Midlands & the North to Greater London - price differences

[newmilton]

I've recently had occasion to buy tickets from Nottingham and Newcastle to Elmstead Woods, and was struck by what the two different TOCs, EMT and EC charge for the privilege of travelling beyond their respective London terminals.

Nottingham to STP (advance): £17 on my chosen train
Nottingham to ESD: £20 ... i.e. £3 extra on the same train from NOT

Newcastle to KGX (advance): £16.85 (same day as above)
Newcastle to ESD: (same train, also advance): £39.50 ... a whopping £22.65 extra for a journey which costs only a quarter of that with a travelcard (which is obviously what I bought) and £6 more than the Newcastle-London leg!

In both cases these prices are for exactly the same train into London, priced without and with the extra to ESD. So why do EC feel the extra leg costs over seven times what EMT do?

 

[cuccir]

Another way to look at this is that East Coast are offering an extra discount, and therefore exceptional value, on the ticket which uses only their trains.

Compare the distances:
Newcastle to Kings Cross is 268 miles
Nottingham to St Pancras is 126 miles

The Newcastle to Kings Cross journey is slightly cheaper than the Nottingham to St Pancras journey, despite being more than double the distance - because East Coast offer good value tickets on journeys for which they receive 100% of the revenue, using their trains only. East Midlands Trains appear to have a 'flatter' pricing structure, offering a standard price across their Advance fares.

When the journey involves using other operator's trains, East Coast will have to share the revenue, as well as potentially being responsible for delays or issues on another TOCs' line - so they revert to a higher level of pricing for the whole trip, which is similar to the EMT pricing. In fact, per mile, the Newcastle to Ealmstead Woods ticket is still marginally better value than the EMT ticket from Nottingham!

Of course, the informed traveler will still be able to take advantage of East Coast's good value Newcastle-Kings Cross ticket by splitting.

 

[bb21]

East Coast Advance fares have much less detailed tiers as EMT Advances do. As it is, both EC Advance prices quoted are the lowest tier for your respective journeys, however the King's Cross fares have two extra lower tiers than the Elmstead Woods fares. This could be down to a number of reasons such as the deal they struck with SET w.r.t. for their share of the revenue on conveying the passenger on the &Connections part of the ticket.

EMT meanwhile appear to have a different structure to their Advance fares in that they just add a supplement to all their Advance fares in each tier. This is perhaps down to the different agreements they have with SET.

It is worthy of note that there is no First Advances on EMT involving connecting services, whereas there are on EC, so winners and losers.