Train Tickets Are To Cheap?

[Failed Unit]

For other ticket types you should be able to 'check in' and book your seat almost up to departure from the originating station. This is not perfect but would cut down on 'no shows'.

Again very hard to do on Aberdeen / Inverness - London services. Someone at York may need to get up very early to check in, and if the preceeding service is running late may decide to board it anyway.

Some operators wanted to sell tickets after the train had departed to fill up an empty seat on route, but this was rejected as it may result in the person with a walk on ticket that had been on from the departure point getting kicked out of thier seat. Imagine a Edinburgh - Penzance journey and getting kicked out a Bristol!

 

[Zoe]

I see there are tickets available for less then £40 from York to London on Easter Monday afternoon. I'm no expert but I'm sure those trains will be rammed. The walk on fare is about £80. Why sell cheap tickets??

As these days walk-on tickets are so expensive that if no advance fares were available many leisure travelers will go by car rather than pay a walk-on fare.

 

[Lee_Again]

As these days walk-on tickets are so expensive that if no advance fares were available many leisure travelers will go by car rather than pay a walk-on fare.

So? And I think you're wrong. I know people who will get up at 3.00am to catch a 7.00 am flight becuase it's £20 cheaper than the 11.00am flight; "why should I pay more just to travel at a reasonable time??"

You're missing my point. Sell cheap tickets, in actual fact give them away for free if you like, but not on busy trains. Surely, all TOC's should be looking to attract as much revenue as they can. For those that say trains should be available for use by anybody, I quite agree, but without wishing to repeat myself, not on the predictably busy services.

 

[Zoe]

So? And I think you're wrong. I know people who will get up at 3.00am to catch a 7.00 am flight becuase it's £20 cheaper than the 11.00am flight; "why should I pay more just to travel at a reasonable time??"

That does not contradict what I said at all. People will go for the cheaper fares, booking in advance is cheaper than going by car so when advance fares are available the train will as you expect get quite busy. The issue is that if there are cheap advance fares available on the Easter Monday, the TOC runs the risk of people not wanting to pay the expensive walk-on fares and going by car, by offering cheap advance fares it at least makes it more likely the train will be busy and so more profit for the TOC.

 

[sheff1]

Some operators wanted to sell tickets after the train had departed to fill up an empty seat on route, but this was rejected as it may result in the person with a walk on ticket that had been on from the departure point getting kicked out of thier seat. Imagine a Edinburgh - Penzance journey and getting kicked out a Bristol!

But the Edinburgh - Penzance traveller could reserve the seat immediately prior to boarding or, on leaving Edinburgh, via the conductor who would log the reservation via a hand held device thus preventing the seat being resold. In France you can reserve a seat on on TGV using machines at the station long after the train has left the origin point - eg reserve Marseille to Nice on a train starting at Paris.

Of course these TGVs are fully reserved and reservation labels/displays are not used but, given the will, you could introduce such as system for part of a train. So, say, on a London to Edinburgh train, five carriages (or however many a specific service warranted) could be fully reservable - someone joining at York could reserve a seat just before they boarded and the computer would allocate a seat which had been reserved from Kings Cross to York. The remaining carriages (the location of which would have to be clearly signed at stations) would be unreservable, primarily aimed at shorter distance flows eg Darlington to Newcastle, although there would be nothing to stop a Darlington - Newcastle passenger paying for a guaranteed seat in a reservable coach if they wanted.

 

[jon0844]

I doubt many people would be buying two advance tickets to cover the bases, especially if they travel on a semi-regular basis.

I might do it as a one off, but to do so regularly doubles the price!

At the moment, we have one carriage that has no reserved seats. It wouldn't be hard to turn one (or add one) that you pay to sit down when you arrive on the train - or reserve by text or whatever.

It can't be done right now, but it could be done.