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Even in terms of day to day operating costs then, I'm still interested in understanding examples of where the increase in revenue would more than off-set the increase in expenditure over the current baseline, as I'm afraid it isn't obvious to me living in a part of the country where most railway operations are subsidised. I don't dispute they exist, just interested where on the network they are and if there are any specific proposed 'no brainer' service enhancements that have been turned down.
I'm confused - in which part of the country are most railway operations not subsidised? Unless you live on a route where all services are provided by OA operators, the Government provides the finance to run the service and takes the revenue, under the terms of the Rail Passenger Contracts.
Few of them outside the South East, which is why I was surprised it was considered obvious that money spent operating extra services was going to result in additional revenues higher than additional costs.
Few of them outside the South East, which is why I was surprised it was considered obvious that money spent operating extra services was going to result in additional revenues higher than additional costs.
I would say it's fairly obvious that if an operator is operating less services than pre-Covid, it's unreasonable to expect passenger numbers to reach or exceed pre-Covid levels without experiencing severe overcrowding on some services, unless trains were running at well below capacity before Covid, which as most rail users will tell you, was not the case.
We need to move to a position where if a TOC can demonstrate that spending X amount will achieve Y amount in increased passenger numbers and revenue, the DfT will approve the spending, not refuse it on the grounds of reducing cost to the taxpayer which is where we have been for the last three years although there are finally some signs of positive movement recently to a more considered approach.
For all the faux concern about the railway industry’s costs, it’s ironic that the government has itself chosen to increase fares by less than the rate of inflation, so adding to the “problem” by suppressing revenue even further than necessary!
Honestly I think people that say stuff like this are completely out of touch with reality. Almost everything I see about trains online is how people think the fares are insane and doing comparisons with driving being less than half as much, or return flights to Spain being cheaper, or comparing 30 euro high speed rail in Europe with £300 (or whatever it is, too much anyway) to get to London from Manchester return at peak times. Reliability is already shot to pieces, we cannot increase fares anymore unless we *really* want to kill the industry even further.
Indeed - I was thinking of capital cost examples such as 'if we bought a new wheel lathe at depot X, we could have had fewer units out of service with wheel flats and cancelled fewer services'.
How about "if we electrified Route X we could replace the DMUs currently working it with spare 379s, reducing maintenance/operating costs and speeding up services with a boost in ridership as a result. Even improve the local air quality as a bonus."
The first place that comes to my mind as Route X is Thingley-Bristol-Patchway.
Honestly I think people that say stuff like this are completely out of touch with reality. Almost everything I see about trains online is how people think the fares are insane and doing comparisons with driving being less than half as much, or return flights to Spain being cheaper, or comparing 30 euro high speed rail in Europe with £300 (or whatever it is, too much anyway) to get to London from Manchester return at peak times. Reliability is already shot to pieces, we cannot increase fares anymore unless we *really* want to kill the industry even further.
As I have pointed out, “reality” being that fares have been increased year on year from the nineties up until Covid, and yet passenger numbers have also increased in that time? A few badly informed sweary moans on social media don’t change that.
Reliability recently has been shot to pieces due to DfT cost cutting, supposedly to protect the tax payer. Yet, as well as knackering the service for passengers, that same DfT has also chosen to reduce fare revenue in real terms at the taxpayer’s expense. It’s frankly laughable and totally inconsistent.
Well yes, particularly peak fares which have been priced to keep people away because there is no capacity.
That said, some people don't help themselves. I had a passenger recently whose employer had booked a pair of Anytime Single tickets (combined cost in excess of £300) when an Off Peak Return (£100) would have been permitted. I pointed this out to him and he said that he'd pass it on, they were throwing money away.
Honestly I think people that say stuff like this are completely out of touch with reality. Almost everything I see about trains online is how people think the fares are insane and doing comparisons with driving being less than half as much, or return flights to Spain being cheaper, or comparing 30 euro high speed rail in Europe with £300 (or whatever it is, too much anyway) to get to London from Manchester return at peak times. Reliability is already shot to pieces, we cannot increase fares anymore unless we *really* want to kill the industry even further.
This statement seems to be out of touch with the reality of doubling of passenger numbers since privatisation and even since Covid, recently-released figures prove that passenger numbers and revenue is on the rise again, quite remarkable considering your claim that extortionate fares are 'killing the industry'.
Well yes, particularly peak fares which have been priced to keep people away because there is no capacity.
That said, some people don't help themselves. I had a passenger recently whose employer had booked a pair of Anytime Single tickets (combined cost in excess of £300) when an Off Peak Return (£100) would have been permitted. I pointed this out to him and he said that he'd pass it on, they were throwing money away.
This statement seems to be out of touch with the reality of doubling of passenger numbers since privatisation and even since Covid, recently-released figures prove that passenger numbers and revenue is on the rise again, quite remarkable considering your claim that extortionate fares are 'killing the industry'.
As I have pointed out, “reality” being that fares have been increased year on year from the nineties up until Covid, and yet passenger numbers have also increased in that time? A few badly informed sweary moans on social media don’t change that.
Reliability recently has been shot to pieces due to DfT cost cutting, supposedly to protect the tax payer. Yet, as well as knackering the service for passengers, that same DfT has also chosen to reduce fare revenue in real terms at the taxpayer’s expense. It’s frankly laughable and totally inconsistent.
The point is the "sweary rant" is not an uncommon view, ask just about anybody if they think train fares are value for money and I very much doubt they will say yes.
While fully agreeing that ticketing is far too complicated, unless you are going to have a “one size fits all “ pence per mile fare structure with no special offers / day tickets etc, there will always be an advantage in being informed.
While fully agreeing that ticketing is far too complicated, unless you are going to have a “one size fits all “ pence per mile fare structure with no special offers / day tickets etc, there will always be an advantage in being informed.
I think that's what most people want, reasonable straightforward pricing without having to have inside knowledge or doing mad things like split ticketing
I'm confused - in which part of the country are most railway operations not subsidised? Unless you live on a route where all services are provided by OA operators, the Government provides the finance to run the service and takes the revenue, under the terms of the Rail Passenger Contracts.
The point is the "sweary rant" is not an uncommon view, ask just about anybody if they think train fares are value for money and I very much doubt they will say yes.
Your initial point (I thought) was that raising fares further would “kill the industry even further”. I’ve pointed out why the evidence suggests that isn’t the case, and that not raising fares (or at least not in real terms) is inconsistent with government policy towards the railway in other respects.
The view that “fares are too expensive” may be common on social media, but it’s largely irrelevant to the fact that increases in fares clearly don’t dissuade rail passengers from paying them!
I think that's what most people want, reasonable straightforward pricing without having to have inside knowledge or doing mad things like split ticketing
It’s like virtually every other product out there; you can choose to pay a lot for max flexibility, or be prepared to do a little research and make significant savings. Why is railway split ticketing “madder” than (for example) a buyer of airline tickets using a VPN to spoof their location when purchasing, to achieve a lower price?
This statement seems to be out of touch with the reality of doubling of passenger numbers since privatisation and even since Covid, recently-released figures prove that passenger numbers and revenue is on the rise again, quite remarkable considering your claim that extortionate fares are 'killing the industry'.
Passenger numbers have increased in spite of excessively high fares. And not everyone is paying those, we have both the highest fares in Europe and the cheapest fares in Europe.
I think that's what most people want, reasonable straightforward pricing without having to have inside knowledge or doing mad things like split ticketing
But the "why on earth did they buy two Anytime singles instead of an open return?" didn't need any specialist knowledge. Surely a return would have been the obvious thing to buy in the first place, any journey planner would have suggested it first.
Customers using London North Eastern Railway (LNER) train services between London and Scotland have seen signs on the network advising them of baggage allowances.
www.dailymail.co.uk
It comes as LNER tries to cope with a huge spike in leisure travel following the pandemic, with 30 per cent more customers now travelling on its 956-mile network on Sundays than in 2019.
Your initial point (I thought) was that raising fares further would “kill the industry even further”. I’ve pointed out why the evidence suggests that isn’t the case, and that not raising fares (or at least not in real terms) is inconsistent with government policy towards the railway in other respects.
The view that “fares are too expensive” may be common on social media, but it’s largely irrelevant to the fact that increases in fares clearly don’t dissuade rail passengers from paying them!
It’s like virtually every other product out there; you can choose to pay a lot for max flexibility, or be prepared to do a little research and make significant savings. Why is railway split ticketing “madder” than (for example) a buyer of airline tickets using a VPN to spoof their location when purchasing, to achieve a lower price?
Only on this forum could the points I'm making be in any way controversial. People's overwhelming view is the railway is an unreliable rip off and everyone's answer on here is "raise prices more!" "ticket complexity is good actually!"
Passenger numbers have increased in spite of excessively high fares. And not everyone is paying those, we have both the highest fares in Europe and the cheapest fares in Europe.
Indeed which proves the point that millions of passengers are prepared to pay those high fares and the industry is not 'being killed' because people can't afford / aren't willing to pay them.
Indeed which proves the point that millions of passengers are prepared to pay those high fares and the industry is not 'being killed' because people can't afford / aren't willing to pay them.
Only on this forum could the points I'm making be in any way controversial. People's overwhelming view is the railway is an unreliable rip off and everyone's answer on here is "raise prices more!" "ticket complexity is good actually!"
Nobody has said 'ticket complexity is good actually', from the comments I have seen. But the point remains that if rail fares were so unaffordable, people would simply refuse to pay them and ridership would drop, which isn't happening.
Nobody has said 'ticket complexity is good actually', from the comments I have seen. But the point remains that if rail fares were so unaffordable, people would simply refuse to pay them and ridership would drop, which isn't happening.
Well yes, particularly peak fares which have been priced to keep people away because there is no capacity.
That said, some people don't help themselves. I had a passenger recently whose employer had booked a pair of Anytime Single tickets (combined cost in excess of £300) when an Off Peak Return (£100) would have been permitted. I pointed this out to him and he said that he'd pass it on, they were throwing money away.
Only ironically that's where there is relatively more capacity now due to WFH trends. Particularly contra-peak when trains running nearly empty could be more smartly priced.
Some London & SE TOCs have all but binned off "peak specials" though, but they were also inefficient so lots of factors to consider.
Few of them outside the South East, which is why I was surprised it was considered obvious that money spent operating extra services was going to result in additional revenues higher than additional costs.
It depends on what you're counting. For example the NR costs are fairly fixed, so if you exclude those (as you'll be paying that anyway) you only really need the extra TOC costs to be covered by the extra ticket sales.
Whilst that may still mean that the TOC doesn't cover all of its costs (for example it may have £5 million in HQ costs and the extra service may only cover £1 million of that) however as long as the actual cost to the country then that's less money that the government has to pay out.
Your initial point (I thought) was that raising fares further would “kill the industry even further”. I’ve pointed out why the evidence suggests that isn’t the case, and that not raising fares (or at least not in real terms) is inconsistent with government policy towards the railway in other respects.
The view that “fares are too expensive” may be common on social media, but it’s largely irrelevant to the fact that increases in fares clearly don’t dissuade rail passengers from paying them!
It’s like virtually every other product out there; you can choose to pay a lot for max flexibility, or be prepared to do a little research and make significant savings. Why is railway split ticketing “madder” than (for example) a buyer of airline tickets using a VPN to spoof their location when purchasing, to achieve a lower price?
From the 90's to Covid people were willing to pay more as they were generally getting a better and better service. However, since then they've often been paying for a service which they know could be better and so are less inclined to pay for the service.
The more you try and increase charges the more that's the case.
For some that point has passed, for others that's this next ticket increase, however it's unlikely to be the same for everyone. The problem is without knowing when it is due a lot of people you run the risk that the next increase could be the one which results in a noticeable change.
ORR publications schedule now suggests few days before Christmas
14th December for station usage
19th December for July-Sept Quarter of data in this thread (which is only about 6 weeks after previous (13 week) quarter
The methodology has been changed because of the data issues with LENNON misattributing Elizabeth line journeys when they should have been tube or another operator. Any change to methodology including new data sources takes time, mostly with the verification that the results at the end are accurate and no new problems have been introduced. The revisions are significant, for October to December 2022 the passenger journey count for Elizabeth line is 33% lower than when first published and total passenger journey across all operators 5% lower.
The station usage data also had the same issue delaying that. The July-Sept quarter of data is close to the standard publication timescale with it usually being a week or two before Christmas.
Well yes, particularly peak fares which have been priced to keep people away because there is no capacity.
That said, some people don't help themselves. I had a passenger recently whose employer had booked a pair of Anytime Single tickets (combined cost in excess of £300) when an Off Peak Return (£100) would have been permitted. I pointed this out to him and he said that he'd pass it on, they were throwing money away.
This statement seems to be out of touch with the reality of doubling of passenger numbers since privatisation and even since Covid, recently-released figures prove that passenger numbers and revenue is on the rise again, quite remarkable considering your claim that extortionate fares are 'killing the industry'.
Er, there's still a revenue deficit upon which all government rail decisions seem to be based on, so until those extortionate fares start attracting passengers to the railway, those fares are killing the industry.
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Your initial point (I thought) was that raising fares further would “kill the industry even further”. I’ve pointed out why the evidence suggests that isn’t the case, and that not raising fares (or at least not in real terms) is inconsistent with government policy towards the railway in other respects.
The view that “fares are too expensive” may be common on social media, but it’s largely irrelevant to the fact that increases in fares clearly don’t dissuade rail passengers from paying them!
Er, there's still a revenue deficit upon which all government rail decisions seem to be based on, so until those extortionate fares start attracting passengers to the railway, those fares are killing the industry.
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Those extortionate fares, many of which have increased over the years at rates set by the Government, yes? Maybe the Government should accept that it's investment that drives growth, not cost-cutting.
The railway's been relying on that as its business model for several decades.
It needs to learn something else.
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Er, there's still a revenue deficit upon which all government rail decisions seem to be based on, so until those extortionate fares start attracting passengers to the railway, those fares are killing the industry.
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Not true.
Just because passenger numbers are rising, doesn't mean that potential passengers aren't being put off by extortionate fares.
The fares at peak are high to try and a put people off traveling then as there is limited capacity to handle more passengers.
Revenue deficits are different per a TOC, the ones paying into the treasury should have more freedom to add services and some cost to allow greater revenue and expand the business. Everyone should benefit from that.
I go back to the premise though that if you are running less services than before COVID then you are going to have less passengers by definition.
Those extortionate fares, many of which have increased over the years at rates set by the Government, yes? Maybe the Government should accept that it's investment that drives growth, not cost-cutting.
Those extortionate fares, many of which have increased over the years at rates set by the Government, yes? Maybe the Government should accept that it's investment that drives growth, not cost-cutting.
There was limited capacity at peak times. In many cases that's no longer true and things need to change to reflect that. Demand is down and a combination of reducing supply and reducing fares needs to be the response. In ex-NSE TOCs that change is/will be removing superfluous peak extras (already done in many cases) and reducing fleets (supply) to suit - this should improve efficiency as large parts of the fleet sat idle for most of the day. Where spare capacity still exists then TOCs need to look at their peak pricing and reduce it to a level that will encourage demand to pick up again.
Yes they can. If Tesco started charging £99 for a potato, you wouldn't deny that was extortionate and it certainly wouldn't cover the cost base because no one would buy it.
Peak fares aren't regulated so it's the TOCs who have priced them.
There was limited capacity at peak times. In many cases that's no longer true and things need to change to reflect that. Demand is down and a combination of reducing supply and reducing fares needs to be the response. In ex-NSE TOCs that change is/will be removing superfluous peak extras (already done in many cases) and reducing fleets (supply) to suit - this should improve efficiency as large parts of the fleet sat idle for most of the day. Where spare capacity still exists then TOCs need to look at their peak pricing and reduce it to a level that will encourage demand to pick up again.
Yes they can. If Tesco started charging £99 for a potato, you wouldn't deny that was extortionate and it certainly wouldn't cover the cost base because no one would buy it.
I use the Norwich to Liverpool Street service regularly at peak and I can assure you most coaches are full, that's not to say they are capacity as I suspect you can find 10 to 15 seats through the train. Not the case with all TOCs I would guess but there isn't much capacity on most peaks I've seen on greater Anglia into London.
If you have a proposal, it would be interesting to hear it. Please do create a thread in Speculative Discussion with the details, and we can attempt to establish how any such proposals might work.
No inside knowledge is required whatsoever. You simply search for the journey, select the itinerary (you may want to view fast/value/cheap options) and make the purchase.
Incidentally, split ticketing is compulsory for longer journeys in some countries; I've experienced this in places like France and Italy.
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Unless subsidy massively increases, to provide for additional capacity, the railway needs to put off prospective passengers. If the railway priced fares at very attractive rates, there is no way it could cater for the demand. If anyone has any proposals to change the status quo, they are most welcome to be posted in the appropriate forum section.
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No knowledge is required for anyone who is happy to stick to an itinerary, which anyone who chooses to fly is clearly willing and able to do.
People who do not want complexity have the option to purchase an Anytime ticket; of course that is unaffordable for most people, so I can understand why people drive. But the immediate cause of this is high fares, which is caused by having limited capacity.
If anyone has any potential solutions to this problem, please do post them (in the appropriate forum section).
The point is the "sweary rant" is not an uncommon view, ask just about anybody if they think train fares are value for money and I very much doubt they will say yes.
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