Flexible rail tickets won’t add value for travellers
May 16 2021, The Sunday Times
British Railways, as it was before it was privatised
ALAMY
Flexible season tickets to tempt people back on the railways next month will be no cheaper for many commuters than buying normal season tickets or paying for daily travel at full fare rates.
Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, is set to announce the launch of
a new type of ticket for the era of hybrid working after June 21. Commuters will be offered a carnet of eight return journeys per month, with the option of buying more.
It will be one of the most eye-catching initiatives to coincide with the return of the railways to state control almost 30 years after they were privatised, with a new taxpayer-funded organisation called Great British Railways.
Track, timetables, ticketing and pricing will be run by Sir Peter Hendy, the chairman of Network Rail. He will be joined at the new arms-length body by Andrew Haines, his present chief executive.
Shapps has chosen a third way for the railways after the failure of both full-blown nationalisation, under British Rail, and privatisation. Since the start of the pandemic in March last year, taxpayers have been subsidising the network at a rate of about £800 million a month.
Control of the network and all the financial risk associated with running it will be assumed by the government and underwritten by the taxpayer. A white paper, to be published this week, will require train operating companies to sign concession agreements, committing them to meet targets for punctuality and cleanliness. This mirrors the set-up on the London Overground network, which ministers judge to have been a success.
The new flexi-season ticket system, which will be unveiled on Thursday, aims to adapt the railways to new forms of hybrid working by providing commuters with an extra option between paying for an unlimited travel season ticket or having to buy a separate ticket for every journey.
But costs are unlikely to fall for long-distance commutes because season-ticket holders currently pay for less than two days a week at full fare rates, leaving no room for a further significant discount.
For example, the price of a Bristol-London walk-up full fare peak return is £230, and a seven-day season ticket is £352, while Winchester-London is £76.80 for a daily full fare and £139.50 for a weekly. Weekly season ticket holders travelling from Coventry and Stowmarket to London, as well as from Newark to Newcastle, also pay for less than two days at full fare rates.
But for short to medium commutes, the flexi-season is likely to offer savings for those travelling two or three days a week. The biggest savings are likely to be on routes where weekly season ticket holders effectively pay for more than three days at full fare rates. This includes Stockport-Manchester, where the daily full fare is £6.70 and the weekly £24.20; Doncaster-Leeds where the daily costs £17.60 and the weekly £63.70, and Gloucester-Bristol, at £19 and £79.60.
In the home counties, there will also be attractive savings on the Woking-London line, where the daily costs £23.50 and the weekly £88.20, and Chelmsford-London, at £31.40 and £107.90.
Sir Michael Holden, former chairman of East Coast, said: “Abandoning fare reform is a huge missed opportunity, and will derail efforts to build back leisure and business customers.
“These things can be done either in the public or the private sector and can be made to work both ways. However, we risk losing the flair that the private sector can bring if used in the right way.”
The Department for Transport did not respond to a request for comment.
Additional reporting: Tom Calver
