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With regard to Advance it would be so much simpler if these were sold on a "per vehicle journey" split basis - they are so commonly cheaper in this way anyway. This would also remove nonsense over break of journey as you would have a separate barcoded "boarding pass" per train so would be easily able to leave and re-enter the gateline at the change point wihout requesting permission should you wish, and would easily be able to purchase a through itinerary by any route you wish regardless of the Routeing Guide etc simply by it being ticketed on that split basis even if a through ticket does not exist. Within vehicle journeys I would suggest, however, rather than using splitting, that the quota issues that result in Advances being cheaper split within a vehicle journey are addressed so that splits within a vehicle journey cease to be cheaper - this was going to be done at one point but has been forgotten.
It may be that it wasn't so much "forgotten" but put on the back-burner because it turned out to be more complex and with more unintended consequences than initially thought!
In ye olden dayes, it was often common for a CrossCountry service "Route: Not London" to be cheaper than a "Via London +" ticket ... although with improved capacity on many of the radial intercity services and the ongoing permacrush on XCountry, that doesn't seem to be the case as often any more.
Splitting as a general phenomenon exists because there are significant fare and quota differentials that make it worth shopping around. That is fundamentally a sign of an inefficient market, where the price setters are undermining their own objectives by being misaligned. As a consumer, it also creates very variable results, hugely beneficial for some where splits work, but of no use to others who either aren't aware of the option, or for whom there isn't an opportunity for that arbitrage.
One of the changes that we should factor in when looking at fares reviews is the move from TOCs to GBR.
Under the current model, the two incentives for TOCs to implement advance fares are (a) demand management and (2) maximising that TOC's share of the total rail ticket sales.
While there will still be a case for demand management on many routes, a lot of advance fares that only exist because one TOC doesn't want to share their income with another TOC become irrelevant, because there is no longer a TOC-vs-TOC marketplace.
You could do this, but personally, with the way gatelines are now, I prefer (in the context of an Advance journey) having a "boarding pass" for each train which would open the gates at each booked change station, avoiding any confrontations with staff about whether you can go out or not.
This can also show things like reservations more clearly.
By contrast, a lot of people would prefer not to have a huge stack of tickets to keep track of and make sure they're showing the right one at the right time – much easier to have one ticket for the outbound journey that you show at every point required and one ticket for the return journey.
Is that specifically for advance tickets, or for all? I would have strong objections to that model being used for open tickets, as it would rule out tickets with flexible routeing.
Behind the scenes maybe this should be how the fares system works (though I still think there are issues with that - it would tend to penalise journeys involving a change, where the railway already struggles to compete with driving). But giving everyone multiple tickets, regardless of whether they have any understanding of split ticketing, which trains they can use, their rights in case of disruption etc just seems needlessly complicated.
Consider, let's say, London to Sheffield. There's the direct route via the Midland Main Line and the indirect route with a change in Doncaster.
The current fare structure treats the ECML route as a premium option and charges more accordingly; but it's not unreasonable to imagine the railway wanting to make both options price-competitive. (Maybe a better example would be one where the indirect route is slower, but the direct route is sufficiently infrequent that the indirect route sometimes makes sense; you wouldn't want to be charging passengers more for a worse journey. Alternatively, the indirect route might be underutilized so the railway might actively want to price people onto it.)
Let's assume you can get an advance up the MML for £30. Doncaster is about as far from London as Sheffield is, so let's assume those advances also go for £30. An advance from Doncaster to Sheffield goes for maybe £5.
So then what does a London-Doncaser-Sheffield advance cost? Currently, the railway could choose any price between £30 and £35 with no anomalies. Under Bletchleyite's proposal, the railway would have no choice but to charge £35.
Obviously if the railway really wanted London-Doncaster-Sheffield to cost £30, they could knock down the price of London-Doncaster, but they might not actually want to do that; a split-only model removes flexibility to offer fares that are better value than the sum of their parts.
The main issue is single-train journeys being cheaper with a ticket split, like London - Bristol where short-distance journeys to/from Didcot have cheap day returns. Making splitting the norm just doesn't make sense.
The other is local - trunk - local journeys where there are benefits to applying a building-block based fares logic rather than loads of independent origin-destination entries in the fares database.
Consider, let's say, London to Sheffield. There's the direct route via the Midland Main Line and the indirect route with a change in Doncaster.
The current fare structure treats the ECML route as a premium option and charges more accordingly; but it's not unreasonable to imagine the railway wanting to make both options price-competitive. (Maybe a better example would be one where the indirect route is slower, but the direct route is sufficiently infrequent that the indirect route sometimes makes sense; you wouldn't want to be charging passengers more for a worse journey. Alternatively, the indirect route might be underutilized so the railway might actively want to price people onto it.)
Let's assume you can get an advance up the MML for £30. Doncaster is about as far from London as Sheffield is, so let's assume those advances also go for £30. An advance from Doncaster to Sheffield goes for maybe £5.
So then what does a London-Doncaser-Sheffield advance cost? Currently, the railway could choose any price between £30 and £35 with no anomalies. Under Bletchleyite's proposal, the railway would have no choice but to charge £35.
Obviously if the railway really wanted London-Doncaster-Sheffield to cost £30, they could knock down the price of London-Doncaster, but they might not actually want to do that; a split-only model removes flexibility to offer fares that are better value than the sum of their parts.
A journey from Sheffield to London on the MML costs £30
A journey from Doncaster to London on the ECML costs £30
A journey between Doncaster and Sheffield is £5
Why is anyone going between Sheffield and Doncaster? Just look at the prices and go the way that works best? In reality from Sheffield, the £30 advances will sell out and then it may be that the next advance tier is £37. Now people go the way that they prefer.
Someone seeing this on the screen sees either
xx10 London St Pancras £30
xx15 London Kings Cross £35 (S)
Where (S) denotes the split nature of the tickets. Later they see:
xx10 London St Pancras £37
xx15 London Kings Cross £35 (S)
And now they can decide which to buy. It will only be like going on TrainSplit, or whichever site, now. (I do not use the forum site because I use the information from split sites to buy from retailers that do not charge any fees on top of the ticket price - It feels harsh taking advantage of the forum site for the information)
The main issue is single-train journeys being cheaper with a ticket split, like London - Bristol where short-distance journeys to/from Didcot have cheap day returns. Making splitting the norm just doesn't make sense.
Why doesn't it make sense? Unless you can eliminate the price differential (which seems unlikely), people are increasingly going to be using third party ticket websites to split regardless. I can't really see a practical method of preventing people from splitting.
At least if the official system splits we can ensure that splits don't corrupt the flow statistics, and we can remove a lot of fares from the database that wouldn't be needed any more.
Consider, let's say, London to Sheffield. There's the direct route via the Midland Main Line and the indirect route with a change in Doncaster.
The current fare structure treats the ECML route as a premium option and charges more accordingly; but it's not unreasonable to imagine the railway wanting to make both options price-competitive. (Maybe a better example would be one where the indirect route is slower, but the direct route is sufficiently infrequent that the indirect route sometimes makes sense; you wouldn't want to be charging passengers more for a worse journey. Alternatively, the indirect route might be underutilized so the railway might actively want to price people onto it.)
Let's assume you can get an advance up the MML for £30. Doncaster is about as far from London as Sheffield is, so let's assume those advances also go for £30. An advance from Doncaster to Sheffield goes for maybe £5.
So then what does a London-Doncaser-Sheffield advance cost? Currently, the railway could choose any price between £30 and £35 with no anomalies. Under Bletchleyite's proposal, the railway would have no choice but to charge £35.
Obviously if the railway really wanted London-Doncaster-Sheffield to cost £30, they could knock down the price of London-Doncaster, but they might not actually want to do that; a split-only model removes flexibility to offer fares that are better value than the sum of their parts.
A better example is London to Birmingham, where there has long been a discount for taking the local service via Northampton over the inter city service. Fare setters have for decades used differential pricing to spread demand.
The traditional pricing differential was usually time of day or bulk purchase (seasons) not fast/slow* services. It goes back well over a century in the case of workmens’ tickets.
* Sometimes with the discount on the faster train.
A better example is London to Birmingham, where there has long been a discount for taking the local service via Northampton over the inter city service. Fare setters have for decades used differential pricing to spread demand.
That discount is implemented using ToC restrictions not route restrictions. It's also basically not affected by splitting at all since the fast trains don't stop after Coventry?
That discount is implemented using ToC restrictions not route restrictions. It's also basically not affected by splitting at all since the fast trains don't stop after Coventry?
The point about demand management is that, since at least NSE days, there has been differential pricing for the two routes, achieving the objective of spreading demand. Over emphasis on splitting would undermine that strategy, as @Gaelan points out in her example.
The point about demand management is that, since at least NSE days, there has been differential pricing for the two routes, achieving the objective of spreading demand. Over emphasis on splitting would undermine that strategy, as @Gaelan points out in her example.
My point is that Birmingham to London is not a good example to demonstrate that splitting would undermine that strategy. London to Sheffield doesn't appear to be either since there isn't a desire to send Sheffield passengers via Doncaster.
I see the point: that through advances (though not flexibles) can be useful. I am not entirely convinced that that scenario is sufficiently common to be worth caring about (since neither example provided is convincing) but I can imagine a "split heavy" system that still has those anyway:
- Long distance journeys with flexible tickets are usually split at vehicle changes as they would be today. The through tickets for these journeys no longer exist (they are effectively an idiot tax and are the primary cause of complex routing questions).
- advances are priced based on the ultimate source and destination but are sold as a series of "boarding passes" one for each vehicle.
My point is that Birmingham to London is not a good example to demonstrate that splitting would undermine that strategy. London to Sheffield doesn't appear to be either since there isn't a desire to send Sheffield passengers via Doncaster.
I see the point: that through advances (though not flexibles) can be useful. I am not entirely convinced that that scenario is sufficiently common to be worth caring about (since neither example provided is convincing) but I can imagine a "split heavy" system that still has those anyway:
- Long distance journeys with flexible tickets are usually split at vehicle changes as they would be today. The through tickets for these journeys no longer exist (they are effectively an idiot tax and are the primary cause of complex routing questions).
- advances are priced based on the ultimate source and destination but are sold as a series of "boarding passes" one for each vehicle.
If I read @Gaelan right, the purpose of the example was to consider flows from Doncaster, which is less implausible.
But taking your suggestions about splitting, my experience of splitting is that it is far more common to have a split within a leg than at the changing point, while the idea of a single ticket being divided into a sale as multiple passes would be confusing and over time create an incentive to only sell segments, not through tickets.
Why doesn't it make sense? Unless you can eliminate the price differential (which seems unlikely), people are increasingly going to be using third party ticket websites to split regardless. I can't really see a practical method of preventing people from splitting.
At least if the official system splits we can ensure that splits don't corrupt the flow statistics, and we can remove a lot of fares from the database that wouldn't be needed any more.
How much flexibility should a passenger in a railway with a well functioning ticketing system have, and how much flexibility could split ticketing allow them?
I'm thinking of a journey from Ayr to Newmarket, where the number of possible routes you could take and the fact that you would have options to avoid disruption at most points on any of those routes even once you'd started the journey is, to me, one of the strengths of the railway network.
In ye olden dayes, it was often common for a CrossCountry service "Route: Not London" to be cheaper than a "Via London +" ticket ... although with improved capacity on many of the radial intercity services and the ongoing permacrush on XCountry, that doesn't seem to be the case as often any more.
I've just done a journey which was around the same journey time via London as via Banbury, yet £30 cheaper for an Off Peak Return for the former. Moreover, to use an XC Off Peak ticket, the one-size-fits-all 2V restriction means that you can't depart before 09:30, even though you wouldn't have seen a Voyager (or a particularly busy train in general) until two hours into the journey. So I'd have had to arrive three hours later or pay double for an Anytime.
Via London I could be past Milton Keynes with an Off Peak ticket before I would even have been allowed to depart my origin with a via Banbury Off Peak ticket.
And passengers won't be offered splits on those trains - but there isn't really a feasible way to stop people splitting.
So your alternatives are to somehow ensure there are no circumstances where such a split saves you money (which seems impossible) or allow them officially.
Do the latter and many tickets, although not in this particular example, will become entirely redundant and can be scrapped.
There is. Compulsory compestation or scanning at the origin station for the ticket. I really hope that doesn't happen but it does prevent splitting whilst staying on the same train. Really wouldn't be difficult now with e-tickets in ascendency. (I recognise there is no requirement to do this right now.)
There is. Compulsory compestation or scanning at the origin station for the ticket. I really hope that doesn't happen but it does prevent splitting whilst staying on the same train. Really wouldn't be difficult now with e-tickets in ascendency. (I recognise there is no requirement to do this right now.)
Which would require substantial expenditure on new hardware, which would have to be network linked (because there is no way to modify an e-ticket) and provided and maintained in continuous availability at every station.
And it would have to be positioned sufficiently far away to stop people reaching it whilst the train remains in the station - so it can't be on the platform.
It would require a lot of money both in capital and ongoing expenses. I would not call this solution particularly "feasible".
EDIT:
And none of this equipment does anything to make the ticketing system less impenetrable.
Which would require substantial expenditure on new hardware, which would have to be network linked (because there is no way to modify an e-ticket) and provided and maintained in continuous availability at every station.
And it would have to be positioned sufficiently far away to stop people reaching it whilst the train remains in the station - so it can't be on the platform.
It would require a lot of money both in capital and ongoing expenses. I would not call this solution particularly "feasible".
EDIT:
And none of this equipment does anything to make the ticketing system less impenetrable.
I agree in principle, but that requires fundamental changes well beyond fares "simplification"/"reform".
We can't put the cart before the horse.
I would very much like to see us adopt a Swiss style approach of viewing public transport as a genuine public service. However, if we were truly successful in doing this - as the Swiss are - capacity would have to increase around two to three-fold. Of course, this could never be achieved because the mentality in this country is fundamentally flawed and biased towards the car.
But, if we were to see even a modest shift in attitude and see rail as a genuine service, with affordable fares for all (and without quotas), this could only be considered once we have a plan to significantly increase capacity.
I'd love to see it happen, but sadly I can't see it happening.
I've just done a journey which was around the same journey time via London as via Banbury, yet £30 cheaper for an Off Peak Return for the former. Moreover, to use an XC Off Peak ticket, the one-size-fits-all 2V restriction means that you can't depart before 09:30, even though you wouldn't have seen a Voyager (or a particularly busy train in general) until two hours into the journey. So I'd have had to arrive three hours later or pay double for an Anytime.
That demonstrates a fundamental problem with a blanket "not before 0930" restriction which is favoured by know-it-all / work-from-home types who are out of touch with reality and who seek to inflict restrictions on others.
Via London I could be past Milton Keynes with an Off Peak ticket before I would even have been allowed to depart my origin with a via Banbury Off Peak ticket.
How much flexibility should a passenger in a railway with a well functioning ticketing system have, and how much flexibility could split ticketing allow them?
I'm thinking of a journey from Ayr to Newmarket, where the number of possible routes you could take and the fact that you would have options to avoid disruption at most points on any of those routes even once you'd started the journey is, to me, one of the strengths of the railway network.
Under fares reform plans which are championed by well-paid consultants and work-from-home types, the plan is for there to be only one flexible fare for such journeys, which would be around £200, and if you want a Railcard discount and depart Ayr before 0930 you'd need to split at a suitable point after 0930. Your other options would be to pay a premium for a ticket that has some limited flexibility and is quota controlled, or pay a price that is not even that cheap, but is not even changeable, let alone refundable.
These people see the rail network as being very much a premium product which is to be priced accordingly.
The worst consultants for driving fares reform get free travel, as well as being well off financially and doing much of their work from home. They aren't interested in catering for regular people.
We must oppose the current fares reform plans at all costs.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
The Government - if the current fares trials are anything to go by - wishes to promote a system of unaffordable flexible fares, with quota controlled lower priced fares being very much subject to availability, with no refunds on the lowest priced fares, and a premium to pay for the ability to be able to do anything other than travel on the exact booked itinerary.
The general public absolutely know about splits and have the choice whether to use them or not; the general public similarly also know about all sorts of other ways to save money, but those with money to burn may not choose to use them.
IF the balance is that most people do buy splits, then the impact of the lower proportion of non-split buyers switching to buying splits will be smaller and the price increases that ensue will be lower.
It's already the case that most passengers do buy splits, according to anecdotal evidence of speaking to Guards on trains about the subject.
Those that don't are people on expenses, or with money to burn.
However, the Government is unwilling to replace the potential lost income from big businesses and wealthy passengers with taxpayer subsidy; this could be seen as at least somewhat understandable, would you not agree?
Under fares reform plans which are championed by well-paid consultants and work-from-home types, the plan is for there to be only one flexible fare for such journeys, which would be around £200, and if you want a Railcard discount and depart Ayr before 0930 you'd need to split at a suitable point after 0930. Your other options would be to pay a premium for a ticket that has some limited flexibility and is quota controlled, or pay a price that is not even that cheap, but is not even changeable, let alone refundable.
These people see the rail network as being very much a premium product which is to be priced accordingly.
The worst consultants for driving fares reform get free travel, as well as being well off financially and doing much of their work from home. They aren't interested in catering for regular people.
We must oppose the current fares reform plans at all costs.
I think the problem with discussions about fares starts very early; we have been conditioned to accept discussing wrong questions. All the questions we discuss are premised on how we can use fares to manage insufficient capacity; which is of course exactly the same thing as using fares to make people go away from the railways.
As a country we should instead be discussing what extra capacity we need in a country with more people who need and / or want to travel long distances more often. Of course HS2 is demonstrating very clearly that as a country we're not ready to make those kinds of changes
The only discussion about fares should be "how much should it cost to go from, for example, the central belt of Scotland to the SE of England at a busy time, and at a less busy time". Everything after that should be "how do we provide enough trains for those people that want to travel?
I wouldn't try and tell you that. I would however instead tell you that very many people who didn't know about splits might also feel they couldn't afford to become rail passengers?
An example where we often have to split our tickets is if we are having a day trip that is deemed too far for a day return.
In some cases there is more of a risk of missing our final connection home. The rail industry would not want to be liable to arrange alternatives. I live near Heaton Chapel, so understand why there is no day return fare to Edinburgh, Exeter or Brighton for example.
However, there is none to Huddersfield, Leicester or Wolverhampton. So, this begs the question, why not? I think the "cut-off" locations for day returns are often a bit too short.
In North Wales the longer distance (but still a common day trip) Day Returns were removed some years ago as an underhand fares hike to price off excess demand.
In North Wales the longer distance (but still a common day trip) Day Returns were removed some years ago as an underhand fares hike to price off excess demand.
Coming back to my example, I remember getting a day return from Heaton Chapel to Huddersfield for Easter Monday 2011. They have obviously been abolished since then.
Coming back to my example, I remember getting a day return from Heaton Chapel to Huddersfield for Easter Monday 2011. They have obviously been abolished since then.
If the majority of passengers already use splits, what is the point in not having the ticketing system do it for them?
Very little revenue will be lost and many millions of ticket variations can be axed. That is a free first step to ticket rationalisation and this way the origin destination statistics will actually reflect reality!
The status quo is telling prospective passengers that the railway will screw over the naive to subsidise the fares of the initiated.
This is hardly conducive to the supposed public service mindset espoused by people in this thread.
To start with I suggest automatic splitting be introduced and every fare not purchased in the following year be eliminated. Then proceed to simplify the fares of the least used stations.
No. But can't see any route "Any Permitted" day returns any more, for journeys such as Sheffield to/from Stockport, Sheffield to/from Manchester Stns, Huddersfield to/from Stalybridge, or Huddersfield to/from Manchester Stns, all flows priced by... TPE.
No mention that I've seen of a fundamental downside of splits on the same long-distance train - the fact that you can (and my sister does) end up with - say - a fairly ridiculous three different seat reservations, often in different coaches, possibly even different units, where the requirement to move may vary from a minor pain in the bum to completely impossible.
In practice people just tend to stay in the same seat for the first reservation with the possibility of them blocking other people's reservations later in the journey and leaving the other reserved seats unoccupied if people are deterred by the unused reservations. If everyone was automatically getting split tickets with multiple reservations the reservation system would become useless and unworkable on long distance services.
No mention that I've seen of a fundamental downside of splits on the same long-distance train - the fact that you can (and my sister does) end up with - say - a fairly ridiculous three different seat reservations, often in different coaches, possibly even different units, where the requirement to move may vary from a minor pain in the bum to completely impossible.
In practice people just tend to stay in the same seat for the first reservation with the possibility of them blocking other people's reservations later in the journey and leaving the other reserved seats unoccupied if people are deterred by the unused reservations. If everyone was automatically getting split tickets with multiple reservations the reservation system would become useless and unworkable on long distance services.
It would be trivial to have the reservation system issue a single reservation for the entire journey even if issuing splits. It only doesn't happen now since the people making the reservation system don't approve of splits.
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