Extortionate season tickets £££

[JonathanH]

Evidence from abroad clearly shows that lower fares are possible.

What makes them possible? Taxpayer funding, a less intensive timetable, lower staff wages, cheaper to maintain infrastructure?

 

[johncrossley]

What makes them possible? Taxpayer funding, a less intensive timetable, lower staff wages, cheaper to maintain infrastructure?

I don't know but our leaders should be investigating how it is done elsewhere.

 

[deltic]

I don't know but our leaders should be investigating how it is done elsewhere.

Higher levels of subsidy and taxes. The UK wants US levels of tax and European levels of public service. They are not compatible so noone is happy.

 

[Falcon1200]

Evidence from abroad clearly shows that lower fares are possible.

Indeed, but unless the cost of running the railway can somehow be reduced the money to pay for it has to come from somewhere! And if the answer is simply (more) subsidy I would suggest cheaper rail fares would not be top of the list for Government spending. But it certainly would be interesting to understand how other countries can seemingly provide a better yet at the same time cheaper rail service. Perhaps a topic for a Daily Telegraph investigation?.......

 

[styles]

Indeed, but unless the cost of running the railway can somehow be reduced the money to pay for it has to come from somewhere! And if the answer is simply (more) subsidy I would suggest cheaper rail fares would not be top of the list for Government spending. But it certainly would be interesting to understand how other countries can seemingly provide a better yet at the same time cheaper rail service. Perhaps a topic for a Daily Telegraph investigation?.......

The costs and benefits of public transport are more complex than merely how much money the passenger/government put into the system and how much the passenger saves on fares.

To give a simple example - rail fatalities (excluding suicides) in the UK are thankfully rare. However 5 people a day die on average on UK roads, and the average investigation and societal cost of a single fatality on the roads is c£2m. Modal shift from road to rail is potentially a way of reducing fatalities and the cost of such.

There's economic benefits to be realised from having cleaner air, less congestion, etc.

These factors usually are discussed when considering capex on new infrastructure or ways of increasing capacity, but not so much on the opex of day to day running of the railway as it is.

Some west European countries have decided that having a higher rate of public transport use is good for their country, whether economically, or in terms of health, environment, personal satisfaction, etc.

 

[Haywain]

However 5 people a day die on average on UK roads, and the average investigation and societal cost of a single fatality on the roads is c£2m. Modal shift from road to rail is potentially a way of reducing fatalities and the cost of such.

But the cost of saving even one of those lives would be enormous.

 

[Falcon1200]

Modal shift from road to rail is potentially a way of reducing fatalities and the cost of such.

An interesting point, but I would have thought the scale of modal shift required to have an appreciable effect on the (agreed, dreadful) scale of road traffic injuries and fatalities would be utterly unmanageable. It has also always seemed to me that when motorists support improved rail services to get people out of their cars, what they mean is get other people out of their cars to make the roads clearer for them!

 

[35B]

An interesting point, but I would have thought the scale of modal shift required to have an appreciable effect on the (agreed, dreadful) scale of road traffic injuries and fatalities would be utterly unmanageable. It has also always seemed to me that when motorists support improved rail services to get people out of their cars, what they mean is get other people out of their cars to make the roads clearer for them!

It would also be interesting to see where those deaths and injuries occur, and how much potential for modal shift to rail there really is.

 

[NeakPed]

Long time lurker who has decided to join in the fun.

I see comments that car owners insurance, VED (or whatever it is called) etc are sunk costs and should not be included in the daily cost of car usage..

Using the same logic, any advance payment for a season ticket is a ‘sunk cost’, as it is paid in advance.
therefore, there is no cost for the daily commute.

 

[styles]

Long time lurker who has decided to join in the fun.

I see comments that car owners insurance, VED (or whatever it is called) etc are sunk costs and should not be included in the daily cost of car usage..

Using the same logic, any advance payment for a season ticket is a ‘sunk cost’, as it is paid in advance.
therefore, there is no cost for the daily commute.

It's also not really 'sunk cost' if it's the households second, third, fourth etc car purchased predominantly for commuting.

If season tickets weren't good value for money compared to the cost of drive commuting and I would save money driving my commute, I'd potentially end up buying a second car again for that purpose.

 

[NeakPed]

It's also not really 'sunk cost' if it's the households second, third, fourth etc car purchased predominantly for commuting.

If season tickets weren't good value for money compared to the cost of drive commuting and I would save money driving my commute, I'd potentially end up buying a second car again for that purpose.

So why is a season ticket considered a daily cost when paid for in advance, but a 1st/2nd/3rd car bought in advance (and paid for) and used on a regular basis is not ?

 

[deltic]

So why is a season ticket considered a daily cost when paid for in advance, but a 1st/2nd/3rd car bought in advance (and paid for) and used on a regular basis is not ?

When I had an annual London travel card I certainly regarded it as costing me nothing for any trip I made after I had paid for it upfront.

 

[styles]

So why is a season ticket considered a daily cost when paid for in advance, but a 1st/2nd/3rd car bought in advance (and paid for) and used on a regular basis is not ?

I wasn't disagreeing with you. Just stating there are also other cases where it isn't really a sunk cost, e.g. when buying a second car for the main purpose of commuting.

 

[AlterEgo]

So why is a season ticket considered a daily cost when paid for in advance, but a 1st/2nd/3rd car bought in advance (and paid for) and used on a regular basis is not ?

Do you drive? If so, is this how you account for the cost of access to your car?

 

[35B]

It's also not really 'sunk cost' if it's the households second, third, fourth etc car purchased predominantly for commuting.

If season tickets weren't good value for money compared to the cost of drive commuting and I would save money driving my commute, I'd potentially end up buying a second car again for that purpose.

It depends on whether you are considering the overall cost of a commute, where the cost of purchasing a(nother) car against a season ticket might be relevant, against an individual journey, where the marginal cost of the journey is key. The comparison goes further. Once I've bought a season ticket, the cost of additional journeys falls - when I had a season into London, theatre or concert trips felt much cheaper than when buying a ticket for the same journey. Likewise, with a car, having made the decision to purchase, the cost of any single trip rarely enters my mind - and frequently I'm more focused on the cost of parking than of the fuel.

 

[styles]

It depends on whether you are considering the overall cost of a commute, where the cost of purchasing a(nother) car against a season ticket might be relevant, against an individual journey, where the marginal cost of the journey is key. The comparison goes further. Once I've bought a season ticket, the cost of additional journeys falls - when I had a season into London, theatre or concert trips felt much cheaper than when buying a ticket for the same journey. Likewise, with a car, having made the decision to purchase, the cost of any single trip rarely enters my mind - and frequently I'm more focused on the cost of parking than of the fuel.

Yes, this is where they are comparable and similar... assuming they are similar costs.

I personally think season ticket pricing is mostly good value when compared to car ownership, running, and parking. Of course I also live in Scotland where peak fares have been reduced to off peak pricing, and season tickets reduced accordingly.

We are currently a one car household and if I needed to commute to say Edinburgh or Glasgow from where I am in Midlothian, buying a second car wouldn't even enter my mind any more.

 

[centraltrains]

My TfWM nTrain season ticket went past the £1000 this year, what gets my goat is the reduced frequency since COVID for the same price... should be paying less if I can't be as flexible as I use to be!

 

[35B]

Yes, this is where they are comparable and similar... assuming they are similar costs.

I personally think season ticket pricing is mostly good value when compared to car ownership, running, and parking. Of course I also live in Scotland where peak fares have been reduced to off peak pricing, and season tickets reduced accordingly.

We are currently a one car household and if I needed to commute to say Edinburgh or Glasgow from where I am in Midlothian, buying a second car wouldn't even enter my mind any more.

That's the point at which economics plays second fiddle to practicality. My current home to office journey is a 1 hour drive, or 10 minutes to the station, two trains (with a 15 minute connection), and then travel to the office. The car wins hands down on that journey - whereas when I've commuted into cities, the hassle of driving in traffic has tipped the balance the other way.

 

[styles]

That's the point at which economics plays second fiddle to practicality. My current home to office journey is a 1 hour drive, or 10 minutes to the station, two trains (with a 15 minute connection), and then travel to the office. The car wins hands down on that journey - whereas when I've commuted into cities, the hassle of driving in traffic has tipped the balance the other way.

Oh absolutely, and public transport will never fully replace the need for cars.

But equally, we moved house to be a 15 minute drive from my patner's work, instead of the 1 hour (or more when people learn they can't drive in the snow and block the bypass) commute before. We chose our house location to be within a reasonable distance of her lab. She cycles when she can, and drives other times. The houses a very short cycle distance from her work wouldn't have met my mum's disability needs for when she visits and the conversion costs would've been too much.

When we lived in London, we chose where to live based on my partner walking to work in about 30 minutes and me cycling to work in about 30 minutes. Didn't need a car, and didn't even need public transport. In that instance, we lived in zone 2, walking distance to zone 1, on the basis that the money we'd save on rent living further out would be wiped out by paying for two Travelcards. This was an example of a 'season ticket' (ok, a TfL Travelcard) not being good enough really. Particularly once you cost your time. But I generally see London as a whole other ball game.

 

[Bletchleyite]

True, but I think that is a consequence of the high cost of rail travel. If it was cheaper to travel by train, minimum wage workers would be able to afford to travel longer distance by train, therefore widening the pool of jobs available to them.

It's not sensible to do that. On pretty much every measure, if a minimum wage job is available locally then it's preferable that that is the one taken if that's the sort of job the person is looking for. Retail and clerical jobs are much of a muchness.

 

[NeakPed]

Do you drive? If so, is this how you account for the cost of access to your car?

Since I finished full-time work, I no longer drive (through choice).
When I was driving, based on fuel costs alone it worked out about £0.12 a mile.
When I took into account the capital outlay (& what I received back when I sold the car), insurance, VED, servicing & repairs etc, this increased to £0.65 a mile.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Since I finished full-time work, I no longer drive (through choice).
When I was driving, based on fuel costs alone it worked out about £0.12 a mile.
When I took into account the capital outlay (& what I received back when I sold the car), insurance, VED, servicing & repairs etc, this increased to £0.65 a mile.

But once again, that's not the way most people look at it. It's not the way I'd look at it either, because it isn't a simple financial comparison, you're valuing stuff like convenience of being able to make a journey immediately if you want to, and so that models more as "monthly cost of ownership plus fuel for each drive" which is how most car owners see it.

Do you have a Railcard? Do you account that per mile too rather than simply accepting the annual cost and vaguely knowing it's cheaper for you than not having one? If you do you're probably in a tiny minority.

 

[miami]

The marginal cost is what makes the choice on the journey (as least as far as price goes)

If you have to have a car to make journeys that public transport can't provide, then you are only looking at marginal cost. A new car excess mileage depreciates at 3p/mile according to an advert I had a few days ago, petrol is in the 10p/mile range, call it 13p for 45mpg. Tyres, brake-pads etc are amortised out at a couple of pence a mile.

20p/mile is a very generous marginal cost for driving. The total cost of the last 8,000 miles in my car, including 3 years of insurance, ridiculously high VED per mile, and petrol, is about 35p per mile assuming the car has no residual value, I do about 3000 miles a year and spent under £2500 on the car, insurance and maintenence plus petrol so far, still get a good 45mpg which is 13p/mile at the moment)

The train is far more expensive than that unless you are doing long distance journeys daily and benefit from the 70% discounts

Rugby-London 27p/mile with a season ticket, 91p/mile for a single journey

Swansea-London 23p/mile with a season ticket, 80p/mile for a single journey

Wilmslow-London (and I've seen someone with a season ticket on that route) - 21p/mile season, 97p/mile walk up.

Carlise-Manchester 20p/mile vs 53p/mile

Shorter journeys have far lower discounts

Hemel-London 40p/mile season, 52p/mile for a single journey is shockingly high.

Uttoxeter to Stoke 26p/mile season, 33p/mile single, Skipton to Leeds 21p/mile // 27p/mile

This is completely the wrong way round, it massively discounts insane daily commutes which can't be done by car, but leaves local commutes far cheaper than by car - even if you live/work within walking distance of the station at each end.

 

[johncrossley]

The primary question to be asked whenever train fares are debated is, "Are people making car journeys because the train fare is too high?" Maybe not if we are talking about season tickets to central London, but most other trips could be done by car.

 

[Watershed]

This is completely the wrong way round, it massively discounts insane daily commutes which can't be done by car, but leaves local commutes far cheaper than by car - even if you live/work within walking distance of the station at each end.

I agree - but your calculations are done based on an assumption of commuting 5 days a week. In reality, I don't think the long-distance Swansea/Wilmslow/Carlisle season tickets you refer to would typically have been used that way, even pre-Covid. Post-Covid, you would likely be looking at 2 or 3 days a week at most - which changes the calculations quite drastically.

 

[A S Leib]

I agree - but your calculations are done based on an assumption of commuting 5 days a week. In reality, I don't think the long-distance Swansea/Wilmslow/Carlisle season tickets you refer to would typically have been used that way, even pre-Covid. Post-Covid, you would likely be looking at 2 or 3 days a week at most - which changes the calculations quite drastically.

It also isn't an unreasonable guess that something like a Basildon to London plus travelcard season ticket would be used for at least six days per week, given the ease of leisure travel, sunk cost (and in this example the need to go that direction to get to most other places).

 

[35B]

It also isn't an unreasonable guess that something like a Basildon to London plus travelcard season ticket would be used for at least six days per week, given the ease of leisure travel, sunk cost (and in this example the need to go that direction to get to most other places).

I'd suggest that's optimistic, and I'd be surprised if monthly usage reached let alone exceeded 20 days in a 28 day month, bearing in mind holidays, working from home, etc.

 

[Haywain]

It also isn't an unreasonable guess that something like a Basildon to London plus travelcard season ticket would be used for at least six days per week, given the ease of leisure travel, sunk cost (and in this example the need to go that direction to get to most other places).

It seems strange to assume that people who have to travel to London on 4 or 5 days a week would want to do so in their time off.

 

[miami]

> The primary question to be asked whenever train fares are debated is, "Are people making car journeys because the train fare is too high?" Maybe not if we are talking about season tickets to central London

Quite. The press always go on about "commuters" as if they're the only rail users.

The country has a limited amount of money to subsidise the railway, so why not just remove the discount which some very high paid commuters will use (those with season tickets to London from Brighton, Swindon, Tamworth etc) and instead reduce the occasional fares to make the train less bad as a marginal choice for the car owner. The solution to high housing costs in London is not 150 mile daily commutes, the subsidy to transport just subsidises businesses in London who can pay lower salaries to people they insist journey to London every day.

> but most other trips could be done by car.

And the railway competes on marginal prices for everyone who owns a car.

I'm going to the panto in February. We could spend £30 on the train (73p per mile, already discounted through a special family 2 adult 2 child ticket), or we could drive the 44 mile round trip which will cost £6 in petrol, £1.30 in extra mileage (on a typical payment car), and £5 to park, well under £15 -- half the train price.

If we were paying the Brighton commuter price (and Brighton certainly has 5x a week commuters) of 17p per mile -- or £7, then the train would make sense, even with the lack of flexibility and longer walk - £7 would be half the price of the car. Even if we had to pay that commuter price for the two adults the price is about the same. That's only because (by then) we'll live within walking distance of the station.

Very few are going to be driving from Brighton to London 5 days a week regardless of the train fares - I don't see why such deep discounts are needed, especially when (traditionally) rush hour commuters cost the most (longer trains, longer platforms, higher frequency as the infrastructure is only needed for a couple of hours a day).

If the goal is to remove car journeys, then subsidise trips outside of big cities and rush hour (which have non-financial benefits to drive to a railhead instead of a city centre), rather than subsidising regular commuters into big cities (who wouldn't want to drive anyway due to the difficulty and cost of parking). We already subsidise half the cost of the journey (farebox revenue and government operational subsidy is about the same - similar to Germany and France), putting the "real" cost of that train to the panto as £60, or £1.40 a mile - 10 times the marginal cost of using my car.

If I could take 4 people on my leisure trip to the panto for 20 miles each way for £10, then that would be cheaper than the marginal cost of the car, and the car is more likely to stay in the drive for that journey (well maybe not if the weather is terrible like now). The train will be pretty much empty anyway, so the marginal cost to the railway is about zero. The only loss to the railway would be less revenue from captive users who would benefit from lower prices. There will be very few of those with kids, certainly outside of major cities, and those that do already have fairly high discounts as they'll no doubt have a railcard, another subsidy for frequent railway users.

Of course even if the number of passenger miles by train doubled, the number of passenger miles by car would barely be affected -- it would reduce about 10%, so trains make no real difference to traffic as a whole, they are there as a distress service for people who can't drive, and to subsidise businesses who want to pay less for their workforce.

Sadly the media like to paint this as "increase subsidies, stop the profits". We already have european levels subsidies of about the same as the fare revenue, and the TOC profit was pretty much insignificant (a £30 ticket would be over £29 even with zero profits - that's not going to change anyone's behaviour).

Trains are simply expensive to run.

 

[Starmill]

So why is a season ticket considered a daily cost when paid for in advance, but a 1st/2nd/3rd car bought in advance (and paid for) and used on a regular basis is not ?

Because your comparison is completely false. The cost of selling a vehicle is significant, it takes a lot of time and paperwork, there are fees, and you have to physically find a willing buyer at the price you want. None of that is a given. An annual season can be refunded for a very low fee in just a few minutes or changed over to a different product. This is a right of contract and can't be taken away. In addition there's a culture of interest free finance for commuting being offered by big employers, which obviously doesn't apply to vehicles where you have to bear the cost of finance yourself. Lastly, train season tickets overwhelmingly don't offer value for money for a marginal journey, because nobody wants to go to their office on a non working day. If the ticket were actually flexible enough to offer journeys elsewhere, such as a D ticket is, then that genuinely does bring in what you say about the marginal cost of a journey on a train being zero. But the marginal cost of most possible train journeys isn't zero if you're not a fares expert.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 14 Nov 2025 ==

> The primary question to be asked whenever train fares are debated is, "Are people making car journeys because the train fare is too high?" Maybe not if we are talking about season tickets to central London

Quite. The press always go on about "commuters" as if they're the only rail users.

The country has a limited amount of money to subsidise the railway, so why not just remove the discount which some very high paid commuters will use (those with season tickets to London from Brighton, Swindon, Tamworth etc) and instead reduce the occasional fares to make the train less bad as a marginal choice for the car owner. The solution to high housing costs in London is not 150 mile daily commutes, the subsidy to transport just subsidises businesses in London who can pay lower salaries to people they insist journey to London every day.

> but most other trips could be done by car.

And the railway competes on marginal prices for everyone who owns a car.

I'm going to the panto in February. We could spend £30 on the train (73p per mile, already discounted through a special family 2 adult 2 child ticket), or we could drive the 44 mile round trip which will cost £6 in petrol, £1.30 in extra mileage (on a typical payment car), and £5 to park, well under £15 -- half the train price.

If we were paying the Brighton commuter price (and Brighton certainly has 5x a week commuters) of 17p per mile -- or £7, then the train would make sense, even with the lack of flexibility and longer walk - £7 would be half the price of the car. Even if we had to pay that commuter price for the two adults the price is about the same. That's only because (by then) we'll live within walking distance of the station.

Very few are going to be driving from Brighton to London 5 days a week regardless of the train fares - I don't see why such deep discounts are needed, especially when (traditionally) rush hour commuters cost the most (longer trains, longer platforms, higher frequency as the infrastructure is only needed for a couple of hours a day).

If the goal is to remove car journeys, then subsidise trips outside of big cities and rush hour (which have non-financial benefits to drive to a railhead instead of a city centre), rather than subsidising regular commuters into big cities (who wouldn't want to drive anyway due to the difficulty and cost of parking). We already subsidise half the cost of the journey (farebox revenue and government operational subsidy is about the same - similar to Germany and France), putting the "real" cost of that train to the panto as £60, or £1.40 a mile - 10 times the marginal cost of using my car.

If I could take 4 people on my leisure trip to the panto for 20 miles each way for £10, then that would be cheaper than the marginal cost of the car, and the car is more likely to stay in the drive for that journey (well maybe not if the weather is terrible like now). The train will be pretty much empty anyway, so the marginal cost to the railway is about zero. The only loss to the railway would be less revenue from captive users who would benefit from lower prices. There will be very few of those with kids, certainly outside of major cities, and those that do already have fairly high discounts as they'll no doubt have a railcard, another subsidy for frequent railway users.

Of course even if the number of passenger miles by train doubled, the number of passenger miles by car would barely be affected -- it would reduce about 10%, so trains make no real difference to traffic as a whole, they are there as a distress service for people who can't drive, and to subsidise businesses who want to pay less for their workforce.

Sadly the media like to paint this as "increase subsidies, stop the profits". We already have european levels subsidies of about the same as the fare revenue, and the TOC profit was pretty much insignificant (a £30 ticket would be over £29 even with zero profits - that's not going to change anyone's behaviour).

Trains are simply expensive to run.

This calculation is exactly the reason I get quite upset by people demanding minor branch lines to small towns be reopened, or by the insistence for political reasons on treating rural routes with next to no demand (such as Preston - Ormskirk) the same as ones to major cities (such as Clitheroe - Manchester).