Merseyrail Saveaway day ticket, query.

[Bletchleyite]

But why should anyone travelling between Southport and Liverpool pay 10% more to allow Runcorn etc into the Saveaway scheme?

Perhaps a Saveaway Plus card would be better for say an extra £1 or so which includes all of Halton and permits travel on TfW between Chester and Liverpool and Chester and Newton le Willows?

Saveaway is a zonal ticket. No reason the current one can't exist and a new wider All Zones one cost more.

 

[TheSel]

Because separate operators should not exist, except maybe in the same way as bus operators in London: the transport authority (TfL, or Merseytravel) should set the fares and control the conditions.

But they DO exist. And a today's ticket system has to reflect today's provision, not some eutopian (or possibly dystopian, depending on one's political persuasion) future situation.

Remember, the SaveAway is valid on buses, trains and even the Mersey Ferry. I would suggest that only a very small percentage of users actually use it on all three modes (and still less on all potential operators of all modes). But if you know you only want to use one operator, and that operator is willing to sell a suitable ticket priced at less than a SaveAway, why should they not do so?

 

[Bletchleyite]

But they DO exist. And a today's ticket system has to reflect today's provision, not some eutopian (or possibly dystopian, depending on one's political persuasion) future situation.

Remember, the SaveAway is valid on buses, trains and even the Mersey Ferry. I would suggest that only a very small percentage of users actually use it on all three modes (and still less on all potential operators of all modes). But if you know you only want to use one operator, and that operator is willing to sell a suitable ticket priced at less than a SaveAway, why should they not do so?

Because in a properly planned integrated urban transport system, you don't have buses, trains or trams, you have transport, and that is the product on sale. The way you do cheaper tickets is by giving them a smaller area of validity, which the Saveaway and Trio tickets do. And where it's for social integration reasons, you offer discount cards for all modes, you don't do what London does and relegate the paupers to buses (requiring you to duplicate Tube lines with them or people moan).

Single-mode tickets are a barrier to proper integration and should not exist in such areas at all. Merseytravel only gained them with the start of the Solo ticket in the mid 90s (MTL if I recall never did their own seasons, nor were point to point rail seasons available inside Merseyside) and should remove them again.

 

[Djgr]

But they DO exist. And a today's ticket system has to reflect today's provision, not some eutopian (or possibly dystopian, depending on one's political persuasion) future situation.

Remember, the SaveAway is valid on buses, trains and even the Mersey Ferry. I would suggest that only a very small percentage of users actually use it on all three modes (and still less on all potential operators of all modes). But if you know you only want to use one operator, and that operator is willing to sell a suitable ticket priced at less than a SaveAway, why should they not do so?

Because it adds to the general confusion (anarchy?) of public transport, which puts people off using it, which is bad for society.