Rail Delivery Group's Fair Fare consultation - outcome

[whole diary]

[didcotdean]

The off-peak day return being only slightly more than the single is still common for short distances.

Eg Didcot to either Reading or Oxford is single £6.70, return £6.80, Didcot-Swindon single £11.80, return £11.90, although there is a super off-peak single for £10.90. So it isn't even it just being a hang-over from NSE^▸ (Network South East) days.

So what should the price of a single leg journey be? Even the Anytime Day return from Didcot to Oxford is currently £7.50.

[ChrisB]

you missed out the peak DID^» (Didcot Parkway - next trains)-SWI^» (Swindon - next trains) fares.

OXF^» (Oxford - next trains)-DID, the shorter the distance, yes, it looks as though the return probably has to rise as the single is probably priced about right.

BUT this is going to be the best chance to sort out the DID-SWI prices - which I think is the most expensive 12 mins on GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway). About the same time as OF from DID, it's nearly twice the price!

[ray951]

you missed out the peak DID^» (Didcot Parkway - next trains)-SWI^» (Swindon - next trains) fares.

OXF^» (Oxford - next trains)-DID, the shorter the distance, yes, it looks as though the return probably has to rise as the single is probably priced about right.

BUT this is going to be the best chance to sort out the DID-SWI prices - which I think is the most expensive 12 mins on GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway). About the same time as OF from DID, it's nearly twice the price!

As a DID - OXF commuter, no thanks to the fare rise.

The peak DID-SWI anytime single is an incredible £24.20, peak DID- RDG^‡(resolve) single is £10.

The DID-SWI prices are excessive compared with the Reading or Swindon fares but if you compare miles travelled rather time taken then it gives a slighly different complexion

DID - OXF - 10.35 miles - 64p per mile (peak single)
DID - SWI - 24.15 miles - £1 per mile (peak single)
DID - RDG - 18.25 miles - 54p per mile (peak single)

I am not sure where you get the 12 minutes for DID- SWI from as it appears to be more typically 17 minutes (looking at services 0800 from DID to SWI) and this compares with a typical DID-OXF journey of 15 - 19 minutes or a DID-RDG  journey of 13 - 15 minutes, all at the same time.

[Bmblbzzz]

Bristol Temple Meads – Bath single £8.00. Return £8.10. I don't think I've ever bothered buying a single even when I've intended to come back by a different means. If I had to pay £8 each way I'd consider taking the <shudder> bus. If it were only £4 each way, would GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) be interested in running it?

[didcotdean]

There used to be Advances sold between Didcot and Swindon starting from £3 (and Didcot to Oxford from £2.50) which were withdrawn.

[grahame]

There is such sense in having a uniform relationship between single and return fares, of having fares based on mileage, of having an "n" tier fare system where "n" is a big enough number to avoid the current frightening price steps between two successive trains. There is sense is saying that the fastest journey between any two stations at the time you are travelling is always a permitted route.   And as soon as you do that you render split ticketing pretty well pointless except for what it was really intended for in the first pace, and you simplify the routing guide render most of the easements unnecessary because your route is naturally allowed anyway.

Yes, roll out a system which caps fares over a period to replace the traditional season ticket – our 5.2 survey had more respondents making 2,3,or 4 days a week trips that were doing 5 days a week (though I question my data, as 5 day people tend to arrive at the station with seconds to spare and I suspect we disproportionality missed them on the 07:49)

But I have two problems.

1. The whole thing is based on a false ground rule.  (A) Income to remain the same, (B) System to be designer to grow ridership, (C) Average fair to not change.  Problem is, these three are incompatible.  If the ridership increases 10%, then the average fare should go down by 10% ... or the fare take goes up by 10%.  No-one at RDG^‡(resolve) in the consultation could explain this apparent incomparability to me, and I suspect that the answer is that the average fare will remain the same and (if traffic growth is 10%) there will be a 10% increase from the fare basket.  This issue makes it hard for me to trust them to get the system right to reach their stated goals

2. At times it has been, and remains, difficult to 'persuade' a TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) to do the right thing with fares in the past, so it's difficult for me to trust them when they say they'll do the right (fair) thing in the fare revamp.  Within the last year, I recall a certain TOC starting a train 6 minutes earlier than normal because of engineering works causing it to be diverted ... so not only did passengers have a slower journey, but they paid £20 to £30 more in some cases as they were now off peak not super off peak.  A rail replacement bus during engineering left 12 minutes before the normal train, and 5 minutes before the incoming connection - putting up fares for people who went the (only) alternative long way round by around £8.  And a ticket machine which to this day sells Off Peak tickets from the quick select menu all weekend when it should sell super off peak - I wonder how many people still pay £18 more than they should.

My examples are, sadly, all less than a year old.  Two of the three fare issues we fought (we had to do more than just ask) and the third remains, and I don't feel easy in my mind about the changes being truly evenly applied bearing in mind the shakey ground rules, and the recent record. Fear of a lion in sheep's clothing.  Gain my trust in these areas and, yes, I would be very supportive.

[ChrisB]

In relation to 1, my understanding is that the fare income will be neutral *at the point of change*....ie with the same fares sold on day -1 as day +1, the income would be the same.

Of course, sales of fares will difer over time & therefore the farebox over any period will be different.

[grahame]

In relation to 1, my understanding is that the fare income will be neutral *at the point of change*....ie with the same fares sold on day -1 as day +1, the income would be the same.

Of course, sales of fares will difer over time & therefore the farebox over any period will be different.

Thanks Chris - that answers it, and answers it well. It means (as I might have guessed) that additional income gained by a more attractive fare structure pulling in more customers goes into 'the system' and not (directly at least) back to the customer.  Interesting question for the longer term - might more and better spread customers for the same services lead to a better economic model and so better franchise settlements - so money would come (ha,ha) back to the public via treasury payments that would help reduce general taxation.  I am aware that throwing 8 bl**** great stone into the fares pond would in some instances result in a wave of people who's fares had rocketed finding alternatives, so the whole thing is not 100% gain on passengers.

As a passenger, I might not like the apparent (and easily read from objectives A and B) financial gain going to / through the rail industry, but it is totally understandable.  But why the **** didn't the people sent as experts by the RDG^‡(resolve) to the stakeholder meeting they held in Bristol explain it, rather that just looking sheepish at the apparent fallacy when it was asked about.

[Bmblbzzz]

There is such sense in having a uniform relationship between single and return fares, of having fares based on mileage, of having an "n" tier fare system where "n" is a big enough number to avoid the current frightening price steps between two successive trains.

Yes... but that also increases the likelihood of having the *wrong* ticket type for any journey, where wrong means either more expensive than necessary or invalid. Going the other way and having only one fare type (by time of travel, so erasing completely the peak v off-peak distinction) would remove these two problems entirely – but probably at the cost of even more overcrowding in peak times and empty trains at some other times.

[ChrisB]

Yes... but that also increases the likelihood of having the *wrong* ticket type for any journey, where wrong means either more expensive than necessary or invalid. Going the other way and having only one fare type (by time of travel, so erasing completely the peak v off-peak distinction) would remove these two problems entirely – but probably at the cost of even more overcrowding in peak times and empty trains at some other times.

undoubtedly....!

[grahame]

Could I offer a German word for what I fear the outcome will be  ?    Shame there isn't an English word like it.

   "Verschlimmbesserung"

The Guardian is not impressed either

It starts

The latest attempt to simplify our crazily complex rail ticketing system, hailed as a “once in a generation reform” is nothing of the sort. It is tinkering at the margins, which will result in some passengers being a little better off, a few a little worse off and Britain’s railway system still egregiously expensive and unfit for purpose.

The Rail Delivery Group’s (RDG^‡(resolve)’s) new deal largely consists of part-time season tickets, a guarantee that passengers will get the cheapest prices and smartphone-based ticketing across the UK^▸ (United Kingdom).

It goes on to point out

Will the system become less complex? The RDG repeats an oft-quoted figure for how labyrinthine our ticketing system is, saying: “There are around 55m fares in the current system.”

Yet it then suggests that the train companies should be allowed to “create discounted, premium, train specific and personalised variations of these fares, for example, charging less at quieter periods, more for first class, less for reduced flexibility, and so on”. This is about creating more fare types, more complexity and potentially much more opaque pricing. It is the opposite of fare simplification. It is more like Ryanair on steroids.

and it suggests that much of the intensive research merely re-found what has been known for a long time.

The RDG says it came to its conclusions after conducting months of “intensive” consumer research which found that passengers want “a fairer, more transparent and easier to use experience”.

They could have saved some time by reaching back to a House of Commons transport committee report from 2006 which concluded that a decade after privatisation : “Passengers are consistently dissatisfied with what they perceive to be the value for money of their fares.”

The privatised rail companies have had 13 years to digest that report’s findings. Yet during that time, they have made the ticketing system ever more complex, and ever more costly for walk-up passengers.

The problem with the RDG proposals is that they come within tight, revenue-neutral, terms of reference. To be fair to the RDG it is operating within a Balkanised network with a frustrating amount of legal restrictions in place.

[ChrisB]

Some sympathy for the RDG^‡(resolve) - that last para quoted above is certainly true.

No mention of one idea that the RDG mentioned I thought - pricing every journey as a single, with varying discounts on a return leg over it simply being 2x the single, depending on the required flexibility/time of day required

[Bmblbzzz]

"A fairer, more transparent and easier to use experience" is Miss World stuff. Love and peace to the world, and free apple pie.

[grahame]

A very interesting comment piece by Sim Harris in Rail News

Once upon a time fares really were pretty simple. In 1961, for example, each second class mile was charged at about 2.5 old pence by British Railways.

If you knew that London Paddington to Reading was 36 miles, you could work out with reasonable certainty that a second-class single would be about 90 old pence, or seven shillings and sixpence. (That’s 37.5p, but the change in money values since 1961 makes the conversion all but meaningless.)

And a whole lot more (worth a full read!)

http://www.in2013dollars.com/1961-GBP-in-2019

£100 in 1961 -> £2,207.52 in 2019

Let's apply the inflation factor then ... 37.5p x 22 makes £8.25 single. Hmmm

[didcotdean]

This is what a 1965 BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) WR timetable says about fares:


A single from London Paddington to Reading General was then 9/-