Great Western Coffee Shop

Why would I want to buy an advance ticket at up to £43.20 when I can buy an anytime single, any permitted route, for £31.50?

http://www.brfares.com/#!fares?orig=MKM&dest=SUG (http://www.brfares.com/#!fares?orig=MKM&dest=SUG)

Edit to correct link

you wouldn't.....just as you wouldn't buy a pair of trousers if two prices were shown. It's no different

I've come across many examples of Advances being dearer than an anytime single, or in one case an anytime return.
I've assumed it to be related to the TOC setting the price, as all examples i've seen are XC advances on what is GWR priced walk ups.

I would have thought that this kind of overpriced advance ticket could be construed as illegal on the grounds that someone who sold it to a customer where there was a cheaper and equally valid (or "more valid") ticket available at a lower price would have quite clearly failed in their duty to provide the cheapest ticket. (can you think of any reason why this overpriced fare would be the correct one to offer the customer?)

A regulator with teeth would insist that fares databases were culled of such tickets and dish out substantial fines to ToCs ripping people off like this.  Alas we don't have that kind of regulator. 

In fact I would go further and suggest that seeing as we are prepared to give the ToCs the privilege of using criminal sanctions (including imprisonment) against passengers who defraud the railway with ticketless travel then ToCs who defraud the passenger with overpriced fares ought to be subject to criminal penalties too. 

If my memory serves me correctly, I've also encountered this with certain FGW (as it still was at the time) advance fares on FGW services.

Indeed. Not clever, but also not something for regulation - as long as there is no attempt to push the Advance by hiding the lower fare.

As I said above, there's no difference between this & a pair of jesns being offered at two different prices. You choose.

I think we want to be sure that we always get the lowest fare option at all selling points. At least web-based purchasing points give us that.

Couldn't find it earlier n to link, but it seems the regulator is concerned that rail companies are hiding the cheapest tickets:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/26/millions-of-passengers-overcharged-as-train-operators-hide-cheap/ (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/26/millions-of-passengers-overcharged-as-train-operators-hide-cheap/)

First couple of paragraphs from the above article:

My understanding is that such a duty is only required of a staffed ticket office.  TVMs and on line sites may offer just a selection of fares.  And, no, I couldn't think of a good reason to sell purchase that advance ticket - hence my original question.


I agree with your sentiment, though I think I would want to adjust the detail.

I asked about this elsewhere a few years back elsewhere and one response was that with an advance you are guaranteed a seat reservation whereas with a walk-up ticket you could have the situation where you are unable to reserve a seat if all of the general reservations are taken (even if advance seats are still available) so you could pay extra for the advance to guarantee yourself a seat.

This implies they want them selling us split tickets where appropriate. Whilst it would be nice I don't agree with that being suitable.

As an example, transplit.com says if I wanted to go to Swansea and back after 9am today (from Liskeard) I'd save £46.65 splitting at Saltash, Taunton, Filton Abbey Wood, and Cardiff. its just going to make a ticket office so slow issuing many tickets. And then making sure that the purchaser is on a train calling at Saltash and Filton Abbey Wood.

For goodness sake - the elephant in the room is the mind numbingly complex fares system with its innumerable permutations and possibilities - simplify it, smooth out the anomalies and this will no longer be an issue!  ::)

Oh, but it will - or rather making the change would be very unpopular.

This story has been running for ages, so surely the industry must have a plan for a simplified fares regime ready by now. Or maybe there is more than one. But if they go for a French-style distance-related price for each journey, and sweep away all the easements and cheaper rates locally (like round Didcot), a lot of fares will go up - and by quite a lot.

Since the number of people buying the lower-priced fares is pretty small, especially for split tickets, making the switch revenue-neutral will only give a very small drop in the higher fares. And we all know what happens when a change produces winners and losers, don't we? The winners forget within a few days, and regard the new state of affairs as normal, while the losers remain resentful and feel cheated for years.

I suspect they are waiting for the clamour for change to get louder (and maybe playing commercial and political chicken with how late they can go). Then they can say "sorry your fare went up - but everyone else wanted this simplification; look at the papers". Not that that will help them much, of course.

Privatisation has made it harder to simplify the fares because of the extra fingers in the ORCATS pie?

...by the same shop at the same time.  I'm sure the authorities would have something to say if Tesco's started selling their products with two barcodes on - one giving the correct price and the other there for no other reason than to get more money out of a shopper who scans the wrong barcode by mistake.  There are of course plenty of examples in transport were you get to choose between a cheap and an expensive fare for the same journey.  Look at airlines.  You can pay £100 or £1000 for the same seat on the same flight.  But at least in those situations there are differences in things like change fees and refund rules.  The problem with overpriced advanced fares is that you pay more and you get a ticket with more restrictive conditions (ie one that can only be used on a single train).  It is all very well saying that the customer can choose, but with overpriced advance fares there is no reason for a rational consumer in possession of the correct and complete information to choose the overpriced advance.  The ONLY reason a customer would pay that fare is because of ignorance, mistake, inattention or because they have been mislead.  Those fares exist for no other purpose than to take advantage of the consumer.  

Plus, there truly is a free market in jeans and competition and consumer choice.  Most ToCs are much closer to the monopoly end of things than that and so they need a regulator like other utilities were consumer choice is limited.  This is why we have OfWat, Ofcom etc but not the jeans Ombudsman.  

I welcomed the advent of ToD and the ease of buying on the web (especially multiple tickets/reservations). I'd say generally the web is good for that, but there are some occasions where a particular outlet has a deal (such as EMT £1 off advance singles) or this SWT £16 "go anywhere" promotion (available via all trainline back-end sites, but not webTIS) so you need to know where to go for the absolute cheapest.

Indeed, and no OfRail, which says something, I think.

We need to get off the bandwagon of having us presented with the cheapest fare for the journey (the only way in reality this could work as has been said is via a complete simplification to mileage based fares, maybe with different pence per mile amounts at different times of day, so keeping peak & off-peak, with all the problems highlighted above in Stuvings post) and told that we choose the fare we want, as when purchasing anything else.

I agree that ticketing *websites* need simplification - you should be able to input the journey you want & get a choice of fares that are valid on those journeys (the mixing desk option gets close where you can click on various journey options & see which fares are valid for each) - and told how flexible they are - splitting still allowed for those that want to use it.

There is a big difference between being presented with the cheapest of all possible fare combinations for a given journey (including splits and other arcane practices), and being presented with the cheapest commonly available point-to-point fare for that journey. Right now TVMs don't do either, and it's pot luck with whatever website you might choose.

I do not expect the Charlbury TVM to tell me about the arcane tricks I know to get a cheaper fare to London or to Birmingham.

I do, however, expect it to present a Super Off-Peak Return to Paddington on the initial quick-access screen, when the ticket is valid, rather than just an Off-Peak Return. (I shudder to think how much GWR are raking in from people who simply don't know the Super Off-Peak exists.)

I do also expect it to be able to sell me an Oxford Evening Out ticket in the evening, especially given that the ticket office is closed then, and GWR are perennially prattling on about "buy before you board". I would if I could!

Neither of these require any simplification (radical, complete, or even minimal) of the fare system. They just require a few lines of code changing in the ticket machine.

There could be some justification in offering an off-peak on Monday to Friday, when people might want to return in the early evening.  Does Charlbury have late enough trains to allow a super off-peak return journey in the mid to late evening (Melksham, where I have seen the same issue, doesn't) ?  What's offered on Saturdays and Sundays when I suspect that super off-peak is valid on all services?

Absolutely, there's very much a justification for offering both (with an explanation of the difference). But there's no justification for only offering the Off-Peak.

(Charlbury does have plenty of evening trains on which the Super Off-Peak is valid: the 19.22 departure from Paddington and everything from then on. I'm not sure what it shows at weekends but will check next time I'm there!)

One factor that often gets ignored in discussions about fare anomalies and simplifications is that anomalies are very difficult to completely eliminate.  What has changed recently or certainly since the days of BR, is that we now have some fares which are eye wateringly expensive and other fares that are dirt cheap.  Personally I think neither can be justified (very high fares price people off (with consequences for social exclusion, environmental pollution etc etc and also the reputation of the network) and very cheap fares devalue the product and are hard to justify on a network which is tax payer subsidised.    

If we can't rip it all up and start again, can we at least have a phased in minimum and maximum price per mile rule.  The anomalies would still exist but they would diminish into the background as the amounts involved would be minor.  

Agreed re TVMs - they should offer all walk-up fares available at the time of purchase.

Money needs spending on the software - presently, it only has two settings - peak & off-peak (whatever time that is at the station location of the TVM) - thus can't cope with the valid time of the super off-peak, nor that evening out ticket.

Hopefully, the ORR enquiry mentioned in that Telegraph article linked to above will 'persuade' Rail Delivery Group/ATOC to spend this money so that TVMs get multiple valid from times availability so the only tickets unavailable would be Advances. Time will tell.

The recent upgrade to SWT's machines allow you to buy a "ticket for future travel" which can include a later time you specify for the same day, instead of the "only after 3pm and only for tomorrow" they had previously. GWR should consider the same.

Southern's machines have been more flexible for some time, allowing change of origin, collection of season ticket purchases made online etc, although they've got other problems to contend with right now.

This thread has reminded me of an issue at Bridgend TVM a few years ago. I arrived at 0850 to catch a 0902 train to Cardiff. Off peak being 0900. The tvm wouldn't sell the off peak return until 0900, despite there being no more peak services.

have you tried SWTs online sales portal -.....ugh!

No ticket options to choose from, except odd upgrades, it offers you one price for your journey, and if you want to see what's available around the time of travel, you have to reinput specific trains! Worst of the lot, frankly

Yes, their recent change was utterly appaling on all counts; especially when trying to view on mobile devices. The whole site is painfully slow with needless animations/hiding of information.

On the ticket buying side, the via option has been removed, which hampers finding cheaper tickets; their current £16 promotion cannot be used on certain journeys (especially longer distance ones involving a change) due to this.

However it is clearly just an organisational issue, because it obviously is possible to have the three settings, (i.e. Anytime, Off-peak and SuperOffpeak) on the same S&B machines when they are running SWT's version of the software, and they do cope with the different times for the OP and SOP as they become valid during the morning.

Can't think of an SWT equivalent of the evening out ticket though.

Paul

Fine - "Dirt cheap" is of course subjective as is the value of the product however surely it's not beyond the wit of someone to level out the current fare options into say five or six bands for each journey dependent on flexibility, peak/off peak etc?

Remove the facility for those "in the know" to subvert the system as they currently do, and ensure that all ticket sources make these fares available, at the moment, it's not a level playing field and the principle of caveat vendor should apply.

Every other industry seems to be able to do this with their pricing, Rail is the most "can't do" of all the customer facing services despite receiving vast taxpayer subsidies - the Utilities were ordered to make their pricing more transparent - maybe that's what it'll take for rail to do the same but there's no need for it to come to that if ATOC gets off its collective arse - of course there is little motivation for it to do so whilst it is making extra money from all these inappropriately charged fares, which may be the more likely explanation for the inertia?

I used to have a similar issue with the ticket vending machines at Nailsea & Backwell Station - see http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=4289.msg36239#msg36239  ::)

Just checked this (Saturday) morning.  Front screen quick fare to London is off peak, £64.60 return.  All trains today and tomorrow will accept super off peak at £51.50 .  Rather akin to the supermarket putting the cheaper product (own brand) at floor level or high up, with the more expensive / more profitable product at eye level - you need to be aware and know where to look for the more economic product; it's available if you know to look.

Not sure if this is an ATOC software issue, or down to the individual TOC, in terms of what's offered when, but is sure as heck feels a bit naughty.  Within the rules, it's allowed though, as the rule that customers must be offered the lowest price direct ticket for their "A" to "B" journey on their selected train only applies to staffed outlets, as I understand it.

Out of interest, to what extent, and who, do GWR lobby for additional rolling stock to cope with long term overcrowding?

From the evidence I have (and bear in mind that I occasionally meet significant lobbyists / negotiators) I would suggest that theses days they work quite hard to have sufficient appropriate stock.  Witness, for example, the AT300 / class 802 work when they could have sat back on their heals.   But they're not in the business of lobbying for having stock 'just in case', and it's difficult to financially justify an extra carriage when it's only really needed for 12 minutes in the morning from Keynsham to Temple Meads, and 6 minutes back in the evening.  They are doing a very great deal to get the most out of existing stock / diagrams though - witness some of the dropping off of carriages (at Reading?) at the peak on trains outbound to Oxford, allowing a short extra train to be run once that 2 car detached set has returned to London.

There is a strong look to that future - not just looking at today.  However, you need to be mindful that the franchise isn't a long one, and investment that doesn't pay back until after the franchise might go to someone else has the extra hurdle of having to be safeguarded in the even of it not being a First company running it in the future.  We may also be seeing the effects of significant changes in Britain, and how they're making the future even harder to predict so making investment decisions more cautious.

I note the brand new stock arriving (at last) to replace HST for the longer distance routes (although I think I'm right in saying that it doesn't represent a particularly robust future proofed level of additional capacity?) and some other additions but  I'm not sure investment in stock to reflect the huge year on year growth in passenger numbers, chronic and dangerous daily overcrowding, increasing unreliability due to the overworked/ageing Turbos constitutes "just in case" but I take your point about the length of the franchise being a disincentive.

Without additional tracks the only way to further increase capacity between Paddington and Reading would seem to be further lengthening of trains and platforms. Would 12 cars be feasible?

Was the super off-peak available, on the station search?

12 x 20m car 387 formations are already intended following electrification.   Hopefully they've already checked the availability of long enough platforms to use them.

Paul

I had a play at liskeard tvm earlier, the off peak was the main ticket offered, with super off peak only offered when selecting 'other ticket types' I suspect many don't press this button.

Yes

Though, unless things have changed, only for a limited number of potential stations - London to Slough, Reading, Didcot, Oxford and potentially Swindon IIRC.

I have long held the view that the ticketing is hugely and needlessly complex.

I would abolish ALL discounted advance tickets, and have a simplified system with just 3 different fares for any journey.
Peak, off peak, and super bargain, determined by the time/date of travel and the popularity thereof, with time and date of purchasing the ticket being of no consequence.

It clearly makes sense to charge more at busy times, but I see no merit whatsoever in offering discounted advance purchase tickets on a hugely popular and therefore very crowded train, nor any merit in charging a punitively high fare for use of a lightly loaded service because the ticket was purchased shortly before travel.

Agreed.  One step in the right direction.

I'm taking your "super bargain" not "super off peak" as being a suggestion to widen the differentiation between the cheaper two tiers of the system?   I think I would agree with that, although there's already an arteficial peak of people who wait for the first cheapest train in the evening, and you may end up building an even greater wave if you push them back (say) 90 minutes and cut the fare from 20:30 or 21:00.   And I suspect you would need to have a tiered system at weekends to make the economics of operation work.

You would need to be very careful that your simplification doesn't cause more problems than it solves, as Graham has pointed out.  But I'm all for narrowing the gaps between expensive and cheap tickets and increasing flexibility.

I would propose that peak fares be payable for most rush hour trains, and also on other services that are expected to be very busy, for example on Fridays preceding a bank holiday the peak fare would be payable on trains that would otherwise be off peak.

The off peak fare would be payable on most services outside rush hours and peak leisure travel times.

The super bargain fare would apply only to a minority of very lightly used services, mainly late night or very early morning services, and possibly to rush hour journeys that are made against the main traffic flow.

To contain the greed of TOCs, peak fares would be limited to 25% of the trains, and at least 25% would have to be super off peak.
In the light of changing circumstances, the classification of trains could be changed, but ONLY AT TIMETABLE CHANGES, not in between.

Overcrowding is a huge problem and increased capacity is urgently needed on many routes. Providing this increased capacity is expensive, and IMHO a significant part of this cost should be paid by those who travel at popular times. (not just commuters but also those who take pleasure trips at busy times.)

Some of these suggestions are quite like the pricing of TER (and some Intercités) tickets in France. Notably:

There's a lot more flexibility to match off-peak times to specific days. The "calendrier voyageurs" (which only applies outside the Ile de France) is in this PDF (http://aide.voyages-sncf.com/sites/default/files/imce/a4_calvoy_2015.pdf). Weekday peak is 6:30 -8:00 and 17:00-18:30, except on Friday when it's 14:00-20:00, and on Sunday there's a peak at 15:00-20:00. Holidays may be treated as Saturdays, Sundays, or have a peak 8:00-14:00.

That may be a closer match to when trains are actually full, whether with commuters or "leisure" travellers. On the other hand having fixed times for the whole country doesn't look appropriate at all. And it's only when your journey starts that counts for off-peak discounts.

Full price is in principle derived from a formula, so it goes up with distance per km but the rate decreases for longer journeys. However, there are some tweaks to that, for a variety of reasons. There is no general off-peak ticket, but a 25% discount for "Découverte" fares for over-60s, 12-25s, or groups of 1-4 with an under-12. There are also higher discounts (50% rather than 25%) for paid-for railcards.

Return tickets are priced as two singles, but ticket offices will sell two unmatched halves. Ticket machines (at least the ones I've seen) won't, but will sell singles from somewhere else.

That perhaps provides a box of possible features for you to use in designing your own system.

Oddly, while a return ticket is priced as two singles, it comes out of the machine as one paper ticket. I think that just proves the system was designed so as to justify my maxim: if there are two different ways of doing something, us and the French will find them.

To me much of the problem is overpriced singles or underpriced returns. If I buy a return it is only 5-10p more than a a single. Redruth to Plymouth a journey of 65 miles or so, I can get the journey back again for 5p as long as I return same day. That isn't right!
 I think A single should be about 55% of the return fare.

Liskeard to Plymouth on a return works out around 10p a mile or a single 20p a mile (with Devon and Cornwall railcard), for short distances 10-15p a mile is attractive to get me out the car. My Eco diesel costs around 8p a mile in diesel plus wear and tear and parking etc, but for the purpose of a day out I work out diesel, parking and tolls. For a family trip I will take the train if cheaper than those elements.
A day out in plymouth for example will cost £3 in diesel, £1.50 tan at toll and £5 all day parking in my choice of car park.
The train with my railcard would cost for a family trip out £3.85 x2 for adults, £1 child and 2 under 5s go free. That is borderline car or train as they roughly cost the same, probably the car edging for convenience, but me on my own or with the kids but not the wife I would take the train.

The bus for the same journey is £7 return per adult. Plymouth Citybus  currently have kids for a quid offer, but normally they are 50% adult fare here.

Would your system still have specific-train tickets?

In general, no it would not.
An off peak ticket would be valid on ANY off peak service, and a super off peak ticket valid on ANY super off peak service.
On routes with a very limited service, one could end up by default with a ticket valid on only one train, but that would not be the intention or the norm.
For example on a certain route, "super off peak" might be defined as before 05-30 on weekday mornings, and with an infrequent service there might be only a single train before 05-30. The ticket would still be advertised as "valid before 05-30 only" and NOT "05-17 train only"
Of course if the 05-17 became popular enough it could be re-designated as off peak, with a higher fare payable. This alteration would only be permitted at timetable changes.

And presumably off-peak tickets would be valid on super off-peak trains (and peak tickets valid on all trains)?

Under such a system how would you manage reservations, if at all, for the significant number of passengers, such as myself, who wish to guarantee a seat on a specific service? The existing ticketing system obviously has plenty of faults & anomalies but I believe that service specific Advance tickets are easy to understand by anybody with a modicum of common sense. 

Reservations would be available as they are now for season ticket holders or those with open tickets.

Presumably some of the longer distance trains would be 'bargain fare' for some origins/destinations, off-peak for others and peak for others?

Would all tickets become regulated or would some remain priced by the operator as they see fit?

With changes being possible at timetable changes only (a sensible proposal) would they have to be agreed by the regulator or just enforced at the discretion of the TOC?

I've often suggested that a new franchise should trial such a system with the associated revenue guarantees should it have too much of an adverse affect on revenue either way.  This certainly is the sort of system that might work, but would be too much of a risk to introduce without a trial.  The problem with a trial of course is that it could only work on journeys prices by and operated by one TOC.  Of all the likely candidates the Greater Western franchise is probably one of the most suitable.

Sadly, I somehow doubt it will happen any time soon though.

As a mathematician / logic person by background, and a lover of puzzles, I've tried to think through this business of peak / off-peak fares, and a system that's fair to all and helps to balance traffic.  And I've failed to come up with is fair, logical, technically implementable easily calculated and understandable by Jo Public.

Yes, many long distance services would fall into 2 different categories according to what part of the route is being considered, some might fall into all 3 categories.
As an example , the "golden Hind" would reasonably be "peak" from London to at least Plymouth, and off peak for most of the rest of the route, and maybe super bargain for the last bit, depending on loadings. Fares payable would reflect this.

ALL fares (other than specials like railtours or charters) would be thus regulated. The TOC would be free to set the level of fares, subject to any overriding government controls, but they would still be limited to only 3 different fares for any journey.
For example the TOC might set the fare between "A" and "B" at say £100 peak, £60 off peak and £30 super bargain. If the TOC wished they could alter these fares to say £108, £52, £21, subject of course to compliance with any government ruling that "fares are not to rise by more than 3% a year" for example.
What the TOC could NOT do would be to introduce a fourth fare between the two stations. Let them do that and they would introduce loads of differing fares all with slightly different restrictions.

The TOC could re categorise any train as they see fit without reference to the rail regulator, provided that firstly they do this only at timetable changes, and secondly that they remain compliant with the rule that no more than 25% of services are peak and that at least 25% are super bargain.

Yes, absolutely. And the other way round provided that the difference is paid BEFORE BOARDING. An off peak ticket should not suddenly become worthless if one needs to travel in the peak, but the extra would have to be PAID BEFORE BOARDING to prevent misuse.

Broadgage do you think that your suggestion may go some way to addressing the chronic and dangerous levels of overcrowding that we currently see, particularly on trains to the Westcountry?

I'm interested as to how pricing is used to manage demand, and whilst the new trains suggest a small increase in capacity for a short time, I don't see a great deal happening to address the issue in the medium/longer term.

Going slightly off topic, but the only way I see of addressing chronic overcrowding out of Paddington is to.......
a) Pay for seat reservations (the TOCs constantly remind us that a ticket does not necessarily guarantee a seat);
b) Introduce three levels of call at the PAD barriers (shouldn't be too difficult to program the barriers)...
    i) Those with seat reservations;
   ii) Season Tickets;
  iii) Anybody else.
c) Properly implement the pick-up only rule at Reading.

One of the problems with that is the barriers control access to more than one platform so while one train might be on the "seat reservations only" phase, a second might be closer to departure and be on the "free for all" stage.

However I do agree enforcing the Reading only pick up might help.  Would probably need to be via on board ticket checks and whether staff can get through to do it in the time available is questionable.

Alternatively, for Westcountry-bound services, remove the call at Reading station altogether and introduce a call at Reading West instead with both exits manned at the appropriate times.

a) Agreed that would help, but if that's introduced then TMs need to be prepared to do more to enforce them - most of the time in my experience if someone has installed him or her self in a reserved seat on a very busy train and refuses to move, the TM (if you can find them) will do little more than shrug their shoulders - this is marginally mitigated by the current system of "free" reservations, however raising prices will raise expectations.

b) introduce boarding controls at (especially) Paddington/Reading on days such as Maundy Thursday which are known to be chaotic and limit the sales of tickets for particularly busy trains- your point (c) goes hand in hand with this.

- Boarding controls would be unpopular, and as it currently stands of course GWR don't give a damn about dangerous overcrowding as whether people are seated, standing, lying on the floor or clinging to the roof they are still getting the same revenue.

Yes I believe that it would relieve overcrowding to an extent. Remember that no discounted fares will be available on peak services. No more making overcrowded trains even worse by selling discounted tickets valid on such trains.
A while ago gross overcrowding on Maunday Thursday was discussed, and in that discussion someone stated that they had used a heavily discounted ticket.
Under my proposed scheme, busy trains will be full fare only. Possibly for most of the day on days preceding holiday weekends.

The gain might be relatively small however and the real answer is more rolling stock, mainly from longer trains rather than additional services as only a limited number of paths exist.

Completely agree, and as I have said on past topics on this subject, it is near on impossible to do these checks at either Paddington or Reading.

Paddington often has two trains boarding on adjacent platforms at the same time so unless the trains happened to be both pick up only at Reading, you would not be able to enforce anything.

It has been suggested before that you could man the escalators at Reading on P8/P9, however for this to happen you would need to have staff at both escalators and both lifts, and even then if someone with an off-peak ticket did get off and they saw these checks in place, they could just mill around the platform until the next 'valid' train arrives, there is no rule to say you have to exit the platform as soon as a you arrive at the station.


No, on a given service you wouldn't be able to do a full check in time, especially if you come across an invalid ticket and have to spend a few minutes with that individual giving them a fine. But having 2/3 teams of RPIs going back and forth every day from Paddington in the peak on various services and you will slowly wean out the offenders and word will get out to others, GWR could release a monthly statement showing how many people they have caught trying to get to Reading with the wrong ticket and the fines involved thus discouraging this practice further.


On a separate note, I have just travelled from Margate to Reading and back using an off-peak return. According to National Rail if I buy an off-peak return leaving Margate at 15:00 on a weekday and returning the following weekend which I have just done, I am unable to catch a 'peak' service from Paddington which is fair enough, (although due to the limitations of NRE I am able to catch a stopping service which this does not show, but that's a different story) although if I wish to purchase an off-peak single from Margate to Reading leaving at 15:00, it shows that I am allowed to board the 17:45/18:00/18:15 off Paddington, this shouldn't be right?

Seat reservations: half the time they're booked and not used. Whether the reserver is sitting elsewhere on the train or is not on the train at all is hard to say, but it does mean a lot of people tend to avoid that seat till it's way past the supposed boarding station, so reducing effective capacity. Charging for reservations would presumably reduce this.

Somewhat off-topic, but it would also affect the number and way in which cycles are carried on trains, since you can't book a bike space without booking a seat too (it might be theoretically possible but no booking engine I'm aware of allows it – in fact most don't allow you to book bike spaces at all!).

There's some very odd stuff out there.

I once saw it explained that the "what's the peak" decision was based (originally?; in some places?) on the longer part of the route.   For journeys between Reading and Margate, as an example, the longer and dominant part of the route is London to Margate rather than Reading to London, so the off-peak decision was predominantly based on that.

You can still see some evidence of that decision in some ticketing to this day; an off peak day return from Reading to Margate isn't valid outbound in the morning peak, but is valid for return an any time later in the day, that latter being based on the logic that Margate to London trains in the late afternoon and early evening are hardly heaving with passengers. And that gives you a counterintuitive availability out of Paddington to Reading.    An off-peak day return from Margate to Reading looks to have the same limitations, so you could travel at 15:00 from Margate and then back mid to late evening from Reading.

It looks like certain off peak period returns have had extra conditions / restrictions applied after this original decision was taken - specifically removing the right of ticket holder to use certain peak expresses from London to Reading.   And the conditions on these are listed virtually down to a train by train level and hardly easy to much though and understand; there's a 'not valid' list of around 30 trains off Paddington, and the traveller looking to get best value is left looking for what's not listed if (s)he isn't taking advantage of an automated system.

Wonderful stuff  :-\ ... I would hate to be a member of the gateline staff at Paddington or train crew who have to either remember all of this stuff, or be able to look it up quickly so that people don't miss their trains!

I'd Never defend the Mess that ticket prices are these Days.

£37,452 for a Yearly season First class Penzance to Paddington!

But with grahames' example fare of £43:20 XC Melksham to Sugar Loaf halt is that routed via Birmingham New Street and Shrewsbury whilst the cheaper (and easier) £31:50 anytime routed via Swansea?

Hi, Smokey.  The £31.50 anytime single ( £53.50 anytime return) is "any permitted".   I have use a return ticket to Llanwrtyd (next station) to go out Melksham - Chippenham - Bristol Temple Meads - Newport - Craven Arms - Llanwrtd and return Llanwrtyd - Swansea - Llanshamlet (break of journey if you wonder!) - Cardiff - Trowbridge - Melksham.   Oddly, not a single cross country service in there.   

Since XC are offering that advance fare, I would guess that the "any permitted" ticket would also be valid via Cheltenham Spa and Wolverhampton - making a Melksham to Llanwrtyd ticket a distinctly good value way to get to Wolverhampton.  Confirmed by the accessible booking tool (see attachment), but not something I intent to try on the ground.

Added P.S. that 10:04 to 20:00 option is amazing!

Being a Cornish Boy, I can't quite get my head round this little beauty.

Going to book a Advance from Cornwall stations to London Pad, it's nearly always cheaper to book your Advance ticket from the Duchy to Ipswich!   

Yes, but remember that advance ticket rules are that you must complete your journey,  so you can't take advantage of that feature of the fare system if you're just travelling from Cornwall to London.

How would you deal with journeys involving more than one change of train and more than one operator?

For example, a journey from Birmingham to Maidenhead in the early morning where you might class the 06:06 from Birmingham to Reading as an off peak train, but all the trains from Reading to Maidenhead might well be classed as peak at that time of the morning.  Would the peak fare apply as part of the journey is on a peak train, and if not then it would either be very expensive for a through ticket or you would be looking at split ticketing to get the cheapest fare?  That might become even more confusing if the 06:04 from Birmingham was classed as 'super bargain' between say Birmingham and Banbury, so it might work out cheaper to get one of those to there, an off-peak from there to Reading and peak from Reading to Slough.

That is the sort of thing that would need careful consideration otherwise the price of the cheapest tickets would go up, but there would still be a minefield of inconsistencies and workarounds needed to get the cheapest fair.  Not likely to go down well with the travelling public and would provide easy rail bashing stories for the press still.


I agree that cheap advances on Mauday Thursday is wrong, though I also agree the gain would indeed be relatively small.  There's only a certain number of seats and a certain number of trains, so you either accommodate as many as you can and accept it'll mean some trains are uncomfortably busy, or you price people off of the railway - on summer Fridays heading out of London to Cornwall for example the trains are pretty much busy all day except for the extreme ends of the day, the same with the return journey on Sunday.  The answer for to/from Cornwall is an hourly 9/10-car service from Penzance to London with limited stops east of Plymouth (just Exeter and the odd Taunton) with another service hourly between Plymouth/Exeter and London using a 9/10-car train mopping up the more local passengers from places like Totnes, Tiverton, Taunton and Westbury.  Though the same can be said for routes in from South Wales, the Cotswold Line etc., all of which are competing for precious paths into London.

Hopefully, on Sundays, the completion of electrification and Crossrail will result in more paths becoming available, such as the current afternoon Sunday service in and out of Euston which is practically the same as an off-peak weekday.  That, along with 9/10-car IEP's (or variants of) on most trains should help dramatically.  Though anyone expecting the run up to holidays and summer weekends not to always be a struggle on some trains is going to be disappointed.

Diagram attached of the 10:04 option. Note that start, end and interchange points ARE to scale!   This is one I will NOT be trying; I suggest that there's a bug in the system and "via Shrewsbury" or "via Swansea" are both intended, but "via Shrewsbury AND Swansea" probably isn't! 

I am flattered to see that the esteemed Barry Doe has just suggested almost exactly the same thing in "RAIL" magazine (page 86, issue 807)
Remember that you read it here first  :)

I wonder what fix Barry would have to my example journey from Birmingham to Maidenhead in my reply #67 above.  Would be interested to hear your views, Broadgage...

In some cases including your example, a simple through ticket could be sold and priced as follows.
The off peak fare from Birmingham to Reading plus the peak fare from Reading to Maidenhead, less a SMALL discount to encourage through ticketing.

In other and more complex cases a ticket would be supplied for each leg of the journey, with each ticket marked as to its validity.
Suppose for example that one wished to travel from Birmingham to Maidenhead, via Reading, during the off peak between the morning and evening rush hours.
They would be sold TWO tickets, one for each leg of the journey and with each one clearly marked as to the times that it be valid.
If the customer used the last off peak service from Birmingham, then by the time they arrived at Reading, the off peak ticket to Maidenhead would no longer be valid. Poor planning on the customers part, they should have either left enough time to get to Reading whilst their ticket was still valid, or they could have purchased the more costly peak time ticket. They would now either have to pay the difference for peak time travel to Maidenhead, or wait until after the evening rush hour when the off peak ticket would again be valid.

All sounds quite good in theory I admit.  Though I do wonder how it would work in practice - there would need to be pretty beefy computing power to work out all the possible combinations at the point of sale, though of course smart ticketing might make that easier in the long run if (for example) you were able to touch in and out on the actual train you are travelling on rather than at the stations.  I suspect that the first off-peak train on longer distance journeys might be even busier than they are today, as (whatever you think about them) Advance tickets do encourage people to use trains they otherwise wouldn't choose to take.

Something does need to be tried out on a future franchise to see what the passengers think of it, the revenue implications, and loadings on each train.  Is anyone brave enough though?

It would be great to have the time limits for each ticket printed on the ticket itself, ie on the Birmingham - Reading and on the Reading to Maidenhead pieces.

Would that much computing power be needed ?
The ticket issuing system would already have to "know" the fares for every simple and direct journey, anything more complex would be calculated by simple addition of existing and known fares, less a small discount for through booking (subject to the proviso that the through fare must never be less than the longest leg considered on its own)

So if A to B costs £40, B to C costs £88 then A to C via B costs say £125.

Or if D to E costs £3 and E to F costs £180, then D to F via E would cost say £180, noting that the through fare should never be cheaper than the most costly leg which is £180 in this case.

When one part of the journey is very short and cheap in relation to the main part, then in the interests of simplicity, the fare payable should be determined ONLY by the time of travel for the principle part of the journey.

For Example if the off peak fare from Paddington to Truro was say £100, then the fare from Vauxhall to Truro might reasonably be say £104, no matter what time the passenger left Vauxhall. PROVIDED THAT the passenger used only an off peak train to Truro.
It would be a needless complication to have 3 off peak fares to Truro from Vauxhall of say £103-50, £104, and £105 Depending on what time the passenger left Vauxhall.
Likewise, the same "add on" could reasonably be applied to a journey originating from ANY inner London suburban station, to Truro via Paddington.

If both legs of the journey involve significant mileage and cost then they should be priced separately and two tickets sold. For example Milton Keynes to Truro would involve two tickets each of which would be super off peak, off peak, or peak.

That seems like a sensible system - though the cut off point between a through fare being available, and two separate tickets being required might be a difficult one to get right.

Are you also an advocate like me of simplifying the various railcards available by just having one national railcard available to all, perhaps at a reduced initial cost to the young and elderly - with perhaps a disabled railcard also available to offer additional benefits as they do now?

Through ticket available but with say a 20% discount off of one leg only to encourage simple through ticketing,

Returning to first and fair principles seems an eminently sensible way to start, and Broadgage makes a brave start at attempting it.   

But I'm not clear on single v return tickets, return being (?) the majority of tickets sold, nor on pricing for routes which may be varied at different times of day.  I've just looked up Melksham to Halifax.   Tomorrow morning:
Train 1.  Change at Cheltenham Spa and Leeds
Train 2.  Change at Chippenham, Bristol Temple Meads, Manchester and Huddersfield
Train 3.  Change at Swindon, London Paddington and King's Cross and Leeds

returning on Friday afternoon/evening (the day before the Bank Holiday, you note)
Ultimate train: As in train 3 above
Penultimate train: Change at Manchester (walk Victoria to Piccadilly) and Cheltenham Spa
Previous train: Change at Manchester (walk Victoria to Piccadilly), Bristol Parkway and Swindon
Before that: Change at Leeds, Bristol Temple Meads and Chippenham
Fallback: Change at Manchester (walk Victoria to Piccadilly), Bristol Temple Meads and Bath Spa to bus

With prior knowledge ("I know I'm going on that train and coming back on that one"), I can see how the pricing works and for a return. But I don't know which of those trains I'm coming back on - it depends on when my business is finished.  And I would very much like the new system to easily allow me to travel this journey via Trowbridge; it seems perverse that I can presently go Melksham to Bristol Temple Meads via either Chippenham or Trowbridge, but if I head on north from Bristol on a through ticket the Trowbridge route's not offered. I think I see (technically) why, but it would be sensible to roll solutions to issues like this into a new simpler system.

In reallity - this may all change with electronic systems ... though replacing a gate line with swiping on and off trains might be needed to work out which train. Then each leg charged as taken, peak / off-peak / super off-peak details published, and discounts for multiple journeys within the 24 hours.

I do commend "railcards for all" as a customer loyalty thing, with potentially different pricing for certain groups.  Bronze, silver and gold variants at differing prices and with differing discounts too, perhaps?

I'm rather amazed that there is a train direct from Melksham to Cheltenham.

I think there's a really easy way the industry could get that underway: make any railcard able to "act as another" railcard of equal or lower price.

In other words, if you buy a Family & Friends Railcard, you can also use it as a Network Railcard, or a Two Together, or anything else to which you're entitled (e.g. a Cotswold Line card). It would end the daft situation where, to consistently get good prices, you may need to buy as many as three separate railcards.

ATOC could do that with one simple edict, no complicated rethink needed. And it then becomes a stepping stone to a real national railcard.

It started off being for OPERATIONAL CONVENIENCE (might be stated in that way if we were still being negative in a way we used to be!).

The first northbound train of the day - at Silly O'clock - runs from Westbury to Swindon and fulfilled the old SLC (service level commitment) of having a train arrive in Swindon before 08:30.  The fact that it arrived in Swindon an awful long time before 08:30 meant that it could form the "Golden Valley" commuter service from Swindon to Gloucester and Cheltenham, which it did and still does.

The reverse (southbound) working was required by the SLC to leave after 17:30 and actually it left a lot after - at Stupid O'Clock - having come down from Cheltenham Spa as their 'return home' commuter train.

Now - I've used the terms "Silly O'Clock" and "Stupid O'Clock" because that's what they were as the only commuter services from Westbury (connections from Warminster and Frome), Trowbridge and Melksham into and out of Swindon.   They gave commuter 11 hours at destination which - for a typically 8 hour working day in the UK - is far too long for most people. And, yes, they were placed that way initially for operational convenience; farebox income was small and it was more important to meet the SLC without having to hire an extra train for peak use in those days.  But these trains remain and are now a vital part of the schedule

The train to Cheltenham Spa in the morning is now very useful for commuters to Swindon who travel back on new trains from there at 15:12 or 17:36 - making a sensible working day.

The train from Cheltenham Spa in the evening is now very useful for commuter returning from Swindon who have travelled there on the new trains at 07:33 or 09:48 from Westbury in he morning.

Both trains have seen massive increases in passenger numbers, even though they're no longer the only trains people can use ... it's all about round trips and opportunities.   Indeed I would predict further rises if people could return from Swindon on a 16:36, or travel up there on an 08:33.

---

On pricing (thread subject  :D ) ...

I wouldn't actually use the through service with a through return ticket - £230 return Melksham to Halifax which is more than double the off-peak fare, even if all the trains taken except the first one are off-peak. Seems a bit over the top to pay an extra £117.10 when a peak Melksham to Cheltenham Spa single ticket is £22.90.

Having followed the story of Melksham Station rail services with much interest since I joined the Coffee Shop forum in 2007, I have observed the gradual positive improvements in those services over the years.  ;)

While any service may have been added for OPERATIONAL CONVENIENCE, I rather think that many more have been added due to the very effective campaigning of my mentor, grahame, and others.

You'd be surprised where you can travel to directly, these days, from Melksham!  ;) :D ;D

While now having more of a purpose as part of the enhanced timetable there is still an element of operational convenience. The two journeys allow the hired in SWT unit to get to and from Salisbury depot and the Kemble line each day.

It now works well operationally, and it works well in with the passenger flows - i.e. for the customers.  Through traffic at Swindon on these services isn't huge, but it is present - indeed the timing have always been right for  a commute such as Chippenham to Cheltenham.   Don't really want it changed.

But ... changed it will be when the Swindon to Gloucester / Cheltenham Spa local service gets replaced with through services from London as electrification comes towards Swindon and sufficient bimoded are available. At that point, the if you continued to run the train up to Swindon in the morning and then did nothing else with it, it would sit there all day and be operationally even more inefficient than the current Golden Valley local service.   The solution is to terminate at Swindon, making Gloucester / Cheltenham Spa a connection, and to then use the train in the Swindon via Westbury service - filling the gap in trains there.

Morning:
From Westbury at 05:15 (new, to feed the 06:12 long-established train), from Swindon at 06:12, From Westbury at 07:04 (as at present) then from Swindon back at 08:06 (new and providing a much-needed commuter service to the county town of Trowbridge.  Then 09:06 up, 10:06 back, etc

Evening:
From Westbury at 15:00, from Swindon at 16:36, from Westbury at 17:28 (needed afternoon commuter trains), 18:48 from Swindon and 19:32 from Westbury (as at present) and 21:48 from Swindon

Written that small - not really to do with ticket prices, and with so much else changing chances are the metrics and solution will be different - one eye to the extension of TransWilts services to Dilton Marsh, Warminster, Salisbury and the Solent area which will decouple the need for a southbound service to turn into a northbound one at Westbury, and one eye on Go-op, who's proposals would be highly likely to mesh with some of the paths I have used.

Love it - except I'm not so sure it's a simple edict.  Thinking how it might work ... Accept any railcard as a "network railcard" for sure - so either / any named person on such a card can use it alone? 16-25 allows you to take "your old dad" - aged 42 - because it's also a "two together" (but how would you deal with the need for him to be named)?

How about extending the Network Card to cover all services on Network Rail lines?   Other cards becoming endorsements on that it the future such that elderly, disabled, jobless, etc can use it for extended hours and / or be accompanied by a companion?

This discussion hasn't really looked at Groupsave, and I'm starting to find interesting decisions to be made between using Groupsave and using railcards.  Compounding discounts is an interesting and slippery slope, but without it there's issues with people who habitually travel in groups not buying railcards and being put off occasional rail use on their own due to the lack of a discount card.

I thought the intention was to *simplify* fares. Having just caught up on this thread reading the last three pages....you've suggested the opposite, or at least zero simplification.

Eg two fares on long journeys to cover peak/off-peak sections. Seriously?
Taken to extremes (& you can guarantee TOCs would, to get max gain), 2tph across the evening peak would all have different fares across 6 trains, dependant on where each train was at the start pf the peak.

Try sgain

If we can do simplification in stages, mt first proposal would be to do what the airlines do and do away with return tickets, or at least do what GWR have done for large parts of the network and make the return not much less than two singles. 

I am not proposing two tickets for through journeys on the same train. If different parts of the journey were peak and off peak, then the ticket would be priced automatically by addition of the two parts.
But still only 3 different fares from say Paddington to Truro.

For through journeys on two different routes or TOCs, but when one part is very short and cheap, then a single through ticket would be issued, priced ONLY by the time of travel for the principle part of the journey.
For example Wimbledon to Truro would have just 3 different fares priced according to time of departure from Paddington to Truro. Time of departure from Wimbledon not relevant.
The passenger need not know or care how these three fares are calculated, they would simply be told that Wimbledon to Truro has 3 fares, super bargain, off peak and peak.
Truro to Wimbledon would also have just 3 fares, priced according to time of arrival into Paddington. Time of final arrival at Wimbledon not relevant.

For a more complex journey involving two or more routes, with significant mileage in each part, then two tickets (both sold at the same time) would IMHO be simpler and more understandable.
For example Milton Keynes to Truro if involving off peak or super bargain fares for either part would be sold as two tickets.
Milton Keynes to Euston and Paddington to Truro. Each ticket being valid only at the advertised times, which would be printed on the ticket. If each ticket off peak, for example, the customer might choose a midday arrival at Euston and then a departure from Paddington in the afternoon, before the evening peak.

Alternatively, they might buy a super bargain ticket from Milton Keynes to Euston (valid for arrivals before 05-00 into Euston) and a peak ticket from Paddington (valid anytime including the morning peak)

But each train in say, the three-hour peak window will spend peak time in different, and potentially larger, sections of the journey....that'll be declared unfair by the likes of this board straight away - as it is now. Will encourage even more split ticketing.


Surely a poor example - one would simply buy a Travelcard? So it already is just three fares.


The meeja will love this idea - two tickets simpler than just one? yeah....


Oh, so rail-sponsored split ticketing now?