Lord Hendy decides that Advances are the Way Forward

[Snow1964]

Well if they can get everyone in the north using ‘advance fares’ on their local commute, they’ll also be able to ching them again for a PF when they use the wrong train...

And then you get station crowding as happens at Euston, because rather than get on next train afterwards if they get delayed getting to station, they build in contingency time and arrive early.

Now if the fares difference fails to bring enough revenue to cover a £50m+ station expansion to cope with early arrivals, does policy actually of having penalties for using a slightly different time train make sense

 

[thedbdiboy]

To a great extent the nationalised vs privatised debate is a distraction from that of industry structure. Franchising fragmentation and lack of continuity accompanied by a regulatory regime that baked lots of things into ossified permanence destroyed the natural ability to evolve and develop the fares structure.

Those that promote nationalisation as a happy sunlit land where evil overlords are deprived of ill-gotten profits and as a result a perfect, cheap walk-up network operates may be in for a shock, but the resultant unified structure will have the benefit of being able to evolve and change things without endless trials, enquiries, regulatory or contractual blockages. In other words, if the fare Ts and Cs are so restrictive that they are causing overcrowding, then they can be changed.

If prices or conditions need to be tweaked they can be. No more of the ridiculous situation where a TOC was forever more obligated to make an off-peak return fare valid in perpetuity after 10.15 from station X at a price indexed from that set by British Rail in September 1995 with the Rail Minster being required to sign off any changes to those terms.

Those of us that worked for BR and had to deal with a certain brand of Tory MP looking down their noses at us telling us that the private sector would free us from the dead hand of nationalisation had no idea of the actual monster that they were complicit in creating.

 

[Starmill]

Back to this proposal, isn't it just sorting out stuff like quotas so through Advances come up for sale again?

Sort of. The problem is the fares aren't available.

I could go back ten years on the forum and find the many, many posts of people complaining, rightfully, that Garforth - Manchester, Skipton - Manchester and Harrogate - Manchester had no Advance tickets, years after Leeds - Manchester and York - Manchester had them. I've got a post somewhere from nearly a decade ago where I found a list of expensive journeys with fast, frequent services but no Advance fares. There are absolutely loads still out there, including some you can easily do all on one operator, say Newcastle - Stafford, Stoke-on-Trent - York, Blackpool - Skipton, Hull - Crewe, Wilmslow - Doncaster, Rochdale - Sheffield, Stockport - Lincoln, Bradford - Liverpool, Barnsley - Manchester, Worksop - Preston or Chester - Lincoln and similar versions of all of the above.

There are others with Advance tickets which are not bookable because of the route for the vast majority of the trains, for example Leeds - Hartlepool, Hellifield - Manchester Airport or Skipton - Doncaster.

What this has done is started to correct for this. Personally I was far more interested in the outcomes of the much cheaper flexible tickets tested on short distance routes to Hull in 2024, but this something very unlikely to be FOIable. Presumably the fact this one has been done into a press release means that the Hull trial is a no go.

 

[yorksrob]

What this has done is started to correct for this. Personally I was far more interested in the outcomes of the much cheaper flexible tickets tested on short distance routes to Hull in 2024, but this something very unlikely to be FOIable. Presumably the fact this one has been done into a press release means that the Hull trial is a no go.

That does sound interesting.

Weren't both TPE and Northern publicly owned at the time, so one could at least submit an FOI (although they might come up with an excuse for not releasing it).

 

[redreni]

No more of the ridiculous situation where a TOC was forever more obligated to make an off-peak return fare valid in perpetuity after 10.15 from station X at a price indexed from that set by British Rail in September 1995 with the Rail Minster being required to sign off any changes to those terms.

I've read all of your post and I agree with most of it, but I must query this bit. On some routes it's the Anytime fare that is regulated and the off-peak fare has ended up, during the privatisation era, costing the same as the Anytime, which gives some indication of what might have happened to fares but for the "ridiculous situation" you describe.

The increases to regulated fares get announced and reported. If they are perceived to be too high, the minister and the government must pay a political price for that. I understand that can be annoying for people in the industry, but it is not ridiculous. In fact it's one of the few aspects of GB rail fares that isn't ridiculous.

 

[Krokodil]

The increases to regulated fares get announced and reported. If they are perceived to be too high, the minister and the government must pay a political price for that. I understand that can be annoying for people in the industry, but it is not ridiculous. In fact it's one of the few aspects of GB rail fares that isn't ridiculous.

That the increases were regulated isn't ridiculous, but the absolute mess of what was and what wasn't regulated certainly got out of hand. It created all sorts of silly anomalies.

 

[Starmill]

That does sound interesting.

Weren't both TPE and Northern publicly owned at the time, so one could at least submit an FOI (although they might come up with an excuse for not releasing it).

Yes. Feel free to try and get around the commercial confidentiality exception if you like!

 

[thedbdiboy]

I've read all of your post and I agree with most of it, but I must query this bit. On some routes it's the Anytime fare that is regulated and the off-peak fare has ended up, during the privatisation era, costing the same as the Anytime, which gives some indication of what might have happened to fares but for the "ridiculous situation" you describe.

The increases to regulated fares get announced and reported. If they are perceived to be too high, the minister and the government must pay a political price for that. I understand that can be annoying for people in the industry, but it is not ridiculous. In fact it's one of the few aspects of GB rail fares that isn't ridiculous.

I was using off-peak (ex Saver as an example; in reality the hotch potch of what was regulated made any considered evolution of the fare structure impossible, and the franchising model encouraged successful bidders to maximise revenue by distorting fares around the regulated points (hence sky high long distance Anytime fares or off-peak fares on commuting journeys increasing to almost the level of the Anytime Day fare).

The main point is that under GBR, fares policy overall is going to have to be agreed between GBR and DfT rather than a line by line control of individual fares and these choices will, as you say, have the political cost (in terms of voter reaction) 'priced in'.

 

[redreni]

I was using off-peak (ex Saver as an example; in reality the hotch potch of what was regulated made any considered evolution of the fare structure impossible, and the franchising model encouraged successful bidders to maximise revenue by distorting fares around the regulated points (hence sky high long distance Anytime fares or off-peak fares on commuting journeys increasing to almost the level of the Anytime Day fare).

The main point is that under GBR, fares policy overall is going to have to be agreed between GBR and DfT rather than a line by line control of individual fares and these choices will, as you say, have the political cost (in terms of voter reaction) 'priced in'.

But we'll just get more announcements like this where, apparently, fares have been cut and a great deal of extra revenue generated on a heavily capacity-constrained network, and when you look for the "notes to editors" at the bottom where it should tell you where the claims in the article are substantiated, there aren't any.

Regulating some fares and not others led to some distortion, but as long as the regulated fare continues to exist and continues to be regulated, the amount of distortion that can occur is finite (and most of it has happened already). And once the regulated peak commuter fares in the commuter belt become the cap for off-peak fares, the annual announcement that regulated fares will rise by x% this year gives people a pretty good idea what will happen to walk-up fares generally, and those fares serve as a de facto ceiling for Advances too.

The trouble with getting rid of regulated fares and the headline figure for increases is that it will be quite beyond even the best reporters who cover public transport to have even the vaguest, big-picture idea of what may be happening to fares, so ministers will be able to get away (as they did with Advances for years) with giving examples of specific fares that have got cheaper, even if fares are on average getting significantly more expensive.

 

[London Trains]

This is utterly pathetic...in my opinion advance fares really should be banned and outlawed (excluding sleeper services and Eurostar).

This really makes me have a very bad feeling about nationalisation...

 

[Bletchleyite]

This is utterly pathetic...in my opinion advance fares really should be banned and outlawed (excluding sleeper services and Eurostar).

Advance fares fulfil a role. I am not so much a fan of them on local journeys, but on long distance they aren't going away and shouldn't either.

I do share your concern about the potential loss of affordable walk up fares, though. That said Northern Advances are usually reasonably priced right up to departure, whereas LNER ones are usually set at price gouging levels.

 

[mikeg]

This seems like a good thing provided they're not 'doing an LNER' and getting rid of affordable walk up travel. There are far too many routes in the North, from the North or to the North, which lack advances, yet advances are available by splitting. Joe or Georgina public would just think it's too expensive and maybe take the car, only savvy rail users would split.

Two examples: Stoke to Thirsk, a journey I used to do regularly, has no advances, nor does Crewe to Thirsk. Both of these were flows I'd regularly use when I went to Uni at Keele. I had to split to save money or fork out for an SVR (luckily I had a railcard back then).

I also lived in Nottingham, split ticketing advances made the journey very affordable, particularly if getting the Northern service to Leeds then TPE to Thirsk but the XC-priced SVR is rather pricey. The Northern advances from Nottingham to Leeds were phenomenal value by compare, even if I had to buy a further advance from Leeds to Thirsk (or fork out for the SVR if doing a return was occasionally better value). There were advances via LNER but this was often a bit of a faff. The best savings were obtained by splitting at Leeds and changing there, for which there were no through advances. Either way both journeys really could've done with advances. These are medium to long distance journeys where often you're using local-ish services. This is the market they should cater for with this change.

 

[Dr Day]

The challenge is having Advances for longer passenger journeys, but reflecting that longer end to end passenger journeys can often be split across a number of shorter individual train legs, including across ‘Intercity’, ‘Commuter’ and ‘Regional’ train services.

IMHO the industry still thinks too much in terms of where trains go not where people go. Hopefully GBR will think about net optimisation across the whole industry, not necessarily the sum of the parts of individual TOCs each trying to maximise their own net revenue.

So Advances should be available Aberdare to Aberdour, Barry Links to Barry Island or Hall Road to Hall Green with routing and pricing options to optimise across the whole industry, not TOCs joining forces to gang up on other TOCs which is still what happens today even with ‘nationalisation’.

And yes chose those examples deliberately- devolved operations hopefully won’t be competing with GBR on fares either, but working as an integrated industry to complement each other’s services.

 

[London Trains]

Advance fares fulfil a role. I am not so much a fan of them on local journeys, but on long distance they aren't going away and shouldn't either.

I do share your concern about the potential loss of affordable walk up fares, though. That said Northern Advances are usually reasonably priced right up to departure, whereas LNER ones are usually set at price gouging levels.

I disagree about them fulfilling a role, the railways are competing with the car (aside from maybe London to Scotland), which is the most flexible mode of transport you could possibly have, and so the railways should be offering as much flexibility as possible as standard, not pricing off anyone that wants any flexibility and therefore encouraging car journeys.

What is needed is for standard ticket prices to be massively reduced, with ticketing reduced to only two types of tickets, off-peak and peak. Revenue would be no issue as passenger numbers would be certain to increase if rail fares were genuinely affordable.

 

[thedbdiboy]

I disagree about them fulfilling a role, the railways are competing with the car (aside from maybe London to Scotland), which is the most flexible mode of transport you could possibly have, and so the railways should be offering as much flexibility as possible as standard, not pricing off anyone that wants any flexibility and therefore encouraging car journeys.

What is needed is for standard ticket prices to be massively reduced, with ticketing reduced to only two types of tickets, off-peak and peak. Revenue would be no issue as passenger numbers would be certain to increase if rail fares were genuinely affordable.

I might be able to get into my car any time of day or night but if I travel at a busy time it will take me a very long time as I crawl through traffic. The economic reality for rail is that it needs to be competitive relative to the alternatives in the markets that it serves.

 

[Tazi Hupefi]

I disagree about them fulfilling a role, the railways are competing with the car (aside from maybe London to Scotland), which is the most flexible mode of transport you could possibly have, and so the railways should be offering as much flexibility as possible as standard, not pricing off anyone that wants any flexibility and therefore encouraging car journeys.

What is needed is for standard ticket prices to be massively reduced, with ticketing reduced to only two types of tickets, off-peak and peak. Revenue would be no issue as passenger numbers would be certain to increase if rail fares were genuinely affordable.

It would be incredibly naive to think that peak/off peak pricing isn't likely to end up affecting cars too. It's a question of when, not if, road or distance based taxation/ pricing is rolled out nationally, probably once smart / always connected electric vehicles dominate, in a couple of years from now. There's already plenty of "local" road charging schemes popping up.

If the Treasury can't get motorist money from fuel duty, VAT etc - they'll get it in new ways.

 

[PG]

Revenue would be no issue as passenger numbers would be certain to increase if rail fares were genuinely affordable.

Would revenue increase by enough though to fund additional stock to cater for the demand, always assuming paths could be found in which to run the additional stock?

If not then maybe we could have some kind of demand management implemented via pricing; you see where I'm going with this...

 

[Joe Paxton]

It would be incredibly naive to think that peak/off peak pricing isn't likely to end up affecting cars too. It's a question of when, not if, road or distance based taxation/ pricing is rolled out nationally, probably once smart / always connected electric vehicles dominate, in a couple of years from now. There's already plenty of "local" road charging schemes popping up.

If the Treasury can't get motorist money from fuel duty, VAT etc - they'll get it in new ways.

This is all going to be a huge political issue in coming years. It's easy enough to imagine the basic script for how things might play out - the arguments back and forth and so on etc.

 

[modernrail]

I am a bit torn on this. I do think there should be some access to advance fares across multiple operators on regional journeys. It is definitely a gap. The big problem to me is many of those trains are already full. I have basically stopped using TPE due a combination of poor service and 185’s turning up with reservations on almost every seat. I am not paying a walk up fare to hardly ever get a seat. I have the same problem with LNER selling far to much of its capacity via advance fares (in case I haven’t mentioned that on here a few times before).

Trains in the north need more carriages before more advances and more modal shift. There might be small pockets of capacity to target but I bet you often bump straight into one leg out of say 3 being a congested route. Fine use this clever little toy to target those pockets of otherwise very quiet trains but the rest of the system needs to operate like a regional set of metros with interconnecting intercity services. Focus on getting rid of the bloody awful old diesel stock, make northern work again, etc etc. Rather than playing with toys. There is a real risk the management of an outfit like northern become highly distracted by using management time to discuss ‘innovations’ like this when they are very far from running a basic railway properly yet. That should be its first innovation. £200,000 is basically nothing, especially when you take into account already full trains might start to out higher paying normal ticket buyers off over time.

Ironically the place I see this might work better in the short term is down south, where vast amounts of capacity go underused on massively long trains. Some advances seem to have appeared but there must still be loads of off peak journeys where modal shift could be encouraged, because the adjacent roads are still rammed.

 

[Wallsendmag]

I see the future as advance for long distance “Intercity” and tap and go/Digital PAYG for everything else

 

[Snow1964]

I see the future as advance for long distance “Intercity” and tap and go/Digital PAYG for everything else

Yes should be long term aim, but what actually counts as long distance, they need to set a proper distance threshold for advances.

From my local station there are some journeys with advances that are a
under 45 miles (including changing trains), and others that are over 70 miles by direct train where advances are not available. Far too much inconsistency on distance required to get an advance currently.

Lord Hendy is the rail minister, he needs to make some decisions that set the threshold, if he wants to amend the system.

 

[Starmill]

I am a bit torn on this. I do think there should be some access to advance fares across multiple operators on regional journeys. It is definitely a gap. The big problem to me is many of those trains are already full. I have basically stopped using TPE due a combination of poor service and 185’s turning up with reservations on almost every seat. I am not paying a walk up fare to hardly ever get a seat. I have the same problem with LNER selling far to much of its capacity via advance fares (in case I haven’t mentioned that on here a few times before).

Trains in the north need more carriages before more advances and more modal shift. There might be small pockets of capacity to target but I bet you often bump straight into one leg out of say 3 being a congested route. Fine use this clever little toy to target those pockets of otherwise very quiet trains but the rest of the system needs to operate like a regional set of metros with interconnecting intercity services. Focus on getting rid of the bloody awful old diesel stock, make northern work again, etc etc. Rather than playing with toys. There is a real risk the management of an outfit like northern become highly distracted by using management time to discuss ‘innovations’ like this when they are very far from running a basic railway properly yet. That should be its first innovation. £200,000 is basically nothing, especially when you take into account already full trains might start to out higher paying normal ticket buyers off over time.

Ironically the place I see this might work better in the short term is down south, where vast amounts of capacity go underused on massively long trains. Some advances seem to have appeared but there must still be loads of off peak journeys where modal shift could be encouraged, because the adjacent roads are still rammed.

I don't think this exercise has adjusted the actual quota very much. It has just made the option of an Advance ticket available for more journeys.

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

I see the future as advance for long distance “Intercity” and tap and go/Digital PAYG for everything else

The journey quoted in the press release is Horsforth to Manchester. Which of your two options is that?

 

[Royston Vasey]

I got the distinct impression from his recent performance at the Transport Select Committee that Lord Hendy simply says exactly what he's told to say by the mandarins, whatever he might feel about it. I don't think Lord Hendy decides anything.

He even tried to spin the latest reduction of Network Rail's settlement from £47 billion to £43 billion as "flat" rather than a 10% reduction.

 

[Hadders]

I see the future as advance for long distance “Intercity” and tap and go/Digital PAYG for everything else

I agree but TOCs need to stop selling Advance tickets for routes where there is effectively a frequent turn up and go service. For examle:

Stockport to Manchester Piccadilly
Luton Airport PW to St Pancras
and even Brighton to London
etc.

 

[modernrail]

I agree but TOCs need to stop selling Advance tickets for routes where there is effectively a frequent turn up and go service. For examle:

Stockport to Manchester Piccadilly
Luton Airport PW to St Pancras
and even Brighton to London
etc.

I agree on Stockport to Manchester. That is just silly.

I don’t agree on Luton Airport solely because the normal price feels like overcharging and for instance hard pressed families trying to make a holiday affordable might really benefit from advances.

I definitely don’t agree with London to Brighton. I see that as an intercity service and there is a lot of off peak capacity that could be eaten up with some decent pricing to encourage people out for a day trip. It is hugely frustrating that Southern let so many trains leave London for the South Coast every morning when there are literally millions of people in the capital who might consider a day out if the fares were not priced at peak levels yet against the main flow.

 

[AlterEgo]

I disagree about them fulfilling a role, the railways are competing with the car (aside from maybe London to Scotland), which is the most flexible mode of transport you could possibly have, and so the railways should be offering as much flexibility as possible as standard, not pricing off anyone that wants any flexibility and therefore encouraging car journeys.

What is needed is for standard ticket prices to be massively reduced, with ticketing reduced to only two types of tickets, off-peak and peak. Revenue would be no issue as passenger numbers would be certain to increase if rail fares were genuinely affordable.

You don’t live in a world with a huge amount of unused capacity. If the railways weren’t carrying anyone you might have a point, but the reality is, train travel remains very popular and it’ll be incumbent on GBR to spread out the demand using yield management.

 

[modernrail]

You don’t live in a world with a huge amount of unused capacity. If the railways weren’t carrying anyone you might have a point, but the reality is, train travel remains very popular and it’ll be incumbent on GBR to spread out the demand using yield management.

Which includes not over filling trains with advance fares where the seats will sell at off peak walk up fares.

 

[Kite159]

You don’t live in a world with a huge amount of unused capacity. If the railways weren’t carrying anyone you might have a point, but the reality is, train travel remains very popular and it’ll be incumbent on GBR to spread out the demand using yield management.

Using the LNER method of ditching the fare cap offered by flexible (super) off-peak tickets and having the only flexible ticket available being the anytime single as an excuse to allow them to hike the price of advances on weekends when there are events on to bring in more money?

Advance singles have one drawback compared to standard off-peak day return fares, especially if travelling late at night when the customers know ticket checks can be quite hit & miss and barriers are open at their destination after a known time as those customers will only buy a single and will dodge the fare coming back later.

 

[JonathanH]

It is hugely frustrating that Southern let so many trains leave London for the South Coast every morning when there are literally millions of people in the capital who might consider a day out if the fares were not priced at peak levels yet against the main flow.

Do enough people really want to set off before 0930 for the South Coast for their day out to fill those trains? As it is the peak fares in the counter flow direction are somewhat less than the peak flow fares.

How much year round untapped income is on offer? Could it be met with advance fares, in line with the discussion in this thread?

 

[Hadders]

I don’t agree on Luton Airport solely because the normal price feels like overcharging and for instance hard pressed families trying to make a holiday affordable might really benefit from advances.

There's typically 8 trains an hour between St Pancras and Luton Airport Parkway, and you're happy for passengers to commit to a specific train. What can possibly go wrong...
'Us on here' generally understand the restrictions on Advance tickets but what chance a 'normal' passenger on theor way to/from the airport after a delayed flight. or a family that goes for a day out in London and just want to get the next train back that suits them.

When you sell Advance tickets on such an intensive service you're not simplifying the fares structure, you're complicating it. And on a route that has contactless.

As for the cost of fares - it's £19.90 for an off-peak day return (less with a railcard). That's not expensive for that part of the world.

I definitely don’t agree with London to Brighton. I see that as an intercity service and there is a lot of off peak capacity that could be eaten up with some decent pricing to encourage people out for a day trip. It is hugely frustrating that Southern let so many trains leave London for the South Coast every morning when there are literally millions of people in the capital who might consider a day out if the fares were not priced at peak levels yet against the main flow.

London to Brighton is not inter-city. In the distant past it might have been but times move on, I'd say outer-suburban is a more appropriate description.

Again, typically 6 trains an hour to London. I won't repeat what I said above but in my view the same principles apply.

You're missing the point about Advance fares. They're not cheap tickets to fill capacity, train companies want them to be the normal fare. Just look at LNER.

I get the point about contra-flow but this already happens in some places. For example London to Stevenage is cheaper than Stevenage to London. Same with Cambridge. Watford Junction to London has contra-peak pricing too. The reality is there aren't hordes of people wanting to travel contra-peak on weekdays.