So what's this "£750 million risk of split-ticketing" then?
Someone's back to putting the cart before the horse again. It's absurd that separate tickets on the 07:53 from A to B and then on the 09:30 B to C (a continuation of the same train) work out cheaper than buying a ticket all the way from A to C via (and calling at) B on the same train.
Fares should not be distorted as they are ... once the distortions are sorted out, split ticketing becomes the just-occasionally useful facility it was supposed to be in the first place - a convenient way of commuting from B (home) to A (office) in the morning, but then returning via B to C (rail user group meeting) in the evening without having to get off and rebook at B.
Two things should be borne in mind; 1 the savvy traveller will always find the best deal and 2 there have been idiosyncrasies in ticket prices since I was a lad (if not since railways were invented). Let me give you a f’rinstance:
Back in my “trainspotting years” in the 60s, and in the days when ticket prices were still set by the mile, I had privilege rate travel because my father worked on the railway, whilst a friend who often came with me did not.
If, say, we wanted to go from Bristol to Manchester, I could by a child privilege return. He couldn’t buy a day return because in those days day returns were generally only available between selected locations, usually for local journeys, to popular seaside resorts or to London. And, as now, were only a few pence more than an ordinary single between those two points. As a day return wasn’t available for his full journey, he would have had to buy a full price child ordinary return from Bristol to Manchester which, at effectively 1
1/
2d per mile, didn’t come cheap if all you had for income was pocket money and a Sunday paper round.
The system we used could not be done today because station dwell times were much longer back then.
He would buy a day return to Hereford and, on arrival, would scoot off to the booking office to buy a day return to Shrewsbury. The process was then repeated at Shrewsbury for a day return to Manchester.
Mid week returns were also available for a couple of years in the 60s. These allowed outbound travel on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, allowing return travel TWThO in the following week. Initially designed to attract the holiday market, it wasn’t only the pair of us who spotted that they allowed cheap long distance travel if you went two weeks’ running, as when you got to the other end you simply bought another mid-week return to go back the same week, then use the return portions of both tickets in the following week. Useful in the school holidays for Carlisle or Scotland runs, they were…
The moral of the story is that discounted fares then, as now, were designed to encourage discretionary leisure travel. Anything that the railways to potentially depress that demand may well result in a fall in passenger numbers.
So do away with split ticketing if you think that’s the best thing to do, but be careful how you do it.
I would finally draw an analogy with the accountancy profession. Every time the Chancellor or HMRC identify a “tax loophole” and closes it, any accountants worth their salt will find new ones. And in my view that is exactly what is likely to happen with railway fares after any review.
As the old saying goes: “Be careful what you wish for”
