I don't think so much it would be collusion with Northern, more likely TPE trying to the keep the DfT happy, in the run up to the bidding game. :P
We'd certainly be able to call for an investigation if they just so happened to do the same stuff, as LTW did with FCC back in 2006 (
source), though such an investigation might not be successful as they'd no doubt deny it, but we'd certainly be able to make things uncomfortable for them, so I'd say it's not worth their while trying it
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In that case, why can't I get a TPE train from Bolton to Manchester ret and pay the half-price fare?
Bolton - Manchester fares are set by Northern.
If NR impose the new restrictions, and TPE "have" to follow them, isn't that some kind of - well, what's the word - price fixing, collusion (as stated above), anti-competitive?
Northern set the fares for certain flows, and all Train Companies are bound by those conditions. Other Train Companies could give passengers more rights, ie they could choose not to enforce the restrictions, but not less.
But it's not NR that have been forced to impose them - this has come form above and NR need to raise money??
The DfT want to reduce Northern's subsidy, so that people who are wealthy and don't require public transport can have their tax burden reduced.
In order to achieve that, Northern
chose to abolish cheap evening tickets and to introduce evening peak restrictions on many (but not all) of their Off Peak Day tickets.
They also chose to do it in a way that is ridiculous.
Anyway, I thought the whole idea of privatisation was to run different companies on the same rails competing for passengers regarding prices and service.
Not at all.
The true competition between Companies occurs at the bidding process. They all compete to win franchises! Any subsequent competition regarding fares is merely a by-product of the fact that different Companies happen to provide services on the same route, but that's mere co-incidence based on who runs the particular franchise. For example, any competition between EC & Virgin from London to Scotland would cease if Virgin won the East Coast franchise, and there is nothing to stop them winning it as there is no compulsion for there to be competition between rival Companies for passengers on any particular flow.
But this is well beyond the scope of this thread. There are
many existing threads for this matter, I will do a search and find some relevant threads....
And, slightly related, here is an example of how Train Companies take advantage of being able to set fares as high as they want (but buying fares set by other operators can reduce the cost of your journey):
How things change, yet also stay the same
I'm not sure we need yet another
privatisation thread, but if we are going to have one, can it please start in a new thread to avoid this one going totally off topic.
although I wouldn't put it beyond Northern.
