Great Western Coffee Shop

From politics.co.uk (http://www.politics.co.uk/mps/press-releases/party-politics/liberal-democrats/minister-to-consider-tightening-ticket-rules-in-light-of-first-great-western-s-price-rises-$1332467.htm):

'Loopholes' and 'devious' are strong words in the context of the recent fare rise by FGW for regulated fares.

The rules were there in the franchise document and FGW are merely applying them at there most restrictive. Whilst this is regrettable, FGW have done nothing wrong. For MPs to start crowing about it is a bit rich; after all they are ultimately responsible for drawing up said rules. Having said that FGW have rather painted themselves into a corner, they cannot make any further changes to restricted fares timings (excepting making them less restrictive again!)

I was one of the many forum members who expressed annoyance at the fares hike, but on reflection (and a full explanation from Lord Adonis by email - no less!) I now understand that FGW did nothing wrong.

The business case for these changes may not stack up in the long term, but FGW are to be congratulated for the introduction of single fares at half the price of the returns. They didn't have to do that when introducing the new Super Off Peaks.

On a semantic point, rather than Chris Mole '.....considering tightening the rules in respect of timing restrictions....' perhaps he should consider loosening them.

Having re-read my preceeding post, it does come across as though I'm working for FGW Public Relations.

I'm not, honest!  ;)

Hmm.  It often seems to me that FGW tend to struggle with 'public relations'.  For example, their own website news page (http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/NewsList.aspx) is nothing like as 'active' as it could be, with all the good news that they could be putting out.

Indeed, it sometimes appears that FGW get more positive comment from this passenger forum than they seem to be able to produce, on their own website.  ::)

No, FGW didn't do anything wrong in terms of the letter of the law - aka the franchise agreement - otherwise they wouldn't have been able to do it, nor would SWT when it did something similar to its fare structure previously, but whether it was the right thing to do is another matter entirely. It's the job of our MPs to stand up and say when they - and the constituents who have no doubt deluged Mr Taylor with correspondence about the fare hikes - think something is wrong.

And as for congratulating FGW for making singles half the price of returns - big deal. The West Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive did that for rail tickets within its area when I was still at school in the early 1980s, as did the other PTEs around the same time.

I think maybe the way it's being looked at is compared to some other InterCity operators, where a single tends to still be about a ^1 less then it's return. (Off Peak/Super Off Peak)

Sorry I've never understood the returns being almost the same price as the single

Why should you come back for free!

Pay per mile

I cannot understand why FGW hardly bother with their news pages anymore. Not too long ago in the distant past a new item would almost appear daily so it would appear that the decision has been taken not to keep their customers in the know as news items are no longer available in their magazine or via customer newsletters like Customer Matters which was introduced by Andrew Haines available at stations and online.

Places like this forum are now the best place to find news items (good and not so good) on all things FGW. Hang on a minute we're doing their job for them!  ;)

They are to be congratulated for reducing the price of their off peak singles  (which actaully means less revenue for FGW from me on my usual Bath-London peak time journey which I rebook at Didcot becaue I tavel out on an anytime Bath-Didcot single and back on a super off peak - so if they have fialed in raising more income from me). 

As for the price rise, yes they are within the rules and it might be slightly unfair to blame FGW (but they are big enough to look after themselves), but the good news is that Adonnis is looking at changing them. 

I am not one who argues for overall cheap train fares (not least because I suspect that as a tax payer I will be footing the bill for them), but we do need a complete overhaul to remove complexities and anomalies.  Whilst booking a ticket yesterday (single Didcot to Bath in the afternoon) the website offered me an offpeak single and an off peak day single and a super offf peak single at different prices and all apparently valid on the same trains.  What is the point of that?  All singles are day singles and surely off-peak should imply the same restrictions on a particular route regardless of whether it is a "day ticket or not"?  Now, someone will give me an answer that there are historical reasons for the difference and that in fact there are different rules about breaking my journey with each ticket or something like that - but that misses the point completely.  FGW has an overly complex ticket system and I think it has reached the point where they simply cannot be viewed as competant or honest enough to be trusted to price their own tickets 9and other TOCs are no better).   I chose the cheapest ticket - other passangers will either do the same in which case the  more expensive tickets will never be sold and can be withdrawn or people will be sold ths wrong ticket perhaps in breach of teh vendors franchise commitments. (as was my Boss who brought her ticket for the same train on at Bath station and paid ^4 more than I did) i know Barry Doe has suggested that ATOC shoudl set the fares, but they have proved themselves to be idiots as well (overseeing a "ticket simplification" in which they permitted a distinction between singles and say singles to exist is hardly an indicator of competance!).  Personally, I think that Adonis should be given the job of setting fares and TOCs whould just bid knowing what their fares will be for the next 5 years.. 

As for the FGW website - we have know for a long time that senior management at FGW have a tendancy to put style over substance

Not as simple as that... When working from Exeter to Exmouth, I see it as someone might get away with not paying for their journey in the morning, but will get caught in the evening, so although a single is then bought, FGW get a higher % and lose a lot less money than if the singles were 50% of the return price.

OK, so why were CDS less than CDR but saver singles about te same as saver returns.  Surely ticketless travel is more likely to be stopped on longer trips.  And ticketless travel is only estimated to be 5, 7 or 10% (and teh kind of fraud you describe only a small subset of that), not enought to justify the pricing of singes very close to that of retunrs. 

But CDS are like Saver Singles.  However usually they are only 10p less than the return.  One of the reasons for this is it reduces the amount of revenue protection you need to provide.  If the single is the same price as the return then the ticket only needs to be checked in one direction.  Lets face it if the price of the return ticket is almost the same as the single and you know you will be checked in one direction but not the other are you going to take a chance for the sake of 10p and not buy the return. 

Actually it is a big deal. Comparing fares within a PTE region (generally low, for short local journeys) to discounted flexible intercity fares (super off-peak, off-peak) which are generally much higher and for longer journeys isn't really on.

Halving the price of these single fares overnight, at least for people whose travel patterns are like mine, makes travel much more affordable and opens up a whole range of opportunities involving booking an Advance one way and flexible ticket the other way that simply did not exist before. Although there is the slightly half-baked (no pun intended) Virgin "saver half return" scheme, FGW is to my knowledge leading the way by being the first intercity operator to make this change across the board where it prices the journey.

Criticize where it's due, by all means, but not just for the sake of it.

I agree. My business journeys to London are now almost invariably cheaper than before, partly due to off peak fares coming available earlier in the day, and even if I do have to travel up at a peak fare, the return is now ^20 cheaper.

Which is fine and dandy if you have the depth of knowledge and the time and patience to indulge in tinkering about with various combinations to find the ideal ticket selection to suit your travel patterns, but does the average passenger?

I doubt it - and a survey carried out recently by Which? using questions supplied by Barry Doe suggested that an awful lot of rail ticketing staff aren't exactly on top of the system either.

As tim correctly observes, the system is now hugely over-complicated and confusing and the ticket information thrown up by the FGW website is often baffling, to say the least. I especially enjoy the bit where it says 'two singles may be cheaper than a return' - no stupid machine, this is the Cotswold Line, with next to no advance fares, so it won't be.

I'm afraid that fundamentally the half-price singles are just a bit of window dressing, like the online 'offers' following the fare hike that others have criticised here. Yes, I'm sure some of you will gain, but overall the winner will be FGW's revenue stream - because they have designed the changes to achieve that result, which means a good many people will be paying a lot more for their journeys.

If FGW had gone over to half-price single tickets across the board on their network, at all times of the day, then that would be a different matter but they didn't, because it would cost them a lot of money - so I stand by my original description.

But it then over prices people who may want to do what I have done on occasions in the 10s

WOS-RDG-BHM-WOS

Simply because my return journey was quicker via brum because of the off peak timings down on the cotswolds.  If you just miss, say the 4pmish departure from RDG and dont want to sit o two interminable turbos stopping every where with no power sockets, you get the next vomiter to brum. 

By on the fly RDG-WOS via brum is prices the same as a return which I will never use

By on the fly RDG-BAN and BAN-WOS instead then, that'll save you a few bob  :D

Do all vomiters stop at banbury?

Yup. Off Peak Day singles total ^27.30 (^18.05 RC). First Class Anytime Day Singles ^68.40 (^47.15 RC excl. Y-P) Both fares RDG-BAN and BAN-WOS set by FGW and no evening restrictions.

The system remains overcomplex ... and complexity leads to loopholes and oddities, which lead to some unfairnesses and some people feeling really cheated. Many of us have been on holiday and found that we're seated next to the loudmouth who shouts about how he got the peak holiday flight for just a fiver.

The logic of "pay per mile" is hard to refute, and it's what fares are based on - although they have got so distorted over the years that in reallity the basis has all but disappeared in some comparisons.  So I welcome single tickets being about half the price of returns - it always seemed illogical that I needed to know before I cwbought my outward ticket whether I would be returning before or after 6:30 p.m. on a "buy as you travel" ticket.  And I welcome this as a step in the right direction even if (as well all strongly suspect) the overall package of new fares increases FGW's income.

Taking this towards a logical conclusion, a simplified swipe on / swipe off system at train doors, charging per mile for all journeys, with peak trains at a higher ppm rate, and bulk travel reductions  to replace season tickets would make things easier.   Come to think of it, why not extend the pensioner's bus pass to trains, and lower the age at which such a pass may be used from 60 to birth?  That would certainly encourage people to leave there cars at home where there was a convenient public transport service (greener, cutting need for new roads, etc) and would cut the fraud we here so much about here (no need to avoid payment / being counted)

After getting my head around the new fares at last I think that it is actually better, like someone else pointed out, if you have to make a spur of the moment trip from Plymouth to London you need only buy a half price single and then you have the chance to book an Advance for coming back, and if you can't get an Advance you only buy another super/off-peak single and don't pay any more than you would have done buying a return.

As for someone saying that half price singles should apply to Peak fares-well they do, an SOS is half the price of an SOR on all London flows!

What I actually said was "If FGW had gone over to half-price single tickets across the board on their network, at all times of the day" - they haven't, there are still lots of fares where the single is little less than the return.

What this latest change has done is introduce yet another category of ticket, with yet more rules - at a time when the operators had allegedly agreed with DafT to simplify things.

A peak single from Moreton-in-Marsh to London is ^28.50, half the ^57 anytime return fare - so far, so logical.

But off-peak, a single is ^26.90, while an off-peak day return is ^27, or a Saver return (because that's what people persist in asking Christine in the ticket office to sell them) is ^32 (never mind the Cotswold Line Saver exemptions for the halts train and 6.43 from Hereford adding to the fun). Where's the logic and simplicity in that situation? Though at least we don't have super off-peak here to muddy the waters even further.

By fiddling around with combining singles for a peak run in and an off-peak back, I would save myself a grand total of ^1.60 on just asking for a return to make the return journey I am actually making.

Yes, were I to use the Network Railcard, I could save myself a bit more on the off-peak leg, but that's assuming I am someone who knows about its existence and has obtained one - and on lots of journeys, the ^13 minimum fare would affect any discount. The old BR idea that this railcard could attract more custom and actually drive up revenue that way just seems to have gone out of the window now.

It's all very well those of you who have all this kind of stuff off pat to go on about buying assorted combinations of tickets - most of the people using trains don't know or care about this kind of stuff, they just want a ticket covering the journey they are making. If they are making a one-way trip, they logically ask for a single - I'm sure many don't realise that it's only 10p less than the return, at least not until the time they ask for a return and the penny drops - and then what do they think of the railways?

Yes but First werent the ones who started super off peak.  FGW did as requested and simplified the system last year.  However other operators did not.  What would you do in their situation.  They have a contract with the government to raise as much money as possible and this change is part of that.

It really annoys me when politicians spout statements about looking into it  and maybe change the rules.  What did you do when SWT did the same thing - nothing.  Simplification last year but allowed some operators to keep super off peak and did nothing.  I mean if we really want to go back GNER started this when they introduced business saver and made their saver ticket more restricted in when it could be used and that was years ago.

The new ticket has had a number of benefits.  You can now get a walk up single for half the price of a return.  Anyone who has to travel one way in the peak and one way off peak is better off by 20 - 30 pounds.  If you miss your train with an advance purchase ticket or want to change the time (and are travelling off peak) will pay about half the amount you would have done a few weeks ago.

Also it has spread the peak demand pinch point when you switch from peak to off peak so some of the previously grossly overcrowded services.

Cheap day returns and cheap day singles are about the same price so as to encourage you to buy the return.  As most people are making return trips if everybody bought a single each time you would need to employ twice the ticket office staff etc. So returns are made roughly the same price as a single to save money for the railway and also the tax payer who subsidises the railway.

There you go then, the new fares structure has reduced your travel costs. That ^1.60 gets you a coffee!

And not to forget, for historical reasons, you are already paying less on The Cotswold Line than on similar length journeys elsewhere with FGW.

I'm typically saving ^20 on a return from Swindon.

And it's good value coffee at Moreton, too. A nice small business with husband and wife running Moreton and Charlbury on weekday mornings. Just a shame about the frequent break-ins at Moreton earlier in the year - hopefully they've stopped now.

Don't drink the stuff - and I think I would rather just have someone, somewhere, impose a clear, consistent fares structure on rail journeys across the board, instead of the confusing alphabet soup of ticket types and baffling options (eg advance fares that are more than a super off-peak single for the same train) that currently prevails.

I don't think anyone is disputing that people will save on some journeys, but I don't believe FGW would have done this if it was going to cost them money, or be revenue-neutral - why would you bother adding another layer of complexity to the ticket system if it wasn't going to produce a healthy return?

The car park fees hike introduced at the same time certainly won't be revenue-neutral. I don't think the two changes are unconnected.


Following that logic, why don't they just do that all day? Think how much more money that would bring in.

Perhaps that should be the final piece of the jigsaw to complete Lord Adonis' legacy?

Why?  it is the job of the politicial to write the rules, review them and change them as neccessary.

Whether Adonis can or should change the rules this time is a different question.  But I would hope that if he cant this time, the rules can be changed in time for the next franchise renewal. 

What I should have added is that in six months they will forget about it only to say it again when the issue comes up.  But they dont actually DO anything.