Fare increases on the Severn Beach line

[whole diary]

[John R]

http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/8203-severn-beach-train-tickets-to-rise-by-up-to-60-per-cent/story-30055849-detail/story.html

Having advocated increases on this line on the forum on a couple of occasions I think the direction of travel is sensible, although I am sure that some of the detail may give rise to debate. In particular the whopping increases on weekly tickets "to encourage people to buy longer dated tickets".  Does that mean that the normal relationship between weekly/monthly/annual will not apply on the line. 

If approved, a single ticket from Clifton Down Station to Bristol Temple Meads (zone one) will rise from £1.50 to £2.

In comparison a single from any station between Severn Beach and Clifton Down in Temple Meads (zone two) will increase from £2 to £3.

A return from zone one to Temple Meads will rise from £2 to £3, and a return from zone two will increase from £3 to £4.

[bobm]

If the rises do go ahead in the summer it will be around the time the first Turbos head west - and they are earmarked for the Severn Beach line.

I remember attending a meeting two years ago when the question of the fares on that line were being discussed and everyone was wondering how to move the fares to a comparable level with other lines. I'm not sure why it has taken until now to draw up a proposal.

[JayMac]

This is outrageous. My limited budget for transport will be severely...

...oh, hang on. I've moved. 

[grahame]

Comments on the story on the paper's website seem to point to a desire for other improvements:

Severn beach to Bristol Temple Meads at approx 06:05 and 06:20 the next train is approx 07:30 meaning if you work in the centre of Bristol and start work at 8am you have to catch the 06:20 getting you into temple meads an hour early for work.

Battered old uncomfortable train.

for an extra £1.00 you can get on a brand new park and ride bus with comfy seats, good heating, USB phone charging and free wifi! And you can leave at approx 45 mins before you start work and still get in on time.

A rise in the number of stations locally would be good to see.

There are queues at platform 3 at Temple Meads when the conductor(s) haven't got round everyone at peak times on any day, not just Monday.

The lack of service on this line is terrible and the staff don't seem to care.

Typical backward thinking. Why is the service not advertised?

There's an element of selective quoting in what I've picked out there looking at the service - on pricing these are the comments, with a suggestion that higher price should lead to better service.

£10 is hardly expensive and still cheaper than the bus.

As it was a cheap service at £2.00 per day you think that its such good value that you accept this. When the costs escalates to £3.00 per day you don't want to get on the battered old uncomfortable train

The LEP^» (Local Enterprise Partnership - about) and GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) are saying this will fund Metrowest yet this is a project they are persistently watering down and delaying.

[JayMac]

How exactly will the fare increase fund MetroWest? What mechanism will be used to allocate the additional revenue?

If it's to be a revenue forecast based on current passenger numbers, what happens when footfall increases or decreases? If it's to be a fixed grant from the operator, who decides how much?

I'm deeply sceptical. Some arrangement will probably come to pass whereby all parties will claim the increased revenue is being given to MetroWest, but finding out the amounts will be impossible. I confidently predict the additional revenue will not all go to MetroWest, and I bet the words "commercially sensitive" will be used as a smokescreen.

[ChrisB]

Doesn't say "ALL this will fund MetroWest", BNM.....

[JayMac]

Doesn't say "ALL this will fund MetroWest", BNM.....

What it says is:

"The money raised from the increase will go towards improving services on the line"

Doesn't say just SOME will fund improvements.

Increased capacity is already scheduled, with the rolling stock cascade. That decision was already made without it being dependent on a fares increase. I suspect a form of words will come from the LEP^» (Local Enterprise Partnership - about), DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) and GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) that says the fare increase is funding the new (to the line) rolling stock. Essentially putting the cart before the horse.

[ChrisB]

It could include improvements/refresh to the turbos too. That could be "improving services"

[JayMac]

It could include improvements/refresh to the turbos too. That could be "improving services"

Again. Already costed and largely done.

[ChrisB]

So? The "costed" could include the fares rise - you just don't know.

[JayMac]

We just don't know is precisely my point. And I strongly suspect we never will.

I welcome improvements to rail services across Bristol. I just don't think users of one line should be treated as a cash cow to fund them. The increased patronage of the line since 2007 has already wiped out the local authority subsidy. By every measure, the line has gone from strength to strength. But to use that success to increase fares by between 33-60% in one go is just wrong.

[ChrisB]

At that low level, 100% is really not very much!

[JayMac]

The fares are low, but they must surely be covering the cost of operation as evidenced by the removal of the subsidy. That can only be a guess because we never know the finances of franchises.

Had the fares risen in line with the annual regulated fares increases then admittedly the increase since 2007 would have been around 30%. Importantly though, that would have been an incremental rise. The risk with a massive hike of 33-60% in one go is that all the hard work attracting people to the line will be undone and growth could stagnate.

If Severn Beach Line fares rises are to fund MetroWest then I'd welcome an incremental rise over a number of years. I'd also welcome use of an incremental increase to fund the introduction of cashless revenue collection methods - Smartcards and contactless. Ideally a city wide multi-mode, multi-operator system.

Saying that fares have to jump up by large whole numbers to speed up cash transactions is a poor excuse to raise fares. By far the slowest method of collection on board is chip and pin.

[John R]

The fares are low, but they must surely be covering the cost of operation as evidenced by the removal of the subsidy. That can only be a guess because we never know the finances of franchises.

I don't think you can assume that.  The subsidy was to cover the incremental cost of increasing the service to every 40 minutes, and so one can assume that this cost has now been covered by the increase in traffic generated. If one presumes that the previous service required a subsidy to operate, which I think is highly likely, then it's most probable that the current operation in total still generates less revenue than the service costs.

At the end of the day the fares on the line were remarkably cheap in contrast to other services, even within the Bristol area, and they are now being brought more into line.  With the turbos imminent, and maybe other improvements to come once the four tracking is completed in a couple of years time, that doesn't seem at all unreasonable.

[grahame]

The subsidy was to cover the incremental cost of increasing the service to every 40 minutes, and so one can assume that this cost has now been covered by the increase in traffic generated. If one presumes that the previous service required a subsidy to operate, which I think is highly likely, then it's most probable that the current operation in total still generates less revenue than the service costs.

At the end of the day the fares on the line were remarkably cheap in contrast to other services, even within the Bristol area, and they are now being brought more into line.  With the turbos imminent, and maybe other improvements to come once the four tracking is completed in a couple of years time, that doesn't seem at all unreasonable.

The "Severn Beach" is designated Community Rail, and as such that allows a flexibility in the fares and the fare system at the request / suggestion of the community area served, provided that pretty well all parties are in agreement.  This flexibility was used to restrain / even lower fares to encourage traffic back when there was plenty of room for more traffic on the less-frequent train service, and indeed it has done spectacularly well.  But with various groupings involved in putting the restrained fares in place unhappy about them being allowed to drift up in parallel with national fares, and with the traffic duely encouraged to the extent that there's no longer plenty of rooms on the train, "do nothing" ceases to be an option for the future.   There is (personal opinion) sense in bringing in higher capacity trains, and sense in letting fares re-couple to the national system so that the divulgence, with the need to collect fares from more people than the trains carry to pay for them at a level where all the extra traffic gained doesn't require an extra subsidy for each passenger.

Severn Beach fares are a very interesting 'case' for other designated community rail operations to learn from.