Annual All-Lines Pass: could it ever work?

[Doctor Fegg]

Several European countries have monthly or annual passes for all railways and buses.

Deutschlandticket: €49/month, doesn't include IC/ICE etc.
General Abonnement (Switzerland): 355CHF/month or 3995CHF pa.
National Train Pass (Portugal): €49/month, regional trains only.
Klimaticket (Austria): €1095pa.

Even the most expensive (Switzerland's) appears to be popular: according to International Railway Journal, half a million people have one. Given that we're supposedly getting a nationalised railway, could this ever work in the UK?

Pricing: in theory the upper bound is the price of an annual ticket anyone is ever likely to buy (i.e. not Berwick–London). That might be Grantham–London at £11k, Bristol–London at £17k, Stafford–London at £16k. You can then justify knocking it down a bit on the basis it would be revenue-positive overall, so you can afford to lose a bit of revenue from the few commuters who do such long distances. But even at £10k it would be prohibitively expensive and unlikely to sell. So...

Validity: you can perhaps get round this by excluding certain services. The All-Line Rover is the obvious model, which limits certain morning peak InterCity services. Alternatively you could consider the German/Portuguese model with "no IC at all", but that's for a €49/month ticket (which would be a big stretch in the UK). It's also less than great for the many stations that only have an IC service, such as much of the GWR network.

My gut feeling is that £6k pa might work with a couple of exclusions into London in the morning peak. But I still worry that might be a bit too expensive to sell more than a handful of passes.

Or does our long-distance commuting culture rule out the economics of any such ticket?

 

[bspahh]

You can get an Anglia Plus season ticket for Norfolk for 7 days (£66.10), a month (£256.20) or a year (£2596.00).

An All Line Rover is £598.00 for 7 days. If this was increased pro rata at the same rate, a 1 month All Line Rover would cost £2317.82 and 1 year one would be £23,485.70

 

[eastwestdivide]

Germany also has the Bahncard 100 at €4550 2nd class - see:

BahnCard 100, 2. Klasse: unbegrenzt reisen und profitieren

Mit der BahnCard 100 profitieren Sie von exklusiven Vorteilen und reisen bundesweit unbegrenzt.

www.bahn.de

 

[JonathanH]

My gut feeling is that £6k pa might work with a couple of exclusions into London in the morning peak. But I still worry that might be a bit too expensive to sell more than a handful of passes.

As already pointed out, £6,000 is less than costs that some passengers are already paying for season tickets, not only into London.

If the tickets exclude travel on key trains into London, what is it really for? We have such significant differentials between peak and off peak ticket costs, and no significant market segmentation that the concept of an all line ticket doesn't really work at any level. From a practical sense, anyone who takes the train just for leisure purposes simply isn't going to amass ticket purchases as high as the market cost of being able to travel with complete flexibility.

Or does our long-distance commuting culture rule out the economics of any such ticket?

Yes, on a practical sense, no one needs access to the whole railway network for the whole year so it isn't worth trying to set a price. The only possible use is for long distance commuting.

Offering this kind of flexibility on a local or limited regional basis is perhaps a more likely use case.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

You can get an Anglia Plus season ticket for Norfolk for 7 days (£66.10), a month (£256.20) or a year (£2596.00).

An All Line Rover is £598.00 for 7 days. If this was increased pro rata at the same rate, a 1 month All Line Rover would cost £2317.82 and 1 year one would be £23,485.70

So round down to encourage the immediate revenue boost - 20000 pounds?

I would have loved one in my earlier years but the best I ever did was a 2 week all line rover in 1984

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

I could see such an annual ticket being viable in Scotland, but not south of Carlisle/Newcastle.
Wales would be hard as the network is not as contained as Scotland, and includes major lines in England.
If GBR is regionalised geographically, it may work in individual regions.
London/NSE is the problem, as it dominates all services and fare structures.

 

[stevieinselby]

As already pointed out, £6,000 is less than costs that some passengers are already paying for season tickets, not only into London.

It would be interesting to know just how many people are paying more than £6,000 a year for a season ticket (or for monthly season tickets when tallied up, I know not everyone will have the cash to buy an annual up front), and how many people are paying more than £6,000 a year for train travel outside season tickets – I suspect the numbers are probably fairly low. That said, it's still considerably more than most people are paying to run a car!

 

[signed]

A SNCF TGV+Intercités All country pass is 830€ a month with 1€ to 1.5€ reservation fee per trip

Seeing how inflated the price is in the UK, I would see a £10k to £15k a year easily

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

I have previously mentioned that there does exist an All Points Season available in an annual version. It is only sold by special application and I think this is now done by the RDG. I did once come across one: the price was not marked on the ticket and the holder was employed by a major charity, evidently their role required a lot of travel all around the country.

Given the extent to which fares are very much subject to commercial forces it's hard to see how a publicly available all-line ticket could be sold at a price which would attract many sales. And there is no sign of there being the political will to price fares in a manner similar to some of our European neighbours.

 

[bspahh]

So round down to encourage the immediate revenue boost - 20000 pounds?

I would have loved one in my earlier years but the best I ever did was a 2 week all line rover in 1984

I just realised that a 14 day All Line Rover is £908.

Pro rata, that would make a 1 month All Line Rover £1759.68 and an annual one £17830.30.

 

[Dr Hoo]

Even eleven years ago, before I retired, I was paying over £6,000 for a Standard Class season and it wasn’t an especially ‘heroic’ journey (no Travelcard either).

 

[JonathanH]

Even eleven years ago, before I retired, I was paying over £6,000 for a Standard Class season and wasn’t an especially ‘heroic’ journey (no Travelcard either).

£6,000 buys a year of about 50 miles of daily travel to and from London by the looks of things at current prices.

I guess that many fewer people have such a season ticket now though due to having the opportunity to work from home.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

I just realised that a 14 day All Line Rover is £908.

Pro rata, that would make a 1 month All Line Rover £1759.68 and an annual one £17830.30.

Round down to 15 grand then possibly?

 

[JonathanH]

Round down to 15 grand then possibly?

But for what purpose? Who is going to buy one, particularly given the restrictions which apply?

As it is, there is barely any point buying a 14-day All Line Rover at £908 unless you are going to spend all day on a train every day for two weeks, because you are much better off concentrating on better value regionalised travel.

52 North West Rovers will set someone back £6,000.

 

[The Prisoner]

An all line annual UK ticket wouldn't be used every week of the year, so you can't just take a price of any given weekly rover and multiply it by 52.

Punters buying a week rover would plan to make the most of it, but those on a year pass couldn't take every week off (or if you were off every week you wouldn't be able to afford the pass in the first place)

If you were going to do a UK ticket you'd make it off peak (just like most regional rovers) and employ some serious economies of scale on the basis that for all but the hardiest bashers the novelty would wear off and it the ticket would become nothing more than a gym subscription - a tolerated expense that you thought you would smash but you pay every month without really using.

I think £100 a month would coin it in. That's maybe 1-2 longish distance journeys per month.

Could also add pre booking with a pin or similar in to make sure the right TOC get's their share of the pie -so selling fresh air off peak and letting people on only long distance services with capacity as well as off peak non reservable services

 

[Rail Quest]

I've not seen any numbers but I have a hypothesis that the rovers mentioned for the countries above presumably have increased the number of people travelling by train in said countries?

If this is the case then a key issue with implementing such a ticket in the UK could be a lack of capacity to satisfy the increased demands it would bring. Whilst capacity isn't an issue on all routes at all times currently, I'd expect such a scheme would lead to many more trains (and indeed stations) far exceeding designed capacity. Could the railways cope with this increased demand currently?

 

[etr221]

Does anyone what the income equivalent (i.e. for tax purposes) of a staff all line pass is? (I assume some people still have such a thing)

Pricing: in theory the upper bound is the price of an annual ticket anyone is ever likely to buy (i.e. not Berwick–London). That might be Grantham–London at £11k, Bristol–London at £17k, Stafford–London at £16k. You can then justify knocking it down a bit on the basis it would be revenue-positive overall, so you can afford to lose a bit of revenue from the few commuters who do such long distances. But even at £10k it would be prohibitively expensive and unlikely to sell. So...

I wonder how how many such high cost tickets are sold (and whether the number has gone down much post-COVID). For such flows does the normal discount (which I assume is how they are priced) over daily tickets still make sense?

Apparently at one point between the wars the booking clerk at Thurso went over backwards - he'd just been asked for an annual season to London - first class, including sleeper supplement. The purchaser wasn't intending to make a daily jouney, just be able to make it without having to worry about buying a ticket each time... (he'd just bought the scrap that had been the Hochseeflotte at the bottom of Scapa Flow, so was going to be making fairly frequent journeys)

I think what needs to be considered when planning such a ticket is why? Who is is it aimed at? What journeys will they be making? (currently, or that we hope they will?)
My thought is that the target market is people who will want to travel around the country a lot, think train option is good, and don't want to be bothered about individual fares. They will want the flexibily of driving, without the hassle of doing so.

Interesting to see what Wikipedia has to say about Bahn100 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BahnCard#BahnCard_100):

BahnCard 100​

The BahnCard 100 allows unlimited travel on the entire Deutsche Bahn network and 109 local public transport networks across Germany. The card itself is valid as a ticket; no additional paper ticket needs to be issued. Sleeper trains are excluded from the card, but can be used for a small surcharge. Since May 2023, the BahnCard 100 includes the Deutschlandticket, and thereby allows the user to use all local public transport networks across Germany.[19]

The BahnCard 100 is aimed at business travellers and heavy train users who make more than 30 long-distance journeys a year. The Bahncard 100 automatically qualifies the passenger for Deutsche Bahn's VIP program called bahn.comfort. Card holders enjoy a number of privileges, like free baggage collection from home, and access to VIP lounges at train stations.

The car sharing service offered by Deutsche Bahn can be used at discounted rates by card holders. Some German employers issue the Bahncard 100 as a substitute for a company car[20] and this function is intended to make the card a more attractive alternative. An electronic key based on RFID technology is integrated into the card, which can be used to unlock carsharing vehicles parked near train stations. Since the RFID chip is automatically included in all cards, not only the ones with carsharing capability, and since the passenger's photograph is printed on the card, it has been criticised for violating privacy rights, and DB received the 2007 Big Brother Award as a result.

It triggers the question: is that an offer that GBR, or the country, wants to make?

 

[Railsigns]

Does anyone what the income equivalent (i.e. for tax purposes) of a staff all line pass is? (I assume some people still have such a thing)

Approximately £2,100 per annum for a silver status pass.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

There used to be, did there not, and annual season ticket "to any BR station" - which is pretty much what this suggestion is.

Does anyone know what it cost - and how that compares in present day terms with the comparative tickets being use above - when it was axed, and if any were ever actually sold?

 

[Bald Rick]

A SNCF TGV+Intercités All country pass is 830€ a month with 1€ to 1.5€ reservation fee per trip

Seeing how inflated the price is in the UK, I would see a £10k to £15k a year easily

That is about €10k a year. (I’ve just looked them up, and it appears to be €890 a month just for TGV, ie over €10k per year). It doesn’t include reservations, which are a nominal fee as you say, but also doesn’t include local or regional journeys if my schoolboy French is correct.

Given that fares in this country are typically more than in France, that puts a GB all line, all services rover somewhere in the region of £15-20k, more likely £1500 a month. I bet there would be some takers, but not many.

Does anyone what the income equivalent (i.e. for tax purposes) of a staff all line pass is? (I assume some people still have such a thing)

It varies, but you probably don’t want to know. However for some staff it comes in place of other beenfits, and the opportunity cost is actually quite high. (By chance I worked out last night that mine has actually cost me over the past couple of decades, and let’s just say that if I‘d not had the travle and saved up the difference I could now have an Aston Martin on the drive)

 

[signed]

but also doesn’t include local or regional journeys if my schoolboy French is correct.

It's TGV and Intercités only yes. It's mainly worth it if you commute over long distances in TGV (quite a few people commute from Tours to Paris a few days a week).

 

[philosopher]

Any such ticket has to be priced at a rate that a fair number of people could buy, but at the same time, given the UK’s government current financial position, it would have to not reduce revenue to the railway.

To me a ticket costing between £50 to £100 a month that allows use of all non intercity services after 09:30 Monday to Friday and all weekend would likely work best. Such a ticket would at price level that many could afford and could generate quite few extra journeys on the railway. Someone buying such a ticket would be incentivised to use the railway quite a bit to make the ticket financially beneficial to them.

Excluding peak time fares and intercity fares should ensure there is sufficient demand for the more lucrative intercity and peak time services. For example, it may be impossible to travel from London to Edinburgh using non intercity services and even if it is possible, it would be very time consuming that only the most hardy traveller would endure.

 

[CyrusWuff]

You can get an Anglia Plus season ticket for Norfolk for 7 days (£66.10), a month (£256.20) or a year (£2596.00).

An All Line Rover is £598.00 for 7 days. If this was increased pro rata at the same rate, a 1 month All Line Rover would cost £2317.82 and 1 year one would be £23,485.70

If you work it out using the normal season ticket multipliers, you get £2296.40 for a Monthly and £23920 for an Annual.

Though I'm guessing such a ticket would probably get a slight reduction if you're paying that much upfront. That'd probably get you down to around £2009.10 for the Monthly and £20928 for the Annual.

 

[30907]

I've not seen any numbers but I have a hypothesis that the rovers mentioned for the countries above presumably have increased the number of people travelling by train in said countries?

Klimaticket: yes, certainly for leisure, and OeBB struggles for rolling stock ATM.
Deutschlandticket: so far little evidence of modal shift, but I believe considerable evidence of abstraction from EC/IC/ICE.
Bahncard 100 (which the OP did not mention) : not sure - it has possibly encouraged long-distance commuting (but that is tax- deductible in DE anyway). Has it provided effective competition vs air or road - our German readers might comment?
Swiss GA: I suspect the biggest factor has been the national transport policy which has increased massively the number of trains in the last 50 years (and the necessary infrastructure); nowhere in Europe compares!

If this is the case then a key issue with implementing such a ticket in the UK could be a lack of capacity to satisfy the increased demands it would bring. Whilst capacity isn't an issue on all routes at all times currently, I'd expect such a scheme would lead to many more trains (and indeed stations) far exceeding designed capacity. Could the railways cope with this increased demand currently?

My guess that there would be some route-specific issues.

 

[skyhigh]

I think £100 a month would coin it in. That's maybe 1-2 longish distance journeys per month.

You'd kill commuter revenue on a lot of routes though assuming no time restrictions.

For example, a monthly season from Leeds to Halifax is £134.40.
Leeds to York £278.10.
St Albans to London Thameslink £421.30.

You'd have to stoke up a lot of demand (assuming there's even capacity for it) to even break even.

 

[jupiter]

You'd kill commuter revenue on a lot of routes though assuming no time restrictions.

For example, a monthly season from Leeds to Halifax is £134.40.
Leeds to York £278.10.
St Albans to London Thameslink £421.30.

You'd have to stoke up a lot of demand (assuming there's even capacity for it) to even break even.

Yes but, what times of day are those tickets valid? One suggestion is a new annual pass would start at 09:30 which seems sensible to me.

 

[JonathanH]

One suggestion is a new annual pass would start at 09:30 which seems sensible to me.

What is the use case for an annual pass that starts at 09:30?

 

[Trainbike46]

Several European countries have monthly or annual passes for all railways and buses.

Deutschlandticket: €49/month, doesn't include IC/ICE etc.
General Abonnement (Switzerland): 355CHF/month or 3995CHF pa.
National Train Pass (Portugal): €49/month, regional trains only.
Klimaticket (Austria): €1095pa.

Even the most expensive (Switzerland's) appears to be popular: according to International Railway Journal, half a million people have one. Given that we're supposedly getting a nationalised railway, could this ever work in the UK?

Pricing: in theory the upper bound is the price of an annual ticket anyone is ever likely to buy (i.e. not Berwick–London). That might be Grantham–London at £11k, Bristol–London at £17k, Stafford–London at £16k. You can then justify knocking it down a bit on the basis it would be revenue-positive overall, so you can afford to lose a bit of revenue from the few commuters who do such long distances. But even at £10k it would be prohibitively expensive and unlikely to sell. So...

Validity: you can perhaps get round this by excluding certain services. The All-Line Rover is the obvious model, which limits certain morning peak InterCity services. Alternatively you could consider the German/Portuguese model with "no IC at all", but that's for a €49/month ticket (which would be a big stretch in the UK). It's also less than great for the many stations that only have an IC service, such as much of the GWR network.

My gut feeling is that £6k pa might work with a couple of exclusions into London in the morning peak. But I still worry that might be a bit too expensive to sell more than a handful of passes.

Or does our long-distance commuting culture rule out the economics of any such ticket?

Germany also offers the Bahncard 100, which covers all trains including IC/ICE and starts at €2988/€4550 per year (standard class, first price under 27, second price over 27) https://www.bahn.de/angebot/bahncard/bahncard100

The netherlands offers "Altijd Vrij", which is €353.80 per month https://www.ns.nl/abonnementen/altijd-vrij



With those comparisons out of the way, there are a few logical ways to set such a ticket price:

- Look at the costs of having a car and driving a LOT, set the price to undercut that, and use the ticket as a way to argue that the railways are cheaper, even if you sell very few of them

- Take the price of the most expensive season ticket that still sells, and replace that season ticket (and any more expensive than that), with all-line passes

- Do an international comparison, and price it based on what similar tickets (altijd vrij, bahncard 100, etc.) cost in other countries

- Take the all-line rover, and scale its price up from weekly to monthly and annual, drop the restrictions


To me it seems these will give rather different answers, which is unfortunate

Tickets that exclude IC services aren't realistic in the UK, as the split between IC/non-IC is rather unclear, and there's quite a few routes and stations with only IC services

 

[paul1609]

It would be interesting to know just how many people are paying more than £6,000 a year for a season ticket (or for monthly season tickets when tallied up, I know not everyone will have the cash to buy an annual up front), and how many people are paying more than £6,000 a year for train travel outside season tickets – I suspect the numbers are probably fairly low. That said, it's still considerably more than most people are paying to run a car!

Given that a plain annual season from Ashford International to St Pancras went over £8000 in the latest fares rise and the trains are full and standing (non HS1 fare is 6748) I imagine theres lots of them.

 

[aavm]

I'd like a daily off peak all lines, including bus, tube ferry and tram at a reasonable price. Something that would actually make it cheaper than driving for a couple or family. Something you could try daily before committing to longer. Here's hoping we have a socialist Government, and Christmas