Companies setting fares for competitors.

[Andrew Nelson]

"Leeds - Doncaster fares are set by East Coast and tend to reflect Intercity prices. Leeds - Sheffield fares are set by Northern and tend to reflect lower local prices."

Why, if I am getting a Leeds to Doncaster Service with Northern, stopping at all Stations, why should I be charged at Intercity prices...?

Surely there should be not EC of XT available cheaper to reflect the longer journey times etc. Or a Northern Only.

 

[cuccir]

"Leeds - Doncaster fares are set by East Coast and tend to reflect Intercity prices. Leeds - Sheffield fares are set by Northern and tend to reflect lower local prices."

Why, if I am getting a Leeds to Doncaster Service with Northern, stopping at all Stations, why should I be charged at Intercity prices...? .

It's a bit unfair, but is the same across the country. Distances of similar length are priced differently based purely on the operator. It's why (chosen at random because I know the area) the cheapest walk-on return fare between Manchester Picadilly and Penrith is £39.10 (priced, I presume, by Virgin), but the cheapest between Manchester Picadilly and Barrow-in-Furness is £27.50 (priced by TransPennine Express). The price difference between the anytime fares is even greater (£67 v £35.50) and the first class difference is madness (£137 v £69.40).

The only real argument in favour of some price difference from a customer end is the quality of trains that you use - in your example of Leeds to Doncaster/Sheffield, some might argue that the £3 more that you pay to go Doncaster is worth it because of the trains being more pleasant, the ability to purchase coffee on board, etc. Of course if you don't want these features, you still have to pay for them, and if you take a Northern Rail train to Doncaster anyway then you don't get them but still pay for them!

Surely there should be not EC of XT available cheaper to reflect the longer journey times etc. Or a Northern Only .

It's up to Northern to set that fare. Presumably if there was a business case for doing so then they would.

 

[brompton rail]

"Leeds - Doncaster fares are set by East Coast and tend to reflect Intercity prices. Leeds - Sheffield fares are set by Northern and tend to reflect lower local prices."

Why, if I am getting a Leeds to Doncaster Service with Northern, stopping at all Stations, why should I be charged at Intercity prices...?

Surely there should be not EC of XT available cheaper to reflect the longer journey times etc. Or a Northern Only.

Well, actually there is .......
Doncaster - Leeds SDR is £ 11.40 all day.
Doncaster - South Elmsall is £ 3.10 SDR (£ 2.50 CDR)
South Elmsall - Leeds is £ 6.30 SDR (£ 4.50 CDR)
giving a total of £ 9.40 SDR or £ £ 7.00 CDR.

Of course if you are starting elsewhere in South Yorkshire and / or further in West Yorkshire combinations of South Yorkshire Travelmaster and West Yorkshire Day Rover might offer better value.
Regular commuters tend to buy Season Tickets for the split. Note you cannot combine WY and SY tickets to travel without the train calling at South Elmsall (I.e. NOT using EC trains)

Mind you the Northern journey is longer and their trains are only hourly compared to East Coast's twice hourly service.

You pays your money and takes your choice.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Oh! And by the way, I think you will find that the local fares are set by SYPTE and WY PTE rather than Northern.

 

[Andrew Nelson]

Well, actually there is .......
Doncaster - Leeds SDR is £ 11.40 all day.
Doncaster - South Elmsall is £ 3.10 SDR (£ 2.50 CDR)
South Elmsall - Leeds is £ 6.30 SDR (£ 4.50 CDR)
giving a total of £ 9.40 SDR or £ £ 7.00 CDR.

Of course if you are starting elsewhere in South Yorkshire and / or further in West Yorkshire combinations of South Yorkshire Travelmaster and West Yorkshire Day Rover might offer better value.
Regular commuters tend to buy Season Tickets for the split. Note you cannot combine WY and SY tickets to travel without the train calling at South Elmsall (I.e. NOT using EC trains)

Mind you the Northern journey is longer and their trains are only hourly compared to East Coast's twice hourly service.

You pays your money and takes your choice.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Oh! And by the way, I think you will find that the local fares are set by SYPTE and WY PTE rather than Northern.

I was (note the Quotation marks) quoting sombody elses statement from a previous thread, re Northern setting fares.

However, there used to be a consession on slower Trains that was removed a while back.

 

[Solent&Wessex]

Oh! And by the way, I think you will find that the local fares are set by SYPTE and WY PTE rather than Northern.

I cannot comment on SYPTE, but in the case of WYPTE this is no longer the case.

I had a discussion with a contact at WYPTE last year as regards the horrendous anamolies on local fares in West Yorkshire. My contact at Metro advised me that whilst WYPTE sets the prices for all the assorted Metrocard and Day Rover products, as well as the concessionary flat fare, the basic rail fares are set by Northern. And whilst WYPTE may be able to offer influence and set general fares policy, they do not actually set the fares themselves.

One of the problems that has sprung up over the years with the different operators fare policies is that many have not considered the routing implications. For example, Halifax to Manchester is Rte Any Permitted. The fare is set by Northern, and as per the routeing guide is valid via Huddersfield. Yet it is cheaper than the Huddersfield to Manchester fares set by TPE. The reason, I suspect is that Northern have considered the fare in relation to the other fares to and from Manchester from calder valley line stations - as before the Brighouse link reopened this would be the only way. Then the Brighouse link reopened and that way became valid to get to Manchester, but the fare was never adjusted accordingly - even though in BR days the fare from Huddersfield was higher than the Halifax fare to begin with. This is what has led to the many anomolies that we now find.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Some fares setting issues are caused by route restrictions being removed. Not that long ago there used to be two sets of fares for Leeds to York. 1 set, the cheaper, was Rte Direct, the other more expensive was Rte Harrogate. The Burley Park to York fare was unrouted, but was the same as the more expensive rte Harrogate from Leeds. Thus if you went via Harrogate you paid the same as if you went from Leeds, If you went via Leeds you paid the same as going via Harrogate, but more than passengers starting the journey at Leeds - which seemed fairly fair.

Then the Rte Harrogate fare was removed, and over time the Leeds to York fare set by TPE is now more than the Burley park to york fare set by Northern. Yet the Burley Park fare is now valid via Leeds. So, in this case keeping the Rte restriction in place would have been fairer all round. From Burley Park you could offer a cheaper fare via harrogate if you wished, while retaining the higher fare for going via Leeds.

 

[yorkie]

kwvr45 - an interesting post, thanks

But, let's face it, Northern just do lower price increases than TPE / East Coast, perhaps because they don't want to rip customers off quite so much

Would I want the system changed? Not really, because I know exactly what would happen: the reasonably priced tickets would INCREASE in price in order to avoid undercutting the scandalously high priced tickets. In my view, the cheaper tickets are "correct" and the higher priced tickets are only for people who don't know the system, in effect having knowledge is a bit like having a railcard - you get varying percentages off your journey, depending on how much you know and what journey you are making

Five people did York - Huddersfield yesterday. None were ripped off Three went by car to Garforth (and got to Garforth in LESS time from west York as it would take to get to York station by car) and two bought tickets to Halifax, they paid a fare that can be considered acceptable (the fare to Huddersfield is unacceptably high).

 

[ashworth]

I complete agree Yorkie.
It ought to be good to be able share information in these forums about all these cheap journeys that are available by playing the system so that other people can also enjoy them.
However, I am beginning to keep quiet about some that I know about and use regularly, because sometimes if there is too much publicity they tend to quickly disappear.