The 'Advance tickets are to fill empty seats in quiet trains' misconception.

[Starmill]

I've noticed the misconception on the forum from many people and in a wide variety of areas that Advance tickets are a nothing more than a way for train companies to fill empty seats on lightly loaded trains.

Not to pick on pt_mad at all, lots of people think this, but here is a recent example https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...taff-at-paddington.172364/page-2#post-3692455

This is perhaps how Advance tickets were once viewed. In some quarters, it may well still be how they're viewed. However, in general, the industry now uses Advance tickets very differently. They are used as a yield management tool which is configured to profit maximise in the short term, by attempting to match each customer to the highest price they're willing to pay to travel on a particular train. There are a huge number of ways train companies can do this price discrimination. Most commonly they can do it by time of booking, time of travel, class of travel, age and status as a student or pensioner and associated railcard entitlements, membership of particular schemes such as NUS Extra, sales and use of particular retailers, and many other special promotions e.g. Special discounts for football clubs or charities.

There's very strong evidence that Advance tickets are used to manipulate elasticity and are not used to simply smooth out peaks and troughs in demand to balance loadings on trains. This evidence primarily takes two forms:

-Lightly loaded trains where ticket prices very high
-Heavily loaded trains where ticket prices are very low

Of course, capacity is a critical part of this decision, but it is not the only factor. In addition, some companies may weigh this factor differently to others.

There are some good personal examples of this. One is the 0843 Manchester Piccadilly to Edinburgh service on Sunday mornings, which is the first train of the day to travel the route. It's relatively new, I think it started in December. It's booked 4 coaches I understand and it's usually fully reserved, it certainly was this Sunday gone. I couldn't get a reservation for it. I knew it would be overcrowded and horrible but I also expected that an Advance ticket on the Day would be made available for this service. I was correct and I bought a £20 ticket from Preston to Edinburgh on that train on the day of travel - for Advance tickets on the Day, TransPennine Express do not issue seat reservations. It was indeed horribly overcrowded, exactly as I had predicted, and at Lockerbie it was so overcrowded that there was a real risk not everyone would have been able to board. Clearly people are entitled to criticse TransPennine Express for whatever they like, but I got a ticket for what I thought was a good price, and they got £20 more than they would have done had they not chosen to offer the Advance. It's a commercial decision which the company have taken, and it was their completely free choice to do that, just as it was mine to take them up on it.

Food for thought for everyone.

 

[yorkie]

This is absolutely correct. Many train companies want to see their trains filled as close to optimum capacity and/or yielding as close the the maximum possible revenue as possible (these two are not always quite the same thing though!); I think the InterCity East Coast franchise (under its various guises, currently LNER) has been one of the best at this, though even this operator doesn't always get things right in my opinion.

Yes on lightly loaded trains you can get bargain deals that are designed to fill otherwise empty seats, but Advance fares that cost almost as much as (and sometimes more than) walk-up fares are very common at "peak" times on some TOCs.

Virgin Trains even went on record a number of years ago (which was reported on this forum at the time) as stating they wanted Off Peak fares to be abolished, thus forcing everyone on a budget to use an Advance fares, and David Mapp, a Director of ATOC at the time, was more than happy to endorse this request. Fortunately it got nowhere.

 

[MarlowDonkey]

Virgin Trains even went on record a number of years ago (which was reported on this forum at the time) as stating they wanted Off Peak fares to be abolished, thus forcing everyone on a budget to use an Advance fares

Something that isn't generally available, which ought to be is an Advance ticket which gave a choice of perhaps three trains. For leisure travellers, you can tie yourself to a single train for the outward journey, but require a certain amount of flexibility on the return. If you start with a bus journey, you may even need flexibility on the outward.

 

[Kite159]

I can remember when I was searching for trains from Edinburgh towards London on Easter Monday, and from the word go the VTEC website were selling advances for most trains at ~ £70.50 (there was a small handful of early/late trains which were cheaper). The website was also selling the "Super off-peak" single fare for ~ £71 (although at this point that fare was only available via the VTEC website, go via other websites and it was the more usual ~ £142).

Other examples of advances being sold for busy trains is the LNWR 350 services from Euston to Crewe.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Other examples of advances being sold for busy trains is the LNWR 350 services from Euston to Crewe.

With the very cheap walk-ups and heavy overcrowding I cannot see the justification to sell ANY Advances on that route at all.

 

[Gareth Marston]

I once found i could book as many as 35 AP's on the 0635 from Newtown to BHM INTL on weekday with arrival time of 0829 at New St and ATW's longest booked train (6 car) it is well known to be crammed full of Shropshire Commuters but you could force many of them to stand by Mid Walians on cheap AP's.............

The other classic misconception is that by booking ahead or on the internet your guaranteed savings.

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

With the very cheap walk-ups and heavy overcrowding I cannot see the justification to sell ANY Advances on that route at all.

Perhaps it is not objectively justifiable, but operators are under no obligation to offer Advances at all; I suspect it is competition (primarily with Chiltern, towards the part of the route north of Rugby, and primarily with Virgin, for Rugby and south) that implicitly compels them to continue to offer these Advances.

 

[deltic]

Advances are also sold to ensure TOC receives 100% of the revenue rather than a proportion of an any operator ticket on many routes

 

[transmanche]

I once found i could book as many as 35 AP's on the 0635 from Newtown to BHM INTL on weekday with arrival time of 0829 at New St and ATW's longest booked train (6 car) it is well known to be crammed full of Shropshire Commuters but you could force many of them to stand by Mid Walians on cheap AP's.............

I didn't think that ATW actually issued seat reservations for Advance tickets.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Advances are also sold to ensure TOC receives 100% of the revenue rather than a proportion of an any operator ticket on many routes

Though LNR also get 100% of their dedicated walk-up fares which are available for most sections of the route.

 

[Steveoh]

Yes on lightly loaded trains you can get bargain deals that are designed to fill otherwise empty seats, but Advance fares that cost almost as much as (and sometimes more than) walk-up fares are very common at "peak" times on some TOCs.

I quite agree with this statement. It certainly works for the TOC with my employer. I am forced to buy Advance tickets to get into London around the peak, flexible tickets are banned. They are generally priced just a few £ below the anytime fare and I'm forced to buy them. My company saves a few quid, the TOC gets all the revenue. I think it's good business practise.

 

[Gareth Marston]

I didn't think that ATW actually issued seat reservations for Advance tickets.

No but can you see someone getting on very quite train @ 0635 not sitting down for a journey of 113 minutes?

 

[transmanche]

No but can you see someone getting on very quite train @ 0635 not sitting down for a journey of 113 minutes?

I thought you said the train was rammed?

 

[Starmill]

I thought you said the train was rammed?

I imagine the train is very lightly loaded leaving Aberystwyth and through Wales, but becomes crush loaded from those joining at Shrewsbury, Wellington and Telford Central. Thus, if a huge party were to join the train at Newtown they would all get seats.

 

[A Challenge]

It is after Shrewsbury, just not when they get on it, so they sit down in the free seat and the season ticket holder paying much more ends up standing as they can't sit in a seat that was taken earlier in the journey, as the person is still sitting there and travelling through to Birmingham in that seat.

 

[transmanche]

I imagine the train is very lightly loaded leaving Aberystwyth and through Wales, but becomes crush loaded from those joining at Shrewsbury, Wellington and Telford Central. Thus, if a huge party were to join the train at Newtown they would all get seats.

Ah, that makes sense.

When @Gareth Marston said "Shropshire commuters", I read that as people travelling to Shropshire - not people travelling from Shropshire (towards Birmingham).

 

[Gareth Marston]

Ah, that makes sense.

When @Gareth Marston said "Shropshire commuters", I read that as people travelling to Shropshire - not people travelling from Shropshire (towards Birmingham).

should have clarified as Shropshire to West Midlands commuters sorry..

I can get 39 AP's on the 0635 on the 30th November is anyone's interested!

 

[island]

Something that isn't generally available, which ought to be is an Advance ticket which gave a choice of perhaps three trains. For leisure travellers, you can tie yourself to a single train for the outward journey, but require a certain amount of flexibility on the return. If you start with a bus journey, you may even need flexibility on the outward.

Iarnród Éireann successfully offers this on its intercity services: you can get a ticket valid only on the booked train, or for a higher price the booked train or the immediately preceding or following one.

 

[yorkie]

Something that isn't generally available, which ought to be is an Advance ticket which gave a choice of perhaps three trains. For leisure travellers, you can tie yourself to a single train for the outward journey, but require a certain amount of flexibility on the return. If you start with a bus journey, you may even need flexibility on the outward.

Some train companies effectively do this, while others are not far off. You can get an Advance one way and a Single at half the price of the return for the other direction when making several journeys priced by LNER and Virgin, while GWR price several of their Super Off Peak Single fares at not much more than the cost of a return.

 

[Kite159]

Something that isn't generally available, which ought to be is an Advance ticket which gave a choice of perhaps three trains. For leisure travellers, you can tie yourself to a single train for the outward journey, but require a certain amount of flexibility on the return. If you start with a bus journey, you may even need flexibility on the outward.

Sounds a bit like the VTEC trial of a ''Power Hour" at Doncaster, where holders of advance tickets to London could travel upto an hour before or an hour after their booked train on VTEC services.

I wonder how many folk caught wind and booked on the stoppers from York for a cheaper ticket but boarded a semifast service to London to save some pennies

 

[yorksrob]

I'm not against yield management per se, however when you have a lack of affordable fares on almost empty trains, its clearly not working.

In terms of the OP's experience on Manc - Scotland trains, it sounds as though there's a fairly large uncatered for demand. Perhaps someone could buy some old electric units, run them at a slower speed and pack them out with cheap advances. A sort of discount crowd buster.

 

[transmanche]

Sounds a bit like the VTEC trial of a ''Power Hour" at Doncaster, where holders of advance tickets to London could travel upto an hour before or an hour after their booked train on VTEC services.

I'm trying to think back to before fares simplification, I'm fairly sure that one TOC (possibly VT) offered a day return ticket that was valid for a specific train outbound but allowed use of any (off-peak?) train on the return journey.

 

[Deerfold]

Something that isn't generally available, which ought to be is an Advance ticket which gave a choice of perhaps three trains. For leisure travellers, you can tie yourself to a single train for the outward journey, but require a certain amount of flexibility on the return. If you start with a bus journey, you may even need flexibility on the outward.

Virgin East Coast did have a trial of Advance tickets that allowed the holder to board within half an hour either side at Doncaster. With the number of trains there, that could give a choice of 5 trains. I did wonder if it was because Doncaster can be confusing with people catching a train a couple of minutes off from the one they were aiming for.

Anyway, nothing seemed to come of it.

 

[Deerfold]

I'm trying to think back to before fares simplification, I'm fairly sure that one TOC (possibly VT) offered a day return ticket that was valid for a specific train outbound but allowed use of any (off-peak?) train on the return journey.

In 1991 I had one of my first solo long-distance train trips. My (Super?)Apex ticket allowed me, on a Saturday, to catch the 0505 or 0605 train from Leeds to London Kings Cross, but any train back. £19 with railcard.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I'm trying to think back to before fares simplification, I'm fairly sure that one TOC (possibly VT) offered a day return ticket that was valid for a specific train outbound but allowed use of any (off-peak?) train on the return journey.

There was the Saturday Day Out, which at one stage was booked train out, any back.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I'm not against yield management per se, however when you have a lack of affordable fares on almost empty trains, its clearly not working.

Yield management is about increasing income, though, not "bums on seats". If one £300 fare makes more than 10 £10 fares, you sell the former.

In terms of the OP's experience on Manc - Scotland trains, it sounds as though there's a fairly large uncatered for demand. Perhaps someone could buy some old electric units, run them at a slower speed and pack them out with cheap advances. A sort of discount crowd buster.

Isn't that basically First's concept for the ECML?

 

[yorksrob]

Yield management is about increasing income, though, not "bums on seats". If one £300 fare makes more than 10 £10 fares, you sell the former.



Isn't that basically First's concept for the ECML?

It is, but Anglo Scottish ECML trains don't seem as busy as the NW - Scotland ones. Plus, given the distance, you could probably get away with tarting up some second hand units.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It is, but Anglo Scottish ECML trains don't seem as busy as the NW - Scotland ones. Plus, given the distance, you could probably get away with tarting up some second hand units.

Part of that is that they are operated using 4-car EMUs rather than proper trains.

 

[Skymonster]

I'm not against yield management per se, however when you have a lack of affordable fares on almost empty trains, its clearly not working.

Indeed. The railway's idea of yield management is woeful compared to where most airlines are. Advance tickets are a very blunt instrument that can only partially solve a complex problem. Fundamentally though, seats on trains (like seats on airline flights) are extremely perishable commodities - once the service has departed, they cannot be sold. There should be no need for a concept of covering costs as there are virtually no incremental per-passenger direct operating costs in railways - so any revenue for an otherwise empty seat is better than no revenue. The trick is not selling at too low a price - the trick is to not sell to someone who would have paid more.

-Lightly loaded trains where ticket prices very high
-Heavily loaded trains where ticket prices are very low

Both of those examples demonstrate a fundamental failure to properly implement a yield management programme.

 

[Haywain]

Virgin East Coast did have a trial of Advance tickets that allowed the holder to board within half an hour either side at Doncaster. With the number of trains there, that could give a choice of 5 trains. I did wonder if it was because Doncaster can be confusing with people catching a train a couple of minutes off from the one they were aiming for.

Anyway, nothing seemed to come of it.

It was simply because of the competition at Doncaster from Hull Trains and Grand Central.