Fare anomolies discourage the traveller!

[whole diary]

[grahame]

I was in London from Tuesday to Thursday last week - paying my own fare, so looking to be as economic as possible, but not knowing my exact timings, not able to use advanced fares.

up
06:40 Melksham (via Westbury) to London Paddington at 08:39. Quoted fare - 66.50 single

return
Evening peak - London Waterloo to Melksham. Quoted fare - 60.50 single.

Now - curiously - there are some ways of saving money even "pay on the day".  In the morning, I booked - perfectly within the rules - as follows:

Melksham - Westbury 2.90
Westbury - Hungerford 22.50
Hungerford - Paddington 23.50
Total fare: 48.90

And on my return via Salisbury,
Waterloo - Trowbridge 27.60
Trowbridge - Melksham 2.90
Total fare: 30.50

It does strike me that there is something of a failure of system where there's a difference in quote fares of 30 pounds between a Waterloo to Trowbridge fare and a Waterloo to Melksham fare ... two towns that are aboout 6 miles apart, and have a local fare of just 2.90 between them.  It's almost as if the system has been setup to price people into using Trowbridge as a railhead, isn't it!

[Steve44]

Interesting...
i frequently break up my journeys, saving me ^s. One example, went to cardiff two weeks ago.  Had i bought a return from Didcot parkway to Cardiff central it would have cost me ^26.40 with a railcard.
Instead, i bought a return to Swindon(^5.20), then a Return to Cardiff from there(^10.35). Total Cost: ^15.55. That's over a tenner i saved! I mean, we possibly could have got cheaper advanced tickets, but because it was a group of us, with numbers dropping daily, we decided against it! (and it went down from 7 to 2 of us!)

[swlines]

Waterloo - Trowbridge 27.60
Trowbridge - Melksham 2.90
Total fare: 30.50

It does strike me that there is something of a failure of system where there's a difference in quote fares of 30 pounds between a Waterloo to Trowbridge fare and a Waterloo to Melksham fare ... two towns that are aboout 6 miles apart, and have a local fare of just 2.90 between them.  It's almost as if the system has been setup to price people into using Trowbridge as a railhead, isn't it!

The ^60.50 fare is showing as route Swindon for me? Besides, Melksham isn't on the SWT^▸ (South West Trains) route and hence doesnt have route Salisbury tickets - whereas Trowbridge is (and does). The SOS WAT - MKM^» (Melksham (Station code) - next trains) should be ^66.50... nevertheless, the cheapest fare without splitting on the return is a Saver Single (Saver restrictions do not apply in the evening peak on SWT) at ^47.

[grahame]

Yes - the quoted evening return did indeed route me from Waterloo via Paddington and Swindon for the 60.50, and gave me a link telling me that "cheaper tickets by slower routes may be available" ... but nothing available and to match the Salisbury - Trowbridge route pricing which I had to work out for myself.

[Tim]

No doubt there are explanations for all of this.  It is usually down to who sets the fare and whether or not that fare is regulated or not.  BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) had intentional annomalies (ie, IC^▸ (Inter City) fares were usually higher than Regional or Network SE and the recently upgraded ECML^▸ (East Coast Main Line) charged a premium over  the WCML^▸ (West Coast Main Line)), since privatisation the annomalies have been set in stone because the governement does not regulate fares it regulates *rises* in certain fares  only and we are left with an annomologous system where some of the mess is intentional and some accidental.


The whole system is a mess.  The fares all need to be withdrawn and worked out from scratch.  That would have been a real "fares simplification" rather than the "fares simplification" that we really got which was little more than a rebranding exercise.  This will never happen because anything that effects demand or income will impact on the TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company)'s subsidy/premium and require compensation so even if the overall fare take from passengers stays the same the tax payer will have to cough up more.

I do not think that the current fares system is good for the passenger (because many people pay more than they have to), good for encouraging people onto the railway (because the high fares will discourage people who are not aware that they can save by rebooking), good for maximising TOC revenue (because it can be significantly and legally erroded by rebooking), good for booking office and on-train staff (because too many options add to transaction time and the complexity increases the risk of passengers travelling on invalid tickets which leads to confrontation), good for discouraging people to travel on busy trains (because rebooking undermines efforts to price people off certain trains), good for revenue protection (because a person travelling on 5 tickets is less likely to have them all stamped/ retained than someone travelling on one ticket), good for integrated transport (because singles are often much more expensive per mile than returns which makes combining rail with other modes unattractive) or good for the taxpayer (why should I subsidise ^15 quid fares for 300 mile journeys?).   I fully regaulated system or a fully deregulated system would be better than what we have now.

[grahame]

The whole system is a mess.  The fares all need to be withdrawn and worked out from scratch.

Totally agreed ... for all the reasons that you give ... AND that with modern information systems you could make the whole thing so much more appropriate too.

I gave this some "positive thought" - i.e. I looked not to just criticise the current system but suggest what would be better - in my "where might be be in 2032" post.

Principles:
a) A fare based on a rate per mile PLUS a fixed fee per station entry / exit
b) Cheaper fares available on journeys which were quiet 4 weeks earlier, and a premium rate on journeys that were oversubscribed. Modern technology could differentiate on a station by station basis, so the rate could change at an intermediate station
c) Fares collected / charged automatically to your credit / debit card by entry and exit gates
d) A single discount card costing xxx per year that would give a discount of yyy% off all except the busiest trains. No discounts for special groups (students, children, overseas visitors, etc)
e) Hidden tax of franchise payments replaced by VAT^▸ (Value Added Tax).

There would be some big winners and losers, and that's one of the reasons I put some of my thoughts so far in the future - to avoid "transition" questions. 

P.S. It seems anomolous to me that you can book a National Express bus ticket, or an airline ticket, out in your own home ... but if you book a train ticket online, either the thing has to be posted to you or you have to collect it from a ticket machine at the station. Why is this?

From my 2032 post, which includes an element of pricing ideas.

PRICING

Journeys are charged at 3.5 Euros per mile (that's the equivalent of 35p per mile at 2008 prices) with an additional charge of 20 Euros for each journey to cover administration costs. So that a 100 Mile journey from (say) Melksham to London would cost 370 Euros (37 pounds at 2008 prices). In order to encourage regular passengers to travel at times when services are quieter, there's a 10% surcharge for travel if the train was more that 80% filled on the same day 4 weeks previous, and a 20% reduction for travel at times that the train was less that 40% filled on the same day 4 weeks ago.

All travellers may purchase an "I prefer the train" railcard for 400 Euros annually, entitling them to a 10% discount off all fares expect at the busiest (80% + full) time.

All trains are single class, and there are no longer fare reductions for Pensioners, Children, Overseas Visitors, members of the forces, students, etc. VAT is charged at the current lower rate of 21%.

Complete post at http://canber.co.uk/?q=node/33


 

[swlines]

with an additional charge of 20 Euros for each journey

That's the bit I don't like.

That would make journies like Bournemouth to Brockenhurst impossibly expensive.

[Btline]

Euros

That's the bit I don't like! I pay in sterling please.

[grahame]

with an additional charge of 20 Euros for each journey

That's the bit I don't like.

That would make journies like Bournemouth to Brockenhurst impossibly expensive.

The RPI^▸ (Revenue Protection Inspector (or Retail Price Index, depending on the context)) index has gone up 10 fold in the past 25 years - see http://www.wolfbane.com/rpi.htm - and on that basis the figures quoted I used figures 10 times higher for 25 years time, so that's really a 2 Euro - or 1.40 ish - fee per ticket, Tom.

At the same time, petrol prices have risen 14 fold - see http://www.theaa.com/public_affairs/reports/Petrol_Prices_1896_todate_gallons.pdf for the historic data.  I'll take this as a factor of travel inflation, which will continue to be based on energy costs of some sort.

Current Brockenhurst to Bournemouth single - 5.50; it would be 7.30 in today's terms taking only the fuel differenetial into account in 25 years time. Under my proposal, the fare would actually be 7.90 (headline figure) reduced to 6.32 on quieter services, or 5.68 on quieter services with the railcard which, I am sure, you would hold, Tom.  The top casual peak fare would be 8.70, although I do not suspect that many trains on this route would be fully loaded on that leg of their journey, so it wouldn't often be applied.

If you can tell me the fare in 1973 from Brockenhurst to Bournemouth, I would be delighted to do some further calculations based on that.

Personally, I don't consider a fare between 5.68 and 8.70 impossibly expensive - especially when compared to the 7.30 which it should be if the current anancronistic system continued. There WOULD be some big losses and gains, but this isn't one of them!.  Do you consider the current fare "impossibly expensive"?

[swlines]

You clearly have no idea about loads in the early morning and late afternoon!

Brockenhurst College students basically ram the trains up completely. The peak fare would be hit very frequently on the 0759, 0808, 0827, 0845 and 0859 departures. Likewise on the down, it would be hit with ease on the 1557, 1605, 1616, 1632 and 1657. Now, as I will be going to Brockenhurst College from September - you can see where I'm going in saying, if fares go up, cost of season tickets go up and it is harder to travel.

Also, ^ please. None of this Euro trash here. . Likewise fares are always in increments of 5p to make automated accounting easier.

[grahame]

Ignoring what the currency happens to be in 25 years time - yes, it's probably fair to say that travel costs will rise.  But so will the standard of living.  And a great deal else may well change too - such as college and work hours which may become more and more staggered; you've only got to look at how the busyness of Sunday has changed in the past few years (and, regrettably, the falling behind this customer need by the railways) to realise that there might be dramatic changes in more-that-a-few years.

You're right - I'm no expert on Brockenhust <-> Bournemouth flows - I'm delighted they're strong, although the way you describe them it reads as if they are very peaky.  I look at your quoted hours with no fewer that five services, and Wikipedia tells me that the population is around 6000 - my goodness - clearly a different (and very favoured) town compared to where I live, which is a town over 3 times the size and has been reduced to 2 services each way per DAY.

[swlines]

The Brockenhurst flow is really just due to the college which can get up to 1,000 people per day. I'd say there are normally 30 or so people for each train going north and south as it connects into the Lymington flow as well. It also provides the connections for the entire Pokesdown to Sway area.

[Tim]

How about only allowing a TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) to increase the fare on crowded trains to discourage travel if the TOC has a plan in place to increase capacity on the route and the extra on the fare is used to fund that

[smokey]

The whole system is a mess.  The fares all need to be withdrawn and worked out from scratch.

Totally agreed ... for all the reasons that you give ... AND that with modern information systems you could make the whole thing so much more appropriate too.

I gave this some "positive thought" - i.e. I looked not to just criticise the current system but suggest what would be better - in my "where might be be in 2032" post.

Principles:
a) A fare based on a rate per mile PLUS a fixed fee per station entry / exit
b) Cheaper fares available on journeys which were quiet 4 weeks earlier, and a premium rate on journeys that were oversubscribed. Modern technology could differentiate on a station by station basis, so the rate could change at an intermediate station
c) Fares collected / charged automatically to your credit / debit card by entry and exit gates
d) A single discount card costing xxx per year that would give a discount of yyy% off all except the busiest trains. No discounts for special groups (students, children, overseas visitors, etc)
e) Hidden tax of franchise payments replaced by VAT^▸ (Value Added Tax).

There would be some big winners and losers, and that's one of the reasons I put some of my thoughts so far in the future - to avoid "transition" questions. 

P.S. It seems anomolous to me that you can book a National Express bus ticket, or an airline ticket, out in your own home ... but if you book a train ticket online, either the thing has to be posted to you or you have to collect it from a ticket machine at the station. Why is this?

From my 2032 post, which includes an element of pricing ideas.

PRICING

Journeys are charged at 3.5 Euros per mile (that's the equivalent of 35p per mile at 2008 prices) with an additional charge of 20 Euros for each journey to cover administration costs. So that a 100 Mile journey from (say) Melksham to London would cost 370 Euros (37 pounds at 2008 prices). In order to encourage regular passengers to travel at times when services are quieter, there's a 10% surcharge for travel if the train was more that 80% filled on the same day 4 weeks previous, and a 20% reduction for travel at times that the train was less that 40% filled on the same day 4 weeks ago.

All travellers may purchase an "I prefer the train" railcard for 400 Euros annually, entitling them to a 10% discount off all fares expect at the busiest (80% + full) time.

All trains are single class, and there are no longer fare reductions for Pensioners, Children, Overseas Visitors, members of the forces, students, etc. VAT is charged at the current lower rate of 21%.

Complete post at http://canber.co.uk/?q=node/33


 

Point e) I sure hope VAT is NEVER added to rail fares.
EU^» (European Union - about) rules on VAT mean once appiled in CAN NOT be taken off again. the percentage can change from a base of
I belive 5% up to any figure of VAT level, and that is why WE are stuck with VAT on House hold Fuel Bills.