With apologies to Chris B, who has just started a thread (
http://www.passenger.chat/27160 ) prompted by the article in today’s Sunday Telegraph, I also saw this and it prompted me to think about this.
'Tis a shame you didn't copy 'n paste your comprehensive missive after my post & keep this all in one thread - there are now two threads dealing with this same issue, and quite difficult to merge them now. Maybe this thread for *everything* a ticketing policy should have, and the other for what is right/wrong with the likely proposal being made tomorrow - i.e. JUST single tickets only, no returns.
My comments on yours....
1 - Simplification of fares, and return fares
A – All tickets to become valid for all travel between the named starting and destination for a specified period – say 24 hours from the start date and time that you specify when buying. You can break as many times as you like, or travel back and forth more than once, as long as you finish by the expiry time. If you cannot finish in the period due to breakdown/cancellation etc., no penalty can be applied. In many ways I am proposing that the basic ticket is a daily season ticket.
Singles are already valid (within their time restriction) all day, and I think some are valid for the following two days from day of issue. Agree with breaks of journey as often as you like, but you must keep going towards your destination. No 'rover' usage, for the reasons Ralph Ayres gives above. You buy again. Tickets are valid for early morning completion the following day if breakdown/cancellation of late services happens currently & no further changes needed.
B – If peak times are still to apply, it will simply be determined by the start time of the ticket. So if it starts (say) between 6-30 and 9 am it will be peak, otherwise standard rates apply. Thereafter no restrictions on use in the permitted area.
Agreed, but I can see need for a peak PM period in certain journeys, for which a peak single would be needed. There is scope for all peak periods to be equal though - no starting peaks say at 1530. A discussion is needed re peak journeys & distance to be travelled: SW - Scotland (& vice versa) for example, shouldn't need any peak.
BUT no breaks of journey! Otherwise the need for a peak becomes necessary. You can't mix & match otherwise people will take full advantage. So maybe breaks only allowed on medium to short journeys where journey can still be completed within the same day? it's a difficult one that....
C – There should be no penalty for not travelling the whole route, so (for example) if there is a cheaper fare between King’s Cross and Newcastle than to Durham, it can be used for a return to Durham freely. It will be up to those who set the fare to ensure such anomalies do not occur. Similarly if the TOC▸ or GBR▸ offers a special deal (say Paddington to Bristol for £10), it can be used for a part journey (say to Swindon) without penalty.
Errr, no. special offers are just that. They are offered everywhere, in all sorts of trades, and can have whatever conditions they choose. Or ban special offers because operators won't want them with no conditions anyway. but I agree with the first bit unbolded.
D – In general as far as possible route restrictions should be removed, so that (for example) anyone wanting to travel between Birmingham and Southampton should be able to travel via Reading, Bristol, or Cheltenham/Swindon/Westbury/Salisbury at the same price on the same ticket.
The permitted routes should be shown on any electronic ticket and printed automatically when it is printed. I would suggest this be in a simplified map form, but I appreciate that many do not relate to maps readily, so a list of permitted routes or intermediate principal stations and possible changing points might be preferable.
Again, SW - Scotland (for example) - what routes do you include? Pretty much the whole network? needs further work.
E – If anyone does want to return more than 24 hours after the starting time, an extension can be paid for when buying the ticket, so that another journey can be made terminating at the starting station or one en route (e.g – someone getting back to Goring can terminate at Reading if there’s a lift available there) without penalty on a specified later date, such later date being capable of being changed by modest payment if plans changed.
Surely a further single ticket is the answer bought when you know when/where to is all that is needed?
F – Seat reservations – all trains to have a minimum of 20% unreserved seats.
- yes, absolutely
On trains where seat reservations are available or recommended, a warning should be generated at the point of purchase when (say) 75% of reserved seats are sold, to give an opportunity to book one. All reservations should be on payment of a standard (i.e. same amount throughout the system for any reservation) modest sum.
Unworkable frankly. I thought we were trying to simplify?
A priority IT project should be clearing reservations when there are “no shows” – with any display clearing automatically if the seat has not been filled on departure from the next station after it started – perhaps using the QR▸ code to “book in” on the seat when you get on.
Yes, far more likely! Good call.
2 – The form of the ticket – why hard copies should be retained, and how the form of tickets should be developed.
As I have posted before, there is an important point of principle here. If we move to more electronic ticketing, hard copies should always be available.
Can't disagree - until airlines stop, why should rail?
The problem we seem to have currently is that we have a mixture of systems that involve tapping in (like the
Oyster▸ cards), scanning QRs and feeding tickets through gate readers. Get it wrong, and there’s a risk of penalties for the innocent and unwary without an encyclopaedic knowledge of the systems. We seem to have moved backwards from the situation we had some years ago when a card with a magnetic strip literally seemed to open all the gates to rail travel.[/quote]
But you want paper tickets as well as e- & m-tickets.....they all have to be read/checked. so your ideas are partly causing this problem to continue. Just a thought.
B – Paper tickets still be the default issue at ticket offices, ticket machines and other outlets (see below), preferably still in the current credit card sized format. It is a design masterpiece, durable (OK – some have problems with the text fading on long-term season tickets), a convenient size and readily recyclable. The QR code can easily be printed on it, and modern scanners should be able to cope with this or any home printed code easily. I reckon you could readily print all the information that is needed for the ticket to be checked on-board (starting point and destination, starting time & date, class) on the same side, as I expect all TM‡’s will be issued with scanners that will breakdown frequently, and where there is permitted route information this could be printed on the reverse. Maximum flexibility – use an image on your phone, print at home or buy it on a paper ticket.
You miss the actual problem - that the passenger can read the details, so the routings, and all the current info is STILL required to be available to the traveller. On the paper ticket too if retained. It isn't solving a problem?
C – Sell train tickets in advance from Post Offices and convenience stores. We have had National Lottery terminals selling lottery tickets for nearly 30 years and IT has made huge advances since. Surely it cannot be too difficult to devise a network of rail ticket terminals that operates in a similar way – perhaps combining it with the sale of other services as well?
agree with comments already made above. Along with the point made elsewhere that sellers are well genned up to be able to *advise* travellers on best/cheapest fares. No - can you buy an air ticket in these places? Top up Oyster-style pay-as-you-go...yep, more places the better.
With a significant risk of repeating opinions I have posted here, and elsewhere, previously my views on GB▸ rail ticketing are as follows:
The system should be based entirely upon Single Distance Related Fares (SDRF) so that passengers pay the same cost/mile for every journey, which should reflect to a large extent the actual cost of providing the service (with whatever overall reduction would be required to ensure that rail travel is not rendered prohibitively expensive).
You are either going to make tickets stupidly cheap in the South (of Manchester, say) or stupidly expensive north thereof. Median wages across the country differ hugely, which is why the current disparity exists.
DRFs eliminate the requirement for the nonsense that is split ticketing and also stops any arguments about whether a break of journey is permitted or not.
With the proviso that there is no doubling back, and journeys have to be completed within a certain timescale, then breaks ought to be permitted at all times, and as often as needs be. I often need to feed noticeboards along a line & I do break my journey many times. This should be the norm. If singles were valid three days, then you could take three days to get there, as long as no doubling back. It doesn't matter if a break is one hour or 24, really.
DRFs also sort out most of the issues surrounding Permitted Routes because the system should be designed to offer the quickest journey by default but also provide, on request, details of alternative reasonable but slower, and therefore probably more expensive, routes.
Not sure what problems surrounding Permitted Routes you are referring to that are solved in this way? Priced by the Mile has its advantages (you pay the same fare per mile, on the same/similar trains across the board. Really fair
Permitted Routes are another kettle of fish frankly - and need a complete overhaul.
But yes, whichever route you want to take, pay by the mile travelled. Simple. How that is measured & your ticket issued? Hmmm.
I am entirely ambivalent about whether Return tickets are retained; they could be viewed as another unnecessary complication of the ticketing system but I am sure that many passengers still use them. If retained a Return ticket should always be twice the price of the equivalent Single DRF - no more of the lunacy that is Returns only costing a few pence more than the Single.
Yes that is the proposal, with the single being half the price of *current* returns - so generally cheaper or the same as now.
Unless the RDG‡/TOCs can provide a cast iron justification for their retention Advance tickets should be abolished; if the powers-that-be really think earlier collection of ticket revenue outweighs the obvious overall loss of revenue I would love to see their workings. If it can be justified configure the ticketing system to make automatic across-the-board price adjustments a set number of days prior to departure dates but don't issue a separate ticket type.
You could certainly offer a discount for buying your flexible ticket in advance (say 30% off if bought t-12, reducing the discount by say 5% per week until you pay 100% of the flexible single fare at t-5? % figures can be more/less, this just an example)
BUT there is good reason that Advance, non-flex fares are worth keeping & that is the same reason they were invented - to fill otherwise empty seats on particular services & by offering a large discount, persuade those that are happy to travel on that particular service to do so. This hasn't changed - there are still empty seats (on different services these days) that need filling - generally weekdays (Monday pm - Friday am only, in the middle of the other days) where cleverly-priced Advances are working.
I have always been of the opinion that train seat reservations should be properly managed such that if a reservation is made it becomes mandatory for the passenger(s) to travel in the specified seats on the selected service. There would of course be an option to cancel reservations up to 90(?) minutes prior to the service departure from it's originating station. Essentially the travelling public have to be educated into the habit of only making reservations when they are 100% certain that they will travel on the selected service (illness, etc permitting). On busy services passengers occupying booked seats for which they do not hold the reservation should be instructed to move by the Train Manager if a polite request from the reservation holder doesn't do the trick. I am still convinced that a few selected services should reservation-only'.
Again, complicating the reservation system. You are aloud just one reservation per journey, made at time of booking for Advances, and at any time up to 90mins before departure on flexible tickets - but once all reservable seats are booked, tough luck on that service, try another. But I agree with whoever said 20% minimum should be unreservable, so that those without a reservation get a chance of a seat. And that the guard can cancel those seats not taken up.
There are far too many Railcards attached to the GB rail system. If the RDG get the pricing model right quite a few of them could be binned.
Micro-areas (eg Dales Railcard, Cotswold Railcard) serve a very valid reason. Statutory ones (eg Disabled) ditto. But yes, there are some that might go.
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