miklcct
On Moderation
Our National Rail fare system generally has point to point fares set up between every station, i.e. each pair of stations in the network has a fare defined. Having to manage millions of pair of fares, loopholes are inevitable.
The Crossrail core has brought to the network the first batch of stations where no point to point fares are defined to the national network - only zonal fares are available.
My recent trip in Sweden involved a train journey involving a connection from a long-distance train to a local train, and the booking resulted in two fares (a long-distance advance purchase fare and a local transport fare) stuck onto a single ticket.
I really don't think it's necessary to define fares from all sorts of long distance stations to all sorts of local stations. For example, is it really necessary to define a fare from Salford Crescent to Shepherd's Bush? This is a journey which involves long-distance trains in between, but none of the origin and destination stations are served by long-distance trains.
Isn't it easier to define a "long-distance network", and various regional and local networks (which may overlap with each other), to cover all through trains in the national network, as long as every direct train journey belongs to a network from where the fare can be found?
For example, it is reasonable to have point-to-point fares set up for stations in the London & South East region which are served by the regional trains, for example, Farnborough to Barnham, or Eastleigh to Colchester, but I think it is an overkill by setting through fares from Bournemouth to Brondesbury, as Brondesbury is only served by local trains within the London zonal area (which zone-based fares are sufficient) and change is necessary. In this case, fare simplification can be done by cancelling all point-to-point fares within the zones and getting them replaced by zonal single fares, just like the Underground, with the options of National Rail only or National Rail + Underground, and tickets issued by the means of a ticket from Bournemouth to Clapham Junction (or London Waterloo or even Wimbledon) and another ticket within the zones together. Or in the case of Salford Crescent to Shepherd's Bush, issued as 3 tickets (a local ticket up to the point of boarding the long distance train, the long distance train itself, and a local ticket after alighting the long distance train).
In technical terms, the fare database format doesn't need to change - that in the process of generating fares, each station is assigned to a number of networks and the check is done that point-to-point fares are defined to every station belong to the same network as the origin (or appropriate zonal fares set up for a zonal network, such as London Zones 1 - 6), however, ticket retailers are required to produce a combination of tickets if a through fare can't be found, and the refund handling fee can only be charged per journey rather than per ticket.
The advantage of this proposal is to reduce the chance of fare anomalies, that passengers are required to buy a combination of tickets when changing trains between different locales, as under the current system many through tickets are priced higher than the corresponding split tickets, which can lead to travellers paying more money than they should.
The Crossrail core has brought to the network the first batch of stations where no point to point fares are defined to the national network - only zonal fares are available.
My recent trip in Sweden involved a train journey involving a connection from a long-distance train to a local train, and the booking resulted in two fares (a long-distance advance purchase fare and a local transport fare) stuck onto a single ticket.
I really don't think it's necessary to define fares from all sorts of long distance stations to all sorts of local stations. For example, is it really necessary to define a fare from Salford Crescent to Shepherd's Bush? This is a journey which involves long-distance trains in between, but none of the origin and destination stations are served by long-distance trains.
Isn't it easier to define a "long-distance network", and various regional and local networks (which may overlap with each other), to cover all through trains in the national network, as long as every direct train journey belongs to a network from where the fare can be found?
For example, it is reasonable to have point-to-point fares set up for stations in the London & South East region which are served by the regional trains, for example, Farnborough to Barnham, or Eastleigh to Colchester, but I think it is an overkill by setting through fares from Bournemouth to Brondesbury, as Brondesbury is only served by local trains within the London zonal area (which zone-based fares are sufficient) and change is necessary. In this case, fare simplification can be done by cancelling all point-to-point fares within the zones and getting them replaced by zonal single fares, just like the Underground, with the options of National Rail only or National Rail + Underground, and tickets issued by the means of a ticket from Bournemouth to Clapham Junction (or London Waterloo or even Wimbledon) and another ticket within the zones together. Or in the case of Salford Crescent to Shepherd's Bush, issued as 3 tickets (a local ticket up to the point of boarding the long distance train, the long distance train itself, and a local ticket after alighting the long distance train).
In technical terms, the fare database format doesn't need to change - that in the process of generating fares, each station is assigned to a number of networks and the check is done that point-to-point fares are defined to every station belong to the same network as the origin (or appropriate zonal fares set up for a zonal network, such as London Zones 1 - 6), however, ticket retailers are required to produce a combination of tickets if a through fare can't be found, and the refund handling fee can only be charged per journey rather than per ticket.
The advantage of this proposal is to reduce the chance of fare anomalies, that passengers are required to buy a combination of tickets when changing trains between different locales, as under the current system many through tickets are priced higher than the corresponding split tickets, which can lead to travellers paying more money than they should.