Scrap TOC only tickets

[Harpers Tate]

I'd agree in principle with the headline suggestion.
However, because "Advance" tickets are booked train only, they are thereby intrinsically specified operator/s only. So that needs not change. Unless and until the TOC/s involved fail to provide the booked service/s, (including connections) at which point all such tickets should default to "any permitted" status.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I'd agree in principle with the headline suggestion.
However, because "Advance" tickets are booked train only, they are thereby intrinsically specified operator/s only. So that needs not change. Unless and until the TOC/s involved fail to provide the booked service/s, (including connections) at which point all such tickets should default to "any permitted" status.

Regarding Advances I would favour:-

1. A rule that no Advance may be sold for any train service which would be expected to load to over 100% of seating capacity as a result
2. A rule that if there is disruption to the journey, defined as a cancellation, a significant delay that would result in a Delay Repay payment on arrival (15 minutes or more perhaps?) or a missed connection, the Advance automatically gains the validity of an Any Permitted Anytime Day Single between the two points it is sold for.
3. A minimum distance. Short distance Advances are silly, petty and overcomplicate the fares system; they do not differentiate the market any more than "bus wars" also don't[1]. Yes, you, Northern.

Fundamentally any discounted fare should differentiate the market in some manner so it grows it compared with not having it, or should move existing passengers from overcrowded services to quieter ones. If it doesn't do either of those, its effect is overall negative by complicating things.

[1] Magic Bus sort of does, but that's a very specialist niche pretty much always involving students. On the railway they of couse have the 16-25 Railcard.

 

[Metal_gee_man]

Under your proposals, what would the range of fares for the following journeys be:

York - Whitby
Manchester - London
Peterborough - Leicester
Peterborough - Nottingham
Exeter - Penzance
Cattal - Dronfield

I'm trying to work out what your getting at, sure they all take a convoluted route which when you compare miles and chains vs as the crow flies miles doesn't seem fair.
But based upon some of these routes also being travellable by one or more TOCs are you still suggesting that it creates an unfair distribution of fare income?

 

[Ianno87]

Regarding Advances I would favour:-

1. A rule that no Advance may be sold for any train service which would be expected to load to over 100% of seating capacity as a result

To a point... would seem unreasonable (for example) to not sell (Say) Advances from Cardiff to Manchester just because you might gain a few standing passengers at Stockport.

 

[Bletchleyite]

To a point... would seem unreasonable (for example) to not sell (Say) Advances from Cardiff to Manchester just because you might gain a few standing passengers at Stockport.

True. Perhaps add to that "for more than 25% of the journey time" or something.

 

[jfollows]

The TOC-only pricing from Wilmslow to Manchester has changed over time, as I think has happened in a lot of places on the WCML. Initially the Virgin Trains price offered a significant saving over the Northern-priced any permitted fare with a reduction in flexibility. It was a useful option and I used it frequently.
Now the TOC-only fare is 10p less than the "any permitted" fare, so it's pointless (for 10p more I get 3 more trains per hour, and the option of the route via Manchester Airport, and the opportunity to break my journey at places other than Stockport), and only exists because it will show up first on booking Web sites, and be chosen by people who don't know any better.
It's a game being played at the expense of the paying passenger, who is completely confused by railway pricing anyway.

I don't think they should be abolished, but I think it just means that people are frightened away from using trains because of the complexity and should approach ticket purchasing with appropriate cynicism and caution. If we accept that TOCs want as much of our money as they can get, then these are the games they will play, along with other companies which "reward" customers by charging more at renewal than they would for new customers.

I have spent a lot of time and effort over my life understanding railway ticket pricing, for me it's a game and I play it to win, however the vast majority of people who buy rail tickets don't have my knowledge and interest.

If we're going down the path of effectively nationalising our railways as we seem to be, there are a number of predatory practices which shouldn't happen, but TOC-only fares are not the problem, it's the way that they're now being implemented that is the problem.

 

[Ianno87]

True. Perhaps add to that "for more than 25% of the journey time" or something.

"No passengers standing for more than 20 minutes" possibly (being a fairly industry-standard rule).

 

[Bletchleyite]

"No passengers standing for more than 20 minutes" possibly (being a fairly industry-standard rule).

Yes, that would work and not complicate things by having different rules for different things.

The fundamental idea is to prevent price-dumping causing overcrowding over long distances, and to prevent TOCs from being able to profit from that, as was happening with the Trent Valley LNR service when it was 4-car, which was seriously disadvantaging people whose station is only served by those services. The 8-car lengthening has near enough solved this, so the Advances would come back. (And indeed very few if any trains would fail it at the moment!)

 

[Mal75756]

To cut out split tickets why not offer a simple calculation for all fares, something like 10p per mile (I have chosen 10p as it is an easy calculation). We know the mileage between each station so should be easy to do. Then we have fares like
A to B (10 miles) = £1.00
B to C (10 miles) = £1.00
A to C (20 miles) = £2.00
A to D (200 miles) = £20.00

And to make off peak more attractive, starting a journey before 09:00 would double the pence per mile figure.
You could have some Conditions of use e.g. most direct route available at the time of travel.
When the fares increase then you just add 0.5p per mile or 1p per mile
Or am I making this too simplistic

 

[pdeaves]

Or am I making this too simplistic

One thing you are missing is where there is more than one route between two places. Do you charge for the shorter route (in which case, there would be accusations that it's not fair that an intermediate station on the long route costs more than the full journey)? Or do you charge for the longer route (in which case, there would be accusations of over charging if you take the short route). People could 'get round' the system by splitting tickets according to the route they want.

E.g. Swindon to Bristol Temple Meads. Travel via Bristol Parkway is shorter. Do you price via Parkway? Do you allow travel via Bath? In which case, the fare to Bath itself would be disproportionately high. Do you price via Bath? In which case, if I limit my travel choices I could make it cheaper by getting Swindon-Parkway and Parkway-Temple Meads fares (i.e. split ticketing).

The price per mile concept only works well with single routes emanating from a fixed centre. Manchester Metrolink would be a good place for it, except they simplify further into zones.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Pricing restrictive TOC-specific tickets at 10p less than their "Any Permitted" equivalent does seem, on the face of it, to be sharp practice / not customer friendly / a scam. (Delete as appropriate).

 

[Bletchleyite]

Pricing restrictive TOC-specific tickets at 10p less than their "Any Permitted" equivalent does seem, on the face of it, to be sharp practice / not customer friendly / a scam. (Delete as appropriate).

It's done, in the same way as it is when selling cars or hotel rooms, to ensure the cheaper ticket appears first in an online search. Yes, I find it sharp practice, and is why one of my proposals was a minimum discount percentage to stop this sort of thing because it does not provide any market differentiation which is the only good reason to have TOC specific and otherwise restricted fares. Fares that exist for a TOC simply to poach revenue from another TOC without growing the overall market by way of market differentiation (i.e. appealing to a market not well served by the existing fare set) are highly negative (as all they do is make the fare system more confusing and complex) and should not be allowed to exist.

I don't overall have an issue with the idea of a slower train being cheaper than a faster one, and most of the nationalised systems across Europe have that in some form. I don't have that much of an issue with heavy discounts being offered to fill empty capacity, e.g. where you run A-B-C and most people get off at B. What I do have an issue with is petty spatting by offering tiny discounts just to appear a certain way round in the fares list, and with TOCs that price-dump in a manner that causes serious overcrowding to the significant disbenefit of those whose only choice is the slower train.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Don't always agree with everything you have to say, but 100% behind you on that posting, my friend!

 

[Starmill]

so passengers can pay a lesser fare to travel on a crowded service, or a premium fare if they wish to have more room to themselves. sounds perfectly sensible

The real losers from this are the people from Nuneaton. Avanti West Coast only provide two direct services to London on a Saturday for example, and they're 0659 and 0904. There are only three coming back, 1707, 1907, 2020. Very little choice really. Users at Tamworth, Lichfield and Rugeley (no Avanti services whatsoever for the latter) aren't in a good position either, although they're more likely to be able to get a seat London-bound.

Of course it does go deeper than this, just before the pandemic, people going to Liverpool had been competing for seats on boarding at London Euston with people going to Leighton Buzzard! I travelled on an 8 car from London to Birmingham in December that was full and standing leaving London and also arriving in Birmingham, although it did ease off in the middle between Milton Keynes and Northampton.

 

[Bletchleyite]

In any case the "premium fare" to "have more room to themselves" is called First Class (yes, I know, LNR's product is an utter sham). It's not about leaving seats empty.

 

[Hadders]

To cut out split tickets why not offer a simple calculation for all fares, something like 10p per mile (I have chosen 10p as it is an easy calculation). We know the mileage between each station so should be easy to do. Then we have fares like
A to B (10 miles) = £1.00
B to C (10 miles) = £1.00
A to C (20 miles) = £2.00
A to D (200 miles) = £20.00

And to make off peak more attractive, starting a journey before 09:00 would double the pence per mile figure.
You could have some Conditions of use e.g. most direct route available at the time of travel.
When the fares increase then you just add 0.5p per mile or 1p per mile
Or am I making this too simplistic

This proposal would not cut out split ticketing. Consider a long distance journey starting before 09:00. Rather than pay the 'peak time premium' for a journey starting before 09:00 passengers would buy the more expensive ticket to the first station that the train calls at after 09:00 and then purchase an off peak ticket for the remainder. Unless you mean travel on any train starting its journey before 09:00 should carry a 'peak time premium' throughout, in which case a what would you do about a train departing Edinburgh at 08:45 arriving Kings Cross at 13:15, would a passenger boarding the train at Stevenage at 12:45 be required to pay the 'peak time premium'?

What do you mean by using the most direct route available. What route should I use to travel between London and Birmingham - is via High Wycombe allowed. AM I restricted to Avanti only. Can I use a direct train from Euston to New Street via Northampton? What is the most direct route from Stevenage to Manchester? Via London is the most frequent service but longer in distance, via Doncaster can be faster at certain times of the day but not always. If I could use either route how would it be priced?

If there was a standard price per mile there would be a massive disparity in fares. What would you do to promote lightly used lines with an infrequent service, charging a standard rate per mile could kill some of them. On the other hand some fares would end up becoming far too cheap resulting in mass overcrowding.

 

[Dspatula]

One thing you are missing is where there is more than one route between two places. Do you charge for the shorter route (in which case, there would be accusations that it's not fair that an intermediate station on the long route costs more than the full journey)? Or do you charge for the longer route (in which case, there would be accusations of over charging if you take the short route). People could 'get round' the system by splitting tickets according to the route they want.

E.g. Swindon to Bristol Temple Meads. Travel via Bristol Parkway is shorter. Do you price via Parkway? Do you allow travel via Bath? In which case, the fare to Bath itself would be disproportionately high. Do you price via Bath? In which case, if I limit my travel choices I could make it cheaper by getting Swindon-Parkway and Parkway-Temple Meads fares (i.e. split ticketing).

The price per mile concept only works well with single routes emanating from a fixed centre. Manchester Metrolink would be a good place for it, except they simplify further into zones.

Given that every rail company in Japan that doesn't have a flat rate uses a base fare plus rail Kilometre charge it must be a system that somewhat works. It's a very different system though there's no peak time in Japan, all fares are based on single journeys and JR Limited express trains have surcharges other companies have special reserved cars with surcharges

 

[NorthOxonian]

One thing you are missing is where there is more than one route between two places. Do you charge for the shorter route (in which case, there would be accusations that it's not fair that an intermediate station on the long route costs more than the full journey)? Or do you charge for the longer route (in which case, there would be accusations of over charging if you take the short route). People could 'get round' the system by splitting tickets according to the route they want.

E.g. Swindon to Bristol Temple Meads. Travel via Bristol Parkway is shorter. Do you price via Parkway? Do you allow travel via Bath? In which case, the fare to Bath itself would be disproportionately high. Do you price via Bath? In which case, if I limit my travel choices I could make it cheaper by getting Swindon-Parkway and Parkway-Temple Meads fares (i.e. split ticketing).

The price per mile concept only works well with single routes emanating from a fixed centre. Manchester Metrolink would be a good place for it, except they simplify further into zones.

The ideal "per mile" system would be one where all fares were priced for a specific route, but it was incredibly easy to excess those fares. You could even do away with permitted routes all together. So for your example, there wouldn't be a fare for Swindon - Bristol TM, you would have to specify your route. So you could have
Swindon - Chippenham - Bristol Temple Meads
Swindon - Bristol Parkway - Bristol Temple Meads

You could even offer fares via routes which aren't currently permitted. A fare could be calculated for travel via bizarre routes like Swindon - Melksham - Trowbridge - Bristol Temple Meads, or Swindon - Stroud - Cheltenham Spa - Bristol Temple Meads.

There are certain downsides. For routes like York - Whitby, the rather circuitous route means the fare would be very high, but is that such a bad thing? Travellers from the south would still have a cheaper, faster, and simpler option in the form of the 840 bus. Another problem might be where different routes are very similar but subtly different - would Reading - Didcot Parkway - Oxford have a different fare to Reading - (Didcot East curve on an XC train) - Oxford? In theory these would probably end up being a penny or two different, which I'm not sure is sensible.

However, I would imagine this would only be practicable with an E ticket system, and while fares would become simpler, ticketing might become more complicated to understand. I don't think such a system would be better than the current approach, but it is interesting to think about how it could work.

 

[pdeaves]

The ideal "per mile" system would be one where all fares were priced for a specific route, but it was incredibly easy to excess those fares. You could even do away with permitted routes all together. So for your example, there wouldn't be a fare for Swindon - Bristol TM, you would have to specify your route. So you could have
Swindon - Chippenham - Bristol Temple Meads
Swindon - Bristol Parkway - Bristol Temple Meads

You could even offer fares via routes which aren't currently permitted. A fare could be calculated for travel via bizarre routes like Swindon - Melksham - Trowbridge - Bristol Temple Meads, or Swindon - Stroud - Cheltenham Spa - Bristol Temple Meads.

I see where you're coming from, but I think there will be complications associated with having to pay more for a slower route. Obviously, a ridiculous route could be priced accordingly (in our example, via Cheltenham would probably fall in this category) but a more reasonable route... what then? What about engineering diversions (particularly if the diverted train makes calls on its diverted route)? It wouldn't take much to end up with longer distance folk either paying less than shorter distance folk, or having a different fare to usual with all the confusion that makes. I'm not saying 'leave everything as is' but think the system needs very careful thought before any change and that it is more complicated than appears. That's probably why no one has come up with an alternative to what we have yet!

 

[Bletchleyite]

There is effectively no way to have off-peak walk-up tickets and not have any anomalies of any kind - all the possibilities have some sort of anomaly.

 

[JonathanH]

From the press release posted here https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...ixed-fee-contracts.209076/page-9#post-4782567

"Our new deal for rail demands more for passengers. It will simplify people’s journeys, ending the uncertainty and confusion about whether you are using the right ticket or the right train company." would appear to meet (some) people's wish for an end to TOC specific tickets.

Taken to its logical conclusion, it would appear to mean the end for all such tickets, ie including things like the LNR-only tickets from Euston to Birmingham. I suppose we will see in due course.

I see that RDG are also welcoming the chance to 'simplify' the fare structure.

"It should be overseen by a new guiding mind for the whole industry and underpinned by a simpler to use fares system."

 

[Bill_Lestrange]

Surely we shouldn't be having this type of doubling up (re. avanti/LNWR services). To my mind, rather than get rid of the fares, it would be more prudent to curtail the through running of LNWR services. That is to say, the logical point would have the Avanti services doing few stops then the LNWR services connecting with the smaller stations between these points. For example, perhaps the service pattern could be something like:

Avanti service Euston - Wolverhampton stopping at MK central, Rugby, Cov., BHX, New Street and Wolvo connecting with a:
Southern/LNWR stopper - London - MK central.
LNWR local MK central - Rugby via Northampton,
WMT local - Rugby to New Street (all stations).

I am aware that this is significantly less efficient than having 1 train running through the whole service, but gives substantially more options. To give some journeys that would be possible -

Passenger A wants to get to Leighton Buzzard - they could either get the direct (slower) service from Euston to Leighton Buzzard or get the Avanti service to MKC, change and go to Leighton Buzzard with a fare increase to cover the increased speed (a limited express supplement).

Passenger B wans to get to Hampden in Arden from New St. They could get the direct from New St. which would be slower but more equipped for commuter traffic or again, with a slight supplement could take the service to International then change to a connecting local which would let passengers access one to the other.

If the former option was not a convenient ticket to buy (or was tied to a travel card) then this could mean more commuter or regular traffic on this service and mean that less regular travellers would take the faster trains freeing up capacity on the commuter network. I also think that connections ought to be more widely advertised as many travellers will always take the direct train even if a less direct service is faster. All of this requires TOCs to be thinking in joined up terms rather than competing against one another and I am aware that this goes against the economic model of the railways...

 

[Hadders]

Surely we shouldn't be having this type of doubling up (re. avanti/LNWR services). To my mind, rather than get rid of the fares, it would be more prudent to curtail the through running of LNWR services. That is to say, the logical point would have the Avanti services doing few stops then the LNWR services connecting with the smaller stations between these points. For example, perhaps the service pattern could be something like:

Avanti service Euston - Wolverhampton stopping at MK central, Rugby, Cov., BHX, New Street and Wolvo connecting with a:
Southern/LNWR stopper - London - MK central.
LNWR local MK central - Rugby via Northampton,
WMT local - Rugby to New Street (all stations).

I am aware that this is significantly less efficient than having 1 train running through the whole service, but gives substantially more options. To give some journeys that would be possible -

Passenger A wants to get to Leighton Buzzard - they could either get the direct (slower) service from Euston to Leighton Buzzard or get the Avanti service to MKC, change and go to Leighton Buzzard with a fare increase to cover the increased speed (a limited express supplement).

Passenger B wans to get to Hampden in Arden from New St. They could get the direct from New St. which would be slower but more equipped for commuter traffic or again, with a slight supplement could take the service to International then change to a connecting local which would let passengers access one to the other.

If the former option was not a convenient ticket to buy (or was tied to a travel card) then this could mean more commuter or regular traffic on this service and mean that less regular travellers would take the faster trains freeing up capacity on the commuter network. I also think that connections ought to be more widely advertised as many travellers will always take the direct train even if a less direct service is faster. All of this requires TOCs to be thinking in joined up terms rather than competing against one another and I am aware that this goes against the economic model of the railways...

So no direct trains between London and Northampton? Doesn’t sound very efficient or passenger friendly.

 

[Bletchleyite]

So no direct trains between London and Northampton? Doesn’t sound very efficient or passenger friendly.

There is a natural split of the LNR services which was the case in the past - Euston-Northampton (the outer reach of London commuterland, basically), Northampton-Birmingham (another commuter service the other way) and Birmingham-Liverpool (a regional express and less of a commuter service other than north of Crewe).

But TBH it works well enough just having Euston-Brum and Brum-Liverpool as separate services. It was only the excessively tightly diagrammed through services that made a mess.