At £8.90 for the full M6 toll or £5.80 for leaving at a junction, many try to avoid using it.
Most only have a standard class rail staff leisure card, though it will still let you book first class on the website. Free travel will depend on TOC.
Nope, what the network doesn't need is any more short distance advance fares as they cause more trouble than they are worth.
So we’re stuck with Anytime Single being £5.60, Avanti only Anytime Single tickets being £5.50, TFW only Anytime single tickets being £5.40 then. And people crowding onto TFW and XC for BHM WVH.
Because it takes 10 minutes longer and people don't like sitting on a stopper if there is another choice.
Absolutely, it doesn’t help that the other choice is cheaper so no incentive to go on the stopper. The Avanti leaves 3 minutes earlier, takes 22 mins, cheaper. The XC leaves 6 mins earlier, takes 16 mins, cheaper. Passengers want the non-stop/faster service and actually have a monetary reason to not take the LNR/WMR service. Even if you have ticket with no TOC restriction, there’s no incentive given to take the stopper or another LNR/WMR.
Stockport to Oxford? The advances are only available on TFW and XC, XC have supposedly introduced compulsory reservations from New Street to Wolverhampton on some of their services, so your issue is actually what XC supposedly would cause if they were able to enforce their policy.
First class should be provided on all trains other than short-distance metro services. Everybody should be allowed the opportunity to pay a higher fee for more space and comfort if they so desire.
It is fairly well demonstrated on most routes that the number of people who are prepared to pay a higher fee for more space and comfort is minimal, other than on a handful of long distance routes.
It doesn’t - just suggesting what could be done. Maybe skipping it entirely on one service per hour would help overcrowding in the medium term, but as @The Planner says it would probably get slowed down somewhere else anyway so journey time improvements would be minimal.
He has provided a multi million pound solution to still not make people use the stopper as its still slower than the XC.
With advances, you could incentivise people to use the stopper.
You can do that now without spending any money if the issue was that bad. How many people that are using the faster trains are using season tickets? I bet its a substatial proportion that advances mean nothing to.
Isn't the worst overcrowding due to influxes of discretionary leisure passengers, who will not be using seasons?
Whenever I have done that trip northbound, it clears out at Wolves, I don't believe its leisure related.
Surely it's primarily down to 'commuters' wanting to get the next available train? May or may not necessarily be season ticket holders.
In that case I wonder how much of a difference could be made by just putting up an electronic sign somewhere prominent at Wolverhampton that says "Next Birmingham train in X mins from platform Y" but ignores the XC services.
Not without forcing an extra change for passengers travelling between Wolverhampton and stations beyond Birmingham
It will soon enough be sussed by regular travellers.
No, because as already mentioned, that's absolutely useless for anybody from Wolverhampton who wants to travel south of Birmingham. People seem to be ignoring the fact that Wolverhampton is a city in its own right, not just some little commuter suburb.
Alternatively, XC could have Ticketing restrictions imposed to XC only between Birmingham New Street and Wolverhampton so local passengers can't use their services
Gives them 15 odd minutes to get through the entire train to police it. Get one person who argues or someone with a question and that's gone.
I believe there’s something fundamentally wrong about using advance fares for short distance commuting, you only have to look at all the disputes reported here caused by Northern’s current set up. They don’t seem to get the message across that they’re only valid for a specific timed train run by the named TOC.
No one is trying to suggest that Wolverhampton to Birmingham passengers shouldn't use Avanti. Indeed, the Avanti trains are the ones with the most capacity.
Hopefully most that held a "not valid on Cross Country" ticket would obey the ticket restrictions and use alternative operators. Even if not all tickets could be checked between Birmingham and Wolverhampton, hopefully some could be and those travelling on invalid tickets could be given a warning, made to purchase a new ticket (or excess fare), or given a penalty fare (although I am not sure if XC issue penalty fares) which would further help to reduce the issue. It being impossible to check all tickets on a Pendolino (although with enough ticket checkers on board I am not sure that would be the case) is not relavent as Cross Country do not use Pendolinos
That would almost certainly have unwanted consequences
