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Not having any form of affordable flexible fare (not even the 70 Minute one) needs kicking firmly into the long grass. And Avanti Anytimes are punitive in their level compared to LNER's which are just a bit pricey.
The one thing I see as sensible there is that the present Advance fare is a semi flexible fare and is better called that than Fixed, which it isn't (you can change it).
Not having any form of affordable flexible fare (not even the 70 Minute one) needs kicking firmly into the long grass. And Avanti Anytimes are punitive in their level compared to LNER's which are just a bit pricey.
The one thing I see as sensible there is that the present Advance fare is a semi flexible fare and is better called that than Fixed, which it isn't (you can change it).
It looks like the market will be segmented into three types of railway.
Intercity services, where the LNER trial closely follows what RDG proposed in their 'easier fares for all' consultation.
Short distance journeys, where the direction of Oval, Manchester, and other PAYG structures are clear with single leg peak and off-peak pricing, with standardised pre-0930 and 1600-1900 peak windows
That leaves 'regional' journeys where neither approach quite works, but there seems to be a desire to price more closely to demand.
The actual train services aren't neatly segmented into three groups though. There's an incredibly long list of trains that fulfil more than one role, and doing it otherwise would make for a very inefficient railway. An example I recently discovered is between Pau and Lourdes in southern France, where there's 18 trains a day but since the three types of train services have totally unintegrated fares systems, in reality you're looking at 3 hours waits between most services if you want some flexibility.
Unless we want that malarkey, then such a fares system will not be possible without keeping the existing ticketing system just as complex - a London-Reading-Cornwall GWR service or a London-Cambridge-King's Lynn GTR service can be both a long-distance IC, a regional service, and a commuter train depending on what journey the passenger is making, and having different ticketing systems for the same train service depending on the origin & destination knocks out current peak/off-peak system out of the park in terms of complexity.
Lumo only operate to a limited number of stations a few times a day. Any more than that and they would no longer be so profitable and therefore couldn't offer such cheap fares. I can definitely see Lumo WC's (or shall we say Lumo No-WC) ridership increasing if Avanti joins the sham trial but given the limited capacity on the trains there would still be no consistent way of travelling affordably down the WCML, as there'd be two kinds of lotteries: the lottery for cheap Avanti advances, and the lottery to get any seat at all on Lumo.
Yes, there are LumoFlex tickets, but I think there's a good chance of those being scrapped (or massively raised in price) too since it would lead to overcrowding on their services on days when Avanti prices are sky high. FirstGroup doesn't strike me as the kind of company to approve keeping flex fares as an excellent publicity move, they'd probably be thrilled at the option to move to de-facto mandatory reservations.
Lumo only operate to a limited number of stations a few times a day. Any more than that and they would no longer be so profitable and therefore couldn't offer such cheap fares. I can definitely see Lumo WC's (or shall we say Lumo No-WC) ridership increasing if Avanti joins the sham trial but given the limited capacity on the trains there would still be no consistent way of travelling affordably down the WCML, as there'd be two kinds of lotteries: the lottery for cheap Avanti advances, and the lottery to get any seat at all on Lumo.
Or the 3rd type where people book further afield than where they actually want to go, to a station outside the fare hike trial. Especially if it's rail staff travelling.
Similar to what happens on LNER, want to travel to Newcastle from London then book to *place name hidden*
The actual train services aren't neatly segmented into three groups though. There's an incredibly long list of trains that fulfil more than one role, and doing it otherwise would make for a very inefficient railway.
Yes, they aren't but that is where this TPE trial may be instructive. If it is between Liverpool and Cleethorpes as suggested then that is a route that combines short and longer distance flows.
Liverpool South Parkway to Liverpool Lime Street, or Stockport to Manchester Piccadilly, or Meadowhall to Sheffield are always going to remain short hop walk up fares. The question is whether alongside those walk up journeys, a different structure can apply for the longer journeys.
Unless we want that malarkey, then such a fares system will not be possible without keeping the existing ticketing system just as complex - a London-Reading-Cornwall GWR service or a London-Cambridge-King's Lynn GTR service can be both a long-distance IC, a regional service, and a commuter train depending on what journey the passenger is making,
Essentially I think you do end up with a different structure depending on the length of journey, not the type of train service. To most users, this sort of thing is how people think of train journeys already.
having different ticketing systems for the same train service depending on the origin & destination knocks out current peak/off-peak system out of the park in terms of complexity.
I think the missing link could well be the necessity to validate a ticket at the origin and destination of the journey, removing any ability to split tickets without getting off and on the train. The railway would see this as the ultimate simplification. Essentially you only travel between the points set out on the ticket, no ifs, no buts. This is already true of the LNER trial, as advance and 70-minute flexible journeys aren't valid for break of journey, and appears likely to be the case for day-flex. It is similarly true for London-style PAYG. How far is the railway prepared to go towards restricting flexibility to enact its view of 'easier' fares?
Essentially I think you do end up with a different structure depending on the length of journey, not the type of train service. To most users, this sort of thing is how people think of train journeys already.
Does a single oither country do that, ignoring the effects of Verbund fares covering a specific urban area which is common in Germanic countries (of which the UK sort of is one)? I'm not sure it does.
The dogged unwillingness to reintroduce train categories (despite that BR invented probably the most famous of them worldwide, InterCity) is always going to cause a level of confusion here. I think people could easily understand "InterCity trains are compulsory reservation and dynamically priced, while regional trains are fixed price" as that's how it is in almost every other country in the entire world bar us and a few of the Germanic ones where there's just one fare set and no compulsory reservations on anything because their country is small enough for their network to basically be a big metro.
It also aligns with what you see elsewhere, e.g. your local bus you walk up and pay the driver, but NatEx/Flix you expect to have to book. (I know Citylink and Ember are an odd hybrid).
Why are we different with this confusing nonsense rather than just doing what everyone else is doing?
And more to the point, why is Bletchley-Brighton (about 100 miles) considered a commuter journey while Liverpool-Manchester (about 40 miles) isn't? The North West acts as one, and it only doesn't have one Combined Authority for the lot for political reasons (i.e. that Liverpool and Manchester don't get on, and Preston is kind of stuck in the middle, a strange situation that doesn't exist in the analogous West Midlands where three cities and a load of towns manage to cooperate). I can see sense in this sort of structure for Liverpool-Sheffield, but not for a journey that is shorter than a typical London commute.
I think the missing link could well be the necessity to validate a ticket at the origin and destination of the journey, removing any ability to split tickets without getting off and on the train. The railway would see this as the ultimate simplification. Essentially you only travel between the points set out on the ticket, no ifs, no buts. This is already true of the LNER trial, as advance and 70-minute flexible journeys aren't valid for break of journey, and appears likely to be the case for day-flex. It is similarly true for London-style PAYG. How far is the railway prepared to go towards restricting flexibility to enact its view of 'easier' fares?
Are you really going to be installing validators at Altnabreac? Contactless de-facto bars break of journey, but installing kit specifically to do it would require that kit at every single station so I just can't see it happening - rather it'll be as it is now on Advances with these ticket types barring it and some enforcement where people might save a big chunk of money and at gated stations but it largely ignored otherwise.
Yes, they aren't but that is where this TPE trial may be instructive. If it is between Liverpool and Cleethorpes as suggested then that is a route that combines short and longer distance flows.
Liverpool South Parkway to Liverpool Lime Street, or Stockport to Manchester Piccadilly, or Meadowhall to Sheffield are always going to remain short hop walk up fares. The question is whether alongside those walk up journeys, a different structure can apply for the longer journeys.
You can also add onto that Liverpool/Warrington to Manchester and Manchester to Sheffield, commuter routes, as well as everything east of Doncaster where it's essentially just a semifast regional service. The amount of people actually making 'intercity' style journeys on this service, e.g. Manchester-Doncaster or Liverpool-Sheffield, is not likely to be more than half the passengers. It's certainly a good idea to offer a variety of advances on these flows but replacing most walk-up fares with a day-flex won't make the railway ticketing system any more simple, let alone affordable.
Essentially I think you do end up with a different structure depending on the length of journey, not the type of train service. To most users, this sort of thing is how people think of train journeys already.
Why not instead work on offering advance fares between any two stations on the network provided it's long enough? E.g. I'd appreciate Cambridge-Newbury advances as the walk-up fares are around 60 quid. Don't see the reason to scrap the walk-up fares though - it won't make things any simpler overall and just allows for price gouging when the operator feels like it.
Germany manages a somewhat similar system with two key things that GBR will struggle to implement: frequent, fixed regional service patterns paralleling nearly all intercity lines, and the Deutschland ticket operating as the flexible price cap - both these things cost money to implement and therefore will negate any cost savings gained by dialling up the yield management strategies. Not to mention the multitude of loopholes and fares anomalies that would be opened if this were done, which brings me to your next point:
I think the missing link could well be the necessity to validate a ticket at the origin and destination of the journey, removing any ability to split tickets without getting off and on the train. The railway would see this as the ultimate simplification. Essentially you only travel between the points set out on the ticket, no ifs, no buts. This is already true of the LNER trial, as advance and 70-minute flexible journeys aren't valid for break of journey, and appears likely to be the case for day-flex. It is similarly true for London-style PAYG. How far is the railway prepared to go towards restricting flexibility to enact its view of 'easier' fares?
Besides the fact that this would make fixed-price walk-up fares nearly impossible to maintain, which kills the regional and long-distance commuter railway, how on earth do you expect this to be implemented when some staff can't even tell the difference between an anytime and advance? What about DOO services? It'd be a case where 95% of the time you'd have no problem travelling with split tickets anyway, until you get one rare competent RPO that doesn't prioritise avoiding awkward (or potentially dangerous) situations over sticking exactly to the fares validity rulebook, then cue the articles where some unfortunate person gets caught out hugely for some minor restriction that was barely / not at all pointed out to them.
Plus, and here's the obvious outlier, even highly urbanised countries like Japan or the Netherlands can't install ticket barriers at every station, so how do you ensure tickets can always be 'validated' at every station?
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The dogged unwillingness to reintroduce train categories (despite that BR invented probably the most famous of them worldwide, InterCity) is always going to cause a level of confusion here. I think people could easily understand "InterCity trains are compulsory reservation and dynamically priced, while regional trains are fixed price" as that's how it is in almost every other country in the entire world bar us and a few of the Germanic ones
Can you name a few of these countries where regional services haven't been totally neglected / abandoned as a result of this? As in such countries, every IC path over a mixed-traffic line is effectively a wasted path for short distance travel. See my Pau-Lourdes example upthread.
Perhaps it may be worth a look at those countries in the 'everyone else (except Germanic countries)' category and determine whether that's the railway we want, rather than one where a variety of different passenger journey patterns and distances are accommodated for, allowing for rail to be a viable alternative to the car for most interurban trips? Worth a think.
PS: NatEx and Flix aren't exactly good examples of how to run a joined-up transport network rather than a series of uncoordinated profitable routes with bare-bones passenger utilities.
You can also add onto that Liverpool/Warrington to Manchester and Manchester to Sheffield, commuter routes, as well as everything east of Doncaster where it's essentially just a semifast regional service. The amount of people actually making 'intercity' style journeys on this service, e.g. Manchester-Doncaster or Liverpool-Sheffield, is not likely to be more than half the passengers. It's certainly a good idea to offer a variety of advances on these flows but replacing most walk-up fares with a day-flex won't make the railway ticketing system any more simple, let alone affordable.
I am to be honest surprised that it's this route it's being trialled on when in reality it's TPE's route that is most like much of Northern, i.e. a primarily regional route that carries a lot of overlapping short journeys. Indeed at one point there was I think talk that it would be moved to Northern though that's long since gone quiet.
I had more expected the "intercity" bit of TPE to be the subject of a trial like this, i.e. the Liverpool-Newcastle fasts. Though this carries a fair bit of commuter and similar short distance traffic between Liverpool<->Manchester and Manchester<->Leeds.
Can you name a few of these countries where regional services haven't been totally neglected / abandoned as a result of this? As in such countries, every IC path over a mixed-traffic line is effectively a wasted path for short distance travel. See my Pau-Lourdes example upthread.
Italy is probably the best-run railway in Europe these days by most measures, and that doesn't neglect regional services in favour of Le Frecce. Spain and France are just an example of bad management to be honest, and it'd still be bad management if it was just mileage based fares with optional reservations.
Oh, evidence is absolutely essential. Which is why, once the Department for Transport has determined that the trial has been successful, the Department may naturally look very carefully for evidence that might support that conclusion. To do otherwise would be a quite unnecessary commitment to impartiality.
Oh, evidence is absolutely essential. Which is why, once the Department for Transport has determined that the trial has been successful, the Department may naturally look very carefully for evidence that might support that conclusion. To do otherwise would be a quite unnecessary commitment to impartiality.
I can to be fair see some big challenges on the core parts of this route. TPE sets the Any Permitted fares and so this affects all of Northern, EMR, WMT and Merseyrail on which the present walk up fares have validity. If they don't allign quotas we could well end up with itineraries involving the others coming up as Anytime only, as sometimes happens for ECML "trial" itineraries involving XC even now!
I am betting we will end up with the ridiculous situation of something like Fazakerley to Manchester via Headbolt always coming up as Anytime only because Northern didn't think to put the right quotas on trains that really have little to do with TPE. Liverpool-Manchester is a VERY complex flow, possibly one of the most complex in the country. Though thankfully they haven't taken it north of Maghull otherwise validity via Preston (and thus throwing in validity on Avanti West Coast too) would complicate it even more!
(Indeed I think Ormskirk/Aughton Park/Town Green to Manchester could be THE most complicated flow in the country in terms of Permitted Routes and TOCs involved, with Maghull etc to Manchester a close second? I think that's worth a trivia thread on its own, will chuck one in in a bit! Certainly when I held a season ticket for that years ago it was to all intents and purposes a Rover covering a very large area of the North West - and you can bet I made full use of that! )
Compared to what could be done with the infrastructure, I don't think that's true. Sure, they're buying new trains here and there and electrifying one or two lines, which shows that they do somewhat care, but if you take a look at the timetables, track condition/linespeeds, as well as passenger ridership compared to those driving, you notice it's not exactly something we should set as a goal. The dynamically priced fares likely contribute quite a bit to the low mode share.
It's very much a work in progress railway, not a stagnating one, but the various types of integration (fares, timetable, multimodal) you'd expect from a well-run railway just aren't there.
Some parts of the northwest are pretty good but the further away you get from the Swiss border the worse it gets. Add to that the fact that very few of the cities have proper regional/commuter networks, less so than in GB I'd say - it's mostly a mishmash of different routes which are limping along with low usage outside of the largest cities and HSR lines.
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Spain and France are just an example of bad management to be honest, and it'd still be bad management if it was just mileage based fares with optional reservations.
GBR's management is currently mirroring those two in a lot of ways at the moment - I would be worried. Also, I'm not arguing to only stick to milage based fares - even on commuter routes these rarely parallel what the passenger would expect to pay to use the service (and not take the car instead). A mix of both covers most bases, and although it can imperfect and complex, without more subsidy it's the best you will get.
Sorry, I should probably have said the EU. SBB probably does beat it though it and Austria are quite small countries so aren't far off the "big metro" territory. Nederlandse Spoorwegen is basically a big metro and so doesn't really qualify, same as SNCB/NMBS. Deutsche Bahn is a right mess at present.
GBR's management is currently mirroring those two in a lot of ways at the moment - I would be worried. Also, I'm not arguing to only stick to milage based fares - even on commuter routes these rarely parallel what the passenger would expect to pay to use the service (and not take the car instead). A mix of both covers most bases, and although it can imperfect and complex, without more subsidy it's the best you will get.
I have the impression that this tripe is being driven by a combination of Hendy and Horne, both of whom are quite enthusiastic for the approach. I have no evidence of that however bar what I've read here.
GBR doesn't really have any management at the moment as it doesn't exist yet.
But in terms of these fares, quota control makes little sense for Liverpool-Manchester which is really not far off being a metro style flow.
Sorry, I should probably have said the EU. SBB probably does beat it though it and Austria are quite small countries so aren't far off the "big metro" territory. Nederlandse Spoorwegen is basically a big metro and so doesn't really qualify, same as SNCB/NMBS. Deutsche Bahn is a right mess at present.
Well yes if you exclude any competitors then Italy does have the best network. Calling Austria a 'big metro' is laughable. OBB runs a 700+km service from Bregenz to Vienna, along with many other long distance routes, especially across borders. It isn't that much smaller than England, and has a huge mix of types of services.
SBB probably does beat it though it and Austria are quite small countries so aren't far off the "big metro" territory. Nederlandse Spoorwegen is basically a big metro and so doesn't really qualify, same as SNCB/NMBS. Deutsche Bahn is a right mess at present.
Don't really understand this logic - if you cut the UK into 5 or 6 different countries with open borders would that make it a number of 'big metro' networks too then? Small countries still usually have long-distance rail, and even where it's very limited, there's still plenty to learn from them. There are also plenty of low population rural routes in the Netherlands, Switzerland and Austria, it's not all commuter routes.
The difference between the Dutch and British network is the speed tiers - NS has Sprinter (Short distance) and Intercity (Mid distance) while in the UK there's a third category for long-distance 'true intercity' services. These long-distance trains can still form a part of an integrated network, and due to the limited capacity on the network, they also sometimes serve the role that a mid-distance train would (e.g. GWR London-Reading or within Cornwall). Keep them on the mainline network and all you lose out on is a few paths, transfer them over onto a high-speed line and then the conventional network can effectively be operated as a self contained big metro as well.
The key issues with integration of long-distance services are fares (as you need to provide a cheaper, usually advance purchase option to be competitive with other modes, even NS offers these from say Amsterdam to Groningen on their fake Intercity trains) and the temptation to maximise yield because they tend to be profitable routes, but neither of these are dealbreakers that prevent making a "big metro" out of our network as well.
The Netherlands has a very small network of trains in the top category, in the format of ICE and InterCity / EuroCity Direct, for which a small toeslag (surcharge) of €3,20 single (although some customers are exempt from it, and sometimes it's cheaper) is payable over a normal ticket. It also has Eurostar Red which is fully yield-managed and used a lot for intra-Benelux journeys (to and from Belgium in this case).
I'm sure Thalys used to take Dutch bookings, obviously it was strictly Thalys tickets only and you couldn't travel between Schiphol Airport and Amsterdam, but I thought it was possible prior to the merger approval. Eurostar isn't permitted to carry domestic passengers though.
Belgium are very progressive. They don't surcharge the use of their trains on high speed lines and they don't discriminate by train category, though of course they do use them for customer guidance. To SNCB, a train is a train, and that's that. Sadly Eurostar, Ouigo and EuroCity Direct don't take Belgian passengers and ICE doesn't take Belgian tickets, though you can pay extra for it or use it with your Benelux Interrail at least.
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