The industry reliance on season ticket and Anytime revenue is woefully out of date in modern society. People simply don't work in the same way they used to, and the need to be physically present in, or travel between, offices is much reduced.
Every business I've worked for has a presumption against Anytime fares for business travel, and 1st Class has been banned. I'm not saying that's universal, but I'd feel comfortable saying it's going to be pretty common.
It seems wrong to me that people who have to travel before 09.00 (even 09.30 or 10.00!) should have to pay more - after all these are usually people using the railway to get to work
These days Anytime (Peak) fares disproportionately impact those who have to commute 5 days a week for work. So someone who cannot work from home, which is more likely (not exclusively, of course) to be those on lower incomes.
Certainly some employers are wanting people back in offices some days a week, but there's a lot more flexibility around numbers of days and times. (Trains are noticeably quieter on Monday & Friday, and we of course remember TfL's trial in making Friday off-peak to stimulate demand)
So looking at the railway as a form of social good, it seems to penalise those who are working but have less means to spend on travel Vs those in higher paid jobs with more flexibility and don't have to travel every day, or can avoid the peak.
If the demand to use the train exceeds the capacity of the train then there needs to be a way of restricting the number of users. The current way of making that restriction is by price
I would really love to see some industry-wide data for loading & reservation volumes on routes at different times.
Does it actually work as a demand spreading mechanism? Perhaps I'm just unlucky, but the Peak trains I get on do not tend to be absolutely rammed. Indeed, if I get a 7am train RDG to PAD I can guarantee it's going to be pretty quiet & carriages are usually fairly empty. If I get the first off-peak trains of the day (from 9:30) I'm usually standing.
People don't like being crammed in or having to stand and those with time flexibility will, I'd suggest, naturally want to choose quieter trains if that data is available to them. Perhaps if earlier trains (which from my observations, tend to be empty) weren't considered Peak, people might travel earlier and spread demand that way? As it stands, there's no incentive to travel at 6am Vs 8am.
Increasingly, we've seen peak restrictions removed on Friday evenings out of London, to try and smooth demand. I'd say this is a good example of where the current mechanism isn't working.
All in all, Anytime fares seem like an anachronistic mechanism to try and manage demand, from the days before we could present people with data and allow them to make choices about when they travel. Plus, of course, a revenue raiser from those who can't avoid the extortionate fares.
How would you reform the fares, and cruically how would you do it without increasing the Off Peak fare significantly?
It's unfortunate everything starts from a position of having to be revenue neutral.
However, given that constraint, you'd have to increase the off-peak fares by an average of the 'lost' Anytime income.
(Incidentally, this is one of the scenarios explored in the ticketing/fares survey that RDG did back pre-covid. There's a report somewhere, I believe.)
You might then offer bargain quota controlled Advance fares at times of over-capacity to stimulate demand and further incentivise demand spread. Note, that this is different from using Advances as the main ticket type, as LNER are doing. It's more along the lines of NS, who offer a discounted fare (priced dynamically) in times of very low demand.
How would you ensure that trains at the busiest times of the day have sufficient capacity to cope.
Mandatory reservations (counted place probably, to allow for some standing), but only in extremis.
I'd be happily proved wrong, but I reckon this would probably regularise itself and if people weren't so concerned with ticket validity, they might well choose to travel at a slightly different time, take a different route or take the next service, rather than cramming themselves on.
Or, they'd book a seat reservation if they knew it was essential they were on a particular service.
Again, if you give people data (which the TOCs have!) about load factors, rather than trying to proxy it via price, I think people will use it & vote with their feet
(I agree with you though)
Although crucially, I will always advocate for walk up fares at reasonable prices - none of this 'sold out' nonsense, or Anytime prices on a Sunday evening)
