Passenger numbers vs revenue

[philosopher]

Of course. I know some people that left jobs that insist on WFH after lockdown ended , just so they could go back to an office. However those are probably in a minority and also anyone already wanting to be in an office, will probably already be doing so and so reducing commuting costs won't affect much. Those that want WFH won't be tempted back and those in offices will already be going back in , save some minimum exceptions.

Where I work, people returned to the gradually to the office between June 2021 and March 2022 but since then office occupancy seems to have remained stable. Mondays and particularly Fridays are quiet. It does tend to be the same people who come in regularly and they usually either live close by or are the higher management.

If replicated in other firms, I struggle to see how Monday and Friday mornings have the passenger numbers to justify peak time fares.

 

[Runningaround]

I can’t imagine eating my evening meal before 20:00 & you’ve missed the best bit which is socialising in the pub after work.

WFH allows if you previously commuted into London a cheaper pint. socialising earlier in your local, without the worry of getting up as early, stinking of booze in-front of the boss and getting breathalysed if you used the car.

 

[Horizon22]

The train companies absolutely want this to happen. At the moment the cannot do this because of fares regulation, which they want to abolish.

There is no perfect solution but what we have at the moment is much better than pricing people off at weekends.

I think a moderate rise will be better rather than the crush-loading situation you often get at times between 1000-1200 and 1600-1800 on many weekend services. Some might be "priced off", but frankly demand is outstripping capacity and it isn't always easy to improve capacity - especially on a Sunday.

Either that or stop offering cut price advances - I imagine the trains can load themselves on weekends right now.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 2 Jul 2022 ==

If replicated in other firms, I struggle to see how Monday and Friday mornings have the passenger numbers to justify peak time fares.

A senior industry professional told me a year or so again that many TOCs were looking seriously at Tue-Thu timetables, with Monday and Friday being some sort of "mid-week minus" and strengthening weekends significantly. However I imagine this takes some time to get rolling, not to mention the sign-off it requires.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 2 Jul 2022 ==

The railway either needs to adopt single leg pricing fully or go full demand based pricing.

But for a public service, I don't want my regular journey becoming more expensive because Jack and Jill want to take their kids to Windermere for the day (or many similar).

The system we have at the moment is a bodge. But it does need to be one or the other.

What is the specific answer then - because you've pretty much ruled out the 2nd option if as you say, you happen to live in a tourist area, although that will just be the same as anyone who has to put up with tourist traffic. Fully demand pricing would presumably be flexible throughout the year.

I don't think there's an easy answer but the disparities have become more pronounced in terms of travel habits, a trend likely to continue and so its never going to be a perfect system.

 

[Watershed]

A senior industry professional told me a year or so again that many TOCs were looking seriously at Tue-Thu timetables, with Monday and Friday being some sort of "mid-week minus" and strengthening weekends significantly. However I imagine this takes some time to get rolling, not to mention the sign-off it requires.

There's probably a distinction to be drawn between predominantly commuter and predominantly leisure routes. (Business traffic is still well below 2019 levels so can almost be disregarded for these purposes)

For commuter based routes, yes, Monday and Friday are the quietest days and so probably do justify a reduced service. Say a basic off-peak frequency with few/no peak extras.

However for leisure based routes it's Tuesday and Wednesday that are the quietest days of the week. And certainly you shouldn't have a reduced service on a Friday.

Arguably the approach to engineering works also needs to reflect this - IMO, the approach of doing major engineering works on IC routes at weekends is completely wrong.

Changing the timetable to match this really isn't the hardest part. The hardest part is getting the approval for these changes.

 

[david1212]

If you have a regular season ticket, why should your low per-journey price be massively subsidised by people paying more for walk up fares?

Why should cheap advance tickets be subsidised by walk up fare payers?

As a railway passenger why should you be subsidised by the tax payer at all?

Hopefully you can see the point I’m making.

Of course so many variations and while ' one size does not fit all ' ticket pricing needs reform to be far more consistent.

Season Tickets vs Anytime walk up:
This goes back to the days of BR and then the terms set to TOC's but based on 220 days ( 44 weeks x 5 days ) travel for longer routes the season ticket cost per day could be less than off-peak walk up yet to meet demand the railway had to have trains and track capacity only fully utilised for as liitle as 4 hours / day on 5 days a week.
For 3 days a week for 44 weeks a year these season ticket prices have become reasonable.
The Anytime prices got hiked and off-peak times reduced by TOC's because they could.

Why should cheap advance tickets be subsidised by walk up fare payers?
They should not. They should serve two purposes. The first getting some income from seats that would be unoccupied from those who otherwise would not travel by rail at all. Second encouraging those who are flexible when they travel to do so at a less convenient time so balancing train loadings and even overall reducing the required train and track capacity.

As a railway passenger why should you be subsidised by the tax payer at all?
This is a difficult one. However managed for shorter distance commuting by lower paid workers, travel to education and similar yes. Off peak travel can be essential too e.g. hospitals and other healthcare both patients and shift workers. Generally for leisure travel no. Exceptions are where local issues e.g. St Ives ( Cornwall ) where park and ride by train needs to be priced to attract the inconvenience of using it.

 

[Watershed]

For 3 days a week for 44 weeks a year these season ticket prices have become reasonable.

They remain cheaper than buying 3 daily tickets a week on some flows, particularly "IC" ones where Anytime tickets are unregulated (or were effectively unregulated due to "fares flex").

But using a ticket priced and intended for use 5 days a week, 60% as often, is always going to result in poorer value for money. So I'd very much refute any suggestion that season tickets are reasonably priced for a part time commute - it's simply not true in 99% of cases.

 

[david1212]

Either that or stop offering cut price advances - I imagine the trains can load themselves on weekends right now.

An allocation of advances should only be available on trains that otherwise would run well below capacity and if all the allocation sold are still not more than 90% capacity FULL STOP.

 

[DJ_K666]

Holland Road?

That was the second one. The current Hove station was Cliftonville. The original was referred to as West Brighton and was where the warehouses are on the East side of Holland Road the Holland Road Halt was on the west side. The remnants of the entrance steps can be seen in the undergrowth on the Up side as can the concrete supports for the steps.

 

[david1212]

They remain cheaper than buying 3 daily tickets a week on some flows, particularly "IC" ones where Anytime tickets are unregulated (or were effectively unregulated due to "fares flex").

But using a ticket priced and intended for use 5 days a week, 60% as often, is always going to result in poorer value for money. So I'd very much refute any suggestion that season tickets are reasonably priced for a part time commute - it's simply not true in 99% of cases.

Of course variations but not just intercity.

An anytime return Southampton Central to London Waterloo is £98.20 and off-peak £52.10.
An annual season ticket is £6536.
Three days a week for 44 weeks Anytime is £12962 and off-peak £6877. Hence the season is a saving of nearly 50% against anytime and while small a saving even against off-peak.

The return distance is ~160 miles so anytime is ~61p/mile and off-peak ~32p/mile. Neither is exactly cheap but reduce them by 1/3 and the season still saves almost £1800.
Go back to 5 days a week and the savings become £7866 against anytime and £1105 against off-peak.

What other business gives a significant discount on it's product / service at the time of peak demand ?

 

[Watershed]

What other business gives a significant discount on it's product / service at the time of peak demand ?

I think it's wrong to think of the season ticket price as a discount. It's generally comparable to the Off-Peak fare, which suggests that it's priced at around the "normal" level. And in any case, it's quite common for businesses to offer a discount (if you want to call it that) to loyal customers or those who buy in bulk.

Contrast this to Anytime fares, which have been hugely ramped up over the years because they would normally only ever be bought by business travellers who could put them on expenses, or those making a distress purchase. So there was little need to price them reasonably and accordingly I don't think they can be said to be the "normal" fare in any sense.

 

[LLivery]

Tfl Rail has probably had an higher recovery in passengers due to the introduction of ticket gates at most stations in the East a d west

That's an interesting thought. I wonder [revenue wise] how close to pre-covid figures Southeastern would be if they'd had done the same. I used one of the last services of the night the other day, and I don't think 90% of people actually paid (and it was quite busy). Barriers open at London Vic, no barriers along the Penge East line until Bromley. They're essentially running it for free.

Who wants to pay £5k to commute into London ? This revenue side of things will never recover, now employees can work over Zoom.

Lower season ticket prices to lure people back ! The only way….

Basically this. I'll be working 3 days this week in Central London. Those two days at home save me £15, with an extra hour in bed. And many people who work in retail or hospitality, for example, would use the train if peak fares weren't costing them 2 hours pay.

 

[Bill57p9]

That's an interesting thought. I wonder [revenue wise] how close to pre-covid figures Southeastern would be if they'd had done the same. I used one of the last services of the night the other day, and I don't think 90% of people actually paid (and it was quite busy). Barriers open at London Vic, no barriers along the Penge East line until Bromley. They're essentially running it for free.

Have I misunderstood or are the DfT still paying TOCs to run trains with DfT taking the revenue risk? If so, what financial incentives are there for TOCs to engage in revenue protection?

I do appreciate that a lack of revenue protection isn't going to keep the contract in the long term but unless the bottom line gets hit no business is going to be particularly motivated.


On a different note, I travelled into Glasgow from Ayr a couple of times last week and was surprised (& somewhat concerned) how quiet the trains were, including a weekday 0900 arrival. Pre-COVID that would have been packed (despite double the number of trains too), but it was probably 4+ seats for every passenger.

 

[LLivery]

Have I misunderstood or are the DfT still paying TOCs to run trains with DfT taking the revenue risk? If so, what financial incentives are there for TOCs to engage in revenue protection?

I do appreciate that a lack of revenue protection isn't going to keep the contract in the long term but unless the bottom line gets hit no business is going to be particularly motivated.

Southeastern is nationalised at the moment, so the DfT via the OLR is taking all the risk. But think that's right for the privatised networks. I'm not the best placed to answer that question, but I find it amazing that even the nationalised operator isn't being forced to improve on this.

 

[philosopher]

I think a moderate rise will be better rather than the crush-loading situation you often get at times between 1000-1200 and 1600-1800 on many weekend services. Some might be "priced off", but frankly demand is outstripping capacity and it isn't always easy to improve capacity - especially on a Sunday.

Either that or stop offering cut price advances - I imagine the trains can load themselves on weekends right now.

On Avanti West Coast, this already seems to be happening. The Super Off Peak tickets stopping going on sale a few months ago and advance fares between London to Birmingham costing less than £20 now seem impossible to find on weekends.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

On Avanti West Coast, this already seems to be happening. The Super Off Peak tickets stopping going on sale a few months ago and advance fares between London to Birmingham costing less than £20 now seem impossible to find on weekends.

Not totally surprising, I suppose, if the very cheapest tickets are being withdrawn from those services that are now being well patronised.

 

[Watershed]

Have I misunderstood or are the DfT still paying TOCs to run trains with DfT taking the revenue risk? If so, what financial incentives are there for TOCs to engage in revenue protection?

I do appreciate that a lack of revenue protection isn't going to keep the contract in the long term but unless the bottom line gets hit no business is going to be particularly motivated.


On a different note, I travelled into Glasgow from Ayr a couple of times last week and was surprised (& somewhat concerned) how quiet the trains were, including a weekday 0900 arrival. Pre-COVID that would have been packed (despite double the number of trains too), but it was probably 4+ seats for every passenger.

The various ERMAs and NRCs still require concession holders to undertake revenue protection with due diligence and to be a 'good and efficient operator'. Non compliance would be reflected in their management and/or performance fees.

 

[david1212]

I think it's wrong to think of the season ticket price as a discount. It's generally comparable to the Off-Peak fare, which suggests that it's priced at around the "normal" level. And in any case, it's quite common for businesses to offer a discount (if you want to call it that) to loyal customers or those who buy in bulk.

Contrast this to Anytime fares, which have been hugely ramped up over the years because they would normally only ever be bought by business travellers who could put them on expenses, or those making a distress purchase. So there was little need to price them reasonably and accordingly I don't think they can be said to be the "normal" fare in any sense.

I fully agree that many Anytime fares are now far too high hence why I reduced to make a comparison.

However where we have to ' agree to disagree ' is that Season ticket fares should be comparable to the Off-Peak fare rather than higher. Core to why I say this is that traditionally extra capacity was only needed 5 days a week for the few hours when most season ticket holders travelled and potentially now 3 days a week.

 

[Some guy]

Leisure travel must definitely be at the levels of pre Covid trains on a Monday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday are ridiculous now. That 80% statistic has to do with London only as the rest of the country some services are as busy as pre Covid

 

[Class 170101]

I can’t imagine eating my evening meal before 20:00 & you’ve missed the best bit which is socialising in the pub after work.

Depends where you socialise, straight after work would be 16:00 onwards for office types and meal around 20:00 or later.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 3 Jul 2022 ==

What about passengers in the car? Adding a wife and two kids doesn't increase the fuel bill as much as a train fare can and you can't halve or more the cost of a train ticket like you can with car sharing.

True but how many journeys at peak times have more than one person in the car? Not many I'd exdpect.

In most cases they aren't cheap by any measure, and driving is far cheaper. What they are is cheaper than buying daily tickets, if you commute 5 days a week. Any less than that and it depends.

Again I don't think you are comparing apples with apples. You are working on the basis that owning a car is a sunk cost and the only cost to be compared to trains is that of fuel prices. In that case all the more reason the fuel duty escalator should be restarted and reflect real costs of using petrol.

 

[Tomo]

Southeastern services seem to be busier at weekends than weekday peaks.

 

[Jimini]

On Avanti West Coast, this already seems to be happening. The Super Off Peak tickets stopping going on sale a few months ago and advance fares between London to Birmingham costing less than £20 now seem impossible to find on weekends.

Everything Avanti related seems to be ridiculously expensive, these days, despite trains not being overly busy at the usual times of the day when, historically, you'd be able to get a decent priced fare (super off peak times in particular).

 

[Watershed]

Again I don't think you are comparing apples with apples. You are working on the basis that owning a car is a sunk cost and the only cost to be compared to trains is that of fuel prices. In that case all the more reason the fuel duty escalator should be restarted and reflect real costs of using petrol.

The thing is, it generally is though. The majority of people have access to a car. So they will have a car either way and the only question is whether they use it.

 

[baz962]

The thing is, it generally is though. The majority of people have access to a car. So they will have a car either way and the only question is whether they use it.

There are obviously fixed costs like tax , not necessarily insurance anymore. My previous insurer was pay per mile. However you have oil , you need to replace tryes , brakes , shock absorbers and plenty of other things more often . My other halfs car is a three year old one litre. Just cost us near a grand for new brakes and tyres.

 

[mrmartin]

Not entirely sure trains are bad value even on a fuel basis now. Take Carlisle to London return, ~310miles. £136 off peak return.

620 miles at say 40mpg is 15.5 gal, or 70 litres. At £2/litre it's £140 just for fuel, so more expensive and a vastly worse option IMO (driving for 5-6 hours vs sitting for 3, nevermind parking etc).

Even for two people with a two together railcard it's not miles off just on fuel cost.

 

[miami]

There are obviously fixed costs like tax , not necessarily insurance anymore. My previous insurer was pay per mile. However you have oil , you need to replace tryes , brakes , shock absorbers and plenty of other things more often . My other halfs car is a three year old one litre. Just cost us near a grand for new brakes and tyres.

Insurance for a year is about the same as a single family return ticket to London. Tyres are about £50 a year. Total cost of a car on PCP with petrol at £2 a litre works out at half the price per mile as the WCML for 1 person, and crucially is far more useful - went bowling yesterday, 8 miles each way, can't take the train, there's no bus on Sunday, there's no realiable taxi service either, just the car.

When we used to have two cars the car cost £1500 for the year, for the capital cost of the car, the petrol for the entire time, insurance, tax, etc, it's the cost of having two cars, which based on where we were and where we needed to be was required that year. The equation will be different for people living in London of course.

For the majority of the country the majority of the time, rail has to compete on the marginal cost and benefits, 81% of people have access to a car or van, so to use the train has to be a better option.

The big tickets - the long distance peak time tickets like £350 return Manchester to London - are presumably way down, and that will really impact on total revenue, you need to sell a lot of £50 leisure tickets to make up for that.

Many season tickets were always massively cheap. Rugby to London on Virgin for £9k a year for example, or about £40 a journey, compared with £150 for a day return, so loss of revenue there isn't a major factor on the revenue-per-journey side even if they now only take off peak returns at £50 per day that still increases revenue per journey, but the occasional business traveler no longer sees the need to be in London for 10AM.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Tyres are about £50 a year.

Really? What type of car and annual mileage is that for?

 

[paul1609]

Many season tickets were always massively cheap. Rugby to London on Virgin for £9k a year for example, or about £40 a journey, compared with £150 for a day return, so loss of revenue there isn't a major factor on the revenue-per-journey side even if they now only take off peak returns at £50 per day that still increases revenue per journey, but the occasional business traveler no longer sees the need to be in London for 10AM.

I can only really talk about the Southeast but the reality down here was that even pre covid most long distance (over an hour) season ticket holders were only travelling in to town 4 days a week. Peak trains on Fridays were noticeably quiet as were to a lesser extent Mondays.
With the first lockdown my relatively small rural railhead station handled £8 million of season ticket and car parking refunds. That business has just not returned. Some people are just wfh others are going in to town a couple of times a week but are driving much further towards London where there are competitive non rail car parks and much reduced anytime tickets with a more frequent service at the 1 hr time boundary things have much more returned to normal this includes the Brighton Main Line and HS1 all the way to the coast. Other lines such as the Uckfield line, Hastings Lines are effectively running ghost trains. That is where the revenue loss is.

 

[yorksrob]

I can only really talk about the Southeast but the reality down here was that even pre covid most long distance (over an hour) season ticket holders were only travelling in to town 4 days a week. Peak trains on Fridays were noticeably quiet as were to a lesser extent Mondays.
With the first lockdown my relatively small rural railhead station handled £8 million of season ticket and car parking refunds. That business has just not returned. Some people are just wfh others are going in to town a couple of times a week but are driving much further towards London where there are competitive non rail car parks and much reduced anytime tickets with a more frequent service at the 1 hr time boundary things have much more returned to normal this includes the Brighton Main Line and HS1 all the way to the coast. Other lines such as the Uckfield line, Hastings Lines are effectively running ghost trains. That is where the revenue loss is.

If we were to have a concerted effort to improve patronage on say, the Hastings mainline, for example I wonder how this might work. Perhaps the following:

- Cut peak time and off-peak fares by a third on the classic routes concerned - particularly as the slow lines on South Eastern have been price gouged since 2009 to pay for HS1.
- Speed up by running non-stop from Tonbridge to London.

A similar approach could be taken on the classic lines to Ashford.

 

[paul1609]

If we were to have a concerted effort to improve patronage on say, the Hastings mainline, for example I wonder how this might work. Perhaps the following:

- Cut peak time and off-peak fares by a third on the classic routes concerned - particularly as the slow lines on South Eastern have been price gouged since 2009 to pay for HS1.
- Speed up by running non-stop from Tonbridge to London.

A similar approach could be taken on the classic lines to Ashford.

If you cut the Hastings Line peak fares by a third you'd be undercutting fares from Tonbridge and Sevenoaks where demand has largely recovered. If you've ever commuted on the classic lines since HS1 you'd know that your country service starts to brake at Grove Park so it can come to a Halt at a Red Signal for 5 mins to let suburban services cross in Front. You then go signal to signal until past St John's where you Jog to London Bridge for the post Thameslink 2 track section to Waterloo East. If you ran fast from Tonbridge you'd just wait at the Lewisham Signal for 10 mins!

 

[quartile]

I can only really talk about the Southeast but the reality down here was that even pre covid most long distance (over an hour) season ticket holders were only travelling in to town 4 days a week. Peak trains on Fridays were noticeably quiet as were to a lesser extent Mondays.
With the first lockdown my relatively small rural railhead station handled £8 million of season ticket and car parking refunds. That business has just not returned. Some people are just wfh others are going in to town a couple of times a week but are driving much further towards London where there are competitive non rail car parks and much reduced anytime tickets with a more frequent service at the 1 hr time boundary things have much more returned to normal this includes the Brighton Main Line and HS1 all the way to the coast. Other lines such as the Uckfield line, Hastings Lines are effectively running ghost trains. That is where the revenue loss is.

I'm one of those former gold card holders in Hampshire though on a smaller scale. I live 2 miles from Farnborough station, I've found I can save £7 by cycling to Brookwood (7 miles) and make the decision on the day depending on the weather. Plus given that SWR have halved the peak frequency to Farnborough the extra trains at Brookwood are handy.

Of course variations but not just intercity.

An anytime return Southampton Central to London Waterloo is £98.20 and off-peak £52.10.
An annual season ticket is £6536.
Three days a week for 44 weeks Anytime is £12962 and off-peak £6877. Hence the season is a saving of nearly 50% against anytime and while small a saving even against off-peak.

The return distance is ~160 miles so anytime is ~61p/mile and off-peak ~32p/mile. Neither is exactly cheap but reduce them by 1/3 and the season still saves almost £1800.
Go back to 5 days a week and the savings become £7866 against anytime and £1105 against off-peak.

What other business gives a significant discount on it's product / service at the time of peak demand ?

Though it look like SWR are now doing advance tickets on that route. I can get £38 peak to London and £18 peak home for travel tomorrow. Also if you do the peak travel as two singles you can use a network card on the return leg and get it down to only £82. - But whether it should it take this level of complexity to travel is another question.