Peak Fares

[HawkeyeTheNoo]

Hope this isn't a stupid question and apologise if it's ever been a thread before!

Was suddenly thinking a few days ago; Why is there such a thing as peak fares? Is it simply a way for transport companies to make more money per journey because they know people need to get to work? or is it to deter people who are not needing to get to work from travelling so as not to add to overcrowding? Or is it for some other reason?

In my naive world you should pay the same price for the same journey no matter when you travel! One can dream can't they!

 

[LexyBoy]

All of the reasons you quote.

Technically there aren't peak fares; all Off-Peak etc fares are discounted from the full fare. Since trains are full during peak times, an operator has no reason to discount travel at this time. Off-peak, trains are still being run, and since it's easier to run the same trains all day (rather than taking a lot of carriages off for instance), the operator can increase revenue by offering discounted tickets to encourage more people to occupy these empty seats.

It's the same principle as the "yield management" approach which is seeing restrictive Advance tickets becoming the norm - price differentials allow the operator to make demand fit in with their operations, rather than vice versa.

Of course it would be nice to have a single ticket type, with more trains being run at peak times, but it would need a lot more rolling stock, much of which would lie idle all day, and so average ticket prices would be higher (though peak tickets may be cheaper).

 

[DaveNewcastle]

Its simple Market Economics.
We adjust the prices of goods and services in order to regulate the demand by consumers so that the demand corresponds better to our available supply.

Where we have limited capacity, we can increase prices to reduce the demand. Where we have spare capacity, we can decrease the prices to increase the demand.

That might explain why most of the very very cheap advance fares often appear on unpopular times of the day and why the highest 'peak' fares are for travel during periods when services will already be operating at capacity.

 

[Greenback]

Very well put Dave, so much more eloquent than my own contribution would have been. but essentially the same!