2019 fares yet on system?

[greatkingrat]

Seems to be, the 2nd cheapest (Lichfield City to Lichfield TV) is having a rather large increase from £164 to £180.

 

[Hadders]

I checked the usual suspects:

Newhaven Town-Newhaven Harbour
Pevensey Bay-Pevensey & Westerham
Lichfield Trent Valley-Lichfield City
Ryde Esplanade-Ryde St Johns Road

And all are more expensive than Hatton-Lapworth. So unless there another short distance season that suddenly gets reduced in price Hatton-Lapworth will continue to be the cheapest season ticket qualifying for Gold Card status.

 

[infobleep]

It will probably take someone with access to the industry fares data to confirm it. Once RDG updates the fares data package currently uploaded on their website (they unfortunately usually only tend to do this around a month after each fares round), I can confirm it authoritatively.

However it seems highly likely to me, as all of the TOCs are applying the maximum permitted increases of 3.1%, and it would take a significant manual price cut for any other route to be cheaper. Such a price cut would presumably have been announced to 'counteract' the bad PR of the price increase.

Not all fare increases have been 3.1% by my calculations, assuming they are correct.

 

[MikeWh]

Not all fare increases have been 3.1% by my calculations, assuming they are correct.

They won't be. Fares can only be increased by multiples of 10p which makes applying a specific percentage difficult, especially when under £10.

 

[infobleep]

They won't be. Fares can only be increased by multiples of 10p which makes applying a specific percentage difficult, especially when under £10.

Good point. I do know of fares more than £10 where its not 3.1%.

 

[MikeWh]

Good point. I do know of fares more than £10 where its not 3.1%.

Hence "especially". The higher the base fare the easier it is to get close to the required percentage.

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

Hence "especially". The higher the base fare the easier it is to get close to the required percentage.

Is it possible for increases to be above the set RPI rate year-on-year due to rounding, leading to the fare gradually increasing faster than RPI, or is that barred somehow? I know under the first fares regulation scheme, it wasn't an annual cap but a consecutive cap over the pre-privatisation fares, which would have prevented just this. Is such a cap still active in the background?

 

[infobleep]

Hence "especially". The higher the base fare the easier it is to get close to the required percentage.

So do they try to get all fares to be around 3.1%? I thought some were higher and others lower but I might be wrong about that.

 

[MikeWh]

So do they try to get all fares to be around 3.1%? I thought some were higher and others lower but I might be wrong about that.

If 3.1% is the target level then they'll do the calculation. The result has to be rounded up or down to the nearest 10p. Some will end up with a lower increase, others will be higher. The higher the original fare is the less effect rounding to 10p has.