Haywain
Veteran Member
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And yet swingeing fare increases were a feature of the franchise model. Just dressed up with something purporting to be regulation.
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Expansion of LNER 70-min flex trial area ("Simpler Fares")
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Tetchytyke
Veteran Member
The fares nonsense is just the latest in a long line of arrogant decisions made by that management though. Things were just as bad when it was VTEC, with similarly awful decisions being made (the Nectar partnership, for instance). Lots of price gouging too, far beyond what you'd ever seen even with NXEC.
The fares nonsense will be, I'm sure, very profitable too.
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I don't think the ownership model matters very much. Any changes like this requires DfT approval, whether it's a franchise or not. Someone with the gift of the gab will be able to push these changes through. Even the way of selling it wouldn't change much- "we'll pay higher premiums if you let us do this".
To be fair, I don't recall them coming up with a heist as diabolical as this so called fares trial, but I might have forgotten something.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
The Virgin Trains Anytime fares (London-Manchester is roughly twice that of London-Edinburgh) and accompanying tightening of restrictions on Savers/Off Peaks to the minimum permitted validity under the franchise agreement are examples of similar heists, albeit in a slightly different context. (This is why the LNER scheme would be even more damaging applied to Avanti, as I don't think they're going to suddenly halve the Anytime fares...)
No. If LNER wish to, on particular services, offer normal Advances but not 70 Min ones, or vice versa, they are perfectly at liberty to do that. It's the same as how they're also perfectly at liberty to, on particular trains, not offer any of them at all, subject to meeting the (very minor) availability threshold overall they gave as a commitment.
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When we have the likes of Mark Smith on his website and the news suggesting people buy Edinburgh - Finsbury Park then unfortunately there's pretty much no chance of it not being closed.
Failed Unit
Established Member
That is my concern, LNER are going to make sure that the data shows that the majority of passengers want the "off-peak" fares removed. They will ignore the fact that customers are actively looking at ways to avoid this. Finsbury Park today, so let go to Inverkeithing next. Let's start from Hitchin if you are going from Stevenage. Why don't they just removed it and be done with it, considering the amount of effort they are taking to remove the loop-holes? Not sure how far away from Newcastle you need to go to avoid this as it isn't a flow I use.
Couple this with LNERs other preferred way of hitting customers with their "sold out" when you could choose to buy an off-peak and stand. LNER seem to be making the railway for the very rich. Now the area is getting larger maybe time to write to my local MP. I am sure it will be dismissed; however they are pricing many off long distance travel. I know the government will welcome this as they get a lot of fuel duty. I don't see how this is going to help fill all these extra seats now on the EMCL from December 2025.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
It will be interesting to see whether we see lower fares or emptier trains.
Did they manage that all in one go though ?
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
No, it was crept up over a period of time (Fordian boiling frogs anyone?)
I do think this brings up an interesting point though, the second most common complaint on the railways is on train capacity. When I hear complaints about the trains online and from friends it's very often about this too. I would argue there is an element of this being exactly what the people have asked for. People complain about the price when they are also having to stand, train companies cap the trains at their capacity. People complain about trains being still overcrowded and tickets too complicated, they remove the flexible tickets. In some ways this is a result of what people have asked for.
I do also think this is part of why this trial will be seen as a success. The public have a tendency to treat all off peak tickets etc as fixed tickets anyways, as they don't understand the flexibility, and while fares have risen and LNER aren't capped at the off peak price, the public don't know this, they just see it as demand based pricing. In fact I was talking to a family member that goes to Edinburgh frequently and they were praising LNER for not making them stand anymore. I think many members of the public, especially those who book early, will not see the negatives of the trial while it is still a trial.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
I do actually think the majority of the public would support the LNER scheme.
Most users of long distance trains:
1. Book in advance and stick to booked trains;
2. Make simple, direct journeys, not connectional ones;
3. Think trains are expensive anyway, so if they get a bit more expensive it isn't really noticeable;
4. Hate overcrowding above everything and want TOCs to stop overselling;
5. Think fares are too complex and would be scared to use the flexibility of an Off Peak in case they get it wrong and get stung.
*I* don't like it as someone who always buys walk up fares (well, near enough always). But I'm not typical. And I could tolerate it more if it offered some slight changes, e.g. drop the admin fee for changes, make them a couple of taps to do online, and make Advances refundable up to a deadline (maybe with a sliding scale of refund amounts as SNCF do), plus drop the break of journey nonsense - subject to losing one's reserved seat, break of journey (including starting and ending short and leaving the station during changes) should ALWAYS be permitted on ALL tickets without exception - it's simply not intuitive not to allow it.
Yes exactly, personally I don't see it as a good thing, but for the general public it could be argued to be positive. While there are arguments about fare regulation the government can drop the tif it wants anyways.
Tetchytyke
Veteran Member
I think these two quotes show the LNER doublethink in action.
LNER constantly tell us that passengers don't want to use super off-peak tickets and that everyone loves the trial.
Yet LNER are going to the administrative trouble of playing whack-a-mole on station pairs to actively prevent passengers from buying the tickets that LNER says they don't want to buy anyway.
Oh they have, it's just LNER are being more transparent about it.
Compare and contrast, for instance, the fare conditions on off peak tickets valid from Lancaster to London compared to Preston to London. And then look at the restrictions they put in to stop people 'starting short' at Preston.
I had a successful use of the LNER 70 minute ticket a few weeks ago. I arrived at Heathrow at 7am and had a bag to pick up. I booked on the 1000 LNER from King's Cross to Newcastle and took the Heathrow Express in.
Now as it happened my flight was more or less on time and the bag did not take long to come out. I was at King's Cross by around 9.15am and popped into the Great Northern Hotel for breakfast. I did not need the flexibility in the end but was glad it was there.
Now as it happened my flight was more or less on time and the bag did not take long to come out. I was at King's Cross by around 9.15am and popped into the Great Northern Hotel for breakfast. I did not need the flexibility in the end but was glad it was there.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
I suspect we'd see a correlation between the use of the Finsbury Park "dodge" and having a fair bit of MoneySavingExpert in one's browser history. The majority of people want to pay the least they can for a given thing, and will use stuff like this to do so. If the dodge didn't exist I don't think they would be whining about it per se - I doubt (referring to the Preston/Lancaster dodge noted above) there are that many people who spend 40 minutes going to Lancaster and back to avoid that one as it is just a bit much faff, whereas buying a ticket from Finsbury Park is quite easy.
In any case unless you specifically want a flexible ticket there are other dodges. Trainline (other splitting sites are available, but most of the public uses that one) offers split Advances on most trains for a fair whack less than LNER want. Trainsplit is fairly poor value for these specific instances as the share of saving fee can be quite high (though one can of course buy the splits separately and at least give them the commission).
Trainbike46
Established Member
I don't agree on this; the biggest part of this trial is increasing the fares; no-one likes higher fares.
Agreed, but this trial doesn't improve the situation for these type of users.
I doubt it; combining local journeys with long distance ones is very common. Is there any data to back this up?
There have been really steep fare increases though!
High prices and cancellations are unpopular too; of course, cancellations often cause overcrowding on other trains around the cancelled one.
There are solutions to overcrowding that are much more passenger-friendly, both long-term (e.g. build more of HS2), and short term (change LNER's CAF order to 280ish m trains*, use them on the busiest routes, and get more of them than currently ordered).
Agreed that many people do think fares are complex; however, LNER isn't really making it less complex with their current trial (unlike with the first stage single leg pricing that, other than the extra fare increase, was mostly in passenger's interest)
I think you might be falling into the trap of thinking that, because you're an atypical user, and you don't like the change, it must be popular with more typical users. Surprisingly many people make that assumption, but it is really dangerous, so you really shouldn't make that assumption without actual data to back it up.
* a 280m train could use platforms 0-4 and 6-8 at King's Cross. Edinburgh has long platforms too. If necessary, SDO could be used elsewhere.
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Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
It does. It means fewer people on affordable walk up fares causing overcrowding and stealing their booked seat.
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I don't have any, but equally I suspect a lot of people don't even know you can get through tickets, and often they are poor value (traditionally through tickets from Merseyrail onto the WCML were rather expensive, for instance). But busy station car parks also provide some evidence...
To be fair I don't believe you have data to prove otherwise either, so our opinions on the matter are of equal value.
Trainbike46
Established Member
Fair point that reduced overcrowding could be argued to be an improvement for them; As below, there are better ways to achieve that though.
Has this changed or is my flow just extremely lucky? For Birkenhead-London the off-peak return is similarly priced to the same ticket type but splitting at Liverpool.
The reason it is dangerous is because you're ignoring the little data you have (from atypical users like ourselves), without any data to suggest that; data from atypical users is better than no data at all. It is also especially dangerous, because it can lead to you arguing against things you're in favour of based on a mistaken belief that it is popular.
The only to be sure would be to have a well-conducted survey, but it would be hard to come up with neutral questions for that.
I guess you could ask things like "Would you be willing to pay higher fares if it reduced overcrowding most of the time?", or maybe something like
"would you prefer paying (A) with a (B)% chance of having to stand, or paying (C) with (D)% chance of having to stand when travelling London-Edinburgh?"
A = average price paid for advance and flexible tickets sold before the trial
B = percentage of people who didn't get a seat before the trial
C = average (higher) price paid for advance and flexible tickets sold now
D = (lower) percentage of people who don't get a seat now
obviously correcting A/C for inflation.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
I think it has yes. For a long time there were no Advances at all from MKC-Aughton Park, for example, only full price walk ups. There are now though. There still aren't any WMT dedicated fares, though, so some benefit from the split.
Failed Unit
Established Member
Just looking at some prices for tomorrow from Scotland - London. Fare in Brackets is cheapest advance at time of post.
1037 Glasgow - Euston £130 (£83.50)
1045 Glasgow - Kings Cross £205 (£121.90) - Has this flow already had the loophole closed)
Central Scotland station using same connection as 1045 - Kings Cross - £97.50 (£121.90)
Edinburgh - London no walk on available (£121.90)
When you look at it like that why would anyone think this is to the benefit of themselves? I haven't named the station in Central Scotland in case LNER are reading this and look to close this loophole as well. The Semi-Flexible is £20 more expensive but if I don't know what time I want to travel tomorrow I need to travel to either Glasgow or that central scotland station.
This is re-hashing old arguments. £95.40 gets me to Hitchin where I can split if needed. (until LNER move this north to Peterborough, then Grantham etc)
1037 Glasgow - Euston £130 (£83.50)
1045 Glasgow - Kings Cross £205 (£121.90) - Has this flow already had the loophole closed)
Central Scotland station using same connection as 1045 - Kings Cross - £97.50 (£121.90)
Edinburgh - London no walk on available (£121.90)
When you look at it like that why would anyone think this is to the benefit of themselves? I haven't named the station in Central Scotland in case LNER are reading this and look to close this loophole as well. The Semi-Flexible is £20 more expensive but if I don't know what time I want to travel tomorrow I need to travel to either Glasgow or that central scotland station.
This is re-hashing old arguments. £95.40 gets me to Hitchin where I can split if needed. (until LNER move this north to Peterborough, then Grantham etc)
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
No, but the inter available walk up fare isn't single fare priced so you need to compare returns.
I’m travelling on the 17:05 from Stevenage to Kings Cross today.
In coach G 37 of the seats have red lights showing them as reserved, the remainder have orange ‘mat be reserved’ lights. There are no green lights.
There are 17 of us in this carriage.
In coach G 37 of the seats have red lights showing them as reserved, the remainder have orange ‘mat be reserved’ lights. There are no green lights.
There are 17 of us in this carriage.
Their journey times are competitive with a change at Preston or Carlisle from the Glasgow fast onto the service via Birmingham that gets overtaken. Although Avanti of course do not offer Advances to Edinburgh with this routing , only on the slow direct train .
This isn't of benefit to any passenger as it reduces everyone's likelihood of getting a reasonable fare, regardless of whether they use advanced purchase, walk-on or a mixture of the two fare types. However, many passengers don't know it as they don't have perfect knowledge of what otherwise would have been available.
There's a reason for the complexity.
There's a reason for the complexity.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
That assumes your sole priority is price. Roger Ford's argument has if I recall been that improved quality (reduced overcrowding etc) is worth paying for. I can sort of see the point given that the budget market is probably on Lumo etc.
I'd say that price is by far the biggest factor for the majority of people, much as the Establishment would like to avoid the subject.
Also the argument fails on two counts:
- Either people are choosing to use flexible fares to crowd out the trains - in which case surely "quality" for those passengers is being able to turn up to that train when they need it or:
Or they're not bothered about flexibility - quality is primarily about not being crowded and they're happy to be restricted to fewer, more expensive trains - in which case wouldn't they be on advanced purchase already ?
Talks about this being good for passengers in terms of "quality" are a smokescreen for the price gouge.
RailWonderer
Established Member
The budget market is also flying and on coaches. This new pricing was always a case of the government acting responsively to demand and having a lack of capacity. It was a matter of time before this single leg pricing with flex would expand and I suspect we'll see it on other IC routes as well, Paddington - Bath/Bristol next I'll bet, as those services are similarly rammed, especially on weekends.
Agreed, and as long as you have walkup fares, any train can be crowded, which means higher prices and no 'quality' from less crowding.
But people similarly won't want to pay higher taxes for more subsidy of the railway which would allow infrastructure improvements, more seats and lower prices. Also the UK (England specifically) sees train travel as a privilege not a right, like everything is increasingly becoming. Having affordable transport is not seen as a basic standard of living requirement. Governments have to have a basic ideology around these things that Labour nor the Tories ever did.
redreni
Established Member
They may claim the data shows this, but it's hard to say how it possibly could.
Perhaps it's escaped their attention what with all the hoards of people banging down their door telling them they're confused by the existence of loophole fares (that they presumably don't know about)?
Yep. It's like First Class; you have to set the prices high enough to keep out the riff raff, otherwise you won't provide the kind of environment that the very rich want to travel in. Standard class is becoming similar, albeit slightly less so. The riff raff can get the FlixBus or just stay at home, for all Mr Horne cares.
Quite true although the better connection is often actually with TransPennine Express if you do that.
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I used to sit in red light seats regularly once the train has left it's penultimate stop, such as your journey today. It's not like anyone else could possibly show up to claim a reserved seat at that stage after all.
This is also a good option for SNCF etc to allow you to space out a bit.
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My priority is economic benefit, rather than personal affordability or customer quality, which, to a point, I'm happy to be sacrificed if there's some genuine real-terms economic gain on the table. I think you're right though that senior management in the railway, Ministers, Rodger Ford and so on don't really share that view and are prioritising other things.
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Or moving to a proper window seat, given the chance, due to the difficulties of choosing your own seat with an Interrail pass.