I guess we'll see. Maybe the DfT is not stupid enough to double fares but are they really willing to slash all single tickets prices by half? I have huge doubts over this.
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End of the line for return rail tickets
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I guess we'll see. Maybe the DfT is not stupid enough to double fares but are they really willing to slash all single tickets prices by half? I have huge doubts over this.
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RailUK Forums
We don't know what will happen. But on LNER, the Off Peak Returns were removed (for the flows where the trial took place i.e. Leeds/Newcastle/Edinburgh to London Terminals) and no alternative single was put in place; this meant that passengers travelling at Off Peak (but not Super Off Peak) times are either forced to pay for an Advance (non-flexible) fare, or an Anytime fare.Little confused about the peak/off peak thing. One of the earlier posts in this thread mentioned that they would be removed...? Tbf, that would make things a little easier as I can never remember when peak and off peak are. I can't open the telegraph cos its behind a pay wall. Is there a way for me to read it? Or can someone give an extended tl;dr past what the original post said..?
I demonstrated yesterday, using screenshots above, that the cost for a journey today from Leeds to London at these times cost more, for non-flexible Advance fares, than the cost of a flexible Off Peak Return fare from Leeds to West Hampstead (i.e. beyond London, including a tube or Thameslink journey) which is not part of the fares trial.
Also there are concerns that Off Peak Day return fares may not be halved.
I have no doubt some returns will be halved, but there is no guarantee (as far as I have seen) that the full range will be. I do not trust the Government or TOCs to avoid some / many people being left out of pocket. The Government could easily issue a statement putting our minds at rest, if they wanted to....
I am more interested to see how this affects the ‘availability’ of last minute advance tickets
Not so much as in the operator offering them but if people are essentially seeking single tickets rather than already being sorted with returns I can see them being snapped up a lot more quickly!
As an example I booked a 11am London - Wakefield service last Tuesday at 7am that same morning…for £22
If I’m ever forced to pay the standard single fare for that journey to be honest it’ll price me out of using the train and I’ll just grin and bear the 4 hour coach journey instead!
Not so much as in the operator offering them but if people are essentially seeking single tickets rather than already being sorted with returns I can see them being snapped up a lot more quickly!
As an example I booked a 11am London - Wakefield service last Tuesday at 7am that same morning…for £22
If I’m ever forced to pay the standard single fare for that journey to be honest it’ll price me out of using the train and I’ll just grin and bear the 4 hour coach journey instead!
DynamicSpirit
Established Member
Yeah, I agree. Fairness (and perceived fairness) is very important. And that's one reason why I think this change looks very positive.
- It's utterly unfair that, currently, someone who makes a journey one way pays almost the same as someone who makes a return journey (and who therefore uses the railway twice as much)
- It's also utterly unfair that, currently, on many return journeys, someone who returns the same day pays significantly less than someone who returns the next day - since both people are using the railway to exactly the same extent and deriving the same benefit.
heathrowrail
Member
Pretty much sums up this government all over, no wonder the railways are in such a mess! Scrapping return fares is so stupid and has no justification at all.
Wallsendmag
Established Member
And yet people have been buying two singles for years without even thinking about it. Ever used Advance tickets ?
But what's better value: Advance tickets for Leeds to London at £108.50 each way, or an Off Peak Return from Leeds to West Hampstead for £203.70?
Also, for business trips, some employers require tickets to be pre-purchased before the trip; this can be problematical when you are unsure what your exact arrival time will be (especially if you require a tube/bus leg to get to the station).
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
It's much more common to know your outbound train than your return one. Thus, single fare pricing allows an Advance to be used for the outward journey and a flexible return without being ripped off.
The actual removal of return tickets (rather than them costing twice a single) is to reduce fraud, there are few other cases for that, though.
Your question is an apt one because it illustrates what I think is the most likely outcome here.
That would be a world in which the 'flat' single fare is relatively expensive, measured against the current Anytime or Off-Peak price (ie not Super Off-Peak or Day Returns), but where cheaper Advances are available more or less up to the point of departure on most if not all inter-city services. This is pretty much the model that LNER are trying to move towards, and I think that this new approach is likely to build on that.
So if you want to make an "on-the-day" journey - what we would have called walk-up before - you arrive at the station at 09:00, buy a single for the 09:10. You're finished with whatever you were doing at your destination at 16:00 so you head back to the station, see the price for the train in 16:15, and buy a ticket for that train. In both cases, you buy an 'Advance' fare which is priced at something like 75-90% of the of the Anytime or Off-Peak Single (depending on when peaks are for this journey), which themselves are priced at around half of the current Return ticket. Cheaper Advances still exist for customers who can or want to make their plans earlier, and the Anytime/Off-Peak Singles operate effectively as caps on the price of on-the-day Advances.
Is this better or worse? I suspect that getting fares priced closer to current Off-Peak Day Returns becomes harder because you have to travel on the absolute quietest trains. I also think it reduces the number of very cheap early available Advances, because more are priced at this medium level targeting walk-up customers. But perhaps it removes the excess of the most expensive Anytime (and indeed Off-Peak) return fares, and allows most people to make a modest saving on one or both legs of their journey compared to those.
On top of this, you might expect a continued growth in urban or regional tickets with the rise of new regional mayoral systems, which would be overlain on this system for local journeys, and which in those areas may overcome the loss of cheap day returns. Branch lines may be likely to operate with a more straight-forward 'the single is half the price of a return' structure, where this pricing doesn't interfere with the inter-city services.
OK so in the example given that's £108.50 outward leg and £145.50 return leg, totalling £254.
I ask again: what is the benefit of paying £254 for tickets to London (under single leg pricing) than an Off Peak Return to West Hampstead, priced at £203.70?
The risk of fraud, if the ticket is not checked/marked/scanned, still exists with an Anytime ticket, so I don't accept this argument.
Indeed. The new system will be carefully designed to be better for the TOCs, I am sure.
LNER benefit from people buying (say) Leeds to London single tickets compared to the cheaper Leeds to West Hampstead returns, as not only are people paying more in that example, they are also losing flexibility.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
For the record I'd strongly oppose the loss of flexibility in that proposal by @cuccir. I am more than happy for what LNER actually did, but not for the loss of reasonably priced walk-up fares which allow same day break of journey. I very, very rarely break overnight, never without planning to do so, and so as such I'm happy to split in that case, but I do very often decide that I'm hungry so am going to stop off for an hour for food, for example. I can in my car...
Not to the same extent if it's only valid for one day. Removing period returns stops people using them as "season tickets".
One way you could keep a month's validity without that risk is compostage, but that adds other complexity and is not likely.
Not to the same extent if it's only valid for one day. Removing period returns stops people using them as "season tickets".
One way you could keep a month's validity without that risk is compostage, but that adds other complexity and is not likely.
You may be happier to pay more, but not everyone will be.
To be clear, if LNER had halved the cost of Off Peak Returns, and if the Government made it clear the same model would be applied across the industry (including halving Off Peak Day Returns) I would be 100% behind this, on the basis that overnight break of journey is niche.
But as it is, we are not only losing overnight BOJ but we risk paying higher fares, as evidenced by the LNER fares trial, which passengers can currently legitmiately avoid paying more by purchasing fares to further destinations. This ability to avoid the higher costs would be removed if the LNER model is rolled out to all flows.
To be clear I'm not particularly proposing this - but from my experiences with LNER, I think it's what the outcome will look a bit like.
For a point-to-point journey it probably isn't a loss of flexibility, but yes it would threaten break of journey or make breaks more expensive. I suspect that this is a likely (negative) outcome of this change.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Why, when it isn't what LNER have done?
AlterEgo
Veteran Member
Most European countries use single leg pricing and it's a much simpler way for normal passengers to understand the cost of their journeys.
What isn't? The loss of break of journey? It's a feeling rather than anything else that in a buy-a-ticket-for-your-train type system, BoJ no longer fits in well. I think it'd still be available on the standard Anytime Single, and maybe on most Off-Peak Singles, but that you'd not get these at the price similar to (say) a current Super Off-Peak Day Return.
In terms of the pricing and how tickets are sold, the 'a-ticket-for-your-train-as-default' approach is how LNER present ticket availability online, in their app, and at TVMs. It is quite clear that this is their vision for selling tickets, whether it's to customers who can book in the 'old-fashioned' way for Advance fares a few weeks or months before travel, or walk-up customers buying Advances 5-15 minutes before they depart, priced slightly under the cost of a walk-up single. Maybe the default single prices will be set closer to the cheapest returns, but for the reasons various people have given on this thread I doubt it (or: there is a third way in which Super Off-Peak Singles remain, in order to advertise a headline cheaper price, but with even higher limitations on availability). I was also on the LNER customer consultation online panel which operated until a couple of years ago, and this approach to selling and buying tickets was one that (reading between the lines) they were asking about.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
LNER halved the Super Off Peak Return to create the Super Off Peak Single. So if this is their trial being rolled out more widely then nobody will be forced into Advances.
AlterEgo
Veteran Member
The Super Off Peak is a walk up fare and not limited by availability.
WelshBluebird
Established Member
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I mean its fairly obvious that passengers will lose flexibility here. I absolutely get that most people don't use that flexibility (hell a lot of people don't even know it exists), but it will be lost. I will no longer be able to buy a Bath to Cardiff anytime return, use the outbound normally, and on the return stop off in Bristol for a couple of days (example from a few years ago when I did live in Bath).
Fair enough, as long as that is easy for passengers!
But it would be a fare rise which is the point I was making. We can't all sit here and pretend these changes aren't going to mean some people end up paying significantly more!
As a passenger, the way I see it is the 100% of a return thing is simply because a 2 hour delay on a journey has a massive impact on the passenger and likely significantly messes up their plans, and so is almost an apology to make sure they aren't put off travelling by rail in the future! As for them being rare - granted but I have still had a fair few of those in my time!
But it is that "maybe fractionally more" that a lot of us are concerned about.
NARobertson
Member
It does not strike me that any real company in the railway sector or otherwise would completely change its fares structure. The risk of alienating customers is just too great with consequent loss of business. The most important question here is: Do many people actually want to buy a return ticket? Probably most do, certainly myself on the majority of occasions. Even the need to buy tickets on separate occasions, rather than just once, will reduce passenger numbers. The use of Smart Cards is of limited value. Here, in the Bristol area, there is now such a scheme, but it is limited to quite a small area so its usefulness is correspondingly limited. I believe their is no facility to buy first class tickets on this system. But a flaw for the customer of these cards is that people cannot see what they are paying at the point of purchase and presumably need to check their bank statements later to see if the correct deduction has been made from their account. This system also might make it harder to get compensation for delays because there are no actual tickets involved. But at the next election I will be voting Labour, not that I voted Tory the last time.
There's nothing to stop the month's validity for the return leg being abolished. I've always liked that flexibility but I suspect I've only ever used it once or twice over the decades. Ticket issuing systems are much more sophisticated than they were when Savers were first introduced and putting a date on the return leg is hardly an IT challenge. I think what is really needed to retain actual flexibility is for any eticket that's been bought well before the actual journey to be easily amended online by the original purchaser. That goes too for the arcane practice of "excessing" which is another form of flexible ticketing anyway.
By all means change the way that flexible ticketing operates, but let's trust the customer and give him/her the ability to operate the flexibility themselves, without "admin" charges!
I'm late to the discussion a bit here (busy weekend!) but my main concerns, all of which have already been touched on from skimming through are:
- Will single fares be based on period return fares where both day and period options are currently available? That'd e.g. push an undiscounted day return total Mon-Fri from Bedford to London from £27 to £40.90
- Railcard minimum fares - all very well a trial being on an Intercity operator, but again using Bedford to London as an example, if they *did* maintain the existing super off peak pricing, it'd make my Network Railcard virtually useless, and thus give me a stealth fares rise of 1/3. Not least because you can't purchase ADvance tickets officially using Network Railcards.
- What happens to outboundary Travelcards? It's no secret that TfL want rid of these, could they go entirely at the same time? My previous understanding was that this couldn't happen until railcards can be loaded onto Contactless payment cards, but that's still several years away.
- Will single fares be based on period return fares where both day and period options are currently available? That'd e.g. push an undiscounted day return total Mon-Fri from Bedford to London from £27 to £40.90
- Railcard minimum fares - all very well a trial being on an Intercity operator, but again using Bedford to London as an example, if they *did* maintain the existing super off peak pricing, it'd make my Network Railcard virtually useless, and thus give me a stealth fares rise of 1/3. Not least because you can't purchase ADvance tickets officially using Network Railcards.
- What happens to outboundary Travelcards? It's no secret that TfL want rid of these, could they go entirely at the same time? My previous understanding was that this couldn't happen until railcards can be loaded onto Contactless payment cards, but that's still several years away.
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I don't think that's at all true - there's plenty of examples of private firms changing their fares structures. To take an example local to me, First fairly recently changed their bus fare structure. They abolished returns on city services and introduced a contactless system, with the cost of each tap in decreasing until a daily/weekly cap is reached. That's a different and more flexible model for everyone (except those paying by cash), which caused a little confusion when first introduced but seems to have settled down well.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Yes, I agree that that specific piece of flexibility would be lost. However, it's used by a tiny number of people, and out of those people the number who would do such a break unplanned (so couldn't do it by rebooking) is even smaller to the point that I reckon it'll be in single figures or maybe tens per year across the entire rail network*. Thus, it can be substituted for by splitting at the desired overnight break point. Sometimes this might cost more but sometimes it costs less! (Were this not the case Trainsplit wouldn't be a thing).
The majority of break of journey is same-day, i.e. to stop off for a meal because you're hungry, for example. There's no real reason bar "restrictions anomalies" (that just need fixing) why all tickets shouldn't permit that, even Advances provided you use the booked trains.
* I suspect those who do do unplanned overnight breaks of journey are almost all young university aged rail enthusiasts, a group which is proportionately overrepresented here, who might randomly decide to visit a friend, get drunk with them and stay over. Almost no older adult with a family is ever in a position to do this even if they wanted to. Thus I think we see more protest about this here than in the general public. I've, that I recall, done it once ever, and I was about 25 when I did it!
You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs. The fact that some won't accept this is one key reason we've ended up stuck with an unfit-for-purpose system. People here love the current system because they're skilled at gaming it, but a system that can be gamed to the extent it can is by definition a bad one.
It just seems a cack-handed way of working it out because it only compensates some people depending what ticket they've bought. If it's justified to compensate more, then make that 120% of the single, or something. Or make it a full refund plus a free ticket or something.
For users of Super Off Peaks it isn't "fractionally more" on the LNER trial, it's exactly the same. The Off Peak was lost, but it was applicable to only a small number of journeys, some of those can be done with an Anytime Single plus a Super Off Peak Single for about the same money. Some of them might involve an Advance, but I doubt many people ended up paying much if any more. Some may even have found a cheaper way but just bought that ticket by default. Or some might have found they could buy a Super Off Peak out and then bought the return when they knew when they were going to travel, adding further flexibility.
You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs, so SOMEONE will lose out, somewhere, we just have to accept this as it's impossible to change the system without that (remember, if we add subsidy the taxpayer loses out, and most of us are taxpayers). But many will benefit too.
And the difference between a super off peak and a regular off peak is?
God it’s confusing and does need sorting out.
I’m fairly sure as someone who always travels off peak that I’ll end up paying much more for my travel, which actually makes me want to increase my flexibility by travelling at peak times. If I’m going to pay more, I’ll travel when it’s more convenient as the cost difference won’t be so great.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
What to do with places like Bedford and Milton Keynes where there's both a period and a day return is an interesting question. I suspect in both these cases sales of the period returns are absolutely tiny, and so the singles would be based on the day returns or very, very close to them. There are relatively few flows where you get both, and they are almost all journeys of about 50 miles, where day trips are by far the most common thing people do. The more common case is that journeys under 50 miles only have a day return, and journeys over 50 miles only have a period return. Even MK to Birmingham has no day returns, and that's only a fraction further than London (Wolverton of course is for good reason pretty much bang in the middle!)
There would be an option to keep day returns or to do a Merseyrail style zonal day ticket, but I'm not sure this doesn't just confuse things further. There's also the question of the outboundary Day Travelcard, though I'm sure TfL would rather that went away.
Wouldn't surprise me if the Network Railcard was abolished. It's well known the TOCs don't like it.
TfL do seem to want out. But that's probably the biggest "problem niche", because lots of them are sold.
Price and restrictions. They're basically two levels of the same ticket.
For example, on the WCML, Super Off Peaks have evening restrictions and later morning restrictions, whereas Off Peaks have a narrower morning restriction and no evening restriction.
Where single-fare pricing helps (I hate the term "single leg" because that implies "one ticket per vehicle journey" like you have on buses, which is a VERY bad thing) is that if it confuses you you don't need to understand it. You use a journey planner, select that you are interested in flexible tickets only, and choose which one in each direction based on the validity you see in the results.
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DynamicSpirit
Established Member
No, you probably wouldn't be able to do that combination journey on just one ticket. But you probably wouldn't lose out much. An anytime return from Bath to Cardiff is currently £31.50, Cardiff to Bristol is £24.10 and Bristol to Bath (anytime day return) is £10. Let's take the simple assumptions that, after the changes, (1) you won't be allowed to break single journeys, and (2) the new single fares will be 1/2 of the existing returns.
So currently you'd pay £31.50 for that journey.
With the changes and my assumptions, you'd pay £15.75 for a single Bath to Cardiff, £12.05 for a single Cardiff to Bristol, then £5 for a single to Bath. Total £32.80. Even allowing for that the prices may be a small bit higher, have you really lost out that much? And notice that you've also gained the flexibility that, if you prefer, you can stop off in Bristol on your outward trip instead of the return leg - something that is not possible with the current system. So you are no longer forced to shoehorn your plans into the structure of the current fare system.
And remember the big gain from this is that someone else who just wants to travel Bath to Cardiff, and doesn't want to make the return journey (maybe they're going somewhere else, or maybe friends are giving them a lift back) no longer has to - in effect - pay for a return journey that they don't need, so the whole system becomes much fairer.
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I have a lot of experience of train travel in Germany, both locally and long distance, but the latter has been almost always for business. As many on here know, there is no concept of a return ticket there. If you want to buy in advance for a long journey, it's two singles. You might get better prices for the return leg but only by sacrificing flexibility on train times and the ability to have those amended before travel. But there's no such thing as Peak fares either, which is probably the major plus about their ticketing.
Local travel is much the same and their mainly zonal and time-limited fares have a strict "no round trip" limitation. They do have day tickets, but those normally cost a bit more than two singles.
We've got used to our system, but it's bewilderingly complex and isn't the only one available anyway
DfT has to be very careful not to chuck the baby out with the bathwater. Stealth fare increases might work for a short time but will never proportionately increase income, as they will turn off those whose loyalty to train travel is marginal anyway. Also, they must remember that the post-pandemic revival is based on leisure travel, and that is very sensitive to price, as BR knew when it brought in Savers many years ago. Killing off the current steady increase in passenger numbers would be daft beyond measure.
Local travel is much the same and their mainly zonal and time-limited fares have a strict "no round trip" limitation. They do have day tickets, but those normally cost a bit more than two singles.
We've got used to our system, but it's bewilderingly complex and isn't the only one available anyway
DfT has to be very careful not to chuck the baby out with the bathwater. Stealth fare increases might work for a short time but will never proportionately increase income, as they will turn off those whose loyalty to train travel is marginal anyway. Also, they must remember that the post-pandemic revival is based on leisure travel, and that is very sensitive to price, as BR knew when it brought in Savers many years ago. Killing off the current steady increase in passenger numbers would be daft beyond measure.
Purple Train
Established Member
What are the widespread benefits afforded by sizeable "stealth" price hikes to the most expensive railway tickets in Europe?
Simplification of fares is welcome, but these proposals are entirely the wrong way to go about it.
I rather suspect that the new single fares will stay the same, increasing the effective price of a return to two singles.
Judging by their track record, I highly doubt that they care. But I definitely agree with your point. Lowering fares works better in the longer term - or, at least, it has done in the past.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
No, they won't. It's all based around the LNER trial which set the Super Off Peak Single to half the Return. They might not quite go half, thus sneaking in a small increase for some (but a big cut for others), but they're absolutely not just going to abolish returns and leave singles as they are - people would desert the railway in droves, and suggesting that they are is really unhelpful to the discussion.
I would go as far as to say that believing that this will happen is either paranoia or outright conspiracy-theorism. 60%, possibly. 100%, no chance.
Lowering fares as a general thing is a different discussion entirely and requires more subsidy input.
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