johnnycache
Member
- Joined
- 3 Jan 2012
- Messages
- 421
Here are my thoughts on the Fares and Ticketing Review
i'd be interested in any alternative perspectives
Firstly i can't really understand why this Fares and Ticketing Review was ever started. The DfT didn't seem to have a clear view as to what it was trying to achieve. As a result expectations were raised and the final report ends up knocking most of the proposals into the long grass. It feels like the current Secretary of State has at least got a grip and ruled out ideas that are unaffordable in 2013 (but should have been seen as equally unaffordable in 2012).
There are three sections. Fares. Current ticketing. Future ticketing.
First Fares. There will be no part-time season tickets or shoulder peak seasons funded by increasing the cost of the existing season ticket products.
There will be a limited trial of flexible seasons by Southern (a franchise commitment) and a competition for the privilege of conducting a larger scale trial. The problem is that more flexible seasons will result in some people getting lower fares than now which means there will be a funding problem as total revenue falls. It is not considered politically acceptable to impose additional price increases on season ticket holders who travel in the high peak (after all many will be members of hard-working families) especially since those least able to adopt flexible working hours may often be relatively low paid. The long term solution requires peak fares to rise to fund reduced prices for those who travel less or travel off-peak and it needs to be done gradually over a long period. Eventually employers will find themselves under pressure to be more flexible in order to to retain staff as employees attempt to save travel costs. It is important that these changes actually generate capacity benefits. If all part timers want to work Tuesday to Thursday and have long weekends then we will still have the same size peak on those days. If a large number of people shifted from the peak to the shoulder peak then off-peak passengers may have to make room.
De-regulation of longer distance off-peak fares has been rejected. There will be a trial of the regulation of off-peak single fares rather than returns. The idea that off-peak singles could be half the price of off-peak returns is attractive and anything that makes the fares structure more rational-seeming to customers is a good thing. However i suspect that purchasers of single tickets may be more price inelastic that purchasers of returns and that there will be a negative revenue impact to be funded. Note that Virgin trains already offer these tickets on-line.
The remaining fares items are stocking-fillers rather than strategic proposals - limitation of regulated fare flex to 2% for one year - cap of standard singles to £250 and returns to £500 again for one year
Current ticketing. This section deals with the need to reduce retailing costs but with the parallel need for train operators to raise their game in terms of providing very clear information about ticket validities and restrictions. This is to be welcomed as train operators are sometimes portrayed as being like banks in extracting fees and penalties from their customers. The DfT have challenged train operators to deliver a step change and now its time for them to do so.
Future ticketing. It is envisaged that paper tickets will be replaced in 10-15 years. This is good but there is no date given (understandably). However I'd like to suggest that the last paper ticket should be issued before the first high speed train runs on HS2. The ITSO smart card is the new ticketing technology of choice but it is acknowledged that the DfT's previous incremental (one franchise at a time) approach was not going to deliver a national inter-operable system. For example Southern and SWT have both had to deliver ITSO schemes as part of their franchises but you cannot travel on an ITSO card from a SWT station to a Southern station. Already £105m has been committed to this - £60m to fund the ITSO enablement of London's Oyster system and £45m for the South East Flexible Ticketing scheme. How flexible this will turn out to be is not clear given the lack of support given to flexible seasons in the review. It is suggested that ITSO will move from a card based system to a token system where the travel details are stored in the back-office rather than on the card - i'm not sure whether all the ITSO investment was needed to deliver such a system or whether it represents a hidden u-turn. Anyway what is needed here and what we may one day get is a national digital system to replace paper tickets for journeys from anywhere to anywhere else. Operators may over lay this with other technologies like bar codes if they want to but should be made to offer ITSO as well. It would be re-assuring to know (given the history of government IT projects) that someone has a high level business case that demonstrates that all this will actually reduce the cost of running the railway and therefore move us towards a time when fare rises above inflation can be dispensed with - but i somehow doubt it!
i'd be interested in any alternative perspectives
Firstly i can't really understand why this Fares and Ticketing Review was ever started. The DfT didn't seem to have a clear view as to what it was trying to achieve. As a result expectations were raised and the final report ends up knocking most of the proposals into the long grass. It feels like the current Secretary of State has at least got a grip and ruled out ideas that are unaffordable in 2013 (but should have been seen as equally unaffordable in 2012).
There are three sections. Fares. Current ticketing. Future ticketing.
First Fares. There will be no part-time season tickets or shoulder peak seasons funded by increasing the cost of the existing season ticket products.
There will be a limited trial of flexible seasons by Southern (a franchise commitment) and a competition for the privilege of conducting a larger scale trial. The problem is that more flexible seasons will result in some people getting lower fares than now which means there will be a funding problem as total revenue falls. It is not considered politically acceptable to impose additional price increases on season ticket holders who travel in the high peak (after all many will be members of hard-working families) especially since those least able to adopt flexible working hours may often be relatively low paid. The long term solution requires peak fares to rise to fund reduced prices for those who travel less or travel off-peak and it needs to be done gradually over a long period. Eventually employers will find themselves under pressure to be more flexible in order to to retain staff as employees attempt to save travel costs. It is important that these changes actually generate capacity benefits. If all part timers want to work Tuesday to Thursday and have long weekends then we will still have the same size peak on those days. If a large number of people shifted from the peak to the shoulder peak then off-peak passengers may have to make room.
De-regulation of longer distance off-peak fares has been rejected. There will be a trial of the regulation of off-peak single fares rather than returns. The idea that off-peak singles could be half the price of off-peak returns is attractive and anything that makes the fares structure more rational-seeming to customers is a good thing. However i suspect that purchasers of single tickets may be more price inelastic that purchasers of returns and that there will be a negative revenue impact to be funded. Note that Virgin trains already offer these tickets on-line.
The remaining fares items are stocking-fillers rather than strategic proposals - limitation of regulated fare flex to 2% for one year - cap of standard singles to £250 and returns to £500 again for one year
Current ticketing. This section deals with the need to reduce retailing costs but with the parallel need for train operators to raise their game in terms of providing very clear information about ticket validities and restrictions. This is to be welcomed as train operators are sometimes portrayed as being like banks in extracting fees and penalties from their customers. The DfT have challenged train operators to deliver a step change and now its time for them to do so.
Future ticketing. It is envisaged that paper tickets will be replaced in 10-15 years. This is good but there is no date given (understandably). However I'd like to suggest that the last paper ticket should be issued before the first high speed train runs on HS2. The ITSO smart card is the new ticketing technology of choice but it is acknowledged that the DfT's previous incremental (one franchise at a time) approach was not going to deliver a national inter-operable system. For example Southern and SWT have both had to deliver ITSO schemes as part of their franchises but you cannot travel on an ITSO card from a SWT station to a Southern station. Already £105m has been committed to this - £60m to fund the ITSO enablement of London's Oyster system and £45m for the South East Flexible Ticketing scheme. How flexible this will turn out to be is not clear given the lack of support given to flexible seasons in the review. It is suggested that ITSO will move from a card based system to a token system where the travel details are stored in the back-office rather than on the card - i'm not sure whether all the ITSO investment was needed to deliver such a system or whether it represents a hidden u-turn. Anyway what is needed here and what we may one day get is a national digital system to replace paper tickets for journeys from anywhere to anywhere else. Operators may over lay this with other technologies like bar codes if they want to but should be made to offer ITSO as well. It would be re-assuring to know (given the history of government IT projects) that someone has a high level business case that demonstrates that all this will actually reduce the cost of running the railway and therefore move us towards a time when fare rises above inflation can be dispensed with - but i somehow doubt it!
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