Why, oh why? (High through fare easily beaten by splitting)

[infobleep]

The primary fare setting will all take place within GBR, who will also be responsible for ensuring that any fare setting sub-contracted to operators is defined so as to not undermine the overall structure. Politically it will take a while to bring some logic to the overall structure but there should be a fairly early objective to address the worst through-ticketing rebooking anomalies - and in many cases where the flows are non-core the sensible approach will be to eliminate the higher of the conflicting fares.
It's very hard to over-emphasise the degree to which large parts of the fares structure have really had no effective overall control in the franchise structure. Accepting (as the Williams-Shapps report does) that a central body needs to be accountable for revenue is a major step given that the ideology of the 1993 Railways Act was that there would only be light touch overall control and things would somehow magically resolve themselves out.

The constant slating of ATOC/latterly RDG when that function was only ever engineered as an emasculated hub designed only to react to either member operators or DfT shows how the vacuum of leadership has been missed in the commercial sphere.


There's no guarantee, but there is now a framework for it to be a possibility.
The overall structure has been in the deep freeze for 25 years so is ripe for massive updating. Savings created by one TOC taking chunks out of another can't be sustained but frankly the ludicrous overpricing of many marginal flows won't get the industry past Covid either. Remember that the main driver for pushing fare levels upwards rather than using real market insights to spot elastic markets that generate more revenue with lower fares is the Treasury so prising away day to day management of rail industry commercials from Government whilst leaving it in a publicly accountable body is the only way the current impasse will be broken.

Are there actual examples of one TOC making savings by taking a chunk out of another TOC(s)?

 

[route101]

Glasgow to Dundee by splitting at Perth is a classic, so much so guy at ticket office done it without asking.

 

[kieron]

Almost certainly a problem of availability on the TPE services.

What sort of problem?

From what I can see, TPE-priced advance tickets (such as Grimsby-Cark via Wigan*) are readily available, but Avanti ones (like Grimsby-Ulverston* are not.

Looking further afield, I can find London-Huddersfield advance tickets involving TPE from Kings Cross easily enough, but not from Euston.

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[Egg Centric]

Glasgow to Dundee by splitting at Perth is a classic, so much so guy at ticket office done it without asking.

Strangely, trainsplit.com isn't finding this despite it being pretty obvious from brfares.com.

There's a representative on this site to ping about this, isn't there? Anyone remember their ID?

 

[Watershed]

What sort of problem?

From what I can see, TPE-priced advance tickets (such as Grimsby-Cark via Wigan*) are readily available, but Avanti ones (like Grimsby-Ulverston* are not.

Looking further afield, I can find London-Huddersfield advance tickets involving TPE from Kings Cross easily enough, but not from Euston.

* You may need to delete any nationalrail.co.uk cookies you have for these links to open correctly.

In cases like these, it's clear that there is a certain amount of route-code specific 'blocking' going on, whereby you can't get an Avanti & connections Advance on a journey involving a TPE service, but you can get a TPE only or LNER & connections Advance on the same train.

 

[JonathanH]

In cases like these, it's clear that there is a certain amount of route-code specific 'blocking' going on, whereby you can't get an Avanti & connections Advance on a journey involving a TPE service, but you can get a TPE only or LNER & connections Advance on the same train.

Isn't that just because the quotas don't match up? Does train operator 1 have to specifically determine separate quotas for advance tickets from train operators 2 and 3?

 

[SickyNicky]

Strangely, trainsplit.com isn't finding this despite it being pretty obvious from brfares.com.

There's a representative on this site to ping about this, isn't there? Anyone remember their ID?

There's only a saving on the day return (anytime and off-peak). On a single or period return, there's no saving by splitting. We do offer the saving on the day return.

 

[les.]

Would the Manchester Picadilly split also work for trips from Town to Preston? (I'm travelling there in August). Also sometimes the return to Doncaster is more than two singles. The fares on the network need re-organising. 2 people of the same train to the same place with one paying more is unfair.

Would be worth looking into as I know you can get Advance Man Picc to Preston ticket for around the £4 or £5 mark. I think that they do do Advance Gy to Preston tickets though but worth looking at a Man Picc split to see if it would be cheaper.

 

[Haywain]

What sort of problem?

The sort that occurs because TPE do not offer availability for the quotas relating to those ticket types.

 

[londonbridge]

I’ve posted this before (hence old terminology) but some years back I was doing London-Blackburn for football, a London-Blackburn saver return was £55.90, instead of which, using the exact same trains, I got the old Virgin Saturday Day Out ticket from London to Preston for £24 and a day return between there and Blackburn for £3.90.