Mileage based railway pricing

[RJ]

The concept is often proposed on this forum, despite it likely being unfeasible on the UK's railway network. Which countries/rail networks actually have such a pricing policy in place?

 

[maxiboy]

Local rail in Germany (IRE/RE/RB/S) does, but it's not a strict system as one ticket may permit journeys on different routes. German local rail fare definitions therefore include an arbitrary fare kilometrage (Tarifkilometer) value that can be looked up in the Tfv 603 fares manual. Rounding and degression apply, so no fixed €/km value.

Also, Rhine-Ruhr Passenger Transport Executive (VRR) plans to introduce an experimental mileage based pricing model for m-ticketing, they have been planning for years but to no avail. Their present fare system is (kind of) zonal, but seems quite arbitrary, arcane and confusing even to the locals!

 

[embers25]

Austria certainly used to.

 

[Metrailway]

The vast majority of rail networks in the world use distance pricing to some extent.

Certainly Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, Poland, Belgium, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, India and China all use price per km for the basis of some if not all fares.

 

[30907]

Slovenia is exclusively priced per km AFAIK but that's becoming rarer across Europe. I
think Benelux likewise. Switzerland was until recently, with hardly any supplements either, but even there you can get Advances now. None of these has separate fare levels for IC and Regional (?supplements in SLO).
This works well in small countries with no one dominant traffic generator.
In France regional trains are still km - based in general; I'm not sure if the regions can vary those in general.
Most other countries now have some sort of quota controlled Advance fare (Poland is the latest) - though in CZ these are not booked train only.

GB is unique in offering Saver type fares extensively - and also in having fares set on different bases by different operators (which to be fair goes back pre privatisation). A plus and a minus IMO.

 

[Bletchleyite]

GB is unique in offering Saver type fares extensively - and also in having fares set on different bases by different operators (which to be fair goes back pre privatisation). A plus and a minus IMO.

Yes, off peak walk-up fares are a typically UK thing (and long may they last!)

Germany did have the Sparpreis and Super-Spar-Preis but these were fixed-price fares that only made sense over a certain distance, and weren't peak/off-peak but required minimum time away.

As for Germany more generally, it's moving towards market pricing. When the IC-X units arrive there won't be a lot left that isn't classed ICE, and that is (and always has been) market priced.

 

[ASharpe]

I'm not certain exactly how it works, but the BART network in San Francisco always seemed like a mileage based system to me.

At each ticket topup machine there is a chart telling you how much it costs to get to every other station. I think there is a base fare and then extra based on distance. Sometimes its only about 10c to go one extra station, if you go under the Bay it's a bit more of a jump.

It's pretty straightforward as you only have 1 choice of route.

 

[bnm]

Surely even those countries that do have such a system will rarely (unless former UK possessions/colonies) refer to it as mileage based.