Low-hanging fruit for fare reform

[A S Leib]

Which examples are there of fare reforms which shouldn't have downsides to anybody, without being incredibly costly to the state? (I'm aware that any price cuts are going to have some cost.)

With the Northumberland line open with cheap fares, I wonder if it would be worth bringing in the Tyne Valley and Durham Coast lines, if not the remaining Northern lines in the north east as well, to the same price per mile. That would mean that, as Newcastle to Ashington's around 19 miles, an anytime day return from Corbridge or Seaham to Newcastle would go from £9.60 to £6, from Middlesbrough via Hartlepool from £17.20 to £15.20, and from Carlisle to Newcastle from £25.50 to £19.80. If that were too expensive to the state, lower advance fares could be scrapped, although I don't know if enough passengers on those routes use advance tickets for it to be worth it.

 

[The exile]

If tokenism is enough, then bring local fares between Morpeth and Chathill into line with Ashington line fares. Not much to lose!

 

[A S Leib]

If tokenism is enough, then bring local fares between Morpeth and Chathill into line with Ashington line fares. Not much to lose!

Alnmouth to Newcastle would go from £17.40 to £11.20 for an anytime day return, which I doubt LNER or CrossCountry would be happy with (scrapping the TPE-only fare would fall under the fund-recouping category). I'm slightly surprised that Northern rather than LNER sets that fare.

 

[The exile]

If tokenism is enough, then bring local fares between Morpeth and Chathill into line with Ashington line fares. Not much to lose!

Alnmouth to Newcastle would go from £17.40 to £11.20 for an anytime day return, which I doubt LNER or CrossCountry would be happy with (scrapping the TPE-only fare would fall under the fund-recouping category). I'm slightly surprised that Northern rather than LNER sets that fare.

Hence “local fares” and north of Morpeth!

 

[A S Leib]

In that case, abolish advance tickets on routes like the Brigg line?

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Bringing back the lower cost evening tickets (I forget what the actual name was) that used to be available for local journeys in Greater Manchester would be a "quick win" for Mr. Burnham... and perhaps the other metro mayors could follow suit.
As more and more non-enthusiast people are becoming familiar with the idea of split ticketing, making ticket machines able to support splits would also be useful... though that's far more unrealistic than my first suggestion!

 

[Bletchleyite]

In that case, abolish advance tickets on routes like the Brigg line?

Northern's use of Advances on local journeys really is utterly, utterly silly. It's almost as bad as if London Underground offered them on the Metropolitan Line. Local journeys should primarily be non yield managed peak/off peak singles mostly paid by contactless but with paper/eticket options at the same price for those who prefer, as per the Project Oval area.

The idea that you can only get an Advance on a train where you can reserve an actual seat is a pretty solid one to be honest (or where you should be able to even if you actually can't, e.g. TfW long distance).

 

[A S Leib]

The idea that you can only get an Advance on a train where you can reserve an actual seat is a pretty solid one to be honest (or where you should be able to even if you actually can't, e.g. TfW long distance).

Where would routes where some services have reservations and others don't, like LNR (/ Chiltern) between London and Birmingham / Crewe, fit? Should routes like the Cumbrian Coast have advance fares if a lot of traffic is relatively local but long journeys are still possible (e.g. 32,000 journeys per year from Whitehaven to Carlisle but 38,000 per year to Maryport, Workington, Sellafield or St. Bees at less than forty minutes away)?

 

[Andyh82]

Northern's use of Advances on local journeys really is utterly, utterly silly. It's almost as bad as if London Underground offered them on the Metropolitan Line. Local journeys should primarily be non yield managed peak/off peak singles mostly paid by contactless but with paper/eticket options at the same price for those who prefer, as per the Project Oval area.

The idea that you can only get an Advance on a train where you can reserve an actual seat is a pretty solid one to be honest (or where you should be able to even if you actually can't, e.g. TfW long distance).

It’s not silly if you expect to pay £10 but unexpectedly see there is a £3 advance available

I’d personally take the saving and not mind the ‘complexity of rail fares’ in that case

 

[Bletchleyite]

Where would routes where some services have reservations and others don't, like LNR (/ Chiltern) between London and Birmingham / Crewe, fit? Should routes like the Cumbrian Coast have advance fares if a lot of traffic is relatively local but long journeys are still possible (e.g. 32,000 journeys per year from Whitehaven to Carlisle but 38,000 per year to Maryport, Workington, Sellafield or St. Bees at less than forty minutes away)?

There should be no Advances on the Cumbrian Coast. It is a local train service primarily for local people. It should just have good value single fare priced Anytime fares and nothing else (it doesn't even really justify a peak/off peak split). As with all local journeys contactless should be the primary payment method with the same fares offered on paper and eticket for those who prefer.

Manchester-Barrow/Windermere could have them (and seat reservations) for longer journeys, but clearly not for the likes of Manchester to Chorley which should be mostly paid by contactless. Similarly Avanti's Birmingham service should have them for London to Birmingham journeys, but for Coventry to Birmingham or MK to London it is just silly.

Maybe the classic 50 mile ish point where you moved from having only day returns to having period returns is about the right split for it.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 26 May 2025 ==

It’s not silly if you expect to pay £10 but unexpectedly see there is a £3 advance available

I’d personally take the saving and not mind the ‘complexity of rail fares’ in that case

So you would support Advance fares on London Underground and the Elizabeth Line?

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Maybe the classic 50 mile ish point where you moved from having only day returns to having period returns is about the right split for it.

Ideally, day returns should be available for any journey you could feasibly do an "out and back" trip in a day on... but equally there's just as much of a case for period returns over fairly short distances. For example this month alone I've done both Batley to Shepley with an overnight stay (had to buy two singles on the days) and Exeter to Truro on a day return (was actually Taunton to Truro, but I had to split at Exeter to get it below the day return threshold). In the case of the former I'd be fine with a slight premium being charged for the convenience of only having to buy one ticket and coming back on a different day, but having the cost more than doubled (no off-peak fares for single tickets) is a bit much. Just because somewhere isn't that far away, doesn't mean that there isn't demand for overnight stays. It's as if the people who set the rules have never "courted", to steal a term from my parents' generation.

 

[WideRanger]

How about a standard price per km, with some routes have a straight discount (to encourage use) applied in a transparent way? And additional discount fares available for specific trains of low use. And then apart from that, no travelcards, no discount for return fares, no break of journey allowed (because it would serve no purpose with flat fares), and the whole system (or at least that part that is practical) controlled on a touch-in touch-out basis? Also, all reservations to attract a small charge (to discourage speculative reservations) but to be available from an app and in realtime. Without a reservation, no 'entitlement' to get on a particular train.

 

[mike57]

Northern's use of Advances on local journeys really is utterly, utterly silly.

I have used them on occasions, and there can be quite a saving to be had, but I am not sure its the right approach.

On our local line Hull to Cottingham anytime single is £7.00 at just under 4 miles thats ~£1.75 per mile, while an Anytime return is £7.90 which is ~£0.98 per mile, but an advance single on the next train is £2.70 or ~£0.67 per mile, but Hull - Bridlington (31 miles, passes through and stops at Cottingham) is £17.10 anytime single, or £0.56 per mile, Anytime return is £20.10 or £0.32p per mile and an advance single on the next service is £7.10 or £0.22p per mile. The disparity in these fares using the same Hull departure is confusing. There are also a number of other fares for Hull - Bridlington (Short distance returns, off peak fares etc), all for one route with one operator, and no changes. Why is Hull Cottingham more expensive than Heathrow express fares? (£25 for 16 miles £1.56 per mile)

I think as a starting point each route or section of route should have a 'pence per mile' which should be consistent with off peak/advance discount applied as needed. Then just sell singles in Anytime, Off Peak, and if appropriate Advance (tied to one train) I can understand how people are confused by the current ticketing system, and are discouraged from using the train. I know of two people locally who gave up trying to book a fairly long journey starting from our local station (One to the Midlands, one to South Wales because they couldn't find tickets at a sensible (i.e comparable to driving, for a single traveller) price. In both case a much cheaper journey was possible by splitting tickets, but to me this is unacceptable, fares should be simple enough that you are presented with a simple set of options when booking without needing to resort to things like split tickets.

Its not so much low hanging fruit as a mass of different tickets all with their own restrictions. We need a massive simplification, and removal of the worst anomolies as a starting point. The problem is any simplification will inevitably end up with back door fare increases and this is why I suspect the current mess continues.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I have used them on occasions, and there can be quite a saving to be had, but I am not sure its the right approach.

If bought near the time of travel they are generally a way of getting a single at roughly half the day return, and on most trains are available in very high numbers in this form. The obvious fix is just to "do an Oval" and move to the walk up singles being half the returns and bin these off. Revenue loss would be fairly small anyway as the vast majority of people on short journeys are making day return journeys anyway.

If they really want to sell a very small quota of very cheap Advances as a lead in fare I mind that less, but that is mostly not how Northern are using them.

TfW is at that too - you can get them on the Conwy Valley!

 

[yorksrob]

Ditch the evening peak in W Yorks.

This was only ever a sop to Dave and Wallpaper Boy's austerity drive

 

[A S Leib]

no break of journey allowed (because it would serve no purpose with flat fares

It would still have a purpose in people making unplanned stops, such as wanting to go for a walk but not knowing what the weather will be like in advance, or missing a connection and not wanting to stay in the station for an hour. As a less common case, it would be inconvenient to people wanting to make multiple breaks of journey to have to buy half a dozen tickets when previously they could have bought one.

 

[Bread & cheese]

One possible simplification would be to reduce the large number of different time restrictions applying from certain stations.
Suppose I am at Wokingham (WKM), I have a senior railcard, and wish to take a day trip. There are quite a number of different times from which the railcard discount is available, depending on destination. See the examples below, where the restriction codes for the relevant tickets are also listed.
In most cases the times are the times from which an offpeak day return can be used. In the case of Havant, which has no offpeak day return, it's the time from which an offpeak monthly return can be used.

0930 B1 WKM to Sunningdale, W1 WKM to Southall
0920 C7 WKM to Paddington via Reading (arrive in London from 1000)*
0900 B3 WKM to Ascot, W3 WKM to Maidenhead, WKM to Chichester not via London
0853 US WKM to Waterloo (arrive in London from 1000)
(depends on route) 4Y WKM to High Wycombe via London, UT WKM to Shoeburyness, C4 WKM to Cambridge (arrive in London from 1000)
0845 B4 WKM to Basingstoke, UQ WKM to Havant
0844 W4 WKM to Moreton-in-Marsh
0830 B5 WKM to Liphook, T7 WKM to Marlow
0815 B6 WKM to Aldershot, W6 WKM to Guildford
0745 B8 WKM to Brockenhurst
0730 B9 WKM to Exeter via Honiton

* the 0920 from Wokingham connects with a departure from Reading at 0942 which arrives in Paddington after 1000. Staff might argue, but technically there is no reason which you can't leave Wokingham at 0857 and wait at Reading for the 0942. And in practice you would probably be allowed on the 0931 or 0935 from Reading, because the offpeak restriction from Reading differs (0930).

There is also plenty of other complexity with regard to return restrictions and offpeak monthly returns.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It would still have a purpose in people making unplanned stops, such as wanting to go for a walk but not knowing what the weather will be like in advance, or missing a connection and not wanting to stay in the station for an hour. As a less common case, it would be inconvenient to people wanting to make multiple breaks of journey to have to buy half a dozen tickets when previously they could have bought one.

Or simply not getting into stupid arguments with misinformed gateline staff about whether you can pop out for a smoke or to buy a sandwich between trains.

With anomalies significantly reduced, Break of Journey should be permitted on all tickets, including Advances. The only stipulation for Advances should be that if you're travelling that is only permitted on the booked trains.

 

[Indigo Soup]

Maybe the classic 50 mile ish point where you moved from having only day returns to having period returns is about the right split for it.

Ideally, Advances would be available on IC and IR, but not R (and probably not RE?). But that would require a fundamentally different railway.

How about a standard price per km, with some routes have a straight discount (to encourage use) applied in a transparent way?

Doesn't work in practice: on any network more complex than an out-and-back line you inevitably get loops where a flat rate per unit distance creates anomalies. There are also good economic reasons that the rate paid per unit distance should be higher on the busier sections of route.

You can argue for a mathematical model that decreases the rate per unit distance as ridership decreases, but given that the stops are largely fixed on a railway this reduces to a system where the fare A-B-C is equal to the sum of fares A-B and B-C. And you still get the occasional anomaly where one route is cheaper than another.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Ideally, Advances would be available on IC and IR, but not R (and probably not RE?). But that would require a fundamentally different railway.

I do support that kind of product branding, but equally unless we go full compulsory reservation I see no sense in Advances from Wigan to Preston nor from Euston to Milton Keynes, whatever the long distance fare structure might happen to be. These short journeys should mostly be contactless payment and that doesn't work with the concept of Advances.

FWIW what I would do is make simple splits a standard part of the fare structure, i.e. decomplicate Advances by selling them only on a "vehicle journey" basis. A lot of splits are cheaper not because of splitting on the same train (though it does happen due to how the quotas work) but because there aren't any through Advances. It's common for instance for there to be Advances from Liverpool to X but not from places on Merseyrail. The other handy thing about that is that (other than starting short) it removes any issues with break of journey restrictions - you have separate coupons so can exit and enter intermediates as you like. Plus it's easier to look at the departure times and seat numbers on a set of e-tickets than having to go into the notes and look at the itinerary. And it can actually be handy to have a flexible ticket on the local journey on the end plus an Advance on the main bit without having to faff about buying them separately, or you might want First Class on the long distance journey but not (if it's even offered at all) the local one. Obviously if bought on a single itinerary only one admin fee would be applicable to changing the whole thing.

 

[mike57]

Further thought: Would it be possible to argue that a massively simplified ticketing system would actually save money as revenue staff would have to spend less time dealing with people who have fallen foul of the small print and could concentrate their efforts on fare evasion.

 

[JonathanH]

One possible simplification would be to reduce the large number of different time restrictions applying from certain stations.

Blanket 0930 once Project Oval reaches Wokingham if the experience elsewhere is to be repeated. That probably isn't the simplification you are hoping for.

The current complexity on off-peak start tines can actually be favourable to people.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Further thought: Would it be possible to argue that a massively simplified ticketing system would actually save money as revenue staff would have to spend less time dealing with people who have fallen foul of the small print and could concentrate their efforts on fare evasion.

I think TOCs these days profit from that, sadly.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 May 2025 ==

Blanket 0930 once Project Oval reaches Wokingham if the experience elsewhere is to be repeated. That probably isn't the simplification you are hoping for.

The current complexity on off-peak start tines can actually be favourable to people.

Unless they change it Oval has its early bird benefit, though - tap in before 0630 and your morning journey is off-peak.

 

[A S Leib]

Would having a flat 30% (rather than 33(.3?)%) discount for 16-25-year-olds and over-60s and scrapping the current relevant railcards save more money than it would lose?


I think the only cases where those railcards can't be used are if affected by the £12 flexible morning peak limit and flexible first class fares for 16-25 railcards, with the senior railcard only having peak restrictions for journeys completely within the Oyster zone. I'm guessing that that's mostly meant to stop commuting with the railcard, and I'm less sure about the potential cost of scrapping that limit.

 

[yorkie]

How about a standard price per km, with some routes have a straight discount (to encourage use) applied in a transparent way?

How much would the price per km be, and what price would you charge for the following journeys:

- Sherburn in Elmet to Whitby (return departing after 0930)
- Reading to Paddington (single departing at 0730)
- Gunnislake to Penzance (return, departing after 0930)
- York to Moorthorpe (single departing at 0730)

Would you introduce route specific fares for all permutations of permitted routes, or do you charge based on the shortest route and allow people to take longer routes, or vice versa?

 

[ainsworth74]

Whilst I do think the AP on short distance flows is barmy in some places I do think they might have their place (assuming the flexible fare cannot be reduced somewhat to compensate should they be abolished). However what I would do is make them all automatically 70 minute flex tickets that can be used on any train within 70 minutes of the booked train.

I suspect that would deal with the overwhelming majority of issues where people buy a ticket and end up travelling on a different train because they've bought a ticket to the next settlement over and didn't expect that that journey of ten minutes would tie them to a specific train.

Of course there will still be some people who have a change of plans by hours who would have been better served with a flexible ticket but overall I think this would go a long way to ameliorating the worst issues with short distance APs.

 

[quantinghome]

Adult off-peak rail card would be the lowest hanging fruit. Easy to implement, no complex overhaul of fares needed, likely to increase overall revenue.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Whilst I do think the AP on short distance flows is barmy in some places I do think they might have their place (assuming the flexible fare cannot be reduced somewhat to compensate should they be abolished). However what I would do is make them all automatically 70 minute flex tickets that can be used on any train within 70 minutes of the booked train.

While I'd rather they just single-fare-priced the walk-ups on the Oval model (it's not perfect, but perhaps we should just replicate the Oval fares and restrictions model nationally for local journeys and then there's a standard?) I can see sense in this. Most short distance Northern Advances bought on the day are priced somewhere around half the return fare, and the number of people who will book weeks in advance for a ten minute journey is tiny so those ones serve very little purpose apart from bargain hunters (who I think are acceptable collateral damage) and so they can advertise a low headline fare.

I can't help but think the proliferation of Advances on TOCs like Northern and TfW is about getting people to buy in advance rather than at the station and thus reducing booking office staffing and TVM provision costs. Closing them is politically poisonous, but you can reduce the number of windows and the hours without upsetting too many people and TOCs have been progressively doing that on the sly as purchases from them have reduced. There was the competition element between Northern and TPE when they were separate businesses, but that was on a minority of routes, and TfW has no competition over most of its network. They might also discourage fare evasion by making buying one before you leave to get a cheaper price "muscle memory" rather than thinking about trying it on when you notice the gateline open or something.

The comparable change with cinemas was moving to allocated seating, people now buy in advance to secure their preferred seat and so cinema ticket desks just don't exist any more, the odd few who buy on arrival (e.g. to pay cash) just buy from the food stall.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 May 2025 ==

Adult off-peak rail card would be the lowest hanging fruit. Easy to implement, no complex overhaul of fares needed, likely to increase overall revenue.

I'm not sure it would increase revenue much as I'd love it. It would however help reduce single-occupant car journeys, which are most prevalently done by people who are in the presently Railcardless middle aged demographic, so it may have a quantifiable benefit to society.

In this regard the Family Railcard makes no sense at all, because a fully occupied family car, particularly an EV, is an extremely efficient way to travel both in terms of carbon emissions and in terms of road space occupancy. It's journeys where one person is travelling alone, ideally with limited luggage, that the railway would bring most benefit if it got out of cars. Similarly the Two Together to a point.

 

[A S Leib]

Adult off-peak rail card would be the lowest hanging fruit. Easy to implement, no complex overhaul of fares needed, likely to increase overall revenue.

Is the third point assuming that passengers would make more or longer journeys than currently, since I'd be surprised if such a railcard were priced more expensively than most people were likely to get back in savings?

 

[WideRanger]

It would still have a purpose in people making unplanned stops, such as wanting to go for a walk but not knowing what the weather will be like in advance, or missing a connection and not wanting to stay in the station for an hour. As a less common case, it would be inconvenient to people wanting to make multiple breaks of journey to have to buy half a dozen tickets when previously they could have bought one.

I think I explained my point badly. Rather than 'no break of journey allowed' I mean that 'break of journey becomes meaningless'. Because 1) the cost of the journey with 2 tickets would not be more than for a single ticket the whole way, and 2) tickets wouldn't have to be bought in advance because of touch-in and touch-out. So it wouldn't matter how many times people decided to get off the train and leave the station (for whatever reason).