Southern Advances being tweaked again

[Pieman007]

Hi All

Booking work tickets and it seems that our good friends at Southern are Tweeking the Advance allocations again......

From W/C 15/12/2025 it looks like 0732 from Portsmouth & Southsea to Victoria is now a "non Advance ticket" train......although it is an Off Peak Train......or is it an error? There doesn't seem to be any changes to the rest of the service - looked at returning back from East Croydon, last one is still 1623 and then re-introduced at 1953.

Bit annoying as I like to get that 0732 Service....

 

[Sonic1234]

They've been doing this for a while. Last May (?) they put the lowest Advance tier up £1, and they have been only offering higher priced Advances on earlier trains, or none at all. Advances aren't available for most of the morning on Saturdays now, for example.

Across the railway, there is a drive to maximise revenue and work out what prices the market will tolerate (see also LNER's fare trial and GWR's sneaky mid-year fare rises).

 

[yorkie]

Hi All

Booking work tickets and it seems that our good friends at Southern are Tweeking the Advance allocations again......

From W/C 15/12/2025 it looks like 0732 from Portsmouth & Southsea to Victoria is now a "non Advance ticket" train......although it is an Off Peak Train......or is it an error? There doesn't seem to be any changes to the rest of the service - looked at returning back from East Croydon, last one is still 1623 and then re-introduced at 1953.

Bit annoying as I like to get that 0732 Service....

They've been doing this for a while. Last May (?) they put the lowest Advance tier up £1, and they have been only offering higher priced Advances on earlier trains, or none at all. Advances aren't available for most of the morning on Saturdays now, for example.

Across the railway, there is a drive to maximise revenue and work out what prices the market will tolerate (see also LNER's fare trial and GWR's sneaky mid-year fare rises).

Indeed; now GTR realise people are using much cheaper tickets than the price people would be prepared to pay, for a regular commute, they will probably ensure that the price remains high. Fares are designed to maximise revenue (as well as putting people off travel at busy times, to keep costs down), not to provide good value to fare payers.

 

[Pieman007]

Thanks for the replies - yes I noted earlier this year (remember when Southern didn't release Advances for about 2.5 months).......that they Moved advances upto £8, but down my way Advances started at £10.....and on those first two in the morning there only seemed to be 1 possibly 2 tickets.

 

[Sleepy]

They've been doing this for a while. Last May (?) they put the lowest Advance tier up £1, and they have been only offering higher priced Advances on earlier trains, or none at all. Advances aren't available for most of the morning on Saturdays now, for example.

Across the railway, there is a drive to maximise revenue and work out what prices the market will tolerate (see also LNER's fare trial and GWR's sneaky mid-year fare rises).

Yet outer GEML commuter traffic has about 60% of travel on Advance tickets with Greater Anglia ???

 

[Sonic1234]

Yet outer GEML commuter traffic has about 60% of travel on Advance tickets with Greater Anglia ???

Advances aren't the problem. The railway loves Advances, it's the price of said Advances that is.

Southern traditionally had very cheap Advance tickets - £5 for years. They were something of a novelty fare, get the super price conscious and the Money Saving Expert crowd who would plan their 50-mile trip to the South Coast a month in advance to use the train, while the majority bought walk up tickets on the day. Traditionally, GTRs ticket sales were season tickets, walk ups and Day Travelcards with little online sales or advance purchase (you can see this culture within GTR to this day with their luke warm approach to e-tickets, TVMs everywhere (even Southease!) and blocking Advances at gatelines)

Covid happened, and the world moved to online purchase (plus the pervasive culture of do everything from your phone). Cost of living crisis meant more people searched for how to do activities on the cheap. More people used Advances, who were unaware of them before. Plus, all TOCs are under pressure to increase revenue. Southern have tried a few things in the years past Covid - annual Advance ticket rises, removing them from popular trains, only allowing them to less popular stations (at one time, for example, you couldn't buy an Advance to Worthing but you could to West Worthing) and making less available.

They have a living lab to work out what is the optimal price point and how consumer behaviour changes - same way supermarkets play around with prices and special offers to find the point to maximise revenue.