Season Tickets/Smart Ticketing - Rant

[leejayd]

I get the train from Chester to Northwich twice a week, the odd time three times a week. £10.10 return !!!

It doesn't make sense to buy a season ticket unless I regularly travel 4 times a week and buy a 12 month season ticket. Even then I save £280/yr after paying £1820 up front.

I really have to travel 5 days a week to get the benefit of a season ticket. Even then we have to buy 7 days/week even most people only travel 5 days.

Why do we get accept this? I travel to London occasionally and I have a prepaid Oyster card that gives me the same savings as a regular traveller.

I can understand a company giving discounts for heavy users but the price differential is crazy.

Is this price differential due to the old fashioned season tickets that have to have a fixed expiry date? or are the train companies ripping infrequent travellers off on purpose. I'm assuming it's the latter as a basic scratch card could solve the problem

This makes me ask a second question. What is happening to smart ticketing? Who is responsible for smart ticketing on the regional/national rail network?

Bring in smart ticketing today and reduce the ticketing/cash cost. I feel sorry for poorer people who work part time. The journey I take would be financially prohibitive to them even though the distance is only around 25 miles.

I work in the tech industry and it frustrates me that we're still using the same ticketing technology as we were 20 years ago. Compare this to London and I see the divide between London and the rest of the country getting bigger.

It's crazy that we accept this as consumers. I know as individuals we have little power. Wouldn't it be great if we could co-ordinate collective action to force the train companies to put consumers first (dreaming!)

Apologies for the rant. You can tell how frustrated I am. The crazy thing is that I don't have to get the train. I decided to make an effort to get out of my car for the benefit of the environment.

Is there sign of anything changing? or should I just get back in my car.

Lee

 

[DaveNewcastle]

I understand that a lot of research and study is going into smart ticketing, the options, the systems and the equipment. Its not at all an easy project. In fact its stagerring in its complexity.
It will have to accommodate those small but often busy stations which are only viable because they are unstaffed, busy city terminals, holiday travel, multiple interchanges and small and never busy rural stations. They will have to manage time restrictions, seasons, rovers etc. It will have to accomodate daily commuters, irregular but frequent long distance travellers, brief visitors to the UK, school runs, works outings, staff privelidges, disruption, reversals, circular lines, transfers of reservations from delayed connections and much much more.

It will take time.

As for your decisions to drive a car or take a train, I will simply say that this comparison crops up quite often and it is interesting how people under-estimate the true cost of car use and ownership. We spend much more on our vehicles than we often like to bring into the equation, but if all that expense isn't properly allocated against our travel miles then we're misleading ourselves. Maintenance, garage space, exhausts, batteries, MOTs, washes, radios, seat accessories, finance charges, insurance, Excise Duty, depreciation (maybe even paying to have an old one towed away!), etc.

I calculate that the train is nearly always cheaper.

 

[yorkie]

I really have to travel 5 days a week to get the benefit of a season ticket. Even then we have to buy 7 days/week even most people only travel 5 days.

Seasons should be cheaper in cases like yours, for sure, however there is the option to buy Seasons for any period of one month or greater. It can be worth buying a Season to last for a 5-week block (taking into account Annual Leave, Bank Holidays etc).

For someone who works 5 days/week but who gets Friday 6th April off work, you could get a season commencing Monday 5 March expiring Thursday 5 April (01 Months & 01 Days) priced at £180.70, which works out at £7.53 per working day.

Assuming you have Monday 9th off work too, your next Season could commence Tuesday 10 April and expire Friday 11 May, priced at £186.60, which works out at £7.79 per working day.

(The variation is because there is a fixed price for a calendar month, and then a pro-rata additional cost for extra days. Yes, it's a bit bonkers, and yes it's unfair in February, especially when it's not a leap year, but that's just how it is!)

 

[calc7]

I calculate that the train is nearly always cheaper.

Agreed. Sadly my company's policy for those with a car allowance to take the cheapest form of transport except when going from/to a major conurbation totally forgets the opportunity cost of no work being done whilst in transit. An hour of a member of staff's time, who is being paid, say, £60/hr plus pension et al. can only be realised on the train. Classic bean counting pitfalls.

Thankfully I have no such car allowance.

 

[John55]

"I travel to London occasionally and I have a prepaid Oyster card that gives me the same savings as a regular traveller."

This is not correct. I assume you have a PAYG Oyster. From my local station on the Bexleyheath line an annual season to London is 170 times a peak hour day return trip with Oyster PAYG. This is in the normal range for the ratio of peak day return to annual season ticket. Your Chester to Northwich price ratio is a little higher at 180 times but this is not an unusual variation.

The problem you have is common to any route without a discounted carnet system of discount tickets or similar

 

[leejayd]

I wouldn't mind so much if I could buy a season ticket that covered the days I need to travel. Surely this could be brought in with or without smart tickets.

I can't think of any other service that makes you pay for more than you want or need. Why is the season ticket not available for 5 days. Or 30 days. Fine, 7/30/60 days is also fine if they were actually days that you travel. I know it's always been this way. It just frustrates me that I'm penalised for only getting the train twice a week.

By the way, I calculated the full cost of the car and it was cheaper (including petrol, maintenance, tax, depreciation) - £7.90 compared with £10.10.

The train I get is hardly ever more than 50% full.

The value chain from Customer to Shareholder must be huge with many different players taking a slice of the pie. I suppose this is why we all pay over the odds.

Lee

 

[dvboy]

Zonal tickets are better than point-to-point season tickets.

Although I do the same journey every weekday morning and evening, I can use the same ticket to go anywhere within the West Midlands essentially for free, and its useful for splitting tickets for places just outside too. I quite like the fact that if I fancy a trip to Coventry or Stourbridge or Merry Hill (as it does buses too) on a weekend it doesn't cost me any extra. I'd say I use my season ticket for leisure at least once a week.

At £2.42 a day, or £3.40 a weekday, equivalent it's definitely cheaper than commuting by car as it would cost me that in parking alone, and I suspect it's probably faster.

 

[leejayd]

I looked to buy a zonal ticket but there isn't one that covers my route. Oh well, I'm lucky I have a choice to get the train. I appreciate many people don't have the choice.

I'd get the train more except for the fact I have a 20 min. walk from the station to the office.

 

[transmanche]

Why is the season ticket not available for 5 days.

If it was, it would cost exactly the same as a seven-day ticket.

Most people commute five days a week. So point-to-point weekly seasons are generally priced on the assumption that the holder will make ten journeys a week. (For longer journeys (such as Newcastle-Manchester) they might be priced on the assumption of two or three return journeys in a week.)

 

[leejayd]

if that's the case why are they sold as 7 day tickets?

 

[transmanche]

So you get two days of use free, to use for leisure journeys!

 

[tony_mac]

Season ticket pricing can be a bit weird - in some places 1 journey a week is about the same price as a season, and in others you need to travel 4 times or more.

Where I live, the only seasons available cost more than travelling 5 days a week.

 

[LexyBoy]

It's a mistake to think that "smart ticketing" will magically solve issues like this. It's a problem of the ticketing options available, not the medium in which they are issued. Carnet and limited-day seasons are solutions to situations such as OP's which have been available all along, but which are only offered on a very limited number of routes.

If smart ticketing provides an opportunity for more flexible pricing structures to be offered, then that's great, but I can see a lot of TOCs simply offering the existing range of tickets on a smartcard. The majority of bus operators - who are ahead of TOCs in bringing the technology out - do not offer anything with a smartcard which couldn't be achieved using paper tickets.

 

[AlterEgo]

It should be noted that franchises are now being invited for tender with a mandatory requirement to implement Smart Ticket systems, notably ITSO.

I won't bore you with the detail, but you can see for yourself on Page 34 of the following link, which is the actual Invitation to Tender for the Intercity West Coast franchise:

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rc...sg=AFQjCNGCRXR-GUm1Dbr9Azv3adQghCZV_Q&cad=rja

 

[Seacook]

I can't think of any other service that makes you pay for more than you want or need.

Lee

Mobile phone contracts can be like this. And cable/satellite TV - pay for 50 channels to get the three you watch. Or Vehicle Excise Duty - you must pay for a year even if you only drive on Sundays.

Gym membership is notorious.

These are all sharp practice. TOCs are not unique in their methods.

 

[AlterEgo]

Sorry, but I really don't see how a season ticket is sharp practice at all. A seven day ticket is much, much better value than five Anytime Returns and therefore represents a significant saving.

According to your logic, it wouldn't be sharp practice to pay the same amount and the ticket only be valid for five days.

Some people are so cynical!

 

[Seacook]

Sorry, but I really don't see how a season ticket is sharp practice at all. A seven day ticket is much, much better value than five Anytime Returns and therefore represents a significant saving.

According to your logic, it wouldn't be sharp practice to pay the same amount and the ticket only be valid for five days.

Some people are so cynical!

Assuming you are replying to me, I did not express things very well. I was pointing at other companies which tie prices to options including stuff you may not want, while the services you do want cannot obtained separately at an appropriately lower price. This is the sharp practice. Lee had said that no other industry charged for services that you do not want. I was trying to refute that.

 

[AlterEgo]

Ah right - in which case I got the wrong end of the stick!