Why isn't light rail integrated into the UK rail network's fare structure?

[MKB]

I think this applies to pretty much all of the light rail systems around the UK, but my beef in this instance is with Midlands Metro.

I can buy a return ticket this weekend from Nuneaton station to The Hawthorns station (for the West Brom game), but our crazy disintegrated transport system means that the ticket will not permit me to do the convenient change at Birmingham New Street from a Cross Country train to a Midlands Metro light rail service.

I am instead required to walk to either Moor Street or Snow Hill to catch a London Midland train. And if I'm prepared to buy a second ticket, I can't have a railcard discount and I can't collect it at my origin station.

We seem to have transport policy in this country that is deliberately designed to encourage car use.

I asked Transport for West Midlands why they would not offer though ticketing to the mainline rail network, and their reply boiled down to them not giving a toss about anyone who lived outside their area.

 

[southern442]

I definitely think that all metro and light rail systems should become part of the 'national network' officially, in the sense that they should act in practice as TOC's with complete through ticketing and connections to 'national rail' available. The different railways in the UK are not well integrated and should act as one whole functioning network.

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

I find it interesting that whenever someone calls for (re)nationalisation of the railways they never seem to mention the light rail systems despite the fact that many of them only exist because routes which were previously part of the national network were converted to light rail. In some cases without such conversions the systems would never have been possible.

 

[WatcherZero]

Its also an issue of splitting revenue. When you sell a light rail ticket the system gets 100% of the revenue, when you buy a heavy rail ticket it goes into one big pot and is apportioned out to different tocs according to a complicated formula.

Unless you want to calculate the appropriate revenue share individually from almost 3000 rail stations to upto 100 light rail stations and then repeat for every light rail network and add each of those combinations to the ticketing system which already has to handle more than a million and half possible fares then it makes sense just to simplify it to an addon price and give that addon fee to the light rail network on top of the normal rail fare.

 

[The Ham]

Its also an issue of splitting revenue. When you sell a light rail ticket the system gets 100% of the revenue, when you buy a heavy rail ticket it goes into one big pot and is apportioned out to different tocs according to a complicated formula.

Unless you want to calculate the appropriate revenue share individually from almost 3000 rail stations to upto 100 light rail stations and then repeat for every light rail network and add each of those combinations to the ticketing system which already has to handle more than a million and half possible fares then it makes sense just to simplify it to an addon price and give that addon fee to the light rail network on top of the normal rail fare.

Quite, if plusbus works why not plustram?

 

[duncanp]

Some of the PlusBus tickets do include tram travel.

The Birmingham one certainly does, so you could buy a day return from Nuneaton and a PlusBus ticket for an extra £3.40.

But there should be more arrangements such as exist in London where transfer between terminals is included, or where light rail and national tickets are inter- available. (eg A tube ticket between Finsbury Park and Kings Cross is also valid on National Rail)

These arrangement seem to exist in Manchester.

http://www.tfgm.com/journey_planning/Tickets/Pages/Rail-and-Metrolink-combined.aspx

So there is no reason why it can't be done elsewhere.

I guess it is up to the relevant operators to negotiate, and it will come down to splitting revenue.

 

[kevjs]

There is some minor integration - Nottingham's Plus Bus includes NET (the tram).

The Robin Hood Card Season ticket (not PAYG) is valid on East Midlands Trains services in the Greater Nottingham area (although it's not clear which stations that includes).

Unless you want to calculate the appropriate revenue share individually from almost 3000 rail stations to upto 100 light rail stations and then repeat for every light rail network and add each of those combinations to the ticketing system which already has to handle more than a million and half possible fares then it makes sense just to simplify it to an addon price and give that addon fee to the light rail network on top of the normal rail fare.

This is where smart ticketing would help - Nottingham's Robin Hood card (and NCT's Bus Cards, Trent Barton's Mangos, NET's Mangos) all make use of the same readers as the concessionary pass cards (e.g. pensioner bus pass) to attribute fares to the right operators.

Round here through ticketing with the Tram at the very least would be very beneficial to people travelling to places in the city, especially on Line 1 where the Robin Hood Line has a cross platform interchange at Hucknall and is just above the station at Nottingham (Midland) - and looking to the future the interchange between NET Line 3 and Toton HS2.

As for buying the ticket - do what they do in Manchester - e.g. London St Pancras Intl to "Nottingham Stns"...

 

[yorksrob]

Manchester has some useful joint daysavers which cover all combinations of tram train and bus. These are very handy. However one can't buy a ticket from Leeds to Bury for example.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Manchester has some useful joint daysavers which cover all combinations of tram train and bus. These are very handy. However one can't buy a ticket from Leeds to Bury for example.

You can't get railcard discounts though.
Plusbus does at least allow that.

 

[yorksrob]

You can't get railcard discounts though.
Plusbus does at least allow that.

I'm afraid that for me, railcard discounts are an unobtainable fantasy anyway (outside of Network SouthEast at least).

 

[JonathanP]

In Germany all regional public transport has integrated ticketing - buses, trams, trains, trolleybuses, urban light rail, funiculars and monorails(!). Generally costs are based on a 'zone' basis - the more zones you cross, the more you pay, the mode of transport you use is irrelevant.
To be honest, having only ever lived in London and Germany I never thought much about how this worked in the rest of the UK.

This works through a Vekehrsverbund - this is one example which explains what they do.

I think the difference(apart from that being what everyone expects) is that in Germany all public transport funding decisions are made at the local level, so it is the same organisation that commissions all these services and they can make the ticketing work.
To be honest, though I'm not exactly sure how it works - these Vekehrsverbunds are always described as 'partnerships' between all the transport companies, rather than being run by the local government.

It can be done in the UK though, because we have it in London for Oyster. Presumably it is the DfT in that case that forces the train companies to accept it?
It's a pity the PTEs didn't have the clout to introduce the same thing in their areas.

 

[boxy321]

I think this applies to pretty much all of the light rail systems around the UK, but my beef in this instance is with Midlands Metro.

I can buy a return ticket this weekend from Nuneaton station to The Hawthorns station (for the West Brom game), but our crazy disintegrated transport system means that the ticket will not permit me to do the convenient change at Birmingham New Street from a Cross Country train to a Midlands Metro light rail service.

I am instead required to walk to either Moor Street or Snow Hill to catch a London Midland train. And if I'm prepared to buy a second ticket, I can't have a railcard discount and I can't collect it at my origin station.

We seem to have transport policy in this country that is deliberately designed to encourage car use.

I asked Transport for West Midlands why they would not offer though ticketing to the mainline rail network, and their reply boiled down to them not giving a toss about anyone who lived outside their area.

It's the same the other way round. My nnetwork pass gets me on anything in the West Midlands, but not to Kenilworth, Rugby, Bedworth or Nuneaton. The walk to Moor St, which I do twice a day, only takes a few minutes BTW.

Just looked: Liverpool or Leicester match? I would avoid the tram at all costs - it will be heaving. Walk to Moor street or get a bus. We were on said tram on a Saturday last year not knowing there was a home game on. It was certainly cosy.

You can always hit Selfridges for some tat and the crass, loud, bright yellow souvenir bags they give away for the tourists.

 

[Comstock]

Its also an issue of splitting revenue.....

Unless you want to calculate the appropriate revenue share individually from almost 3000 rail stations to upto 100 light rail stations and then repeat for every light rail network

That sounds like a massive challenge but it's exactly what computers are very good at.

A modern high end computer would eat this sort of calculation for breakfast.

 

[pemma]

Its also an issue of splitting revenue. When you sell a light rail ticket the system gets 100% of the revenue, when you buy a heavy rail ticket it goes into one big pot and is apportioned out to different tocs according to a complicated formula.

Unless you want to calculate the appropriate revenue share individually from almost 3000 rail stations to upto 100 light rail stations and then repeat for every light rail network and add each of those combinations to the ticketing system which already has to handle more than a million and half possible fares then it makes sense just to simplify it to an addon price and give that addon fee to the light rail network on top of the normal rail fare.

If you want to buy a return ticket from London to MediaCity you can. However, if you want to buy a return ticket from MediaCity to London you can't. It's one thing arguing it's too complicated to add all the National Rail stations to the Metrolink TVMs but not even making tickets like MediaCity to London available for purchase from NR ticket offices or online is inexcusable when the reverse ticket can be sold.

Then comes the problem of connections. If you have an Advance ticket and a connecting NR service is delayed you can travel on the next train but if you have a connecting Metrolink service and Metrolink shuts down the service on a line for an hour due to a problem (which does happen occasionally) then you are forced to buy a new full price ticket for your rail journey, while if your intended train was the last train of the day then you're screwed.

I noticed from your comments on the MCRUA blog that you share Metrolink's view of thinking that it's better for Metrolink to turn around services early even if that causes people to miss their connecting train, than to run trams with delays.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Its also an issue of splitting revenue. When you sell a light rail ticket the system gets 100% of the revenue, when you buy a heavy rail ticket it goes into one big pot and is apportioned out to different tocs according to a complicated formula.

Unless you want to calculate the appropriate revenue share individually from almost 3000 rail stations to upto 100 light rail stations and then repeat for every light rail network and add each of those combinations to the ticketing system which already has to handle more than a million and half possible fares then it makes sense just to simplify it to an addon price and give that addon fee to the light rail network on top of the normal rail fare.

Would it not be possible to simply have a "plus ( network name ) fare" which would add on a set price from anywhere and 100% of that add on goes to the network in question? The add on fare being the equivalent of the normal daily "go anywhere" fare on that specific network?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Would it not be possible to simply have a "plus ( network name ) fare" which would add on a set price from anywhere and 100% of that add on goes to the network in question? The add on fare being the equivalent of the normal daily "go anywhere" fare on that specific network?

Yes, I was sort of thinking that - an outboundary Travelcard for every city.

 

[edwin_m]

The fundamental problem is that the UK has always (with a few short-lived exceptions) treated public transport as a series of routes rather than a network. And since the 1980s for bus and the 1990s for rail and excepting London, each operator is private and responsible for maximising their own revenue. So there is a tendency to argue about who gets the biggest slice of the cake, rather than adopting an integrated fare system which would make the cake bigger. And because operators are nominally private, they are subject to the Competition Commission, whose decisions have tended to make public transport less passenger-friendly without addressing the reasons why local transport isn't operating as a competitive market.

 

[lyndhurst25]

Manchester couldn't even sort out inclusive transfer from Victoria to Picadilly by tram when Metrolink opened because of arguments over revenue allocation. The problem persists today; I either walk or catch the free shuttle bus.

When the Sheffield to Rotherham tram-train starts running, I wonder if rail tickets will be accepted on that? e.g. Using a Rotherham to Barnsley train ticket on the tram between Rotherham and Meadowhall.

 

[pemma]

Manchester couldn't even sort out inclusive transfer from Victoria to Picadilly by tram when Metrolink opened because of arguments over revenue allocation.

A free transfer by Metrolink is included for rail tickets where the journey both starts and ends in Greater Manchester, so Stockport to Smithy Bridge gets a free Metrolink transfer included but Stoke-on-Trent to Clitheroe does not.

Although if you were attempting to make that transfer on Wednesday you'd have been quicker walking - the gap between some trams finished up being 24 minutes with no reason given as to why Metrolink were cancelling services.

When the Sheffield to Rotherham tram-train starts running, I wonder if rail tickets will be accepted on that? e.g. Using a Rotherham to Barnsley train ticket on the tram between Rotherham and Meadowhall.

That was supposed to be a Northern service but after all the fuss the RMT made about no guards the contract was given to Stagecoach Supertram to run.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

If Rail North means anything, it should be able to sort out rail/PTE ticketing with all its Local Government representation.

 

[lyndhurst25]

You do wonder if the areas of Greater Manchester whose heavy rail has been converted to Metrolink, such as Bury or Oldham, have gained much. They've lost through ticketing to destinations outside the county, lost the ability to take bikes and are the journey times any faster?

 

[Hadders]

You do wonder if the areas of Greater Manchester whose heavy rail has been converted to Metrolink, such as Bury or Oldham, have gained much. They've lost through ticketing to destinations outside the county, lost the ability to take bikes and are the journey times any faster?

Most people would rather have a more frequent service than worry about through tickets or whether they can take a bike with them.

 

[pemma]

You do wonder if the areas of Greater Manchester whose heavy rail has been converted to Metrolink, such as Bury or Oldham, have gained much. They've lost through ticketing to destinations outside the county, lost the ability to take bikes and are the journey times any faster?

There are people who commute between Sale and Knutsford. In the 1980s that would have been a direct train taking around 20 minutes. In 2017 it involves a tram and a train taking 30 minutes and if Metrolink is disrupted on your southbound journey and you get to Altrincham late it might take you a total of 90 minutes.

Are journey times faster? No. In fact even since Metrolink started Altrincham to Bury now takes around 10 minutes longer than it did when Metrolink first started, the new trams and the additional services have both contributed to slowing the journey down.

 

[mm333]

Manchester has some useful joint daysavers which cover all combinations of tram train and bus. These are very handy. However one can't buy a ticket from Leeds to Bury for example.

Yes you can. I'm buying that very ticket tomorrow to go to the Art Museum http://www.brfares.com/#!fares?orig=LDS&dest=BUR

 

[scrapy]

Manchester has some useful joint daysavers which cover all combinations of tram train and bus. These are very handy. However one can't buy a ticket from Leeds to Bury for example.

You can buy a ticket (single or return) from Leeds to Bury. Daft thing is you can't get a ticket from Bury to Leeds.

 

[daodao]

The fundamental problem is that the UK has always (with a few short-lived exceptions) treated public transport as a series of routes rather than a network. And since the 1980s for bus and the 1990s for rail and excepting London, each operator is private and responsible for maximising their own revenue. So there is a tendency to argue about who gets the biggest slice of the cake, rather than adopting an integrated fare system which would make the cake bigger. And because operators are nominally private, they are subject to the Competition Commission, whose decisions have tended to make public transport less passenger-friendly without addressing the reasons why local transport isn't operating as a competitive market.

Within Greater Manchester and other PTE areas there is a degree of integration with joint ticketing arrangements. For example, I recently travelled by Metrolink and Northern Rail to Horwich Parkway and purchased a through Tram to Rail Zone 3 peak return ticket from the Metrolink card TVM. However, it didn't have a magnetic stripe on it so I couldn't put it through the barriers at Victoria.

 

[Andrew1395]

PlusBus was introduced because the private sector bus operators operated most rail franchises and saw rail as a way of promoting their bus businesses. Note it's plus bus not plus train. Where as most tram networks are management contracts of public sector systems. So while Croydon Tram and DLR are full integrated with other public transport through Oyster and therefore with national rail in London. In effect train has been integrated into TfL system. It's the (now rather outdated) vision of a national ITSO smart card based that would see integration, but only as a medium to pay a series of journeys not integrated prices like Oyster and it's capping regime. Using oyster/contactless is so easy it's always a surprise when you go to conurbations like Nottingham, with its excellent bus network and trams, how complex it seems for a casual user to work out if the bus duo ticket also allows you to use the tram.

 

[Wallsendmag]

You can buy though tickets to the Metrolink in Manchester and Metro in Tyne and Wear

 

[paddington]

In Germany all regional public transport has integrated ticketing - buses, trams, trains, trolleybuses, urban light rail, funiculars and monorails(!). Generally costs are based on a 'zone' basis - the more zones you cross, the more you pay, the mode of transport you use is irrelevant.

This works through a Vekehrsverbund...

It can be done in the UK though, because we have it in London for Oyster.

So while Croydon Tram and DLR are full integrated with other public transport through Oyster and therefore with national rail in London. In effect train has been integrated into TfL system. It's the (now rather outdated) vision of a national ITSO smart card based that would see integration, but only as a medium to pay a series of journeys not integrated prices like Oyster and it's capping regime.

If trams and buses were fully integrated into the TfL system in the way that it works in Germany, they would be included in "short hop" and "single" tickets with no extra charge.

Despite my username, I now live along the tram line, 1 stop away from a rail station.

I often get annoyed that I have to pay £1.50 extra to travel the 1 stop when I can travel many multiples of that distance on the train for not a lot more. So I walk, while most of my neighbours evade the tram fare. (I don't travel within the same zones enough to get a travelcard.)

If TfL was like a German TransportExecutive then I wouldn't have to pay this, but my neighbours might evade the entire fare and never get caught :-x

 

[pemma]

You can buy though tickets to the Metrolink in Manchester and Metro in Tyne and Wear

As already mentioned you can buy a ticket from a NR station to a Metrolink stop or zone but the reverse is not true (with the exception of GM only tram + train tickets which aren't valid beyond the Greater Manchester border.)

Also rather stupidly if you buy a day return to Manchester from Stockport you get sold a ticket to Manchester CTLZ which allows travel on the Metrolink in the city centre. However, if you buy a day return to Stockport from Manchester the ticket is sold from Manchester STNs so is not valid on Metrolink in the city centre but it costs exactly the same price as Stockport to Manchester CTLZ.