Should there be a standard fare based on mileage

[Railperf]

As the title suggests, should there be a basic standard fare based on mileage travelled? And if so, what would be a fair fare? To encourage more people on to the railways to take the train rather than drive (where the service exists) does anyone have ideas on how should the train be priced? The disparity between costs per mile seems to be unexplainable. Why should a ticket between London and Colchester off-peak cost so much more - for example - than London to Cambridge - even though they are similar distances?

 

[JonathanH]

As the title suggests, should there be a basic standard fare based on mileage travelled? And if so, what would be a fair fare? To encourage more people on to the railways to take the train rather than drive (where the service exists) does anyone have ideas on how should the train be priced? The disparity between costs per mile seems to be unexplainable. Why should a ticket between London and Colchester off-peak cost so much more - for example - than London to Cambridge - even though they are similar distances?

This regularly gets debunked. It just isn't feasible and doesn't take account of the relevant markets and service offerings.

 

[Railperf]

This regularly gets debunked. It just isn't feasible and doesn't take account of the relevant markets and service offerings.

Why isn't it feasible? In an age where we expect a litre of fuel to cost a similar amount , or a can of beans. Why shouldn't a standard class ticket have a standard fare based on mileage travelled?
Currently London to Gatwock airport £8.70 single with Oyster off-peak for 26 miles. Liverpool Street to Stansted Airport £19.60 - more than double - for a journey that's only 10 miles longer.
Sorry, there is no excuse to justify that. The base price per mile should be the same for a walk-on buy-on-the-day ticket.

 

[JonathanH]

Why isn't it feasible? In an age where we expect a litre of fuel to cost a similar amount , or a can of beans. Why shouldn't a standard class ticket have a standard fare based on mileage travelled?
Currently London to Gatwock airport £8.70 single with Oyster off-peak for 26 miles. Liverpool Street to Stansted Airport £19.60 - more than double - for a journey that's only 10 miles longer.
Sorry, there is no excuse to justify that. The base price per mile should be the same for a walk-on buy-on-the-day ticket.

But that is the point - introducing a mileage based fare system would result in immediate losers relative to existing fares.

See https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...unities-for-fares-reform.217496/#post-5141498

I suspect the service to Stansted costs more to provide as it isnt cross subsidised by other people on the route to the same extent Gatwick is.

 

[Journeyman]

No.

BR abandoned completely mileage based fares decades ago.

 

[LSWR Cavalier]

There used to be in Germany, so much per km, first-class 50% more, but when the high-speed line Frankfurt/M to Koeln opened, trips on that expensive fast line, arriving much sooner, would have cost much less than the longer slower Rheintal route. Simple pricing per km was abandoned before that.

 

[miklcct]

There used to be in Germany, so much per km, first-class 50% more, but when the high-speed line Frankfurt/M to Koeln opened, trips on that expensive fast line, arriving much sooner, would have cost much less than the longer slower Rheintal route. Simple pricing per km was abandoned before that.

In such case the pricing should be based on km and class of service (i.e. high speed service costs more than conventional service)

 

[alistairlees]

Why isn't it feasible? In an age where we expect a litre of fuel to cost a similar amount , or a can of beans. Why shouldn't a standard class ticket have a standard fare based on mileage travelled?
Currently London to Gatwock airport £8.70 single with Oyster off-peak for 26 miles. Liverpool Street to Stansted Airport £19.60 - more than double - for a journey that's only 10 miles longer.
Sorry, there is no excuse to justify that. The base price per mile should be the same for a walk-on buy-on-the-day ticket.

Not all cans of beans cost the same amount though. They are different prices in different shops. Different brands can be very different prices in the same shop (compare Heinz with supermarket own brand, fit example). And they are different prices depending on the size of the tin.

Fares certainly need reforming and simplifying, but mileage based is not going to work.
In any case, what would the price be between stations where there are two different routes, on both of which flexible tickets are valid, but which are different mileages? The lower price? The higher price? Something else? Or would flexibility and validity be reduced?

 

[Watershed]

Why isn't it feasible? In an age where we expect a litre of fuel to cost a similar amount , or a can of beans. Why shouldn't a standard class ticket have a standard fare based on mileage travelled?

Not all litres of petrol or cans of beans cost the same. But most are very similar, and thus in a competitive environment it's to be expected that prices will all be in the same ball park.

By contrast, not every mile travelled on a train is the same. There can be massive differences in the travel experience (train frequency, speed, comfort, likelihood of getting a seat etc.) depending on when and where you travel.

Why should the railways charge the same on a high peak intercity service, as on a very quiet branch line service?

Currently London to Gatwock airport £8.70 single with Oyster off-peak for 26 miles. Liverpool Street to Stansted Airport £19.60 - more than double - for a journey that's only 10 miles longer.
Sorry, there is no excuse to justify that.

Apples and oranges... For starters, £8.70 is an Off-Peak fare whereas £19.60 is an Anytime fare. When you normalise for the varying distance, the difference in pence per mile rates is approximately 60%.

The other thing to consider is that the Gatwick Airport fare is for contactless/PAYG, so it is set on the basis of single leg pricing. By contrast, the Stansted fare is priced at around two thirds of the return fare.

When you do a fair comparison - Stansted Anytime Return vs 2 Gatwick Anytime fares - suddenly Stansted looks like very good value, at £31.50 v £31.80.

Don't get me wrong - both sets of fares are tourist traps in their own ways (e.g. it's often cheaper to buy a fare to Cambridge rather than Stansted!) - but it's easy to do a one-sided comparison.

 

[miklcct]

Not all cans of beans cost the same amount though. They are different prices in different shops. Different brands can be very different prices in the same shop (compare Heinz with supermarket own brand, fit example). And they are different prices depending on the size of the tin.

Fares certainly need reforming and simplifying, but mileage based is not going to work.
In any case, what would the price be between stations where there are two different routes, on both of which flexible tickets are valid, but which are different mileages? The lower price? The higher price? Something else? Or would flexibility and validity be reduced?

Sell two kinds of flexible tickets in this case, with the lower priced one restricted to the cheaper routing.

In short, the fare system should possibly be based on mileage, area (i.e. routes travelling thru London is more expensive), class of service (i.e. first / standard class) and speed of service (i.e. trains running on 125mph railways is more expensive than trains running on slower railways).

 

[Watershed]

Sell two kinds of flexible tickets in this case, with the lower priced one restricted to the cheaper routing.

So if you are travelling from Leeds to Bradford, you should have to pick which Bradford station you'll be travelling to in advance? Or if you're travelling from Bristol to Taunton you'll have to say whether you want to go via Weston-super-Mare?

If you get on a train that goes via the "wrong" route, what would you say should happen?

Should you be forced to pay the difference - in which case, why would anyone ever buy the more expensive ticket?

Or should you be forced to buy a new ticket, perhaps even pay a Penalty Fare? In which case, why are we penalising people for what could quite possibly just be a mistake? And surely people will, once again, complain the system is too complex...

In short, the fare system should possibly be based on mileage, area (i.e. routes travelling thru London is more expensive), class of service (i.e. first / standard class) and speed of service (i.e. trains running on 125mph railways is more expensive than trains running on slower railways).

That sounds awfully like the current system, only the current system doesn't pretend to be mileage based but then apply 'fudge' factors that mean it's not really mileage based at all!

There is one 'given' in any fares reform. The Treasury will insist it is revenue neutral at worst. So if people complain that fares should be mileage-based (presumably because they feel they are too expensive), they are essentially suggesting that other people should pay more for their fares.

Perhaps a better approach would be to lobby your MP to urge the Treasury to agree to a permanent shift in the way the railways are funded - moving from a system whereby the passenger pays the vast majority of the costs, to one where the state pays the majority of the costs. Just like what most sensible European countries do.

 

[stj]

Sounds a fair idea in theory.But as we have a system run by different operators it will never work.What is needed is true competition where different operators run the trains.A route say London to Cardiff should be split between at least 2 operators and not just given to GWR.

 

[JonathanH]

What is needed is true competition where different operators run the trains.

I think you will find that the recently announced changes are intended to remove what competition there currently is.

 

[alistairlees]

Sounds a fair idea in theory.But as we have a system run by different operators it will never work.What is needed is true competition where different operators run the trains.A route say London to Cardiff should be split between at least 2 operators and not just given to GWR.

It's been given to GBR. As has every other route (open access aside).

 

[Randomer]

I'd argue a return to mileage based pricing along with clearly defined multipliers might be workable, probably with per leg pricing as the RDG fares reform consultation seemed to be pointing towards. With modern journey planners and real time back end calculation to give individual ticket prices. Indeed my main point would be that a multiplier doesn't always have to be additional. I.e. fares are calculated by mileage then x1.6 for first class, x1.2 for a defined "peak" time or x0.8 for a slower service. Indeed it might remove a lot of the anomalies in fares that have come about due to different TOC setting prices and whether the fare is regulated or not.

However; there are always going to be huge winners and losers from this system which will make it politically unpopular, it almost certainly will not be revenue neutral or positive so the Treasury are unlikely to go for it and it would probably require a dynamically calculated back end fares system tied to smart cards or app based ticketing to make "peak" timings work etc.

 

[Hadders]

This is something that comes up from time to time and it simply isn’t feasible to have mileage based pricing. @yorkie asked the following questions when this was last discussed.

1) Please give me the proposed fares from York to Whitby for a day return, avoiding Darlington, and tell me how this fare is calculated and whether you think it will be competitive with the coach service provided by Coastliner that costs only slightly more than the current rail ticket price but offers a shorter journey time? Also if I was to start the journey at Church Fenton, would that add to the cost?

2) Please give me the proposed fares from York to London for a day return, and if this is lower than current prices, tell me where the revenue will be brought in to compensate LNER for the revenue loss?

3) Please give me the proposed fares for a return from Peterborough to Leicester, and also Peterborough to Nottingham, and let me know how you are calculating the mileage and whether under your system it will be permitted to travel from Peterborough to Nottingham via Leicester or not, and if someone does go via Leicester what excess will be charged (if any)?

4) Please give me the proposed fares for a return from London St Pancras to Ashford Intl (and any routeing options you wish to provide) and would those fares apply from, say, London Charing Cross to Ashford Intl? Please give me your calculations for different termini, if they vary..

 

[alistairlees]

This is something that comes up from time to time and it simply isn’t feasible to have mileage based pricing. @yorkie asked the following questions when this was last discussed.

1) Please give me the proposed fares from York to Whitby for a day return, avoiding Darlington, and tell me how this fare is calculated and whether you think it will be competitive with the coach service provided by Coastliner that costs only slightly more than the current rail ticket price but offers a shorter journey time? Also if I was to start the journey at Church Fenton, would that add to the cost?

2) Please give me the proposed fares from York to London for a day return, and if this is lower than current prices, tell me where the revenue will be brought in to compensate LNER for the revenue loss?

3) Please give me the proposed fares for a return from Peterborough to Leicester, and also Peterborough to Nottingham, and let me know how you are calculating the mileage and whether under your system it will be permitted to travel from Peterborough to Nottingham via Leicester or not, and if someone does go via Leicester what excess will be charged (if any)?

4) Please give me the proposed fares for a return from London St Pancras to Ashford Intl (and any routeing options you wish to provide) and would those fares apply from, say, London Charing Cross to Ashford Intl? Please give me your calculations for different termini, if they vary..

The missing example being York to Sheffield (for which there are three routes; via Leeds, Doncaster and Pontefract Baghill).

 

[tbtc]

In an age where we expect a litre of fuel to cost a similar amount , or a can of beans. Why shouldn't a standard class ticket have a standard fare based on mileage travelled?

To take your "litre of fuel" comparison, even if petrol costs the same everywhere (it doesn't), the fuel cost of driving a hundred miles can vary significantly between efficient motorways and the stop/start nature of other roads. How many miles the fifty quid's worth of fuel you stick into your vehicle will deliver depends on a lot of different factors.

I can see the appeal of a simple mile-based fare model, but there are a lot of problems that I've never seen a solution to:

1. PTE subsidies. At the moment, PTEs (and other public sector bodies) subsidise fares within their local area for the benefit of the people making local journeys there. So a journey wholly within a PTE (e.g. Manchester Airport to Bolton) can be a lot cheaper per mile than an equivalent distance journey outside a PTE area. The only way round that would be to either remove the PTE subsidies or throw huge sums of money at fares nationwide to bring them down to PTE levels, both of which appear non-starters

2. The messy nature of the network. If you introduced a "mileage based" fare on tram systems like Sheffield/ Manchester/ Nottingham then you could have a simple calculation of distances involved. But how do you do that on railways when there can be many ways of getting between two places? There are four routes from Sheffield to Leeds (via Westgate, via Rotherham and Westgate, via Kirkgate, via Kirkgate and Castleford), so would there be a different price for each one? That'd confuse passengers who find that their (currently interchangeable) ticket was no longer valid via the longer route. Plus, there are a lot of places where the rail distance is very different from the "crow flies" distance but are subsidised to remain competitive (e.g. the "York to Whitby" example mentioned above). If passengers from the south had to pay the true mileage-based fare to get to Whitby then you're going to lose a lot of custom.

3. The idea of paying a surplus to travel on a 125mph train seems very wrong. At the moment, the staffing costs of a 125mph train with hundreds of people on board are pretty similar to the staffing costs of a lightly loaded two coach Sprinter. If anything, the passengers on the Sprinter should be paying more per mile, since their fares have to go further to cover the train costs

4. Different lines have different types of market. Imposing a simple "solution" sounds good on paper but are you wanting one simple rule on peak fares? Because some commuter routes struggled to cope (pre-Covid) despite the eye watering fares whilst some rural routes are more leisure based. Some services warrant a First Class section (with 2+2 seats), some services warrant First Class with 2+1 seats, complimentary at seat food/drinks etc, many services don't warrant any kind of First Class. Some routes have different price elasticities, some don't warrant any kind of advance fares, some have large numbers of empty seats to fill at some times of the day/week so an incentive to offer bargain tickets. Some lines have more competition from other modes of transport (whether parallel motorways or regular coach services), so rail fares are more competitive.

5. Any attempt to "simplify" things is going to have huge repercussions. Whilst it might make more sense to some, you know that there will be some people who now face paying double for their tickets and that's going to bring a lot of hostile media. I remember over twenty years ago when the relatively new Midland Mainline franchise tried to tidy up some anomalies inherited from British Rail, and that meant increasing the First Class fare from Sheffield to (I think) Market Harborough by 26%. Now, I don't know anyone who'd used that ticket, I doubt there was much First Class demand between the two, but our local paper whipped up a lot of negativity about how "Commuters Face 26% Rise In Rail Fares" (even though ninety nine point nine nine whatever percent of Sheffield passengers would never have bought such a ticket). People cut their cloth based on what they have. You might consider commuting to another city worthwhile if the two thousand pounds a year season ticket is seen against a five thousand year increase in wages. But then the fare rises to the point where it's more than the net increase in income and you're going to be angry. No Government is going to want to face those kind of upset people, which is why things get fudged and ignored and pushed into the long grass. It'll never change.

A lot of threads on here recently seem fairly well meaning in terms of "If I were starting from scratch, this is how I'd do things" (like the regular ideas that we copy the Germans and segregate local passengers from longer distance passengers) but it'd be far too messy/ complicated to try to bring about these changes on the living breathing railway.

 

[RT4038]

This is something that comes up from time to time and it simply isn’t feasible to have mileage based pricing. @yorkie asked the following questions when this was last discussed.

1) Please give me the proposed fares from York to Whitby for a day return, avoiding Darlington, and tell me how this fare is calculated and whether you think it will be competitive with the coach service provided by Coastliner that costs only slightly more than the current rail ticket price but offers a shorter journey time? Also if I was to start the journey at Church Fenton, would that add to the cost?

2) Please give me the proposed fares from York to London for a day return, and if this is lower than current prices, tell me where the revenue will be brought in to compensate LNER for the revenue loss?

3) Please give me the proposed fares for a return from Peterborough to Leicester, and also Peterborough to Nottingham, and let me know how you are calculating the mileage and whether under your system it will be permitted to travel from Peterborough to Nottingham via Leicester or not, and if someone does go via Leicester what excess will be charged (if any)?

4) Please give me the proposed fares for a return from London St Pancras to Ashford Intl (and any routeing options you wish to provide) and would those fares apply from, say, London Charing Cross to Ashford Intl? Please give me your calculations for different termini, if they vary..

It is a bit sad that suggestions of 'mileage' based fares seem to elicit irritated confrontational detail questions from forum fare experts, why is that?

Of course, any fares simplification is going to be very complicated, and possibly in danger of merely exchanging one complicated system for another. However, if a reasonably transparent system with a minimum of anomolies, then a system based on mileage would seem to be a possible solution. However, it would not be that simple, so I will attempt to suggest a way forward hopefully without raising too much ire.

I would assume that a simple cost by mile is not practical, but would have to be a banded scale, so short journeys are not too cheap and long journeys too expensive i.e [and the values are merely indicative] First mile £2, subsequent miles to 10 miles - 50p per mile. 11-20 45p per mile 21-40 40p per mile, 41-70 35p per mile gradually working down to 501-700 at 5p per mile. Some pretty detailed modelling would have to be done to determine the actual values, and the precise banding. Peak tickets would be a % increase on these rates.

Where there are multiple permitted routes then an average of the available mileages would be used. In some circumstances (particularly where one or more of the permitted routes would only be used by a passenger in infrequent circumstances] this could be an evidenced, published, weighted average.
In the circumstance that the railway takes an indirect routeing compared to the competition (which in terms of number of passenger journeys likely to be made will be very small) either (a) the railway has to suck it up (such as Pwllheli-Bangor) and not be competitive, or (b) a lower published 'tariff mileage' could be permitted between the two points, and any other intermediate fares capped at that tariff mileage. So in question 1 the York-Whitby fare could be capped at a tariff mileage, which would likely cap the York-Goathland and Thirsk-Whitby fares too. To get a Church-Fenton-Whitby fare you would add the Church Fenton-York mileage to the York-Whitby tariff mileage. These complications to be kept to a minimum.

Question 2 is just adversarial. If the York-London fare is lower than it is at present, the loss will be made up by other fares which will be higher.

In Question 3 - there is only one route from Peterborugh to Leicester, so the normal mileage scale would apply. A ticket from Peterborough to Nottingham would normally be routed via Grantham. Travelling via Leicester would possibly require a more expensive ticket for that mileage, as passengers would not normally travel that way nowadays. If someone wanted to travel via Leicester with a via Grantham ticket they would be charged an excess of the difference between the two fares, presumably.

For use of high speed (or any other special) lines an inflated tariff mileage could be used. In question 4, travel on ordinary trains from Charing Cross or Victoria to Ashford would be calculated by an average mileage of the available routes normally used. See no problem also in weighted 'averaging' the (former SR) terminals into one fare. Separate tickets for the HS line charged at a higher notional mileage.

The York-Sheffield fare mentioned in #17 would be a weighted average, due to the paucity of service (and therefore passenger use) on the Pontefract Baghill route.

Of course it is not possible to make an omelette without breaking eggs. There will be howls of protest. But everyone's fare cannot stay the same or only go down, with no anomolies, for simplification, without a lot more subsidy. After publishing the scheme I would then run away in exile to Patagonia.

 

[tspaul26]

It is a bit sad that suggestions of 'mileage' based fares seem to elicit irritated confrontational detail questions from forum fare experts, why is that?

Of course, any fares simplification is going to be very complicated, and possibly in danger of merely exchanging one complicated system for another. However, if a reasonably transparent system with a minimum of anomolies, then a system based on mileage would seem to be a possible solution. However, it would not be that simple, so I will attempt to suggest a way forward hopefully without raising too much ire.

I would assume that a simple cost by mile is not practical, but would have to be a banded scale, so short journeys are not too cheap and long journeys too expensive i.e [and the values are merely indicative] First mile £2, subsequent miles to 10 miles - 50p per mile. 11-20 45p per mile 21-40 40p per mile, 41-70 35p per mile gradually working down to 501-700 at 5p per mile. Some pretty detailed modelling would have to be done to determine the actual values, and the precise banding. Peak tickets would be a % increase on these rates.

Where there are multiple permitted routes then an average of the available mileages would be used. In some circumstances (particularly where one or more of the permitted routes would only be used by a passenger in infrequent circumstances] this could be an evidenced, published, weighted average.
In the circumstance that the railway takes an indirect routeing compared to the competition (which in terms of number of passenger journeys likely to be made will be very small) either (a) the railway has to suck it up (such as Pwllheli-Bangor) and not be competitive, or (b) a lower published 'tariff mileage' could be permitted between the two points, and any other intermediate fares capped at that tariff mileage. So in question 1 the York-Whitby fare could be capped at a tariff mileage, which would likely cap the York-Goathland and Thirsk-Whitby fares too. To get a Church-Fenton-Whitby fare you would add the Church Fenton-York mileage to the York-Whitby tariff mileage. These complications to be kept to a minimum.

Question 2 is just adversarial. If the York-London fare is lower than it is at present, the loss will be made up by other fares which will be higher.

In Question 3 - there is only one route from Peterborugh to Leicester, so the normal mileage scale would apply. A ticket from Peterborough to Nottingham would normally be routed via Grantham. Travelling via Leicester would possibly require a more expensive ticket for that mileage, as passengers would not normally travel that way nowadays. If someone wanted to travel via Leicester with a via Grantham ticket they would be charged an excess of the difference between the two fares, presumably.

For use of high speed (or any other special) lines an inflated tariff mileage could be used. In question 4, travel on ordinary trains from Charing Cross or Victoria to Ashford would be calculated by an average mileage of the available routes normally used. See no problem also in weighted 'averaging' the (former SR) terminals into one fare. Separate tickets for the HS line charged at a higher notional mileage.

The York-Sheffield fare mentioned in #17 would be a weighted average, due to the paucity of service (and therefore passenger use) on the Pontefract Baghill route.

Of course it is not possible to make an omelette without breaking eggs. There will be howls of protest. But everyone's fare cannot stay the same or only go down, with no anomolies, for simplification, without a lot more subsidy. After publishing the scheme I would then run away in exile to Patagonia.

This begs the question: why should we have mileage based fares?

If it is ‘simplicity’ then this isn’t my idea of simplicity!

 

[Hadders]

It is a bit sad that suggestions of 'mileage' based fares seem to elicit irritated confrontational detail questions from forum fare experts, why is that?

The reason is because it is impractical as your proposals seem to be far from a simple mileage based proposal.

Under a mileage based system the fare from Plymouth to Penzance would cost more than from Paddington to Reading. That doesn't seem right to me.

 

[Cdd89]

The only mileage-based system I am aware of (Netherlands PAYG fares, but I am sure there are more) uses crow-flies distance to avoid many of the above pitfalls. Even if this were feasible and we were prepared to throw the entire rule book of existing fares in the bin (politically difficult), crow-flies mileage-based systems can't be implemented without a system of validators (because paper tickets holders on V-shaped routes could break their journey, whether legally or not, at the furthest point); nor that it would be sustainable in a country the size of the UK.

 

[geoffk]

No.

BR abandoned completely mileage based fares decades ago.

Don't many of the current disparities go back to the days of InterCity and Network South East? Compare fares from Northampton and Wellingborough to London, a similar distance but one NSE (supported), the other IC (profitable). The difference in service quality is much smaller now - a 350 or a 360. Admittedly that's just one example.

 

[JonathanH]

Don't many of the current disparities go back to the days of InterCity and Network South East? Compare fares from Northampton and Wellingborough to London, a similar distance but one NSE (supported), the other IC (profitable). The difference in service quality is much smaller now - a 350 or a 360. Admittedly that's just one example.

It isn't just the IC / NSE differences though - the 'fares basket' approach to increases which applied for some time meant fares on some routes rose much more quickly than others even with the same operator. There were also different approaches to encouraging more custom on different routes and operators.

When it comes to the mileage based pricing I wonder what people would suggest for the Southern fares along the south coast?

 

[Bevan Price]

Mileage based fares worked perfectly satisfactorily for over 100 years. Then BR changed to a "market-based" system, which led to cheaper fares for some, and "rip-off" fares for others. True, there would be winners & losers if GBR reverted to a mileage system.

Do faster trains really cost much more to operate than slow trains ?
True, the energy consumption will increase, but staffing costs should decline, because staff on fast services potentially work more trips per hour.

It took a few years after 1948 to settle down, but where there was not much difference in mileage, a common fare was adopted for journeys by different routes. For example, I think that it was the same fare from any of Manchester (Piccadilly or Central) to London Euston, St. Pancras, Marylebone, and possibly also Kings Cross via Sheffield Victoria & Retford.

Up to the 1950s/60s, the ticketing system was pretty simple. You basically had single tickets, ordinary return tickets, and season tickets.
(Plus regional rovers and holiday runabouts, often available only in summer.)
Ordinary returns cost double a single ticket.
1st Class was 1.5 times the 2nd (ex-3rd) Class fare.
Children (under 14) travelled at half price.

Outside London, there were no afternoon peak hour restrictions - there were no TOCs to fiddle the rules to get themselves more money.
Cheap Day Return availability varied from region to region. Often they existed only for short distance travel, to/from the nearest city or big town, or sometimes to/from coastal resorts. In the early 1960s, there wasn't even a cheap day return from Paddington to Reading (or beyond) - just a Sunday special offer, with no returning to London before late afternoon. Yet there were day returns to the Kent & Sussex coasts on the Southern, and to Cambridge (return either way) on the Eastern.

There were also sometimes limited special day returns, often outward by one or two specified trains, but return by any train. I suppose these would now be regarded as a primitive form of market forces, to attract more passengers onto specific trains. Fares were generally a few shillings dearer than the cost of a single ticket.

 

[Watershed]

Mileage based fares worked perfectly satisfactorily for over 100 years. Then BR changed to a "market-based" system, which led to cheaper fares for some, and "rip-off" fares for others. True, there would be winners & losers if GBR reverted to a mileage system.

Do faster trains really cost much more to operate than slow trains ?
True, the energy consumption will increase, but staffing costs should decline, because staff on fast services potentially work more trips per hour.

It took a few years after 1948 to settle down, but where there was not much difference in mileage, a common fare was adopted for journeys by different routes. For example, I think that it was the same fare from any of Manchester (Piccadilly or Central) to London Euston, St. Pancras, Marylebone, and possibly also Kings Cross via Sheffield Victoria & Retford.

Up to the 1950s/60s, the ticketing system was pretty simple. You basically had single tickets, ordinary return tickets, and season tickets.
(Plus regional rovers and holiday runabouts, often available only in summer.)
Ordinary returns cost double a single ticket.
1st Class was 1.5 times the 2nd (ex-3rd) Class fare.
Children (under 14) travelled at half price.

Outside London, there were no afternoon peak hour restrictions - there were no TOCs to fiddle the rules to get themselves more money.
Cheap Day Return availability varied from region to region. Often they existed only for short distance travel, to/from the nearest city or big town, or sometimes to/from coastal resorts. In the early 1960s, there wasn't even a cheap day return from Paddington to Reading (or beyond) - just a Sunday special offer, with no returning to London before late afternoon. Yet there were day returns to the Kent & Sussex coasts on the Southern, and to Cambridge (return either way) on the Eastern.

There were also sometimes limited special day returns, often outward by one or two specified trains, but return by any train. I suppose these would now be regarded as a primitive form of market forces, to attract more passengers onto specific trains. Fares were generally a few shillings dearer than the cost of a single ticket.

That's all well and good. But if you wanted such a simple and passenger friendly system to be reintroduced, you might want to hold onto your chair before you see the amount that fares would have to increase by, for it to be revenue neutral...

 

[Dr Hoo]

I think that Bevan Price is over-simplifying the 1950s a bit. Besides the various types of ticket listed there were still things like Workmen's tickets, i thought. Pullmans on some routes. The chance to wait for an Excursion to come up in some cases. You had to have tickets to take a bicycle with you. You often even had to pay to leave your bicycle at a station.

And, for many people with limited incomes it would be necessary to check the alternative bus or coach fares too so as not to 'waste money'.

To obtain fares information you would usually have to queue at a ticket (or enquiry) office as well.

The system "worked perfectly satisfactorily" to the point where BR was effectively bankrupt.

(Yes, I know that there were many other factors at work too, such as government control of general fares increases, falling freight traffic, rising costs and so on but lots of things had to change, as Messrs Marples and Beeching realised.)

 

[RT4038]

This begs the question: why should we have mileage based fares?

If it is ‘simplicity’ then this isn’t my idea of simplicity!

The main reason would be a measure of transparency and the general public's perception of fairness.

The reason is because it is impractical as your proposals seem to be far from a simple mileage based proposal.

Under a mileage based system the fare from Plymouth to Penzance would cost more than from Paddington to Reading. That doesn't seem right to me.

Not sure why it would be impractical (aside from the howls of protest at the time of conversion to this system)? I don't think I ever implied that a workable mileage based system would be simple, but it would be more transparent and have little or no anomalies resulting in split ticketing or cheaper tickets for longer journeys etc.

Not sure why, from the general public's perception of fairness, what would be the problem with Paddington-Reading costing less than Plymouth-Penzance, due to the greater mileage of the latter.

Mileage based fares worked perfectly satisfactorily for over 100 years.

I'm not so sure that mileage based fares did work 'perfectly satisfactorily'. Train fares for short distances were quite cheap, but for long distances were considered expensive for ordinary people, and the Railway was making a massive loss on passenger operations. There were lots and lots of pretty empty trains running about.

 

[Journeyman]

I'm not so sure that mileage based fares did work 'perfectly satisfactorily'. Train fares for short distances were quite cheap, but for long distances were considered expensive for ordinary people, and the Railway was making a massive loss on passenger operations. There were lots and lots of pretty empty trains running about.

Absolutely. One of the main reasons trains have been so full recently is because the rail industry now uses yield management techniques to fill empty seats. The sale of advance tickets at competitive prices is now a fine art, and means that most IC/long distance TOCs have tools at their disposal to sell tickets for what people are willing to pay, regardless of distance.

 

[RT4038]

Absolutely. One of the main reasons trains have been so full recently is because the rail industry now uses yield management techniques to fill empty seats. The sale of advance tickets at competitive prices is now a fine art, and means that most IC/long distance TOCs have tools at their disposal to sell tickets for what people are willing to pay, regardless of distance.

You and I know that, and accept it, but unfortunately a lot of the general public, and plenty of rail enthusiasts, think it is some sort of big con and conspiracy to deprive people of 'fair fares'. Unfortunately this gives the UK rail industry a negative perception.