My proposal for a new smart based rail ticketing system

[Bletchleyite]

There are of course anomalies with such a system. There are anomalies with any system, but distance-based pricing is at least transparent about how they arise. What makes such a scheme difficult to implement nationwide is the difficulty of doing any kind of demand management except in a very crude way.

You probably don't need complex demand management on local and regional networks - the recent appearance of Advances on these types of service are just simple money-grabs by incumbent TOCs who aren't allowed to set TOC specific walk-up fares.

I would see us having a contactless/smartcard based system for these and a separate compulsory-reservation train-specific and fully yield-managed system for IC type services.

 

[Bletchleyite]

What about first class validators?

There are a few ways of doing that.

One is that you set your account up to always do First Class, the other is that you have a validator to touch when doing First Class either on the station or on the train. The third is that you get rid of regional First Class as it's really pretty pointless and rather a waste of capacity.

 

[Indigo Soup]

You probably don't need complex demand management on local and regional networks - the recent appearance of Advances on these types of service are just simple money-grabs by incumbent TOCs who aren't allowed to set TOC specific walk-up fares.

It's not so much varying the fare by time, as varying the standard per-mile rate. Realistically, the per-mile rate ought to be higher on the busiest sections to reflect the cost of providing for traffic, whilst not burdening quieter routes with high fares. The most obvious way to do that is to define fares by route segment, then add them up for journeys of more than one station. This in turn makes routeing more of an issue.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It's not so much varying the fare by time, as varying the standard per-mile rate. Realistically, the per-mile rate ought to be higher on the busiest sections to reflect the cost of providing for traffic, whilst not burdening quieter routes with high fares. The most obvious way to do that is to define fares by route segment, then add them up for journeys of more than one station. This in turn makes routeing more of an issue.

That makes no sense. Providing a 2-car DMU with one person, dog, bicycle, driver and guard is more costly per person than providing a full-and-standing 12-car set on a London commuter route.

You might want to do that to price people off, but it does not reflect the cost. The former will haemorrhage subsidy, the latter will make a whacking profit.

 

[Indigo Soup]

That makes no sense. Providing a 2-car DMU with one person, dog, bicycle, driver and guard is more costly per person than providing a full-and-standing 12-car set on a London commuter route.

You might want to do that to price people off, but it does not reflect the cost. The former will haemorrhage subsidy, the latter will make a whacking profit.

Fair point - I was thinking more of the 12-car set at the outer end of its' journey where it hasn't filled up yet. So that's at least three different cases that probably justify different cost profiles.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Fair point - I was thinking more of the 12-car set at the outer end of its' journey where it hasn't filled up yet. So that's at least three different cases that probably justify different cost profiles.

There is no reason whatsoever to charge a premium for those on the outer reaches of the 12-car set - it's required for the busy bit, which is not the fault of those passengers.

There is also no reason to charge the "one man, dog and bicycle" passenger a premium, as he'll drive.

Really, it just comes down to charging more for peak travel periods, which is easily if crudely done by touch-in time.

 

[PeterC]

You can adjust the fares on an overloaded route by simply inserting additional "virtual miles" into the calculation. The press would have a field day when they found out of course which is one of the problems with a transparrent pricing system.

On the inter city side you could have an additional premium fare, either milage based or as a straight suppliment, on certain trains, perhaps make these "named" trains. There are the same issues as for detecting first class usage of course.

This is an interesting exercise, pity it will never see the light of day.