on things like potential dilution that matter - indeed anyone that has worked inside ATOC/RDG would not get far by trying to tell the TOCs what they should do. In practical terms the Government holds all revenue risk, so it ultimately it's a DfT/Treasury decision to approve, and these days they are the ones that have to be satisfied with the numbers. As noted elsewhere Railcards haven't gone up for more than 10 years so the current price is well below the theoretical permitted maximum.

 

[infobleep]

RDG has no direct authority in the decision making role in Railcard pricing, it administers the scheme under which they are managed. In terms of the legal construction of the scheme, decisions are the collective responsibility of the participating TOCs based on votes and subject to a benchmarking regime against inflation. It is the TOCs' opinions on things like potential dilution that matter - indeed anyone that has worked inside ATOC/RDG would not get far by trying to tell the TOCs what they should do. In practical terms the Government holds all revenue risk, so it ultimately it's a DfT/Treasury decision to approve, and these days they are the ones that have to be satisfied with the numbers. As noted elsewhere Railcards haven't gone up for more than 10 years so the current price is well below the theoretical permitted maximum.

Of course full duty hasn't gone up in more than 10 years either. I won'er what the theoretical permitted maximum of fuel duty would be?

Good luck with chasing an unpaid debt of a few quid in a cost efficient manner. It wouldn’t be possible or worth it.

Well Norrhern were prosecuting people for not paying an additional £2....

Whilst they didn't class it as an unpaid debit, it was a small amount they hadn't paid.

may be worth buying early if a retailer has a discount offer like trainline did this time last year - 30% off.

I got my Network Railcard in July this year so early renewal would need to be worthwhile.

I didn't get a good discount in July, only £5 off but I couldn't wait.

I wonder if their will be any good discounts just before March and the price rise next year.

 

[thedbdiboy]

Of course full duty hasn't gone up in more than 10 years either. I won'er what the theoretical permitted maximum of fuel duty would be?

My point being, these are political decisions, not RDG ones

 

[dciuk]

Do we know if this proposed £5 increase would apply to local railcards which are currently priced lower than the standard £30 and in some cases have had a price increase more recently that the "national" railcards

 

[John R]

Well Norrhern were prosecuting people for not paying an additional £2....

Whilst they didn't class it as an unpaid debit, it was a small amount they hadn't paid.

Somewhat different as they would not be able to instigate criminal proceedings to recover a railcard debt.

 

[infobleep]

My point being, these are political decisions, not RDG ones

Thata true enough but TOCs must have some representation in these matters even if the RDG doesn't.