Blatant media plug for Open Access in "The Independent"

[Taunton]

Rather a media plug by presumably an Open Access PR person in The Independent extolling all the supposed disadvantages these poor operators are somehow subjected to financially, without mentioning any of the upsides.

MSN

Here in the UK, open access firms also run trains to destinations that state-run train operators choose not to serve direct – such as Hartlepool, just three hours from London by Grand Central

Then there’s the railcard requirement ...This arrangement makes a mockery of the fine art of yield management: extracting the most from every traveller while filling every seat. Grand Central, Lumo and Hull Trains might set a price of £60 for a ticket, only to find that those of us lucky enough to qualify for a railcard can buy it for just £40.

You have to know a bit about the overall industry to see it's pretty one sided. It's apparently "unfair" that the ECML Open Access operators have to pay a sales commission to GNER for sales on the latter's website. I would have thought, for a freely provided further ticket distribution channel, that was pretty welcome. But no mention of the tremendous upside they get from doing a revenue Orcats Raid on the existing LNER substantial flows from say York to London, while all the publicity says how wonderful they are at providing a novel service from Hartlepool. As here.

 

[geoffk]

What effect will the creation of GBR have on Orcats raids?

 

[JamesT]

Rather a media plug by presumably an Open Access PR person in The Independent extolling all the supposed disadvantages these poor operators are somehow subjected to financially, without mentioning any of the upsides.

MSN

You have to know a bit about the overall industry to see it's pretty one sided. It's apparently "unfair" that the ECML Open Access operators have to pay a sales commission to GNER for sales on the latter's website. I would have thought, for a freely provided further ticket distribution channel, that was pretty welcome. But no mention of the tremendous upside they get from doing a revenue Orcats Raid on the existing LNER substantial flows from say York to London, while all the publicity says how wonderful they are at providing a novel service from Sunderland.

The byline is Simon Calder, who is a fairly longstanding travel journalist. Though I would have hoped he would have been aware that Arriva haven't been owned by Deutsche Bahn for almost a year now!

What effect will the creation of GBR have on Orcats raids?

Nobody knows, the Government hasn't said how GBR is going to work. However, given Open Access will continue to exist, there will have to continue to be some manner of allocating revenue to operators. Which may look exactly like Orcats or not, but could well be gamed as Orcats is now.

 

[Dr Hoo]

You have to know a bit about the overall industry to see it's pretty one sided. It's apparently "unfair" that the ECML Open Access operators have to pay a sales commission to GNER for sales on the latter's website. I would have thought, for a freely provided further ticket distribution channel, that was pretty welcome. But no mention of the tremendous upside they get from doing a revenue Orcats Raid on the existing LNER substantial flows from say York to London, while all the publicity says how wonderful they are at providing a novel service from Hartlepool. As here.

In these days of single-operator and advance tickets what proportion of (say) London-York tickets/revenue is actually still divided using ORCATS? Is it actually evident that whatever the share is, it is somehow disproportionately in Grand Central’s favour rather than a ‘fair share’ or even favouring LNER?

 

[Bertie the bus]

I think these days ORCATS raid shouldn't be taken too literally. It is a just phrase that is a bit catchier than revenue abstraction. Whichever you call it, and however revenue is distributed, it all amounts to taking revenue from the established, government funded TOC.

 

[TheManBehind]

The article reads a bit oddly, to be honest.

Such is the madness of Britain’s open access regulations that state-run operators like LNER must sell tickets on rival firms such as Grand Central – and vice versa. Because I bought while LNER was offering a five per cent cashback deal on any train ticket purchases, I saved a few pounds. Handy for me, unhelpful for Grand Central.

Seeing as LNER offer and pay for the cashback, I would suggest that it's more helpful for GC - they're more likely to sell a ticket if a customer is able to piggy-back another operator's special offer, surely! Sure, GC will inevitably have to surrender part-payment to LNER for the retailing fee, but this is standard across the industry for every operator that runs a booking engine.

This arrangement makes a mockery of the fine art of yield management: extracting the most from every traveller while filling every seat. Grand Central, Lumo and Hull Trains might set a price of £60 for a ticket, only to find that those of us lucky enough to qualify for a railcard can buy it for just £40.

They're well within their rights to add their trains to the "not valid on" list for railcards, surely?

Suggesting that passengers should pay more at the ticket office than online is deeply controversial – as is my belief that open access companies should be able to eliminate the half-price for children practice if they so wish.

Not that controversial. Online-only tickets have been done before, and so have operator-only tickets - GC, Lumo and HT could relatively easily withdraw their tickets from general sale and have them on their own booking engines (in the grand scheme of things) - the reason they don't is because you sell a lot more by letting people use Trainline and NRES, and simply paying any retail fees (which are already likely baked into the cost for OAOs).

All of this is relevant because Grand Central has revealed a cunning plan to launch trains from Newcastle to Brighton in December 2026.

Ah, that'll be the reason for the article then...

 

[Dr Hoo]

I think these days ORCATS raid shouldn't be taken too literally. It is a just phrase that is a bit catchier than revenue abstraction. Whichever you call it, and however revenue is distributed, it all amounts to taking revenue from the established, government funded TOC.

With record levels of demand for LNER, frequently very well loaded trains in my experience, even more LNER services being added this year, and more rolling stock being ordered despite having been sharing the ECML with open access for 25 years now it is far from obvious to me that material numbers of passengers, especially to/from destinations ‘off route’ have actually been ‘taken’ as distinct from generated/switched from other modes.

 

[Scanderina]

What an odd article. Ticket retailers showing every fare for every operator is clearly pro-passenger, as is the knowledge that railcards are widely accepted across different operators' services. If the inverse was true I suspect he might be railing against it.

 

[Class15]

What does ORCATS stand for please? I’m seeing this acronym everywhere and I have no idea what it means I’m afraid!

 

[TheManBehind]

What does ORCATS stand for please? I’m seeing this acronym everywhere and I have no idea what it means I’m afraid!

Operational Research Computerised Allocation of Tickets to Services - a fun collection of words if you ask me. Effectively, it manages the allocation of money to operators per ticket bought, which is primarily managed by the number of vehicles each operator runs over a route on a day (although other factors play a part, e.g. valid alternative routings). The role used to be managed by the Railway Clearing House, which I've still heard used around the place!

 

[Class15]

Operational Research Computerised Allocation of Tickets to Services - a fun collection of words if you ask me. Effectively, it manages the allocation of money to operators per ticket bought, which is primarily managed by the number of vehicles each operator runs over a route on a day (although other factors play a part, e.g. valid alternative routings). The role used to be managed by the Railway Clearing House, which I've still heard used around the place!

Thank you, much appreciated!

 

[coppercapped]

Operational Research Computerised Allocation of Tickets to Services - a fun collection of words if you ask me. Effectively, it manages the allocation of money to operators per ticket bought, which is primarily managed by the number of vehicles each operator runs over a route on a day (although other factors play a part, e.g. valid alternative routings). The role used to be managed by the Railway Clearing House, which I've still heard used around the place!

It was developed by BR as a way of allocating revenue to different service groups taking into account possible routings between, say, Intercity and local services between the starting and end points. Essentially it estimated the chances of the ticket holder using a particular set of services for a journey based on journey time, frequency, the number of changes and so on and allocated revenue accordingly. It was never intended to be 100% accurate but was sufficiently good for a monolithic organisation. I am not aware that it had anything to do with the Railway Clearing House.

Added in edit: The RCH was dissolved in 1955, a long time before ORCATS.

 

[Adam Williams]

Seeing as LNER offer and pay for the cashback

You mean the taxpayer, I presume? Given that it exceeds the retail commission level.

 

[TheManBehind]

It was developed by BR as a way of allocating revenue to different service groups taking into account possible routings between, say, Intercity and local services between the starting and end points. Essentially it estimated the chances of the ticket holder using a particular set of services for a journey based on journey time, frequency, the number of changes and so on and allocated revenue accordingly. It was never intended to be 100% accurate but was sufficiently good enough for a monolithic organisation. I am not aware that it had anything to do with the Railway Clearing House.

Only in the sense that RCH carried out the function of splitting revenue initially (followed by BRB, then ORCATS).

You mean the taxpayer, I presume? Given that it exceeds the retail commission level.

Well yes, insofar that they will have had to provide a positive ROI business case to the DfT to do it, so in theory it's at benefit to the taxpayer rather than a cost.

 

[alistairlees]

Well yes, insofar that they will have had to provide a positive ROI business case to the DfT to do it, so in theory it's at benefit to the taxpayer rather than a cost.

Good sense of humour there!

 

[yorkie]

What does ORCATS stand for please? I’m seeing this acronym everywhere and I have no idea what it means I’m afraid!

It's an archaic term that is often misused. It would be far better if people explained what they actually meant in simple plain language!

 

[BlueLeanie]

This comes round time and time again.

Will any MP, travel writer, or even the OP demand that the Jacobite is banned in order that ScotRail can use the path to run a two coach 156 instead?

It's an open access service that's blatantly plugged all year round by influencers, travel writers, and beyond.

(I'm also prepared to guarantee that if an OA/Tour company were to operate a daily steam hauled special this summer between Oxford and Bletchley as party of the Victory 80 celebration, almost every single person who whines on these forums about OA operators would be getting themselves booked on it.)

 

[zwk500]

This comes round time and time again.

Will any MP, travel writer, or even the OP demand that the Jacobite is banned in order that ScotRail can use the path to run a two coach 156 instead?

It's an open access service that's blatantly plugged all year round by influencers, travel writers, and beyond.

(I'm also prepared to guarantee that if an OA/Tour company were to operate a daily steam hauled special this summer between Oxford and Bletchley as party of the Victory 80 celebration, almost every single person who whines on these forums about OA operators would be getting themselves booked on it.)

Conventional Open Access Operators (i.e. ones that operate advertised public services) are distinct from Charter operators. The Jacobite is a private charter train operated by a Charter TOC.

 

[BlueLeanie]

Conventional Open Access Operators (i.e. ones that operate advertised public services) are distinct from Charter operators. The Jacobite is a private charter train operated by a Charter TOC.

Not true. The Jacobite is an Open Access Operator, and was the first Open Access Operator post-privatisation.

The Open Access licence is here.

https://www.orr.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2023-12/pr23-december-2023-review-notice-open-access-passenger-operator-ta-agreements.pdf

 

[357]

Conventional Open Access Operators (i.e. ones that operate advertised public services) are distinct from Charter operators. The Jacobite is a private charter train operated by a Charter TOC.

The Jacobite is an advertised public service that is not a one-off or anything.

It's an open access service.

 

[zwk500]

Not true. The Jacobite is an Open Access Operator, and was the first Open Access Operator post-privatisation.

The Open Access licence is here.

https://www.orr.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2023-12/pr23-december-2023-review-notice-open-access-passenger-operator-ta-agreements.pdf

The Jacobite is an advertised public service that is not a one-off or anything.

It's an open access service.

Fair enough, I'm out of date from when I planned it into the timetable as a West Coast service.

 

[Bald Rick]

What effect will the creation of GBR have on Orcats raids?

Between GBR ”TOCs”, there won’t be any ‘ORCATS raids’. I’d also expect most TOC specific tickets to go, not least because I expect most TOCs to fo.

Between GBR and non-GBR TOCs it will still be a thing, but of course less of an issue as the major non GBR TOCs don’t really compete except in a few areas. Given the current noises from Government, I’d also expect OA to be on a somewhat tighter leash.

My views only.

As an aside, I did my first ORCATS assurance checks in 1993, and found (to my then boss’ extreme annoyance) that the allocation to my ‘profit centre’ was correct.

 

[Dr Hoo]

As a former

Between GBR ”TOCs”, there won’t be any ‘ORCATS raids’. I’d also expect most TOC specific tickets to go, not least because I expect most TOCs to fo.

Between GBR and non-GBR TOCs it will still be a thing, but of course less of an issue as the major non GBR TOCs don’t really compete except in a few areas. Given the current noises from Government, I’d also expect OA to be on a somewhat tighter leash.

My views only.

As an aside, I did my first ORCATS assurance checks in 1993, and found (to my then boss’ extreme annoyance) that the allocation to my ‘profit centre’ was correct.

As a former Service Group Manager in late BR days I am well aware that the actual allocation of revenue to individual Service Codes under ORCATS was very important for decision taking. Not just between Intercity and ScotRail or betweeen ‘Regional Railways, ScotRail’ and Strathclyde Transport.

I remain concerned that GBR will emerge as just one big bucket of revenue and one (much larger) bucket of costs with very little idea of which bits are the most profitable or in need of greatest ongoing financial support.

 

[Bald Rick]

I remain concerned that GBR will emerge as just one big bucket of revenue and one (much larger) bucket of costs with very little idea of which bits are the most profitable or in need of greatest ongoing financial support.

There’s already a lot of work going on in terms of line of route accounts.

 

[Clarence Yard]

Operational Research Computerised Allocation of Tickets to Services - a fun collection of words if you ask me. Effectively, it manages the allocation of money to operators per ticket bought, which is primarily managed by the number of vehicles each operator runs over a route on a day (although other factors play a part, e.g. valid alternative routings). The role used to be managed by the Railway Clearing House, which I've still heard used around the place!

The number of vehicles doesn’t have anything to do with it. It’s amazing how much revenue I used to get with a well placed cl.150 unit, back in the day.

The total revenue is divided first by flow and ticket type and then it reads the timetable off a demand profile and train start and finish times to allocate the revenue to operator, the % results for that flow being fixed throughout a timetable period.

This allocation process only works for inter-available revenue. Dedicated goes 100% to that particular operator or operators in the case of joint dedicated tickets.

Most key intercity flows are overwhelmingly dedicated these days so ORCATS raiding is now very much in the past. An OA operator now has to compete on price and/or service to get its revenue.

I suspect GBR will allocate its revenue to service group much in the way that BR used to.

 

[Dr Hoo]

The number of vehicles doesn’t have anything to do with it. It’s amazing how much revenue I used to get with a well placed cl.150 unit, back in the day.

Ah yes! A 2-car Class 158 shortly before an HST between Aberdeen and Edinburgh was an amazing revenue earner .

 

[Brubulus]

Are there still any major or well known non open access services that effectively exist for the sole purpose of ORCATS raiding instead of providing an actual service. I'd have guessed many of these would have disappeared during COVID, but some must remain.

 

[Harpo]

The byline is Simon Calder, who is a fairly longstanding travel journalist.

A man who I’d listen to on airlines, package holidays etc..

I don’t think we will see him writing in Modern Railways.

 

[Trainbike46]

This article is so weird - is he seriously suggesting that the OAOs would prefer if no TOCs or third-party retailers sold their tickets? I'd imagine their sales would be a lot lower if they did that! As a passenger, that (almost) all operators are available from all retailers is an advantage.

The article also seems to assume that whatever airlines are doing is correct, whithout ever explaining why it is correct in the case of the railway industry.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

A man who I’d listen to on airlines, package holidays etc..
I don’t think we will see him writing in Modern Railways.

Simon is a well-travelled and rail-friendly journalist, home and abroad.
He's entitled to pick the good and bad in the current regulatory setup, and show the paradoxes that result.
He is also on the side of the average passenger rather than the corporate bodies (or enthusiasts), and doesn't get involved in promotional freebies like some of the media.

Wherever GBR puts its profit centres, be they geographic regions, business sectors or individual routes, there will be friction over the allocation of costs, revenue and general operational policies.
BR was never really a homogeneous body, and over they years it fragmented itself into multiple railways based on business sectors.
GBR has the task of returning to something like that structure, but there will still be some sharp edges.
You can still see the BR sector boundaries with the Network Card area which was invented by Network South East.