OhNoAPacer
Member
From my, admittedly very limited, experience what people tend to ask is what time is peak. I am not advocating it but having a blanket peak time would be simple and readily understood.
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Peak times for ticket validity should be determined by the train, not the ticket
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Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
To be fair CrossCountry did exactly this a while ago - but it does create its own anomalies.
The odd one for me on that is why a peak ticket is required to go from Plymouth to Edinburgh on the 0925 departure, but someone boarding at Totnes at 0953 can use an off peak ticket on the same train. In practice split ticketing sorts this out, but the headline restriction is there.
The 0930 blanket restriction on PAYG also leads to anomalies in the London area, although there are some easements. A blanket restriction works better for shorter distance journeys, but there is a fairly obvious reason why London area restrictions in the NSE area were generally switched to be based on arrival times in London.
I am old enough to remember the (SR) evening restriction (which ISTR was only for the former LPTB area anyway) being abolished - I think some time in the late 60s? Unfortunately the reintroduction has been piecemeal and inconsistent.
People think it would be simple but it would lead to all sorts of unintended consequences and would end up being more confusing that what we have now.
I don't think this is remotely sensible; do you?
How would the supplement be advertised, and how would it be calculated?
Do you have any form of background, training or knowledge in areas such as railway ticketing, contract law or consumer law?
Are you aware that Grand Central originally proposed to charge supplements for peak travel, but then they soon realised it was unworkable, and dropped the idea?
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What would that be? Would it apply to all journeys?
On the plus side, it would be great business for the forum's split ticketing website
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It means passengers who book direct with XC, rather than with retailers such as the forum's site, can end up paying a huge premium!
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OhNoAPacer
Member
As I said I am not in any way shape or form saying peak should be strictly time based.
What I was getting at was that the question I used to get asked by people, who because I use trains reasonably frequently thought, wildly incorrectly, that I had some expertise, was what time was peak.
To them having a set time across the entire network for all services would have been simpler to understand than looking up restriction codes.
In truth any system, tickets based, train based, time based or using phases of the moon
will create anomalies.
The only two 'simple' systems I can think of are to have just one fare at all times or, a litttle more complicated, one fare at all times with advances.
I am not naive and know that the one fare would not be set at the off peak fare, which is why part of me always shudders when fares simplification is mentioned.
Of course if the fares system was made simple it still leaves routing to cause fun and games
What I was getting at was that the question I used to get asked by people, who because I use trains reasonably frequently thought, wildly incorrectly, that I had some expertise, was what time was peak.
To them having a set time across the entire network for all services would have been simpler to understand than looking up restriction codes.
In truth any system, tickets based, train based, time based or using phases of the moon
will create anomalies.The only two 'simple' systems I can think of are to have just one fare at all times or, a litttle more complicated, one fare at all times with advances.
I am not naive and know that the one fare would not be set at the off peak fare, which is why part of me always shudders when fares simplification is mentioned.
Of course if the fares system was made simple it still leaves routing to cause fun and games
Except on the flows they own where they didn't.
Whether it is sensible or not, do you really see LNER reintroducing super off-peak singles on the routes where they have been withdrawn?
From a speculative point of view, the logical next step would appear to be to extend the advance / semi-flex set up to all of LNER's internal flows, then to extend that approach to all flows that they price including other operators.
I don't have a clue how semi-flex could work for journeys with multiple reserved trains. Would you flex the entire itinerary, or one train within the booking? This particular confusion can be eliminated by just having advance fares. Indeed, why retain the anytime single?
A set up where long distance travel is based only on advances removes any confusion at ticket barriers, because the booking is either for the given train or it isn't. The only confusion arises in disruption.
If the trial is unsuccessful, they will have to.
I am sure DfT/LNER will be desperate to demonstrate it is successful, but the scale of opposition has been huge, so we have a chance of avoiding the impending doom.
If they are successful then there will be many more split ticketing opportunities.
I can't wait to buy a cheap flex for a York stopper and use it on the fast train which coats two to three times the price
Ask LNER/DfT! I would be keen to hear an answer but I suspect they don't have a clue.
That isn't a sensible idea and it would turn away a lot of business users.
Have you ever travelled for business for a company that wants the price to be known in advance?
The idea that off peak tickets are too flexible to avoid confusion , so we must all be only allowed on one specific train, is a clear example of the tail wagging the dog.
Perish the thought that passengers might want some flexibility.
Long distance travel based purely on Advance tickets only would be totally unworkable and in my view if it ever came in nationwide it would result in farcical issues and it would quickly have to be scrapped. For example:
What happens where the ‘long distance’ TOC provides the local service. These aren’t odd anomalies there are loads of examples across the country. Are we really going to end up with a situation where someone travelling from Warrington Bank Quay to Wigan North Western or Didcot to Swindon would have to purchase inflexible Advance tickets?
What happens in a multi-train (or indeed Multi-TOC) journey if a connection is missed? LNER can just about get away with the 70 minute rule on their small scale trial but that isn’t going to work for multi train journeys across the network.
Furthermore if, as I strongly suspect, this is seen as a way of bringing in compulsory reservations then what happens in the event of disruption if a passenger cannot get a reservation on a later train? Surely they can’t be abandoned mid-journey? I’m sure we’d be told that ‘safeguards’ would be put in place but we already see this often not happening with NRCOT 28.2 so I don’t hold out much hope.
Finally, while the current system is far from perfect, regulated fares do at least give some customer protection from outrageous fares increases. We’ve already seen the direction of travel with LNER’s simplification and massive increases in fares to travel at popular times. Some will argue that the railway needs to increase revenue (others could argue that it should become more efficient with the revenue it already has, but that would be a separate discussion).
Who is looking out for passenger interests with all of this? I’ve yet to see a single benefit of LNER’s trial so we should be very concerned if this becomes a blueprint for fares reform across the network.
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