Arriva wants to end national ticketing

[WatcherZero]

National rail ticketing holds back innovation

Arriva has called for the Department for Transport to revise “anachronistic” requirements for all train operators to provide a common national ticketing technology and sell tickets for every possible rail trip nationwide from station ticket offices.

The Deutsche Bahn-owned transport group said maintaining these ‘network benefits’, along with inflexible pricing and station staffing rules, had limited the introduction of systems such as smartcard, bankcard and barcode ticketing, which are cheaper to run and offer greater customer convenience.

“The current regulatory model entrenches anachronistic solutions and undermines the business cases for new ones that drive important customer benefits,” Arriva told the Office of Rail Regulation’s current ticket retailing review …“Individual TOCs are often unable to develop new systems or innovative solutions by the impossibility of a positive business case in the context that all existing systems need to be retained in parallel.”

The company suggested that one option for a new fares and ticketing model could involve each franchise focusing on developing new, potentially bespoke, ticketing technology appropriate for its own franchise and markets. National network requirements would be revised to take account of online technology that had not been invented when the rules were written 20 years ago.

Key changes could involve train operators only selling tickets for journeys on their network and direct ‘cross boundary’ services from its stations. This would enable operators to introduce new smart ticketing systems without the obligation and expense of continuing to offer nationwide BR-era magnetic stripe tickets in parallel. In addition, operators would be able to vary ticket prices to reflect the cost of selling different types of tickets and to encourage customers to switch to new smart ticketing systems. This would mean operators could charge more for magnetic stripe tickets bought through ticket offices than barcode or smartcard tickets bought online.

Operators would also have the freedom to reduce ticket office staffing hours as customers switch to self-serve tickets in order to reduce costs and redeploy staff to broader customer service roles.

Arriva pointed out that differential pricing between paper and smart tickets had been essential to TfL’s programme to encourage use of Oyster ticketing and that without it “it is unlikely that Oyster would exist in anything like its current form, scale or popularity”.

A national ticketing service, as opposed to a national ticketing technology, could be retained by continuing to sell journeys between all stations online, with fares derived by packaging individual operators’ tickets.

“The technology now exists for different operators to offer different fares and retail platforms, but for these to be packaged and sold as a single transaction,” Arriva said. “The customer does not need to lose the benefits of a single, integrated network and train operators are able to innovate and develop new solutions. DfT can help encourage this by supporting the industry move to this position.”

Arriva acknowledged that dropping the requirement for operators to offer a common ticketing technology would create the likelihood of passengers having to use a combination of tickets for longer journeys, such as barcode for one section of the trip and magnetic stripe for another. However, it argued that customers are increasingly making this decision for themselves to get the best deal – for example by buying a discounted Advance ticket (often barcode or print at home) for travel between cities along with separate tickets for the local networks at either end. Around 60% of long distance rail trips are now made on Advance tickets.

The wasted expense of operators setting fares for every possible journey from every station and training all station staff to sell them was illustrated by research on how often these trips are requested. A study on one Arriva TOC showed that no ticket was sold all year for over half the fares available.

“The more the network can operate as a series of aligned but individual businesses, the faster and more effectively individual franchises will be able to innovate for consumer benefit,” Arriva concluded.

Arriva’s call for the DfT to consider radical change was echoed by the Association of Train Operating Companies which recommended “a review into network benefits” to establish whether the benefits to customers of through journeys and inter-available tickets are outweighed by the disadvantages. It said this should include investigating the potential for a “paradigm shift” similar to the potential option outlined by Arriva as well as less radical options.

http://www.passengertransport.co.uk/2015/01/‘national-rail-ticketing-holds-back-innovation’/

I understand their argument that its costly for them to sell tickets for other operators and they have to ensure their ticketing system remains backwards compatible, but their argument is contrary to the trend towards simple and integrated ticketing through a variety of channels.

 

[Bevan Price]

Or to translate into English. We want all the money for ourselves, and sod the passengers who want to make a journey that involves more than our TOC.

 

[fowler9]

Or to translate into English. We want all the money for ourselves, and sod the passengers who want to make a journey that involves more than our TOC.

It does look a bit to me like "We want to make it easier for ourselves to make more money for the shareholders" than any concern for the customers. That said it is late and I am tired.

 

[Tetchytyke]

If they don't like the current rules they're more than welcome to sod off back to Germany.

 

[Flying Snail]

If only there was some organisation set up so that TOCs could integrate their systems to allow introduction of new ticketing solutions. :roll:

The idea that having a full range of destinations means they have to train their staff for each one is patently nonsense, they need to train their staff in how to use the system so they can accurately access any destination which is a completely different thing. This is true for own TOC tickets as well as network ones.

You are all correct, it is no more than an blatant attempt at keeping more revenue, probably some accountant noticed how much of the fares they take end up being distributed to other TOCs and has had a bright idea to stop that.

That pathetic press release sounds like an excellent argument for returning their franchise back to public ownership.

I would love to know just how many un-necessary paper-pushers are now employed in the railway industry to manage the ridiculously complicated financial arrangements between the various companies over and above those employed by BR, probably somewhere in 4 figures.

They are correct about one thing, the system is horrendously over complicated. However the solution for that is not to allow them to destroy the network for their convenience, it is to destroy the system including all of the parasite companies creaming off the top and return some semblance of sanity and control to the way the entire railway is operated.

That is not going to happen though, best that can realistically be done is to stamp down on this sort of nonsense hard. If Arriva/DB don't want to play by the rules then they can f right off, Arriva was a horrible company who have shown no sign of improvement under control of the fatherland.

 

[simple simon]

no thankyou!

next they'll be wanting people to alight from trains to touch in / out when passing from one franchise area to the next - or when splitting a fare for a longer journey over several tickets.

At present ATOC rules only require that the trains call at boundary stations where one ticket ends and the next starts - passengers do not have to actually alight.

Already this rule is breached in London, for instance if someone going to Brighton uses Oyster PAYG between their home station and East Croydon and buys a paper ticket for the rest of the journey they have to alight at EC to end / start the Oyster leg of their journeys. As I understand it this is only permitted because TfL is not part of ATOC. Otherwise the Oyster system would not work.

Simon

 

[Bletchleyite]

I understand their argument that its costly for them to sell tickets for other operators and they have to ensure their ticketing system remains backwards compatible, but their argument is contrary to the trend towards simple and integrated ticketing through a variety of channels.

Here's an idea. How about ATOC comes up with some ticketing innovation as a whole?

Neil

 

[Hadders]

We have a National Rail system with Britain's Train Companies Working Together.

How are Arriva's proposals consistent with this?

How could passengers be expected to make a long distance journey if they were subjected to different ticketing styles, requirements and restrictions depending on which leg they were travelling on.

 

[Bletchleyite]

How could passengers be expected to make a long distance journey if they were subjected to different ticketing styles, requirements and restrictions depending on which leg they were travelling on.

I don't support this overall, but to be fair to them "the same way they do in France, or Poland, or any other of the many countries where the ticketing system is not integrated" is probably the answer here.

Neil

 

[bb21]

I don't support this overall, but to be fair to them "the same way they do in France, or Poland, or any other of the many countries where the ticketing system is not integrated" is probably the answer here.

Neil

Let's hope we do not align our standards with the lowest common denominator.

As someone said earlier, if DB are not happy then they are free to leave the UK market after their franchises expire.

 

[radamfi]

In Great Britain, you can buy a piece of paper that gets you from any station to almost any other station. That may sound 'integrated', but in reality that is a market priced journey which may or may not bear any resemblance to the distance travelled or quality of service.

In the Netherlands you kind of already have what Arriva are suggesting. As is well known, almost everyone travels using the OV-Chipkaart smartcard. Each train company has its own fares and if you change train company you have to touch in and touch out. That's a bit inconvenient but not massively as the smartcard readers are placed at convenient places while walking between the two trains. At worst it makes your connection time a few seconds longer. Still, that's not necessary a deficiency that couldn't be fixed. It exists in the Netherlands because they don't have a central counting house between the companies like the Rail Settlement Plan.

Within each train company there is a defined and publicly available list of fares for each distance. A train fare for a journey involving two companies is essentially the same as the two fares added together, with a correction to avoid a small amount of double counting.

So the British paper system may seem more 'integrated' in principle, but the actual fare paid is a lot more random and unpredictable than what you pay in the Netherlands.

 

[FenMan]

From the press release:

Around 60% of long distance rail trips are now made on Advance tickets.

Advance tickets? Or tickets sold in advance? I very much doubt the former, particularly at the "bargain" prices charged by XC!

 

[bb21]

In Great Britain, you can buy a piece of paper that gets you from any station to almost any other station. That may sound 'integrated', but in reality that is a market priced journey which may or may not bear any resemblance to the distance travelled or quality of service.

In the Netherlands you kind of already have what Arriva are suggesting. As is well known, almost everyone travels using the OV-Chipkaart smartcard. Each train company has its own fares and if you change train company you have to touch in and touch out. That's a bit inconvenient but not massively as the smartcard readers are placed at convenient places while walking between the two trains. At worst it makes your connection time a few seconds longer. Still, that's not necessary a deficiency that couldn't be fixed. It exists in the Netherlands because they don't have a central counting house between the companies like the Rail Settlement Plan.

Within each train company there is a defined and publicly available list of fares for each distance. A train fare for a journey involving two companies is essentially the same as the two fares added together, with a correction to avoid a small amount of double counting.

So the British paper system may seem more 'integrated' in principle, but the actual fare paid is a lot more random and unpredictable than what you pay in the Netherlands.

I have said it before and I will say it again, you cannot compare the British railway network with the Dutch one. For a start, ours is far more complicated.

Being able to do your journey on one ticket sounds "integrated" to me. For any flexible walk-on fare, the price remains fixed so one always knows how much one is paying. There is nothing random about it. It is only discounted fares such as Advances that can vary greatly from one day to another. (Are you proposing that such fares be abolished?) If I have to pay separately for each leg of my journey and buy separate tickets for each train then I do consider this an unnecessary inconvenience, and before you trot out your old argument of smartcard ticketing, tell me what the deposit should be for PAYG cards.

If you have a way of doing pure mileage-based pricing without losing the flexibility of multiple permitted routes especially for medium to long distance journeys, and the convenience of having it all on one ticket then let's have it. In fact, isn't a pure mileage-based system more "unpredictable" because depending on the route one takes, there could be different prices which may currently all be the same?

The rolling stock issue (which I assume is what you mean by "quality of service"?) is not a fares issue, so not relevant to such a debate, unless you want to restrict certain types of rolling stock only to certain lines and abolish such practice as mixed diagramming of 142/150/156 which Northern currently practise, you will only make the fares system more complex, not simpler, as you would have to introduce differential pricing for each type of rolling stock.

There is room for improvement, undoubtedly, such as limited scope for smartcard ticketing and other alternative media, but we cannot just borrow the system used in any other country and apply it without consideration for the specific circumstances in this country. A good system for another country may well be completely unsuitable for this country.

 

[radamfi]

The rolling stock issue (which I assume is what you mean by "quality of service"?) is not a fares issue, so not relevant to such a debate

When I say 'quality', I include speed as well as comfort. In many countries it is common for faster and more comfortable trains to cost more, for example for TGV, ICE and IC trains, but we even have elements of that here, for example lower fares for London Midland only and higher fares for HS1.

My main point was to highlight that through paper tickets don't necessarily mean cheaper, fairer or easier. If you take Arriva's example of using local trains at either end of a long distance trip, if you had a smartcard that could be used on all three trains, theoretically it could charge you an appropriate Advance-type fare for the main journey and regular fares on the local bits at either end. The paper alternative as it stands at the moment is, if you are lucky, having a through Advance which adds the local bits, which requires negotiation between the TOCs. If that doesn't exist, then your choice is having an expensive walk-up through ticket, or having three paper tickets.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

If you have a way of doing pure mileage-based pricing without losing the flexibility of multiple permitted routes especially for medium to long distance journeys, and the convenience of having it all on one ticket then let's have it. In fact, isn't a pure mileage-based system more "unpredictable" because depending on the route one takes, there could be different prices which may currently all be the same?

Not necessarily. It could be priced at the shortest distance. For example, Belgian Railways allow you to use the shortest or quickest route. I don't particularly have a moral objection to paying more for the longer route, however, and of course in Britain we have many journeys that have different fares according to route taken.

 

[bb21]

My main point was to highlight that through paper tickets don't necessarily mean cheaper, fairer or easier. If you take Arriva's example of using local trains at either end of a long distance trip, if you had a smartcard that could be used on all three trains, theoretically it could charge you an appropriate Advance-type fare for the main journey and regular fares on the local bits at either end. The paper alternative as it stands at the moment is, if you are lucky, having a through Advance which adds the local bits, which requires negotiation between the TOCs. If that doesn't exist, then your choice is having an expensive walk-up through ticket, or having three paper tickets.

Advance fares are not intended for the pay-on-the-day market. You have the walk-on fares for that. Yes, I know Arriva currently have this implemented somewhat for on-the-day travel, however that has as much to do with ORCATs raids as providing a (slightly) cheaper alternative for passengers unable to book in advance.

If you have to prebook Advance fares and load these onto your card, you lose much of the advantage of a PAYG system, and I don't see any real benefit over buying separate paper tickets for these legs which is what people can do these days.

Not necessarily. It could be priced at the shortest distance. For example, Belgian Railways allow you to use the shortest or quickest route. I don't particularly have a moral objection to paying more for the longer route, however, and of course in Britain we have many journeys that have different fares according to route taken.

You then end up with anomalies, and lots of them, if you price according to the shortest permitted route.

 

[radamfi]

tell me what the deposit should be for PAYG cards.

You don't need a deposit at all if you work on the basis of post-payment a la TfL contactless. I presume the South East ticketing body (I forget the name) will eventually allow this throughout the whole region. The Netherlands already have the NS Business Card where you simply touch in and touch out on every bus, tram, metro or train in the country and you get billed retrospectively, and they are also moving towards contactless for national trains.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

If you have to prebook Advance fares and load these onto your card, you lose much of the advantage of a PAYG system, and I don't see any real benefit over buying separate paper tickets for these legs which is what people can do these days.

If having paper tickets was no hassle then there wouldn't be any interest in smart ticketing! You might not necessarily have to physically 'load' the ticket onto your card. You could just buy the ticket, possibly just before boarding, and that information could be transmitted to the guard. Or you could use a mobile ticket for the Advance part of the journey and a smartcard for the local bits.

You then end up with anomalies, and lots of them, if you price according to the shortest permitted route.

However if you could only use the longer route if it was quicker, that would remove some of the anomalies. You could also say that you could only use the route if that route is given in the journey planner. That's the Dutch rule. If you want to be really fussy you could introduce pink readers like TfL to allow people to use longer routes (for more money) without paying for two singles.

 

[bb21]

You don't need a deposit at all if you work on the basis of post-payment a la TfL contactless. I presume the South East ticketing body (I forget the name) will eventually allow this throughout the whole region. The Netherlands already have the NS Business Card where you simply touch in and touch out on every bus, tram, metro or train in the country and you get billed retrospectively, and they are also moving towards contactless for national trains.

You will then need every card to be registered with genuine details I assume? Only purchasable with proper IDs?

What about under 18s? As this is effectively a form of credit will they be allowed such a card?

I am not convinced that it is as easy as it sounds.

 

[radamfi]

You will then need every card to be registered with genuine details I assume? Only purchasable with proper IDs?

What about under 18s? As this is effectively a form of credit will they be allowed such a card?

I am not convinced that it is as easy as it sounds.

Well, TfL contactless travel is already available to anyone with a contactless card. Maybe under 18s can use mobile tickets if they can't use a card. I'm not suggesting a complete withdrawal of paper tickets in the short/medium term, but I would try to aim for the vast majority of people being able to go anywhere with either a smartcard, contactless card or mobile ticket in the near future.

 

[bb21]

My main point was to highlight that through paper tickets don't necessarily mean cheaper, fairer or easier. If you take Arriva's example of using local trains at either end of a long distance trip, if you had a smartcard that could be used on all three trains, theoretically it could charge you an appropriate Advance-type fare for the main journey and regular fares on the local bits at either end. The paper alternative as it stands at the moment is, if you are lucky, having a through Advance which adds the local bits, which requires negotiation between the TOCs. If that doesn't exist, then your choice is having an expensive walk-up through ticket, or having three paper tickets.

One thing I forgot to mention earlier is that you will not solve this problem of non-availability of Advance fares for certain journeys by the adoption of a smartcard. Your proposal requires Advance fares to be made available for purchase right before departure, or even after the journey is complete. Why do we then need walk-on fares for the "main journey" as you call it? Do you propose these "Advance-type" fares be the same for all trains? If so, what is the difference to the current walk-on fare? If not, you are adding randomness and unpredictability to the fares charged which you detested so much in earlier posts.

Your gripe is with the fact that walk-on fares are too expensive, which is not something resolvable by the implementation of smartcard ticketing. It is not the consequence of paper tickets being used. It is not the implementation of smartcard ticketing that makes fares cheaper. It is a different fares policy.

If having paper tickets was no hassle then there wouldn't be any interest in smart ticketing! You might not necessarily have to physically 'load' the ticket onto your card. You could just buy the ticket, possible just before boarding, and that information could be transmitted to the guard. Or you could use a mobile ticket for the Advance part of the journey and a smartcard for the local bits.

Much reduced costs to the operator for a start for reasons of much interest.

The biggest advantage of smartcard ticketing is the convenience factor of PAYG, and to a lesser extent, that of multi-journey tickets without having to fish out the ticket everytime one passes through a ticket gate. You can't just buy an Advance ticket before the train is about to depart as that is not what they are designed for. In any case, if one has to physically buy the ticket before departure then you are losing very much the convenience factor of smartcard ticketing, one where you pay after making the journey, one where you are free to change your mind en route as to your destination without having to worry about buying additional tickets for the additional distance travelled.

Sure, purchasing tickets online and loading them onto the card remotely, or, as Southern already do atm, loading them onto the card at a smartcard reader or the gateline, probably does compare more favourably to more traditional paper tickets, thanks to the lack of requirement to queue at a ticket machine or a ticket window, but a large part of the current problems comes from the fact that there is insufficient provision of ticket purchasing/collection facilities at many stations, especially at busier times, so this can equally be solved to a large extent by increasing such provision. The benefits of a smartcard system merely designed to hold pre-purchased products is limited in its scope in such cases. As things currently stand, it could reduce some of the existing difficulties associated with paying for one's journey, especially at many stations in the north. Nevertheless the biggest advantage of smartcard ticketing is being ignored if this is the main use for such technology. I am not against their roll-out, and that of other alternative methods such as mobile ticket, however as long as the requirement of pre-purchasing remains, smartcard ticketing is simply not being used to its full potential, and such a system has nothing to do with the advantages offered by the Dutch system, ie. an Oyster-style PAYG system, which you repeatedly make so much reference to.

How "integrated" is it if you have to use smartcard at both ends and mobile ticketing in the middle? I would argue that it is much simpler having one paper ticket for the entire journey.

However if you could only use the longer route if it was quicker, that would remove some of the anomalies. You could also say that you could only use the route if that route is given in the journey planner. That's the Dutch rule. If you want to be really fussy you could introduce pink readers like TfL to allow people to use longer routes (for more money) without paying for two singles.

I am not sure that removing flexibility and reducing passenger rights will go down very well.

In any case, how would touching in at the origin and touching out at the destination tell the system which route was taken? If there were route validators along the way, how does the system know whether one has taken the longer route because it offered a quicker journey, or whether it was a journey given in the journey planner?

Well, TfL contactless travel is already available to anyone with a contactless card. Maybe under 18s can use mobile tickets if they can't use a card. I'm not suggesting a complete withdrawal of paper tickets in the short/medium term, but I would try to aim for the vast majority of people being able to go anywhere with either a smartcard, contactless card or mobile ticket in the near future.

Contactless can provide a potential solution, that is, if the floor limit can be raised or abolished, which I doubt is going to happen. With under 18s, the same question still remains, how much deposit do you propose is required on a prepay smartcard, or are you going to go for a system where no PAYG facility is available?

What is the main purpose of your proposal to abolish paper tickets and go fully "smart"? Is it to offer passengers more flexibility, or to simply transfer existing tickets onto a different medium? If the latter, I think you are using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, and changing for change's sake. Certainly nothing to do with the Dutch system which you hold in such high regard.

 

[Haywain]

Here's an idea. How about ATOC comes up with some ticketing innovation as a whole?
Neil

We have a National Rail system with Britain's Train Companies Working Together.

It would be nice if the 20-odd companies involved (each with a different level of interest due to franchise variations) could come to a consensus on new ticketing innovations, but it is unlikely to happen unless the cost is covered by the government. And if that happens they will be doing what they have been told to do, not volunteering. That, unfortunately, is the nature of the franchised railway.

 

[deltic]

I have some sympathy with Arriva's view. TfL has perhaps the most advanced ticketing system in the UK only because they could do what they wanted. While DfT took years to develop and is still implementing ITSO smartcards, TfL went ahead with its own bespoke system and is now also way ahead with contactless ticketing. It also achieved use of more zonal rather than individual point to point fares.

 

[Bletchleyite]

From the press release:

Around 60% of long distance rail trips are now made on Advance tickets.

Advance tickets? Or tickets sold in advance? I very much doubt the former, particularly at the "bargain" prices charged by XC!

And given that many of these are & Connections, I don't really see how it massively helps their point.

Neil

 

[Hadders]

Let's be honest TfL operates a relatively simple fare structure (and even that has complications!). You could never hope to replicate it across the country.

I do think we need to be very careful as I can see the walk on railway for long distance travel going, resulting in 100% Advance fares only, say like Eurostar. I guess the TOC's would love this - they could flex prices accordingly, no more crowded trains, everyone guaranteed a seat.

This would be a very backwards step in my opinion.

 

[Bletchleyite]

When I say 'quality', I include speed as well as comfort. In many countries it is common for faster and more comfortable trains to cost more, for example for TGV, ICE and IC trains, but we even have elements of that here, for example lower fares for London Midland only and higher fares for HS1.

While I do like the idea of having train categories, I don't so much like the fare differential, as I don't think we should be encouraging people onto overcrowded short local trains using the fares system rather than having them use the longer IC trains with plenty of capacity.

Perhaps the concept works better in Germany where the local trains can if necessary be long LH trains rather than short MUs.

Neil
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

If you have to prebook Advance fares and load these onto your card, you lose much of the advantage of a PAYG system, and I don't see any real benefit over buying separate paper tickets for these legs which is what people can do these days.

I'm really not sure what benefit a PAYG system has on anything other than a small city network. I'm really not willing to take the chance of what I'll get charged for a long journey, so I'd prefer to buy a "product" first. I don't see any advantage of loading said "product" onto a smartcard at all (not for me, anyway, for the TOC perhaps).

Neil
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

If having paper tickets was no hassle then there wouldn't be any interest in smart ticketing! You might not necessarily have to physically 'load' the ticket onto your card. You could just buy the ticket, possibly just before boarding, and that information could be transmitted to the guard. Or you could use a mobile ticket for the Advance part of the journey and a smartcard for the local bits.

Would prefer to use a barcoded ticket or set of tickets for both.

However if you could only use the longer route if it was quicker, that would remove some of the anomalies. You could also say that you could only use the route if that route is given in the journey planner. That's the Dutch rule. If you want to be really fussy you could introduce pink readers like TfL to allow people to use longer routes (for more money) without paying for two singles.

So, is it the case that a route is allowed if it is *ever* quicker, or if a route is quicker only at one time of the day? So does that mean you have to keep getting journey planner printouts? What an almighty faff.

If we did distance pricing it'd have to be on distance by rail, really. If we changed to a system of single tickets, explicit routeing wouldn't be disastrous. If you want to change your route, change your ticket.

Neil

 

[edwin_m]

The walk-up fares systems seemed to work fine in the days when the clerk had to look fares up in a vast manual. I don't see how the assistance of technology has made it any more difficult. What has made things complicated is the advent of many operator-specific fares since privatisation.

Is there anything in the current system to stop operators introducing a discount on walk-up fares bought by smartcard etc, to reflect the supposed lower costs of handling them? Some operators do this for advances purchased through their own websites, and extending this might be a way of driving the booking-fee third party merchants out of the market. However it seems the intention is to find a way of charging more for a product that still costs them the same. Of if it costs them more it is only because of the profusion of barriers that have appeared in recent years.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I do think we need to be very careful as I can see the walk on railway for long distance travel going, resulting in 100% Advance fares only, say like Eurostar. I guess the TOC's would love this - they could flex prices accordingly, no more crowded trains, everyone guaranteed a seat.

...and the TOC can operate what they like, when they feel like, because overcrowding becomes invisible, replaced with the difficult to quantify number of people that didn't book because it was full.

Neil

 

[Oswyntail]

.......I am not convinced that it is as easy as it sounds.

It is by no means as easy as it sounds. But that should not be the killer argument.
I worked on the Stock Exchange "Big Bang". The first approach was very much "This will be simple, because all the organisations are doing the same thing". Delusion! Once the first attempt had failed, there followed a period of several years in which all the subtle differences were analysed and addressed. This was not just between working practices of the various institutions (each of which was logically the most suitable for adoption, of course)but also in the language used, which proved the least tractable problem of all. Eventually, it worked.
With rail, we start at a slight advantage, because there already is a universal system. But what we must avoid is allowing TOCs to start going their own way, introducing the differences that would cost a fortune to integrate. It must be done properly, and it must be done now.

 

[LexyBoy]

Smartcards are attractive to TOCs (despite being a PITA to implement thanks to the DfT's hopelessly hands-off strategy) because they are cheaper to administer, and offer the ability to push TOC-only products and to clamp down on discounts (e.g. Railcard), split ticketing, and other "loopholes".

From the press release:

Around 60% of long distance rail trips are now made on Advance tickets.

Advance tickets? Or tickets sold in advance? I very much doubt the former, particularly at the "bargain" prices charged by XC!

I am always very suspicious when claims such as this come up, as they are usually used with the subtext of "so it doesn't matter if we abolish / hike the price of / impose restrictions on walk up fares". Advance tickets being, of course, totally unregulated and liable to jump in price with no notice or approval.

 

[yorksrob]

Arriva need to be told in no uncertain terms that they must abide by National ticketing conventions, or they will not be allowed to run trains at all.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I am always very suspicious when claims such as this come up, as they are usually used with the subtext of "so it doesn't matter if we abolish / hike the price of / impose restrictions on walk up fares". Advance tickets being, of course, totally unregulated and liable to jump in price with no notice or approval.

Which is one big reason the TOCs like them.

Neil