Age discrimination on Railcards

[Joe Paxton]

... Then everyone else, of whatever age, can be eligible for a national railcard with a flat 1/3 off fares for something like £100 PA.
...

With the possible result that a National Railcard becomes a perceived barrier-to-entry to rail travel to the majority of the population who are not regular rail users, and creates an 'us and them' dynamic (and so perhaps further erodes support for public funding for the railways).

£100 is not a negligible sum of money.

 

[kristiang85]

With the possible result that this just becomes a perceived barrier-to-entry to rail travel to the majority of the population who are not regular rail users, and creates an 'us and them' dynamic (and so perhaps further erodes support for public funding for the railways).

£100 is not a negligible sum of money.

To me, railcards are something that should benefit the regular rail traveller - part of them being there is to encourage more people to take the train, both for environmental reasons and also from a TOC point of view it will ultimate help profit. Make it too cheap, then everybody (even tourists here for only a week) will have value in getting a railcard, and you'll never get the idea past the TOCs. Too expensive, then yes it does exclude some. However, I think £100 is a decent price point - the average longish-distance intercity fare is probably around £50, so a railcard holder would need to do 6 of these journeys to get their initial cost back. I think that's fair.

Or you could go down the DB route, and maybe have a cheaper 25% railcard and a more expensive 50% railcard, so people can weigh up the options based on their travel needs.

 

[bakerstreet]

Looks like it’s very popular or the website is having problems



From https://twitter.com/4sctrpathfinder/status/1080439387048079360

 

[radamfi]

If railcard ownership becomes almost universal, then fares will inflate to compensate. When you look up fares on the SBB website, the fare with a 50% discount is shown by default. Some people in Swizerland are calling for the card to be abolished and fares reduced accordingly. Belgium used to have a national railcard but no longer do. Fares in Belgium are cheap enough anyway with an effective maximum fare of 7.70 euros.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Ah.

That seems a bit bizarre in terms of admin etc. Why not just extend child rate to the 18th birthday?

Because doing it this way they can get more money:

a) From selling the railcards.
b) By getting full fare from those people who haven't bought the railcards.

If they just extended child fares to 18, they'd have to recover the difference through some other means which would hit all the rest of us.

 

[yorksrob]

If railcard ownership becomes almost universal, then fares will inflate to compensate. When you look up fares on the SBB website, the fare with a 50% discount is shown by default. Some people in Swizerland are calling for the card to be abolished and fares reduced accordingly. Belgium used to have a national railcard but no longer do. Fares in Belgium are cheap enough anyway with an effective maximum fare of 7.70 euros.

I think there would need to be a big shift in travelling habits before that became likely, given that a large proportion of the population rarely use the train anyway. Alternatively we could just have cheap enough fares anyway, rather than for example charging forty quid from Crewe to Wakefield.

 

[Bletchleyite]

If railcard ownership becomes almost universal, then fares will inflate to compensate. When you look up fares on the SBB website, the fare with a 50% discount is shown by default. Some people in Swizerland are calling for the card to be abolished and fares reduced accordingly. Belgium used to have a national railcard but no longer do. Fares in Belgium are cheap enough anyway with an effective maximum fare of 7.70 euros.

The Swiss situation is odd and is basically a tourist tax, as anyone else who ever travels by rail will either have a Halbtax or a Generalabonnement (all-line season ticket).

 

[Ianno87]

To me, railcards are something that should benefit the regular rail traveller - part of them being there is to encourage more people to take the train, both for environmental reasons and also from a TOC point of view it will ultimate help profit. Make it too cheap, then everybody (even tourists here for only a week) will have value in getting a railcard, and you'll never get the idea past the TOCs. Too expensive, then yes it does exclude some. However, I think £100 is a decent price point - the average longish-distance intercity fare is probably around £50, so a railcard holder would need to do 6 of these journeys to get their initial cost back. I think that's fair.

Or you could go down the DB route, and maybe have a cheaper 25% railcard and a more expensive 50% railcard, so people can weigh up the options based on their travel needs.

In practice, Railcards are a marketing product. "Pay this price and get cheaper travel" - with a view that people travel more as a result.

£30 vs £100 is a big psychological difference to making the up front investment, particularly for the more discretionary traveller (as opposed to people who'd travel alot regardless)

A bit like the old Polaroid camera model - cheap up front investment (in the camera) but then incentivised to pay for the pricey consumables to make use of it (where the actual profit is made)

 

[Bletchleyite]

£30 vs £100 is a big psychological difference to making the up front investment

It is, though if they offered £10 per month direct debit with a 12 month minimum contract, despite being £120/year that actually sounds a lot more palatable. You'd also more likely get people carrying it on through inertia at the end of 12 months so more income there too.

 

[big all]

I would agree if people were just complaining about the unfairness of it all, however most are arguing for a National railcard which would enable residents across the country to enjoy a discount in exchange for a sunk cost.

my whole ethos indeed my whole being is fairness and a cohesive society in general

buuutt in the real world people dont generally want to have a fair society if it costs them so you need to encourage people to make your business model work to the best advantage you can as they often dont have arn't aware off or cant afford a social conscience

 

[yorksrob]

my whole ethos indeed my whole being is fairness and a cohesive society in general

buuutt in the real world people dont generally want to have a fair society if it costs them so you need to encourage people to make your business model work to the best advantage you can as they often dont have arn't aware off or cant afford a social conscience

But fortunately we don't have to worry about such ethical niceties, given that Railfuture have already demonstrated that a National railcard would increase revenue.