Potential change to off-peak single fares

[island]

Today's Times (can't link as it's paywalled) has an article on the front page about how the DafT is forming a plan to require off-peak single and off-peak day single tickets to be priced much closer to half the return fare. Unfortunately it does not go into many specifics, such as where the money to increase subsidies will come from. It also says the change could push up the price of return tickets.

 

[bb21]

Unfortunately it does not go into many specifics, such as where the money to increase subsidies will come from. It also says the change could push up the price of return tickets.

The cynic in me says that the latter is much more likely to occur, to compensate for the drop in income from single fare sales. As for subsidy increase - I will believe it when I see it.

I seriously doubt that the changes will be revenue neutral.

 

[jon0844]

Aren't single fares a lot cheaper on Oyster than the equivalent rail ticket? So, it's already happening around London (e.g. Cheshunt and Broxbourne that got Oyster enabled).

Would revenue fall that much anyway? Most people probably buy a return, but cheaper singles would make it easier to travel from, say, A to B and back to C.

It will also be great for returning on another day, which currently means buying a far more expensive open return.

 

[yorksrob]

Another clue hidden in the article (sorry - can‘t link as I only have the paper format) is this :

"More radical moves to abandon annual above inflation fare increases were judged too expensive" This would have been more useful frankly.

That said, the move could be a good thing, provided profiteering is avoided. One particular benefit could be where the passenger is overnighting but the journey is too "short" to provide a period return. I often end up buying two expensive singles for a comparatively short distance in these circumstances. Won't be much use if they just double the return though. One would have thought that the majority of people buying returns are people needing to make a return journey, so I don't expect half the passengers currently buying a return will suddenly start switching to singles and loosing TOC's vast amounts of money.

 

[Goatboy]

This will simply result in more expensive offpeak returns - annoying.

 

[edwin_m]

The real revenue loss is likely to be from (mostly business) people who need to travel (for example) to London on a peak morning service but know they will be returning between or after the peaks. These people currently have to buy an Anytime unless they are certain enough of their return time and far enough ahead to get an Advance for the return journey. If the off-peak single is a similar price to the off-peak return they will just buy one of those with an Anytime single. For example from Nottingham the fare would go down from about £140 Anytime return to £70 Anytime single plus about £40 off-peak single.

 

[yorksrob]

Possibly journalistic hyperbole, but it also says:
"It is unclear where the money will come from, and it may have to be found from elsewhere in the DFT budget by scrapping services or diverting underspends". Needless to say, I certainly don't see the persuit of consistency as being worth scrapping services !

 

[John @ home]

Today's Times (can't link as it's paywalled) has an article on the front page about how the DafT is forming a plan to require off-peak single and off-peak day single tickets to be priced much closer to half the return fare.

I think the article is likely to be a 'taster' prior to DfT's response to their 2012 consultation Rail fares and ticketing review. Two months ago, the current Secretary of State told Parliament that this response would be published "later in the summer".

 

[radamfi]

Aren't single fares a lot cheaper on Oyster than the equivalent rail ticket? So, it's already happening around London (e.g. Cheshunt and Broxbourne that got Oyster enabled).

Would revenue fall that much anyway? Most people probably buy a return, but cheaper singles would make it easier to travel from, say, A to B and back to C.

It will also be great for returning on another day, which currently means buying a far more expensive open return.

Yes, making singles half the return price is really a no brainer, and should encourage extra trips by people who are currently put off having to buy a series of single fares. To a large extent, peak fares nowadays have a large difference between returns and singles, much more so than under BR. The main excuse for singles being the same as a return was to cut fraud, but now with the proliferation of ticket barriers, that reason is less valid.

Making singles half the return is a prerequisite for a pay-as-you-go smartcard system. Dutch railways removed the slight discount for buying a day return when they introduced their nationwide smartcard.

 

[bicbasher]

Aren't single fares a lot cheaper on Oyster than the equivalent rail ticket? .

As an example. Forest Hill to London Terminals SDR £4.00, Oyster peak single £3.10, Off-peak £2.20.

A day return is £6.90.

 

[SS4]

Making singles half the return is a prerequisite for a pay-as-you-go smartcard system. Dutch railways removed the slight discount for buying a day return when they introduced their nationwide smartcard.

In a smartcard system there are arguably no returns to compare to. If we take Oyster in London every journey is a single and a journey from A-B-A is two singles: A-B and B-A. Advance tickets are singles and you must hold two to make a return journey. It'd be a collection of singles with returns becoming obsolete. Whether this is a good thing or not is up for debate (personally I see no problem with it so long as BoJ is kept)

Put simply I don't trust the government to act in the best interests of the passengers so I'd rather the status quo was maintained.

 

[Greeby]

I have a feeling that TOCs may go ahead and lower the single prices, but then eliminate all the remaining advances on the flow that survived the price drop.

 

[Be3G]

Aren't single fares a lot cheaper on Oyster than the equivalent rail ticket? So, it's already happening around London (e.g. Cheshunt and Broxbourne that got Oyster enabled).

Indeed: Oyster singles were originally priced such that two of them would add up to slightly less than the equivalent paper return ticket (going back to when off-peak paper tickets were available in the London area).

 

[bb21]

So many variables.

With smartcard ticketing, restrictions will have to be massively simplified. Say "bye" to 8A-Savers. Welcome to a world where a return journey will likely cost somewhere between the current Anytime and Off-Peak fares, ergo a price hike for many passengers (probably on the majority of journeys in order for the TOCs to claim a reduction on Anytime fares).

Can you tell that I have just had a glass of "cynicism on the beach"?

 

[jon0844]

I know there will be winners and losers (and we can argue there will be more losers) but I'd still like to ditch the current ticketing system one day and go for something more simple for ordinary journeys, but allows for discounts and promotions in different and more intelligent ways thanks to smart cards.

This will then benefit regular users and allow TOCs to offer more unique deals (I am assuming we will see more validators on platforms and trains to manage this better).

If changing single ticket pricing is step one, let's make it happen.

 

[Goatboy]

I wonder what proportion of journeys made each day have no return portion at any point?

I'd imagine very, very few. I can count on one hand the number of times I've genuinelly needed to make a single rail journey with zero return. Infact usually only when travelling somewhere to buy a car or something!

I only ever tend to buy Single tickets if I am being creative with ticketing options in a desperate attempt to make rail cheaper than private car usage

 

[radamfi]

I travel one way by train a lot. My most common trip is London to Manchester on Saturday and Manchester to London by coach on Sunday morning (because trains don't run early enough on Sunday).

Last week I did London to Newport to Manchester by train and then coach back. I would only consider a trip like that using Advances. Even if I got the train back I would have to be creative if I was using Off Peak Returns. A lot of people doing such a trip would feel compelled to go back through Newport as well to keep the fare down.

 

[Mojo]

Maybe they could offer the (almost) half price return single if you only buy online or something. In fact I believe there are already some Tocs that do this (IIRC) Virgin if you buy an Advance, and East Coast?

 

[island]

Maybe they could offer the (almost) half price return single if you only buy online or something. In fact I believe there are already some Tocs that do this (IIRC) Virgin if you buy an Advance, and East Coast?

File that under "good until the Daily Fail gets wind of it". If it's publicised that you get half-price online, it'll be out in force on behalf of [insert random group such as OAPs who allegedly are unable/afraid to buy online].

 

[W-on-Sea]

A long-overdue measure

 

[WelshBluebird]

I wonder what proportion of journeys made each day have no return portion at any point?

I'd imagine very, very few. I can count on one hand the number of times I've genuinelly needed to make a single rail journey with zero return. Infact usually only when travelling somewhere to buy a car or something!

I only ever tend to buy Single tickets if I am being creative with ticketing options in a desperate attempt to make rail cheaper than private car usage

There are an awful lot of journeys where if you are returning on a different day then you have no choice but to buy two singles, as no return (other than day return) fare exists.

Also as I think has already been mentioned, triangular journeys will possibly be made a lot cheaper!

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

It would bring triangular journeys into the real world.
Currently a trip like London-Liverpool-Leeds-London is an outrageously high fare on three Off-peak singles.

 

[Goatboy]

There are an awful lot of journeys where if you are returning on a different day then you have no choice but to buy two singles, as no return (other than day return) fare exists.

This a function of crap ticketing flexibility not genuine one-way journeys, though.

 

[WatcherZero]

This is probably leaking into the public domain because its time for the annual decision by Government on how much to increase fares by, the automatic larger above inflation fare rises it chickened out of following through with every year and the annual newspaper and public backlash about large inflation based rises while wages are falling.

 

[Goatboy]

the annual newspaper and public backlash about large inflation based rises while wages are falling.

Which, to be fair, is a good point. Unless wages rise to pay for them, fares cannot rise above inflation for ever - taken to its a logical conclusion to illustrate a point of this continued to happen in perpetutiy one day we'd reach a point where the average season ticket was more than the average salary.

Maybe we could cancel the billions and billions being spent on putting wires everywhere and use the capital expenditure to further subsidise fares as a stimulus measure

 

[radamfi]

Over the long term, train fares have mostly been matched by wage rises. Both have historically outstripped inflation. However, this has not been the case for the last few years.

http://www.inflationarypressure.com...dex against Rail Fares showing inflation.html

 

[swt_passenger]

This a function of crap ticketing flexibility not genuine one-way journeys, though.

Absence of period returns for relatively short journeys is supposedly for anti fraud protection.

 

[yorkie]

Over the long term, train fares have mostly been matched by wage rises. Both have historically outstripped inflation. However, this has not been the case for the last few years.

http://www.inflationarypressure.com/customchart1987/Graph%20of%20price%20of%20Average%20Earnings%20Index%20against%20Rail%20Fares%20showing%20inflation.html

Interesting stuff, thanks.

It's even worse for many non-regulated walk-up fares.

In 2001, the cost of a Day Return from York to Doncaster, departing on the 0923 or later, was £5 (CDR). The cost of a Day Return (SDR) is now £17.40! It could get even worse, as the Regulated fare is the SVR at £21.30.

In 2007 York to Shireoaks used to be a reasonable price, £12.40 for a CDR. And now, in 2013, that's a whopping £23.40 for the CDR! I used to buy those tickets to get to Sheffield, but not any more!

The only way rail travel can be affordable (other than booking 10-12 weeks in advance for long distance journeys) is to "shop around" for prices that are still reasonable (there are a few!) and analyse the Routeing Guide etc...