Ticket revenue - how does it work?

[anti-pacer]

Let's say for the sake of argument I buy a single ticket from Manchester to Sheffield, who gets the revenue?

The ticket will have been purchased at a Virgin ticket office, and I have the choice of EMT, TPE and Northern to travel there. Given that train staff just either look at your ticket or scribble on it, there doesn't look any official way to record which TOC you've actually travelled with.

I ask this question out of curiousity and nothing else by the way.

 

[Clip]

Search for orcats on the forum its all in a post there but generally fare setters get the most then its shared out i think.

 

[anti-pacer]

Search for orcats on the forum its all in a post there but generally fare setters get the most then its shared out i think.

I've typed in "orcats" but can't see what I should be linking to.

 

[yorkie]

Any of these results would provide some answers:
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=orcats+site:railforums.co.uk

One of the results is Which TOC Gets My Money?, in which I posted:

These threads are worth a look:

• Train companies and tickets (June 2009)
• Orcats (August 2011)
• Revenue distribution among companies (November 2011)
• Article on ORCATS (April 2012)
• Who gets Season ticket money? (August 2012)

Hope that helps!

More results available via Google search for orcats site:railforums.co.uk

 

[ainsworth74]

This post give a decent outline of how ORCATS works.

 

[yorkie]

And there's another example here:

There is an interesting article on ORCATS in "Rail" magazine this month. Of a £40.30 Sutton Coldfield - Burscough Bridge Off-Peak Return (SVR), Northern apparently gets 0.84% of the fare even though if following the Sutton Coldfield - Birmingham New Street - Wigan - Burscough Bridge route just over 9% of the journey length is on Northern and London Midland gets nothing even though just over 7% of the journey length would be on LM if following this route. The ticket is priced by Virgin West Coast so presumably most of the fare goes to Virgin. The ticket is priced at the same rate as Birmingham - Wigan. The article mentioned that "Rail" may publish how much of a Sheffield - Richmond (Yorks) fare Arriva buses get next month. The article is available free in the NRM if anyone happens to be visiting - I would have photocopied it and scanned it in but unfortunately the photocopier was not working.

 

[yorkie]

Let's say for the sake of argument I buy a single ticket from Manchester to Sheffield, who gets the revenue?

Northern, TPE and EMT.

A tiny amount may go to other operators, such as Virgin and ATW, whose trains you may use.

The ticket will have been purchased at a Virgin ticket office

Virgin get the commission, in that case.

and I have the choice of EMT, TPE and Northern to travel there. Given that train staff just either look at your ticket or scribble on it, there doesn't look any official way to record which TOC you've actually travelled with.

I ask this question out of curiousity and nothing else by the way.

There is no way to record what train you used, so ORCATS is used instead.

 

[Starmill]

Based on what I was told by someone from PDFH, the most important thing is the balance of fastest available journey opportunities. If your journey is slow - or far wrose, overtaken, you may stand to lose a lot in your ORCATs allocation (although changes should also be taken into account, so an overtaken journey with no changes may still get some allocation if the faster journey requires changes). I am also led to believe that some flows have a custom allocation which is based on surveys, or other data. It seems incredibly unlikely that VT or AW will have any revenue from Manchester - Sheffield tickets as they are never involved in the fastest available journeys.

Some have claimed that in addition to capacity, rolling stock quality is also accounted for. I'm quite skeptical of that idea, although it could manifest itself in the timetable data, e.g. if someone buys a First Class ticket, apply a heavier weighting towards trains which are scheduled to convey First Class (although that would not mean that revenue from a First Class ticket could not be allocated to the operator of the train with no First Class). Who knows really, most of the details will be commercially sensitive.

I'm not quite sure why the fare setter would be relevant. I will eat a (clean) sock if XC are getting any money from Penrith to Carlisle singles.

 

[fowler9]

Can I try and put it simply. It is really really complicated.

 

[roversfan2001]

I'm not quite sure why the fare setter would be relevant. I will eat a (clean) sock if XC are getting any money from Penrith to Carlisle singles.

Slightly OT, but I'd hope the sale of PNR-CAR Any Permitted singles would be low anyway, seen as the 2 operators serving that flow have their own specific fares.

 

[Starmill]

Slightly OT, but I'd hope the sale of PNR-CAR Any Permitted singles would be low anyway, seen as the 2 operators serving that flow have their own specific fares.

They have only been available for a couple of months, before that nobody had any choice. It would appear that XC pricing the Any Permitted tickets is the only reason both are allowed to get away with this.

And for a return journey, if you are not sure when you are going to come back you have little choice but to buy the Any Permitted, or risk delaying your return.

 

[roversfan2001]

They have only been available for a couple of months, before that nobody had any choice. It would appear that XC pricing the Any Permitted tickets is the only reason both are allowed to get away with this.

And for a return journey, if you are not sure when you are going to come back you have little choice but to buy the Any Permitted, or risk delaying your return.

I imagine neither VT or TPE have any wish to claim ownership of the flow either, as then they'd lose out on the revenue from their TOC-specific fares! I guess XC pricing the fare is an after-effect of them running the Manchester-Scotland services years ago.