Season ticket costs - all a bit odd?

[Malton Seadog]

Hi all,

Not sure if this has been discussed a million times before, but as I search for the cheapest way to get from Conisbrough to Derby 5 days a week, I've been struck by the antiquated system by which we are charged for season tickets. I'd be more in favour of a £x-per-mile system, which I think is how they do it in Germany for standard tickets.

Some examples I've found that perplex me:

Mexborough to Derby = £2,804 per year.

However, also at £2,804 per year are Thurnscoe, Goldthorpe, Swinton, Rotherham, Meadowhall, Sheffield, Dore and Totley, and Dronfield.

So Dronfield to Derby, which is 45-50 miles closer to Derby, is the same cost as going from Mexborough. However, if I go TWO MILES further away from Mexborough to Conisbrough, the cost goes up by £640 to £3,444 for the year.

I know I'm only complaining because it affects me at this time, but the change of zones (or whatever they're called) really seem counter-intuitive at times. I'd be REALLY annoyed if I lived in Dronfield!

 

[talltim]

Hi all,

Not sure if this has been discussed a million times before, but as I search for the cheapest way to get from Conisbrough to Derby 5 days a week, I've been struck by the antiquated system by which we are charged for season tickets. I'd be more in favour of a £x-per-mile system, which I think is how they do it in Germany for standard tickets.

Some examples I've found that perplex me:

Mexborough to Derby = £2,804 per year.

However, also at £2,804 per year are Thurnscoe, Goldthorpe, Swinton, Rotherham, Meadowhall, Sheffield, Dore and Totley, and Dronfield.

So Dronfield to Derby, which is 45-50 miles closer to Derby, is the same cost as going from Mexborough. However, if I go TWO MILES further away from Mexborough to Conisbrough, the cost goes up by £640 to £3,444 for the year.

I know I'm only complaining because it affects me at this time, but the change of zones (or whatever they're called) really seem counter-intuitive at times. I'd be REALLY annoyed if I lived in Dronfield!

Alternatively a Donfieldian (Drone?) could buy a season Rotherham-Derby season for the same price as the Dronfield - Derby ticket and get travel to Sheffield, Meadowhall and Rotherham thrown in free!

A seemingly strange pricing in that area is the Chesterfield-Dore season is the same price as Chesterfield-Sheffield (it used to be cheaper, despite the fact that you could use it as a Chesterfield-Sheffield season, presumably leftover from the days when Dore had platforms on the main line).
Should it be more because you get to travel on the train further and longer or should it be cheaper because its a shorter distance but takes longer?

Also, if you price per mile, ignoring all the other factors such as demand, it takes no account of the speed or frequency of the the train service.

 

[CyrusWuff]

The short version is that it makes life easier for TOC Pricing Managers when it comes to changing the fares.

The Great British rail network has approximately 2520 stations. To price every single flow individually would require setting just shy of 12.7 million fares...and that's only allowing for one Single and one Return on each flow.

Picking an example at random:

Birmingham New Street to Manchester Piccadilly is actually issued as Birmingham Stations (Moor Street, New Street and Snow Hill) to Manchester Stations (Deansgate, Oxford Road, Piccadilly and Victoria), but for walk-up fares is priced from Cluster Q451 (a group of 60 stations around the West Midlands) to Cluster Q235 (a group of 31 stations around Greater Manchester).

With nine ticket types available on that particular flow, pricing each individually would mean creating 14229 fares, compared to just nine by the use of clusters. (This assumes my Maths is any good, having been up since 4:30am).

 

[sheff1]

The short version is that it makes life easier for TOC Pricing Managers when it comes to changing the fares.

The Great British rail network has approximately 2520 stations. To price every single flow individually would require setting just shy of 12.7 million fares...and that's only allowing for one Single and one Return on each flow.

Picking an example at random:

Birmingham New Street to Manchester Piccadilly is actually issued as Birmingham Stations (Moor Street, New Street and Snow Hill) to Manchester Stations (Deansgate, Oxford Road, Piccadilly and Victoria), but for walk-up fares is priced from Cluster Q451 (a group of 60 stations around the West Midlands) to Cluster Q235 (a group of 31 stations around Greater Manchester).

With nine ticket types available on that particular flow, pricing each individually would mean creating 14229 fares, compared to just nine by the use of clusters. (This assumes my Maths is any good, having been up since 4:30am).

Maybe off topic, but once they have made things easier for themselves they need to live with the consequences.

With the basic Birmingham Stations to Manchester Stations fare you get people claiming you can't use the ticket to go from Birmingham to Manchester Victoria. If they don't want you to use a ticket to a station they should price another ticket to that station - not say this is the (simplified for our own convenience) ticket to that station when you buy it and then claim otherwise when you use it !

 

[bb21]

Maybe off topic, but once they have made things easier for themselves they need to live with the consequences.

With the basic Birmingham Stations to Manchester Stations fare you get people claiming you can't use the ticket to go from Birmingham to Manchester Victoria. If they don't want you to use a ticket to a station they should price another ticket to that station - not say this is the (simplified for our own convenience) ticket to that station when you buy it and then claim otherwise when you use it !

They could just price it to the most expensive station and everybody loses out.

(Not saying that they don't already do. I don't know whether they do or not.)

 

[yorkie]

Hi all,

Not sure if this has been discussed a million times before, but as I search for the cheapest way to get from Conisbrough to Derby 5 days a week, I've been struck by the antiquated system by which we are charged for season tickets. I'd be more in favour of a £x-per-mile system, which I think is how they do it in Germany for standard tickets.

Some examples I've found that perplex me:

Mexborough to Derby = £2,804 per year.

However, also at £2,804 per year are Thurnscoe, Goldthorpe, Swinton, Rotherham, Meadowhall, Sheffield, Dore and Totley, and Dronfield.

So Dronfield to Derby, which is 45-50 miles closer to Derby, is the same cost as going from Mexborough. However, if I go TWO MILES further away from Mexborough to Conisbrough, the cost goes up by £640 to £3,444 for the year.

I know I'm only complaining because it affects me at this time, but the change of zones (or whatever they're called) really seem counter-intuitive at times. I'd be REALLY annoyed if I lived in Dronfield!

Feel free to propose the price you'd charge per mile, along with example fares.

I'd be particularly interested to see how you price fares from Dore, given the necessity to go via Sheffield.

It would, of course, result in fares from Thurnscoe, Goldthorpe, Swinton etc all increasing, so be careful what you wish for.

 

[sheff1]

They could just price it to the most expensive station and everybody loses out.

(Not saying that they don't already do. I don't know whether they do or not.)

If they do that already, we are losing out twice - higher fare to the nearer stations, but the still not able to go the furthest.

 

[Starmill]

I'm surprised that nobody has pointed out that Malton Seadog can actually get a Doncaster to Derby for the price of Conisbrough to Derby. Or indeed a Thorne Stations to Derby. Or even a Thorne to Long Eaton and still pay just £86.10 a week. That would be what I would buy if I travelled regularly between Conisbrough and Derby. Finally, and I recommend strongly that this point is not followed up on the thread (feel free to PM one of us for more info) but perhaps Malton Seadog has not considered where they may travel exactly with each ticket.