Trivia: Other countries that sell British style Return tickets.

[busestrains]

Where else around the world other than the UK and Ireland do they sell British style Return tickets?

In the UK and Ireland all of our trains and most of our buses sell Return tickets which is a ticket valid for one outward journey and one return journey. It gives you a discount compared to buying two Single tickets. So this is the type of ticket that i am asking about.

However travelling around Mainland Europe and the rest of the world Return tickets seem non existent in most places. So you have to buy two Single tickets. Some other countries in Mainland Europe advertise Return tickets as an option on their ticket machines and in their ticket offices but what you are actually being sold is two Single tickets with one for each direction in the same transaction.

Within all of Mainland Europe i think Latvia may be the one and only country to offer Return tickets. Latvia sells British style Return ticket which is one ticket valid for one outward journey and one return journey. They give you a 5% discount compared to buying two Single tickets. I suspect Latvia may be the only other one in Mainland Europe to offer British style Return tickets.

So i would be curious to know what other countries around the world currently sell British style Return tickets?

 

[DanielB]

In the Netherlands we used to have return tickets which were cheaper than two single tickets. These ceased to exist when the OV-chipkaart was introduced, to enable having the same fare for chipcard and paper tickets.
Technically you could say they still exist however, as at the transition moment returns weren't made more expensive but actually single tickets became slightly cheaper.

In some regions the bus companies do still offer return tickets, but not necessary at all times of the day. For example here in the Utrecht province a return ticket is available every evening and on Saturday and Sunday (link to fares).
With that return ticket you actually get a 30% discount compared to two singles, so quite a huge discount.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Belgium offers day returns at twice the single on their trains. They also do a weekend return which is a bit cheaper but only valid on the weekend (but you can go out one day and back the other).

Germany used to but hasn't for a bit. Normalpreis was twice the single, but there were also fixed (flat) fare Sparpreis and Super Sparpreis with various restrictions suitable for very long trips.

 

[dutchflyer]

BE: the weekend return is a lot cheaper as 2 singles, but is also valid longer as 1 day (but can do if wanted)
It also offers the SEnior return-fixed price, now 7,80, not before 9.00, which is effectively but not quite what you mention.
In DE=Germany this is nearly everywhere in their Verkehrsverbünde replaced by a DAYticket, at the cost of 2 singles, for that day or for 24 hrs. This was even a kind of deliberate policy for some yrs, but as all things in DE not followed in all areas.
As such DK also had these, just as we in NL as daniel explains, long ago. I even remembered them in the Copenhagen area, <2000. In NL on buses the rate was set at 1,7x single. And well-AT=Austria on its OeBB offered return forgot if limited to same day or longer) for 1,8x single. In the time of edmonson tickets.
Somehow, but this is from memory and not specific for which line, the odd commuter-trainline in USA (mostly only offering IN town am and FROM town PM, with perhaps the odd trip in between, offered these for travel after a certain time-so again off-peak.
I also think Australia-or at least some of its states, had them-or maybe even still have (IF yes, Vic or NSW).
So it indeed seems a thing mostly tied to the /en/speaking world and the nearby areas that followed that as inspiration-and then also bought 100s, 1000s of very reliable british-proud-industry buses etc. (Leyland and Crossley in NL).
But somehow I also recall that here or there a local promotion was offered as such-like ´this week/season´ return for 1,5x single-but most often not even tied to that day.
But then most out of GB countries offer much cheaper monthly or long ago also weekly (who still gets paid by the week-that is also GB?) season tickets for those using transit daily. Which leads me to: why are these so scarce in that island (yes, I know they exist-more for trains as for bus is my impression)?
Another thing quite specific for GB is that even citybuses had or still have graduated fares and not set fixed fares. I was really amazed about that when I first visited LOndon (red double deck Routemasters, in times when there was stilling shilling+pence).

 

[rg177]

I noticed when I bought a return ticket in Lithuania at the weekend I was given 5% off the return portion of the fare (2,28€ instead of 2,40€).

 

[cav1975]

Before covid stopped my visits to India I occasionally used the suburban trains in Chennai (Madras). Returns were readily available at the ticket offices, albeit at twice the price of a single. I would buy them to avoid queueing up for the return journey.

 

[railfan99]

Yes, V/Line in Victoria and NSW TrainLink in NSW are among Australian rail operators offering return tickets.

However soon V/Line will be a (maximum) flat fare following a stupid revenue-affecting promise made by the governing Labor Party prior to the November 2022 Victorian State election.

 

[RT4038]

In the UK, 'ordinary' return tickets were twice the price of a single. I think Cheap day return tickets offering a discount were only introduced to combat local bus competition, and period return tickets at a discount for long distance coaches. Our current system of return fares only came about after the abolition of fare regulation in the 1960s.

 

[30907]

There are two separate issues here:
1. return tickets vs 2x single
2. return tickets at significant discount

#1 are still available in some places for traditional international journeys, though validity (according to CD for example) is now only 4 days for a return. CD no longer issue them internally (there was a 5% discount), ZSSK do but again maximum validity of 4 days. I haven't checked further East! SBB issue returns but validity is only 1 day.
#2 is, as has already been said, almost exclusively confined to GB (and go back pre WW2, both for period and day fares.
I can remember there being a discounted return fare on SNCF Grandes Lignes (along with the red/white/blue periods for allowing them) but they disappeared AFAIK some years back. There were heavily discounted returns in Germany for some years, 20 year ago, too. But those were the exception.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

So our modern languages teachers weren't completely wasting both our time and theirs by teaching us "aller retour" and "hin und zuruck" then...

 

[The exile]

So our modern languages teachers weren't completely wasting both our time and theirs by teaching us "aller retour" and "hin und zuruck" then...

No - especially as it got you both legs in one transaction- even if not at a discount. Particularly useful in pre internet days if you were making a journey to somewhere you were less likely to be understood!

 

[zero]

I recall that some funiculars / cable cars / chairlifts or private railways in Germany and Switzerland, where not absorbed into the local transport association, have a discount if you come back (as opposed to walking I guess).

In Hong Kong, the Airport Express train and the CityFlyer airport buses have discounted same-day return fares when paying by Octopus card (intended for people seeing their friends/relatives off, or possibly for people in transit). At their offices, you can also buy little-known period paper returns, not available as singles, and have a significant discount over the normal fares.

On buses in Qatar, the single fare is 10 riyals in cash, but you can also buy a smart card for 10 riyals which is good for 2 journeys, i.e. a "return" (or 20 riyals for unlimited travel in 24 hours). This was before the World Cup, and also the reality did not always match the theory - I was told that bus drivers could sell the return smart card but this never happened and I think they just wanted to pocket my cash. I did manage to buy the return smartcard from the bus operator offices.

In NSW, Australia, when the Opal card was first introduced, there was a bug in the fare calculation logic which meant that return fares could be *cheaper* than single fares.

When touching into a service, having touched out within the past 60 minutes, the trips would be combined into one (like a London Oyster OSI, but for all stations) and the fare would be based on the entire journey. The bug was that the distance used to calculate the fare was based only on the initial origin and final destination, ignoring the intermediate points.

So a single from A to the nearest station B might be the lowest possible fare (e.g. $2), and A to a far away station C might be the highest possible fare (e.g. $10). When going from A to C you would initally be charged $10, then if you re-entered C within 60 minutes and went back to A, you would get a *refund* of $8 and only pay a fare of $2 i.e. as if you just went from A to A.

 

[johncrossley]

Whilst return fares offering a discount over 2 singles is rare outside the UK and Ireland, you might be able to get a day ticket that is cheaper than a day return. For example, regional day tickets in Germany.

 

[30907]

Whilst return fares offering a discount over 2 singles is rare outside the UK and Ireland, you might be able to get a day ticket that is cheaper than a day return. For example, regional day tickets in Germany.

An extreme example would be a Thüringen Land Ticket which is also valid in Sachsen and S-Anhalt: Eisenach-Goerlitz is EUR65.40 on Regional trains starting in the morning peak, EUR27 on the day ticket.
It probably applies between Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern where the ticket covers both Laender and there is no single Verkehrsverbund.

 

[fandroid]

In the UK, 'ordinary' return tickets were twice the price of a single. I think Cheap day return tickets offering a discount were only introduced to combat local bus competition, and period return tickets at a discount for long distance coaches. Our current system of return fares only came about after the abolition of fare regulation in the 1960s.

I remember Cheap Day Returns existed when I first bought tickets on BR trains in the 1960s as did discounted return tickets on buses. BR later introduced Savers and SuperSavers which are ones that the media currently seem puzzled about, being period returns only £1 cheaper than Singles. That was a marketing move to encourage offpeak travel, and it worked very well. I have been asked on German country buses if I wanted "zurück" but as I didn't I have no idea if there was a discount.

The only common discounts I have come across in most European cities are for Day Tickets, which allow multiple journeys but are always set at a price that's greater than two singles

 

[Gordon]

The only common discounts I have come across in most European cities are for Day Tickets, which allow multiple journeys but are always set at a price that's greater than two singles

The latter not quite true. In Switzerland if you get a Saver Day Pass* - especially at the cheapest price they sell for - it is likely to end up being cheaper for certain out and back journeys (especially long distance)

* The Saver Day Pass is a 1 day rover ticket for all public transport across the whole country - imagine if such a thing had been available on BR in the 1980s!

 

[Gerald Fiennes]

In the UK, 'ordinary' return tickets were twice the price of a single. I think Cheap day return tickets offering a discount were only introduced to combat local bus competition, and period return tickets at a discount for long distance coaches. Our current system of return fares only came about after the abolition of fare regulation in the 1960s.

So, GB (strictly) used to have a mileage-based fare structure valid at any time of day. That was abolished in the 1960s in faviour of something that became known as 'market pricing'. The mileage-based fare level was set by various mechanisms over the years, but latterly was a Government influenced, BR-decided thing. Under market pricing it could be at any level and we currently have a situation in which this was taken to its logical extreme, ie. Anytime fares from London to more or less everywhere between Manchester - Leeds and northwards to the Central Belt are the same since unrestricted air fares here were pretty much the sam.

However, the railways had for many years (more or less from the start, I believe) various Excursion, Cheap Day Returns and Seasons. This was done for commercial reasons as the tariff-fare was aimed at 'essential' travel but lower fares helped bring more people and more revenue in. This worked really well. The discount levels varied by railway but I believe those for Seasons were pretty much uniform between the Big-4 in the 1920s. This is the origin of the idea that Seasons are somehow 'cheap', which still persists in railway circles but nowhere else (!) They were a way of building up regular trade in commuter areas by getting people to move there, but clearly today the 'Season' fare is now regarded as very expensive and the volume of sales has dropped right off as WFH has taken hold and, in the London Oyster, area, they have been replaced by the Contactless capping idea.

The Cheap Day fare is still widely used for travel all over the place, particularly for days out and, indeed, the West Coast used to have one between Brum and London I think right up to 2000 or so. Up here in East Anglia we had loads of them in the 50s to get people to the big places (Norwich) and the coast. Otherwise, anyone who today has to use intercity routes for days out will recognise the problem that what is now the Off peak return is actually quite expensive compared with the cheap day, and so is less generative (in revenue-speak). A string of Cheap Days can often be cheaper than an Off peak return (aka as Split Ticketing)....

The rush to single-leg pricing has tended to ignore the problem of what to do about these fares, eg. London to Brighton and so on. I suppose having a peak single and an offpeak single would do it, but the railway would want these to be considerably more than 50% of the equivalent return fare on the theory that one way tickets are more often used by business travellers (remember them, the people with the briefcases? There are some pics in the NRM if it all seems a long time ago!)

As with much else, the politicians and officials get more excited about the ticketing technology (everyone to use smartcards etc. etc.) but struggle with the fares structure itself, where you get into the business of working out what people are going to be actually asked to pay.