Lord Hendy decides that Advances are the Way Forward

[Haywain]

As it is the peak fares in the counter flow direction are somewhat less than the peak flow fares.

The cheaper counter-flow peak fares are far from universal.

Do enough people really want to set off before 0930 for the South Coast for their day out to fill those trains?

With more affordable fares more people might do. From 30 miles north of London, Bournemouth is a near enough a 3 hour journey, so getting there earlier than lunch time would be a nice option.

 

[modernrail]

Ge

Using the LNER method of ditching the fare cap offered by flexible (super) off-peak tickets and having the only flexible ticket available being the anytime single as an excuse to allow them to hike the price of advances on weekends when there are events on to bring in more money?

Advance singles have one drawback compared to standard off-peak day return fares, especially if travelling late at night when the customers know ticket checks can be quite hit & miss and barriers are open at their destination after a known time as those customers will only buy a single and will dodge the fare coming

There's typically 8 trains an hour between St Pancras and Luton Airport Parkway, and you're happy for passengers to commit to a specific train. What can possibly go wrong...
'Us on here' generally understand the restrictions on Advance tickets but what chance a 'normal' passenger on theor way to/from the airport after a delayed flight. or a family that goes for a day out in London and just want to get the next train back that suits them.

When you sell Advance tickets on such an intensive service you're not simplifying the fares structure, you're complicating it. And on a route that has contactless.

As for the cost of fares - it's £19.90 for an off-peak day return (less with a railcard). That's not expensive for that part of the world.



London to Brighton is not inter-city. In the distant past it might have been but times move on, I'd say outer-suburban is a more appropriate description.

Again, typically 6 trains an hour to London. I won't repeat what I said above but in my view the same principles apply.

You're missing the point about Advance fares. They're not cheap tickets to fill capacity, train companies want them to be the normal fare. Just look at LNER.

I get the point about contra-flow but this already happens in some places. For example London to Stevenage is cheaper than Stevenage to London. Same with Cambridge. Watford Junction to London has contra-peak pricing too. The reality is there aren't hordes of people wanting to travel contra-peak on weekdays.

The reality is that advance fares, like the rest of the ticketing system, is a mess.

Advance fares started as a way to fill seats. It was inevitable on a fragmented railway that they have ended up being whatever a particular theory of a particular TOC wants them to be.

I think the London to South Coast is a particularly good example of a missed contraflow opportunity. There are 8 million people in London. A lot of them don’t work every weekday for a variety of reasons and there is a lot of leisure opportunity for them on the south coast. However, you need to get cracking early.

I don’t work Friday most weeks and would love to be able to get the very first train to Seaford, walk or run the Seven Sisters and be back in London for lunchtime. Most people wouldn’t join me that early but would probably like to get going by 8am. I don’t do it because it is way too pricey for the opportunity I am seeking to unlock. £43 return vs £22.50 once off peak AND network railcard validity have kicked in. By then it’s too late to do it comfortably in a day. Maybe one easy answer is to allow contraflow network railcard validity in the SE.

There is also this irony that LNER seem to be happy to test breaching the cap, but the railway won’t remove the floor price to see if that fills unused capacity. They are only willing to test the theory in one direction.

 

[JonathanH]

The cheaper counter-flow peak fares are far from universal.

With more affordable fares more people might do. From 30 miles north of London, Bournemouth is a near enough a 3 hour journey, so getting there earlier than lunch time would be a nice option.

Yes, I was thinking of the contrast between Brighton and Bournemouth.

However, the reality with London to Bournemouth is that even the off-peak fares will put many off from making a casual trip there.

 

[Hadders]

It doesn't need Advance fares to have contra-peak pricing. While there isn't a large contra-peak demand for London to Brighton there will be quite a demand with people travelling into Brighton from places like Haywards Heath, Burgess Hill, Hassocks etc.

You've got to be very careful that you don't introduce anomalies where it would be cheaper to buy a ticket from London to Brighton rather than Haywards Heath to Brighton.

Or if you allow cheaper fares from the likes of Haywards Heath into Brighton you introduce a whole load of different anomalies....

 

[Starmill]

You've got to be very careful that you don't introduce anomalies where it would be cheaper to buy a ticket from London to Brighton rather than Haywards Heath to Brighton.

It's already cheaper sometimes to buy an Advance from Gatwick Airport to Brighton than a single from Haywards Heath to Brighton on the same train...

 

[Bletchleyite]

I see the future as advance for long distance “Intercity” and tap and go/Digital PAYG for everything else

The problem with this is that we don't in most places have the defined split between the two like other countries do and don't have the infrastructure to get there without significant service cuts. Which for instance is XC? TPE? The GWR Bristols?

The only true IC we really have is LNER, Avanti bar the Birmingham and the GWR Cornish services, but in the latter case not once past Plymouth.

 

[Krokodil]

I don’t agree on Luton Airport solely because the normal price feels like overcharging and for instance hard pressed families trying to make a holiday affordable might really benefit from advances.

At £33.70 for a period return for 30 odd miles it is overpriced in my view. Advances aren't the solution to that though, the solution is to reduce the walk-up fare to something more sensible.

 

[Bletchleyite]

At £33.70 for a period return for 30 odd miles it is overpriced in my view. Advances aren't the solution to that though, the solution is to reduce the walk-up fare to something more sensible.

Project Oval (contactless and TfL fare structure) is the solution and due to single fare pricing would effectively reduce the period return to the same price as a day return. This is not a route where Advances really have any place.

 

[Starmill]

At £33.70 for a period return for 30 odd miles it is overpriced in my view. Advances aren't the solution to that though, the solution is to reduce the walk-up fare to something more sensible.

It's only £12.30 single for contactless, so only the non expert people will be ripped off like that.

 

[JamesRowden]

I would think that from a revenue perspective, advance tickets should only be available at quiet times where tickets cheaper than the super off peak tickets are desired to attract people onto the quietest services, without making the fares system more complicated. Giving passengers the flexibility of flexible tickets direcyly costs the industry nothing, so the additional price that can be charged for the flexibility should be the only option (except for particularly quiet services). If people want a reserved seat, or want to know if all reserved seats are taken, this can be done with flexible tickets. Passengers can stand if they want, unlike on airlines.

 

[Haywain]

At £33.70 for a period return for 30 odd miles it is overpriced in my view.

For an Anytime Return in the London commuter belt it is far from overpriced.

 

[aron2smith]

They need to make it straightforward to pay the difference between Advance and the flexible Super Off Peak/ Off Peak then. I won't buy advances while they insist on a new ticket at full price if I miss the train!

 

[modernrail]

They need to make it straightforward to pay the difference between Advance and the flexible Super Off Peak/ Off Peak then. I won't buy advances while they insist on a new ticket at full price if I miss the train!

I would love to know how much revenue the railway makes from that little Ryanair/rip off Britain trick.

It is probably an embarrassingly small figure compared with the very real and completely unfair pain it causes in individual circumstances. A particularly heinous side effect of privatisation that has never been rectified and made more reasonable.

 

[xotGD]

Thee seem to be quite a few posters on this thread who would like me to pay more for my commutes to Leeds.

Northern Advances save me a few quid every time. Long may they last.

 

[Krokodil]

Thee seem to be quite a few posters on this thread who would like me to pay more for my commutes to Leeds.

Northern Advances save me a few quid every time. Long may they last.

No, the point many posters are making is that walk-up travel should be affordable. Rather than people risking getting stung because the 10:31 missed its path and the 10:35 turned up in the platform first.

 

[xotGD]

No, the point many posters are making is that walk-up travel should be affordable. Rather than people risking getting stung because the 10:31 missed its path and the 10:35 turned up in the platform first.

The walk up fare is affordable. The Advances offer a saving. I choose to forsake flexibility for a saving.

Sometimes I end up not travelling, so have paid for tickets I don't use, but overall I still come out ahead.

 

[redreni]

The walk up fare is affordable. The Advances offer a saving. I choose to forsake flexibility for a saving.

Sometimes I end up not travelling, so have paid for tickets I don't use, but overall I still come out ahead.

"Affordable" is an imprecise and subjective term. I don't think you are correct to assume anyone wants you to pay more for your ticket. They may want you to pay the same or slightly less for a more flexible ticket.

Although if, as you say, the walk up fare is already affordable, then maybe the Advances are too cheap? Anyone who can see further than the end of their nose should realise that the reason Advances are priced slightly cheaper is so that people like David Horne can say that they're by far the most popular ticket type and that therefore the walk-up fares can be abolished. At which point you will quickly find that the Advances cost a lot more than they used to...

 

[London Trains]

"Affordable" is an imprecise and subjective term. I don't think you are correct to assume anyone wants you to pay more for your ticket. They may want you to pay the same or slightly less for a more flexible ticket.

Although if, as you say, the walk up fare is already affordable, then maybe the Advances are too cheap? Anyone who can see further than the end of their nose should realise that the reason Advances are priced slightly cheaper is so that people like David Horne can say that they're by far the most popular ticket type and that therefore the walk-up fares can be abolished. At which point you will quickly find that the Advances cost a lot more than they used to...

I wish there was a like button on this thread.

If walk up tickets are abolished then that'll be it for me using the railway outside of London... back to using the car it will be!

 

[xotGD]

"Affordable" is an imprecise and subjective term. I don't think you are correct to assume anyone wants you to pay more for your ticket. They may want you to pay the same or slightly less for a more flexible ticket.

Although if, as you say, the walk up fare is already affordable, then maybe the Advances are too cheap? Anyone who can see further than the end of their nose should realise that the reason Advances are priced slightly cheaper is so that people like David Horne can say that they're by far the most popular ticket type and that therefore the walk-up fares can be abolished. At which point you will quickly find that the Advances cost a lot more than they used to...

Advances are cheaper than walk up fares to encourage people like me to catch the 8:12, which has empty seats, rather than the 8:06, which is full and standing.

And it works.

 

[sheff1]

I see the future as advance for long distance “Intercity” and tap and go/Digital PAYG for everything else

All very well but Sheffield to Birmingham, for example, could be considered long distance Intercity by some or a (thankfully) short hop on a glorified cattle truck by others.

I definitely don’t agree with London to Brighton. I see that as an intercity service

Therein lies the issue. I wouldn't class London to Brighton as Intercity at all.

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Don't think this tangent has much to do with the proposal in the OP though.

 

[lnerazuma]

They need to make it straightforward to pay the difference between Advance and the flexible Super Off Peak/ Off Peak then. I won't buy advances while they insist on a new ticket at full price if I miss the train!

Currently you could already achieve this if you purchase e ticket via XC apps

 

[aron2smith]

I wish there was a like button on this thread.

If walk up tickets are abolished then that'll be it for me using the railway outside of London... back to using the car it will be!

I feel the same. I feel like flexibility is the whole point of public transport, if you have to plan every part of the journey it really defeats the point. I wouldn't have explored the whole country's rail network if the flexibility from the tickets was gone. Something really awesome about having a reasonable value ticket and being able to come and go as I please. Even the Intercity services are local journeys for some people. Doncaster to York as one example.

 

[sheff1]

You don’t live in a world with a huge amount of unused capacity.

When travelling on 12 carriage Thameslink trains with a handful of people in each carriage it strikes me as a huge amount of unused capacity on certain sections.

If you are talking about line capacity then routes like the core XC route York to Birmingham and Reading, which has not seen reinstatement of pre-covid service levels, must have unused (and needed) capacity unless I have missed other services being partially slotted into the unused paths.

 

[aron2smith]

Currently you could already achieve this if you purchase e ticket via XC apps

Not much use to me. As I don't use apps or e-tickets, I prefer paper tickets. That may change if it's only one app with GBR in the future. Having to have an app for every individual thing is clunky and annoying.

 

[Haywain]

Having to have an app for every individual thing is clunky and annoying.

I don't know how many times it has to be said but the use of eTickets does not require any extra apps.

 

[Adam Williams]

Currently you could already achieve this if you purchase e ticket via XC apps

XC allow you to replace an Advance after the departure time? Are you sure?

 

[modernrail]

I wish there was a like button on this thread.

If walk up tickets are abolished then that'll be it for me using the railway outside of London... back to using the car it will be!

And for me.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 28 Jul 2025 ==

I don't know how many times it has to be said but the use of eTickets does not require any extra apps.

What do you mean Haywain? If I buy a ticket with a particular seller I need their app for the ticket don’t I?

Here is my list of clutter and why:

Trainline: because they decided to deliver functionality that sometimes wins out when trying to out together a relatively complex journey.

LNER/Avanti: to use seat pickers that don’t feed through to other booking engines.

GWR: because lots of times fares seem to appear on their app that do not pull through to others, even though they probably should. Plus checking I can’t afford a night riviera fare from time to time.

TrainSplit: trying this out

Northern: to double check pricing on trips up there because I don’t trust the others to pull through the advances.

All apps (so I also have EMR and XC) when trying to book a bike, because the functionality of that remains unbelievably patchy)

I check each journey of more than say £25 on multiple apps because you OFTEN get different answers, even before you take into account split ticketing.

It has become more and more exhausting as time has gone by and more and more variations on the theme have been thought up by the industry. I would love to replace with 1 app.

 

[Haywain]

What do you mean Haywain? If I buy a ticket with a particular seller I need their app for the ticket don’t I?

No. The eTicket will be delivered as an app-agnostic pdf file, and usually with an option to add it to Google Wallet or Apple Wallet.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Although if, as you say, the walk up fare is already affordable, then maybe the Advances are too cheap? Anyone who can see further than the end of their nose should realise that the reason Advances are priced slightly cheaper is so that people like David Horne can say that they're by far the most popular ticket type and that therefore the walk-up fares can be abolished. At which point you will quickly find that the Advances cost a lot more than they used to...

Anyone wanting evidence of this needs just to look at Kings X to Edinburgh fares...

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 28 Jul 2025 ==

XC allow you to replace an Advance after the departure time? Are you sure?

No. But it does allow you to change it to the next train (or any other) at a walk up fare with no admin fee before departure if you realise you are going to miss it on the way, e.g. while sat on a bus in traffic. The admin fee is without a doubt the worst part of Advances.

Worth noting that LNER's much maligned 70 minute ticket is basically an Advance with a £20 insurance policy against missing your train.

 

[Yorkshire09876]

Advances are cheaper than walk up fares to encourage people like me to catch the 8:12, which has empty seats, rather than the 8:06, which is full and standing.

And it works.

That's not how they have often been used - e.g. TPE especially used to sell advance tickets from York to Leeds up until the day before at a lower price than the walk-up fare because as it was train-specific they would get all the revenue, rather than having to split with Northern / TPE / XC / LNER. The fact that many of the trains they sold these tickets for were already over capacity with walk up and season ticket holders and would be wedged solid was clearly never a consideration.