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2021 fare increases

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plugwash

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On the other hand until we have actually been in the post-covid world for at least a few months and preferablly more it's hard to tell what demand will or won't be like. To what extent will workers return to their offices? to what extent will flexible working lead to people deciding to commute further but less often? how much pent up demand for leisure travel will there be?
 
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Starmill

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On the other hand until we have actually been in the post-covid world for at least a few months and preferablly more it's hard to tell what demand will or won't be like. To what extent will workers return to their offices? to what extent will flexible working lead to people deciding to commute further but less often? how much pent up demand for leisure travel will there be?
It continues to be impossible to make such precise forecasts. But nobody is forecasting that business and daily commuting demand will returne to 2019 levels. The industry was deeply reliant on those customer segments, so that alone should be enough to spur action.
 

Ianno87

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It continues to be impossible to make such precise forecasts. But nobody is forecasting that business and daily commuting demand will returne to 2019 levels. The industry was deeply reliant on those customer segments, so that alone should be enough to spur action.

Depends how price elastic those markets will be. Dropping the price may not lead to sufficiently more passengers to give higher net revenue.
 

Starmill

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Depends how price elastic those markets will be. Dropping the price may not lead to sufficiently more passengers to give higher net revenue.
Quite. And at the moment the office working market is near to perfectly elastic. I.e. even if it were free most people wouldn't do it. What's the response to this new situation going to be?
 

Haywain

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Quite. And at the moment the office working market is near to perfectly elastic. I.e. even if it were free most people wouldn't do it. What's the response to this new situation going to be?
I’m afraid all your comments rather overlook that the passenger rail industry is currently under central control and it is the DfT and Treasury who are making the decisions, not the TOCs management teams. Admittedly there is likely to be some variation in the extent to which those management teams are pushing for decisions but that doesn’t change where they are being made.
 

Starmill

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I’m afraid all your comments rather overlook that the passenger rail industry is currently under central control and it is the DfT and Treasury who are making the decisions, not the TOCs management teams. Admittedly there is likely to be some variation in the extent to which those management teams are pushing for decisions but that doesn’t change where they are being made.
I haven't overlooked it, indeed I began by mentioning it in post 118. But there are only two options. Either the consensus in the Department is that the customer base is going to return, in a big way, without a need for transformational change, or that the Treasury will continue to provide the current quasi-unlimited level of public funding. I don't know which it is but the Department is full of otherwise very clever people, so it's difficult to see them failing to appreciate how unlikely the former is. So what is their plan for if there's a recovery but the money runs out? Increasing prices will not help.
 

infobleep

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£1.70 from today and more at peak times but, yes, that is a bargain.

The more pressing issue is that if you make three journeys in Zone 1 you reach the cap on the fourth. You don't reach the cap in the outer zones until you have made many more journeys because the cap is priced on the basis that all journeys go into Zone 1.
Not forgetting the third off, off-peak if you have an annual gold card! Clapham Junction to Harrow and Wealdstone is cheaper on Oyster, than via a National Rail ticket, even when paying the peak fare prices in the evening. Shows how good value Oyster can he.
 

Haywain

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I haven't overlooked it, indeed I began by mentioning it in post 118. But there are only two options. Either the consensus in the Department is that the customer base is going to return, in a big way, without a need for transformational change, or that the Treasury will continue to provide the current quasi-unlimited level of public funding. I don't know which it is but the Department is full of otherwise very clever people, so it's difficult to see them failing to appreciate how unlikely the former is. So what is their plan for if there's a recovery but the money runs out? Increasing prices will not help.
What’s their plan? That’s anyone’s guess but the likelihood of the Treasury making a decision that involves even a perceived drop in revenue is remote.
 

SickyNicky

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You can get a Super Off Peak Return for £35 still for West Midlands Trains and Transport for Wales only but you're extremely unlikely to be offered that if you don't already know about it.

It comes up by default on some websites (like ours).
 

Ianno87

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I haven't overlooked it, indeed I began by mentioning it in post 118. But there are only two options. Either the consensus in the Department is that the customer base is going to return, in a big way, without a need for transformational change, or that the Treasury will continue to provide the current quasi-unlimited level of public funding. I don't know which it is but the Department is full of otherwise very clever people, so it's difficult to see them failing to appreciate how unlikely the former is. So what is their plan for if there's a recovery but the money runs out? Increasing prices will not help.

Also the obvious fact that the DfT are largely central London based with (probably) a decent chuck of home counties commuters in them, so will have a decent chunk of people who are fully aware (from their own personal circumstances) of how likely they are to return to office-based work (on a full or part time basis) with or without the pricing incentive to do so.
 

Starmill

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It comes up by default on some websites (like ours).
Yes indeed, good point. Alas though if anyone turns up at a ticket machine on the day, uses the Trainline or visits a ticket office they're vanishingly unlikely to find the good fare.
 

Wallsendmag

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Yes indeed, good point. Alas though if anyone turns up at a ticket machine on the day, uses the Trainline or visits a ticket office they're vanishingly unlikely to find the good fare.
If only there were some TVMs that showed all applicable fares for a certain train for those who weren't quite as fares savvy as the average member on here.
 

plugwash

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Do your machines look for slower and less direct but cheaper routes? or do they only show the fastest routes?
 

Starmill

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Do your machines look for slower and less direct but cheaper routes? or do they only show the fastest routes?
If the LNER machines are only as good as the Northern flowbird machines at Manchester Piccadilly, they can't sell the cheap ticket.
 

Llandudno

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If the LNER machines are only as good as the Northern flowbird machines at Manchester Piccadilly, they can't sell the cheap ticket.
Or any type of rover, ranger or Wayfarer type of ticket.

I don’t think you can even buy a PlusBus ticket on a Northern TVM - not tried for 12 months as banned from making non essential journeys!
 

_toommm_

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Or any type of rover, ranger or Wayfarer type of ticket.

I don’t think you can even buy a PlusBus ticket on a Northern TVM - not tried for 12 months as banned from making non essential journeys!

You can IIRC on the AWC TVMs just a few feet away.
 

infobleep

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Swindon to London SOR is now £145.60.

The railway is going to have to think long and hard about whether charging that much is the best way of attracting passengers and revenue in a post-Covid world...
But surely the money is needed to fund the railway and keep it operational, hence why they need to increase the ticket prices. That's roughly what the Rail Delivery Group say every year to justify things.

I wonder if it's possible to reduce some fares and still make the same amount financially?

If they did cut some and found it didn't work financially, would they then be able to put the fares back to where they were?
 

Jamesrob637

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Well I've suggested this before but how about charge a few thousand for an all-year off peak ticket? I think people would get their money's worth from this on weekends alone, and many retired people without a car but who have a bus pass could easily access a local train station.
 

JonathanH

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Well I've suggested this before but how about charge a few thousand for an all-year off peak ticket? I think people would get their money's worth from this on weekends alone, and many retired people without a car but who have a bus pass could easily access a local train station.
I think it would need to be priced upward of £5,000, perhaps significantly more, so as not to be revenue negative. At that sort of price, it isn't going to be attractive. Moreover, the restrictions would be, at best, complicated.

A blanket 0930 morning restriction, for example, wouldn't really make it worth it.
 

87electric

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But surely the money is needed to fund the railway and keep it operational, hence why they need to increase the ticket prices. That's roughly what the Rail Delivery Group say every year to justify things.
An operational railway which not many will be able to afford. Excuse me while I, and many others, return to road transport for the foreseeable future.
 

Ianno87

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An operational railway which not many will be able to afford. Excuse me while I, and many others, return to road transport for the foreseeable future.

Take the SOR example from Swindon, £145.

Is reducing it going to make people travel more, or are the people who were already travelling simply going to end up paying less and thus simply lower revenue? Few people travel that early in the morning peak for fun.

Having said that, where office attendance is increasingly going to be at the discretion of the employee, extreme peak fares are likely to be a disincentive to this.
 

infobleep

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An operational railway which not many will be able to afford. Excuse me while I, and many others, return to road transport for the foreseeable future.
But if you cam afford it, how will they fund keeping the railway running, along with improvements to it?

Equally if you and many others can't afford it, how will they fund keeping the railway running, along with improvements to it?

Either way Re they doomed not to make enough to fund improvements?
 

Billy Hicks

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Has the TFL hopper fare time been reduced? I touched in on a second bus 65 minutes after the first and was charged a second £1.55, even though it's normally 70 minutes.

I've seen one tweet suggesting the time has been cut to 62 minutes, but nothing official.
 

JonathanH

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Has the TFL hopper fare time been reduced? I touched in on a second bus 65 minutes after the first and was charged a second £1.55, even though it's normally 70 minutes.

I've seen one tweet suggesting the time has been cut to 62 minutes, but nothing official.
Yes, cut to 62 minutes. It was never advertised as more than 60 minutes in any case.


Hopper Time Limit Reduces
02/02/2021 by Mike
At the same time that the single bus/tram fare rises by 5p to £1.55, TfL are making a change to the ‘secret’ grace period at the end of the hopper hour.

As many people have found out, the hopper hour has actually been 70 minutes long. Originally 70 minutes was the time allowed to enable transfer between the trams and their feeder buses in New Addington. This was the facility that the original hopper was built on, and the duration stayed at 70 minutes when the hopper was extended to unlimited bus and tram journeys, even with a rail journey in between.

There was a worry that differences between the clocks on individual buses might result in overcharging, hence the generous grace period. However, extensive analysis has shown that bus clocks are remarkably well synchronised. There are also lots of free bus journeys started within the 10 minute grace window which were not intended to be available.

So, from March 1st the grace period will be reduced from 10 minutes to 2 minutes. According to the mayoral decision document, TfL have estimated that this would generate an extra £1.4m annually at pre-covid levels of use.

Just please remember that the hopper has always been advertised as one hour long. Anything over that is a bonus but must not be relied upon to always apply.

Official notification is in the mayoral decision document here https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/md2730_appendices.pdf

The multi-journey Hopper fare, which allows unlimited bus and tram transfers within one hour of the start of a bus or tram PAYG journey, is maintained.
1.12 At the time of the Hopper’s introduction, there was concern about the accuracy and synchronisation of the bus reader clocks. Consequently a 10 minute buffer was applied to ensure that interchanges within 60 minutes would be free, meaning that in practice the Hopper Fare has been valid up to 70 minutes.
1.13 Further analysis since the launch of the Hopper shows the original accuracy concerns were unwarranted and that some customers are being awarded Hopper fares for journeys not within the intended scope, including return trips on the same route.
1.14 It is therefore proposed to reduce the buffer to 2 minutes. The change is expected to generate annual revenue of around £1.4m based on pre-COVID figures.
 

Billy Hicks

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Thanks, that's fair enough as it was always a nice unofficial bonus. 62 minutes still avoids the annoyance of being a couple of seconds too late if you're in a queue to board.
 

JB_B

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Quite. And at the moment the office working market is near to perfectly elastic. I.e. even if it were free most people wouldn't do it. What's the response to this new situation going to be?

Possibly I've just misunderstood your point but did you mean to say inelastic ?
 
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