I think we're all in agreement that..

[Ben]

the fares system is pretty screwed up, but how exactly would you make it better?

Not got much time at present but expect a rant later tonight...

 

[mumrar]

Standardising restrictions would be my first thing, so 8A or 8X SVR would become SOR with the price averaged between current SOR and SVR. Define Off-Peak as the same everywhere in the country for every single TOC. Most Advance fare schemes seem to have 3 tiers. I'd introduce another seperate Advance only available from 1-7 days before travel so it wasn't being sold out months before the train. I'd also have two seperate calculations for First Class fares. FC with no complimentary 1.6x standard fare, FC with 1.8x standard fare. All TOCs who have first class to sell FDR, FVR and FOR ticket types. I'd also introduce day returns for all journeys up to 200miles, both peak and off peak for people doing day trips. I'd also make sure there wasn't instances where SVRs exist but not SORs.
It's a start isn't it?

 

[37401]

Id have a new ticket

CAR- Cheap ass return!

 

[ashworth]

things at present are far too complicated and my ideas are perhaps too simplified but here goes:

Standard Full Price (Singles and Return)
Off Peak (Singles and Returns)
Cheap Day Returns
Advance Purchase

Cheap Day Return Tickets should be significantly cheaper even than Off Peak Returns and should be available for all return journeys that are practically possible in one day. Even journeys like London to Edinburgh.

Advance Purchase Tickets (sold as singles as now) but two singles should make a return journey even cheaper than a Cheap Day Return for those who want to book in advance.
They should be available for all journeys (and all permitted routes and all connections) over approx 50 miles and not just what the TOC's want to sell.
For example Nottingham to Carlisle changing at Leeds is at present not possible because both trains are run by Northern who do not do AP.

That's just a few ideas to start things off.
However, that does not take into account all of the present fare discrepencies and the various situations where it is cheaper to split tikets.

 

[will1337]

I pretty much agree with mumrar's ideas although there would need to be easements for remote places with infrequent services where the next train may be 4 hours away, also for tourist. These places benefit from having cheap fares in the peak where it will also not be as busy as with commuter services into major cities.

I don't know how it'll be easily possible to even out discrepancies in prices between PTE areas and outside of them though where split ticketing is often cheaper.

 

[glynn80]

Standardising restrictions would be my first thing, so 8A or 8X SVR would become SOR with the price averaged between current SOR and SVR. Define Off-Peak as the same everywhere in the country for every single TOC.

Whilst this seems a good idea in principle, in practice in becomes a lot more difficult to implement.

The main problems stem from areas whereby there are trains that leave at say 0929 and then there is not another service on that line for say two hours. An easement is then brought in to allow passengers to travel on that earlier train. If you were to standardise restrictions, this would not occur (if it was, we'd be in exactly the same scenario as we are now) and I beleive it would leave passengers worse off than they are with the current system.

Most Advance fare schemes seem to have 3 tiers. I'd introduce another seperate Advance only available from 1-7 days before travel so it wasn't being sold out months before the train.

What revenue maximising TOC is going to introduce a whole raft of Advance fares a couple of days before travel. The people purchasing tickets at short notice are usually those passengers with relatively inelastic demand and therefore are willing to purchase tickets at a much higher price as opposed those who are able to book a long time in advance who usually have a relatively elastic demand.

Advance fares have specific advantages for TOCs that mitigate the fact that they receive less revenue than higher priced tickets. These include advantages such as receiving the revenue significantly earlier (as much as two weeks in some circumstances) and helping TOCs to plan ahead, allowing them to adjust quotas based on the speed of Advance ticket sales. These advantages are lost if passengers book at very short notice and therefore there is no incentive for the TOC to introduce that sort of Advance fare.

I'd also have two seperate calculations for First Class fares. FC with no complimentary 1.6x standard fare, FC with 1.8x standard fare.

If you price differentiate and introduce a formula between those TOCs offering complimentary refreshments and those TOCs not, you are then in effect charging for the refreshments and they cease to become "complimentary". The whole basis under which complimentary refreshments operate, is that there is no legal obligation to hand them out. If you brought in your method of pricing First Class tickets, it would seem very easy to prove that passengers were specifically paying higher fares for the complimentary refreshments and that they were therefore legally entitled to receive them.

All TOCs who have first class to sell FDR, FVR and FOR ticket types.

Even those who offer no first class accomodation such as Merseyrail??

I'd also introduce day returns for all journeys up to 200miles, both peak and off peak for people doing day trips.

Cheap Day Return Tickets should be significantly cheaper even than Off Peak Returns and should be available for all return journeys that are practically possible in one day. Even journeys like London to Edinburgh.

Why? As far as I can tell this hasn't been implemented at present due to the very low numbers of passengers attempting long distance journeys in one single day. Certainly doesn't seem like a rationale decision to me and certainly not an economically sensible decision for a TOC?

I'd also make sure there wasn't instances where SVRs exist but not SORs.

Is this a widespread problem?

 

[generalvegitable]

I would just charge about 10p per mile in standard class, and 20p per mile in first class, on the shortest or specified route with no extra charges for using a specific station (so if I was going from Birmingham new street to station A which is x miles away, it would cost the same as going from station A to station B which is another x miles away) and have these ticket types:

advance - booked before day of travel, cheapest tickets, always 25% of the off peak tickets no matter when booked or when travelling e.g A to B £100 off peak, £25 in advance, can be mailed to you or collected from a station on the day of travel

on the day - booked on the day for immediate travel, can be booked at any time of day, most expensive ticket.

my system may be too simple but I know almost nothing about the ticketing system so I think that the simplest is the best

 

[John @ home]

Advance Purchase Tickets ...
They should be available for all journeys (and all permitted routes and all connections) over approx 50 miles and not just what the TOC's want to sell.
For example Nottingham to Carlisle changing at Leeds is at present not possible because both trains are run by Northern who do not do AP.

Advance tickets can be obtained for this journey by booking from Nottingham to Glasgow or Edinburgh via Appleby. For example, Advance Nottingham - Glasgow route VWC & Connections currently available for travel at 1515 on 9 January for £18 (or £11.90 with a Railcard).

 

[glynn80]

I would just charge about 10p per mile in standard class, and 20p per mile in first class, on the shortest or specified route with no extra charges for using a specific station (so if I was going from Birmingham new street to station A which is x miles away, it would cost the same as going from station A to station B which is another x miles away) and have these ticket types:

This method of pricing is an outdated and ill informed one from an industry perspective.

A distance-based pricing model sounds good on paper but does not work in reality because it cannot spread demand in the same way other pricing models are able to.

Moreover distance-based pricing wouldn't remove all anomalies in practical terms. If we take flows such as Glasgow to London and Edinburgh to London. Currently these flows are set by Virgin and NXEC and there is an agreement in place that the walk-on prices on these flows will remain identical. Using a distance based pricing model however, the fare to Glasgow would be more expensive than the fare to Edinburgh (due to the ECML being shorter than the WCML), even though the Glasgow to London fare has permitted routes via Edinburgh.

Finally on flows such as Lancaster to Carlisle, which route do you calculate the distance under, the shortest route, even if there are parallel routes with much greater distance? If the distance for the above flow was calulcated via Penrith, the fares on the Cumbrian Coast would be in disarray because any fares from Lancaster to north of Sellafield (which is of almost equal distance to that of Lancaster to Carlisle via Penrith) would be purchased cheaper if they were issued to Carlisle (the Cumbrian Coast is a permitted route on Lancaster to Carlisle fares).

Even in the latter part of BR days fares were set by the Business Sectors (InterCity, Network SouthEast and Regional Railways) and pricing by strict distance had given way to selective pricing by route quality and market as long ago as 1968.

advance - booked before day of travel, cheapest tickets, always 25% of the off peak tickets no matter when booked or when travelling e.g A to B £100 off peak, £25 in advance, can be mailed to you or collected from a station on the day of travel

"No matter when booked or when travelling"?? This makes no real commercial sense. Advance fares are offered to utilise excess demand, not to be offered on any train at any time whenever a passenger requests.

my system may be too simple but I know almost nothing about the ticketing system so I think that the simplest is the best

It is unfortunately not suitable in today's market, maybe in a by gone era, but not today.

 

[yorkie]

I would just charge about 10p per mile in standard class, and 20p per mile in first class...

what price would Peterborough to Nottingham be?

also what price would Peterborough to Leicester be?

what price would York to Whitby be?

let's see if you can be the first person to suggest distance based pricing to not avoid those questions !

 

[nedchester]

Originally Posted by ashworth
Cheap Day Return Tickets should be significantly cheaper even than Off Peak Returns and should be available for all return journeys that are practically possible in one day. Even journeys like London to Edinburgh.

Why? As far as I can tell this hasn't been implemented at present due to the very low numbers of passengers attempting long distance journeys in one single day. Certainly doesn't seem like a rationale decision to me and certainly not an economically sensible decision for a TOC?

Back in 1985 (I think) BR restricted many day returns to about 50 miles, a retrograde step in my view. People were forced to buy the more expensive saver tickets. A return to longer distance CDRs would be a good idea.

 

[ashworth]

Advance tickets can be obtained for this journey by booking from Nottingham to Glasgow or Edinburgh via Appleby. For example, Advance Nottingham - Glasgow route VWC & Connections currently available for travel at 1515 on 9 January for £18 (or £11.90 with a Railcard).

I know that a limited number of AP tickets can be booked by this route but they are to Glasgow or Edinburgh. You cannot get a Nottingham to Carlisle AP ticket changing only at Leeds.
I only used that one journey as an example of a journey where AP is not available. AP should be made available for all longer distance routes.
Another example is all journeys from Lincoln to all Cross Country destinations via Nottingham and Birmingham and also journeys from Lincoln to stations in the North West such as Liverpool, Preston, Blackpool.
There are so many journeys that at present do not have AP tickets available.

 

[yorkie]

Standardising restrictions would be my first thing, so 8A or 8X SVR would become SOR with the price averaged between current SOR and SVR.

That would kill the walk-on market for long distance journeys. Except for people who know about splitting e.g. Penzance - York split somewhere like St Austell. york to Peterborough (for example) would be unaffordable, I'd suggest to Nat Ex that they'd run an express coach to compete.

as for york to edinburgh, splitting at newcastle or get a b&b would be the choice.

 

[glynn80]

Back in 1985 (I think) BR restricted many day returns to about 50 miles, a retrograde step in my view. People were forced to buy the more expensive saver tickets. A return to longer distance CDRs would be a good idea.

I have heard no compelling argument for their return. I have seen no evidence to show that there are significant numbers wanting to do long distance day return journeys, certainly not in the London to Edinburgh realm.

There was obviously a reason behind BR's decision to remove them, whether it increased revenue yields or because they weren't being utilised, there was a reason and I have seen no reason to reintroduce them.

 

[mumrar]

So are we suggesting all rail travellers who go to the nrm, stratford, and all other tourist attractions stay the night? That's boulders, there is plenty of demand for distance day returns in the leisure market.

 

[glynn80]

So are we suggesting all rail travellers who go to the nrm, stratford, and all other tourist attractions stay the night?

No but what I am saying is that they don't travel hundreds of miles just to go to that one attraction.

Someone from Leeds may take a day trip to travel to the NRM agreed, however someone from Birmingham is much less likely to do so. Someone from Birmingham may however take a weekend break to somewhere like York and may take in the NRM whilst visiting other attractions in the city.

That's boulders, there is plenty of demand for distance day returns in the leisure market.

Do you have any evidence to back that statement up, or is that just based on anecdotal evidence. If it is anecdotal evidence, I'd like to suggest that you yourself frequently make long distance day return journeys and that in fact your suggestions for reforming the UK rail ticketing system were based more on satisfying your own needs than those of the general public.

 

[mumrar]

Gylnn80, why do you feel the need to speak in such a condescending manner? It is not to serve my own needs as I have free rail travel through employment. Incidnetally you say you've seen no evidence of a demand for day trips over 60 miles. What would you expect to see? The sales of advance singles, off peak and anyime returns will not provide you with any evidence at all. I have, on the other hand, had a fair number of customers express their desire for a longer distance day return than currently exists.

 

[glynn80]

Incidnetally you say you've seen no evidence of a demand for day trips over 60 miles. What would you expect to see? The sales of advance singles, off peak and anyime returns will not provide you with any evidence at all. I have, on the other hand, had a fair number of customers express their desire for a longer distance day return than currently exists.

There have been many studies undertaken on passengers travelling habits most of which are available on the internet. These may have been produced by government agencies such as the DfT or the ORR or commissioned independently by an outside party. There is also the wide ranging SRA Fares Review which has a vast array of data specific to fares.

Here are a couple of posts of mine which illustrate how you can use data to verify claims you are stating:
(http://railforums.co.uk/showpost.php?p=341887&postcount=13)
(http://railforums.co.uk/showpost.php?p=341887&postcount=15)

Obviously you haven't bothered to undertake any kind of search to find relevant sources to back up your claims. What you have done is take a quick glance at the overall fares structure and have come up with very naive proposals to try to rectify some of the problems without any regard for the consequences your proposals cause.

 

[First class]

Personally I'd like to see CDR fares:

Liverpool-York
Liverpool-Nottingham - (currently only very expensive, SOS, SVR, SOR fares) - should also change SOS to SDS and reduce.
Liverpool-London Any Permitted (LM do their own version already)
Liverpool-Birmingham - If off peak you may as well buy a £22 OPR to London and break at Birmingham!!

 

[mumrar]

WOW, condescending to the power of three. My 'brief glance' at the fares structure has involved 13 years of dealing with customers and selling tickets of all varieties to them. None of my suggestions are naive, which suggests I've been ignorant in my simplified use of information. You on the other hand have come outright and accused me of wanting to create fares for my own personal needs with nothing to base your judgement on, so who's the ignorant person here? People have been talking of day trips between London and Edinburgh, last time I checked that isn't under 200miles, which was my suggested distance for day trips (maybe 150 would be more appropriate, but currently it's too short). Finally thank you for you offer of 'showing me how to use data', where would I be without you to guide me? I certainly don't need you to patronise me and accuse me of self serving on fare suggestions when you also self serve by posting thread links of yours. It would be more useful to post links to the data and studies you mention, rather than suggesting I may need education from you in order to utilise them.

 

[glynn80]

My 'brief glance' at the fares structure has involved 13 years of dealing with customers and selling tickets of all varieties to them. None of my suggestions are naive, which suggests I've been ignorant in my simplified use of information.

Well I am sorry, I didn't realise you had 13 years of booking office experience, well that does stand you in good stead to reform the rail ticketing system. You posted reforms which were clearly flawed and I picked out those flaws. I am sorry if I have offended you by somehow ruining your vision but by not highlighting them, it leads people to believe those reforms would actually be effective.

People have been talking of day trips between London and Edinburgh, last time I checked that isn't under 200miles, which was my suggested distance for day trips (maybe 150 would be more appropriate, but currently it's too short).

No London to Edinburgh isn't under 200 miles, but someone other than yourself (ashworth in this case, who I quoted in my original reply) stated that they wished to see London to Edinburgh have a CDR fare :roll:

Finally thank you for you offer of 'showing me how to use data', where would I be without you to guide me?

And you talk of people being condescending to you!

I certainly don't need you to patronise me and accuse me of self serving on fare suggestions when you also self serve by posting thread links of yours. It would be more useful to post links to the data and studies you mention, rather than suggesting I may need education from you in order to utilise them.

If I could find a study that advocated reintroduction of CDRs, I would post it. However at present I have found none advocating anything even remotely close.

 

[mallard]

I would take fare-setting powers away from TOCs and give them to an independent body. The body would have a mandate to balance the TOC revenue against the public benefit of rail travel.

I'd also introduce some sort of universal railcard system... Probably with a discount that increases the more often you use it for IC fares and a blanket discount on off-peak local fares.

e.g. a 25% discount on all off-peak local fares (maybe a maximum distance of 50 miles, with all fares in the "network area" considered local to replace the network railcard) and then a 10% discount on your first IC fare of the year, going up 5% each time up to a maximum discount of 35%.

 

[glynn80]

I would take fare-setting powers away from TOCs and give them to an independent body. The body would have a mandate to balance the TOC revenue against the public benefit of rail travel.

That is an interesting idea.

If this were implemented, you would effectively be stripping to TOCs of their economic freedom and therefore in reality companies would bid to operate a management contract as opposed to a full franchise.

I do know that after Hatfield, management contracts were used by the SRA and that in 2003 12 of the 25 franchises were run as management contracts. The distinction between the provision of rail services by means of a successful franchise and a management contract is crucial and lies in which party assumes the revenue risk: in the former the profile of subsidy payments which the franchisee estimates is required at the time the bids are made means that he accepts the revenue risk; in the case of the latter the franchisee is paid a fee equivalent to his costs and the SRA as franchisor accepts the operational revenue risk.

What I am unclear of is who kept control of the fares for those 12 management contract run franchises, was it the SRA who accepted the operational revenue risk or the TOCs?

 

[mrcheek]

How about all if all ticket machines are encoded with software that automatically tries to find you a cheaper ticket by splitting?
Shouldnt really be that difficult.

 

[mumrar]

Right, when the OP asked for suggestions to modify the fares structure I didn't realise it would be possible to point out the errors (I never thought my post would be error free anyhow) in peoples suggestions without coming up with any of your own. My own text being condescending was a direct response to your suggestion that I may need help in using studies data. The fact that you still don't seem to care/notice that you appear to be giving instructions from above to all of those below you is what has made you come across as arrogant. This may just be a problem with the medium of text, as I cannot hear tone of speech etc. So I shall retreat and await your (hopefully) fault free and study friendly fares suggestions.

 

[glynn80]

Right, when the OP asked for suggestions to modify the fares structure I didn't realise it would be possible to point out the errors (I never thought my post would be error free anyhow) in peoples suggestions without coming up with any of your own. My own text being condescending was a direct response to your suggestion that I may need help in using studies data. The fact that you still don't seem to care/notice that you appear to be giving instructions from above to all of those below you is what has made you come across as arrogant. This may just be a problem with the medium of text, as I cannot hear tone of speech etc. So I shall retreat and await your (hopefully) fault free and study friendly fares suggestions.

The reason I have not posted my own ideas and suggestions for reform is that I haven't been able to find any solutions that I feel solve all of the issues that arise. I have thought about this for quite a long period of time and although many of the proposals that come up time and time again, seem on the face of it, to solve the problems of the system, in reality they create more problems and passengers are left worse off than they previously were.

I feel it would take a comprehensive overhaul of the entire system for any benefit to be brought to passengers and I have seen innovative proposals for reform such as this one published in Rail Professional (www.railpro.co.uk/issues/pdfs/fare_game.pdf).

 

[Old Timer]

what price would Peterborough to Nottingham be?

also what price would Peterborough to Leicester be?

what price would York to Whitby be?

let's see if you can be the first person to suggest distance based pricing to not avoid those questions !

Well until the early 70s, distance priced ticketing had worked since the inception of railways.

So pray do tell what is the issue with the journeys that you quote, and which were previously distance charged.

 

[glynn80]

Well until the early 70s, distance priced ticketing had worked since the inception of railways.

Distance based pricing was prevalent between 1947 to 1968, however a more market led approach (priced by each Business Sector) was introduced in 1968 which allowed more flexibility in fare setting. In general, fares were increased in line with inflation, with above inflation rises if improvements were deemed to have occurred to services (e.g. new investments), or if it was judged that such rises could be borne by the market.

So pray do tell what is the issue with the journeys that you quote, and which were previously distance charged.

I think yorkie was actually asking how those flows would be priced, he was not questioning that it was done in the past. Perhaps you could enlighten us?

 

[johnb]

glynn80 - it's completely clear from a wide range of datasets that many journeys that were considered long-distance at the time BR removed long-distance CDRs are no longer considered long-distance. An obvious example is the GWML, where trains have been refitted to commuter spec to reflect the fact that that's now their primary market.

Journeys like London-Edinburgh are obviously a red herring, but London-Bristol, London-Leeds and London-Manchester now make complete sense as day trips - both because the trains are faster and because the population is more geographically dispersed. So it's highly likely that the reasons they were unprofitable under BR no longer apply.

On the original topic - *actually* doing what the revised system was supposed to do, so that for any journey you have:

Anytime single/return (Standard or First at 1.5x the price)
Off-peak single (Standard or First at 1.5x the price)
Advance single (Standard or First, price entirely based on demand)

..and then
Off-peak return / day return / both, based on demand and distance (Standard or First at 1.5x the price)

...and no other tickets, would be good. The point about easements making absolute national rules difficult for restricted times is a good one, but nonetheless it would be possible to set standard availability times based on arrival to / departure from London for all London tickets.

 

[John @ home]

Personally I'd like to see CDR fares: ...
Liverpool-Nottingham - (currently only very expensive, SOS, SVR, SOR fares) ...

A Chester - Nottingham route Stoke on Trent CDR costs £16.70 until 1 January, £17.00 from 2 January, is available M-F from 0830 departing Chester, and is permitted via Liverpool using maps CH+EM. Break of journey is explicitly allowed, so the ticket can be used from and to Liverpool.

If you want to avoid Stoke on Trent, a Prestatyn - Nottingham route Any Permitted CDR costs £22.20 until 1 January, £22.60 from 2 January, is available M-F from 0715 departing Prestatyn, and is permitted via Liverpool and Sheffield using maps CL+PS. Again, break of journey is explicitly allowed, so the ticket can be used from and to Liverpool.

Liverpool-Birmingham - If off peak you may as well buy a £22 OPR to London and break at Birmingham

Break of journey is not allowed with a £22 Super Off-Peak Return (OPR) Liverpool - London route London Midland only.