What is the point of a day return?

[whole diary]

[super tm]

The regulated fare on the swindon route is the super off peak return

[6 OF 2 redundant adjunct of unimatrix 01]

hold on ..... if you rent a car for a day you would pay less than renting it for a month.... is that also unacceptable?

with month long valid return YOU ARE PAYING A PREMIUM FOR FLEXABILITY NOT A SUBSIDE FOR PEOPLE HAVING A DAY RETURN !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ellendune]

If you rent a car for a month you have it for the whole month and you can do as many journeys as you like.  If you buy a return ticket you can still only go there and back!

It seems to me that the day return dates from a time when there was plenty of spare capacity and it was an incentive to get people who needed to be somewhere for a few days to do multiple journeys rather than stay overnight.  Since we are now in a period where capacity is the issue this seems to be an anachronism.   

The London travelcard add on is different as that is unlimited travel for the whole day not just an outward and a return journey. 

[Tim]

It is a source of added complexity and confusion.  It creates stupid anomlies.  IMHO^▸ (in my humble opinion), we need to rip up the whole fare system and start again from scratch with one type of return only preiced at twice the single price and with a single set of peak conditions.

[TerminalJunkie]

If you rent a car for a month you have it for the whole month and you can do as many journeys as you like. 

Where do you get the free petrol, then?

[paul7575]

It is a source of added complexity and confusion.  It creates stupid anomlies.  IMHO^▸ (in my humble opinion), we need to rip up the whole fare system and start again from scratch with one type of return only preiced at twice the single price and with a single set of peak conditions.

In the areas like Greater London where there is only one type of return, it's the Anytime Day, to prevent fraudulent re-use, as I said earlier.  Prevent that somehow and you'll be onto a winner - 100% ticket barriers nationwide perhaps?

Your subsidiary point, about one set of peak conditions is impossible to achieve as well, given the length of some journeys.

Paul

[Tim]

Your subsidiary point, about one set of peak conditions is impossible to achieve as well, given the length of some journeys.

What about a single set of rules that say you are in the peak if you "arrive into a London terminus or Glasgow or Manchester or Leeds or Birmingham (etc) between &:30 and 9am or depart between 4:30 and 7pm"  If that leads to distortions in demand then address them by changing the lengths of trains or adjusting AP quotas.  I woudl certainly take the responsibility for setting ticket restrictions out of the hands of TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) who have proved that they can't be trusted to use them to prevent overcrowding and primarily (ab)use them to maximise revenue

On the preventing fraud issue, my suggestion would be to require the passenger to validate their own tickets in a date-stamping machine on the platform as in much of Europe.  You would need to install the machines but as they work unattended they would be cheaper than ticket barriers.

[Chris2]

On the preventing fraud issue, my suggestion would be to require the passenger to validate their own tickets in a date-stamping machine on the platform as in much of Europe.  You would need to install the machines but as they work unattended they would be cheaper than ticket barriers.

I agree the installation of ticket validation machines would help in preventing fraud. It would also allow carnet tickets to be validated and could allows companies to buy tickets in bulk for common journeys such as London Paddington to Reading.

[inspector_blakey]

On the preventing fraud issue, my suggestion would be to require the passenger to validate their own tickets in a date-stamping machine on the platform as in much of Europe.  You would need to install the machines but as they work unattended they would be cheaper than ticket barriers.

The only problem here is that, under the current rules, with a peak/off-peak/super off-peak period return ticket you're entitled to break your return journey as many times as you like as long as you stay within the time restricitons applicable to the ticket you bought; if you really put your mind to it and there were 30 stations between your origin and destination you could make an overnight stop at every one of those on your way home. I know it's technically an extreme case, but it would be an entirely legitimate use of the ticket.

That's one reason why even dating the tickets as some guards do with a pen or Zifa doesn't necessarily help - the return portion can completely legally be used in stages on different days!

[Tim]

The only problem here is that, under the current rules, with a peak/off-peak/super off-peak period return ticket you're entitled to break your return journey as many times as you like as long as you stay within the time restricitons applicable to the ticket you bought;That's one reason why even dating the tickets as some guards do with a pen or Zifa doesn't necessarily help - the return portion can completely legally be used in stages on different days!

Good point, but in my utopia you would remove the entitlement to break your journey in teh interests of simplifcation (because it is a complicating factor atthe moment because a break is allowed on some ticket types but not others) .  If you had a sensible distance-based pricing structure, removal of this entitlement wouldn't disadvantage anyone because buying separate tickets for a multileg journey would cost about the same as a single ticket for the same journey. 

[super tm]

On the preventing fraud issue, my suggestion would be to require the passenger to validate their own tickets in a date-stamping machine on the platform as in much of Europe.  You would need to install the machines but as they work unattended they would be cheaper than ticket barriers.

I agree the installation of ticket validation machines would help in preventing fraud. It would also allow carnet tickets to be validated and could allows companies to buy tickets in bulk for common journeys such as London Paddington to Reading.

And the abolition of ticket barriers.

[6 OF 2 redundant adjunct of unimatrix 01]

scrap discounts, replace with one flat fair for occasional or one off travellers and introduce a nationwide oyster card type scheme which grades passengers so a basic user would get a 10% discount on standard walk up fair and the top users would get 50% discount, no more season tickets, no confusing fairs, would possibly solve the silly fair raids situation?.... would cost a fair bit to implement and i guess we need to know how well it works in london.... the possibility is even there then to roll it out on connecting buses (i believe all stagecoach buses already have the ticket machines with the reader built in) 

[ellendune]

If we are to start again with a new fares system then could I suggest some principles for a new fare system.
In there would need to be some phasing and the basket should be closely monitored so that it is not used to take more money from us overall.

• A return should always be twice the single fare
• Each section of line to have a standard fare.  The basic fare for a journey to be the sum of the prices of the component sections (that way if a section is priced high because of capacity all users are charged equally so fares on similar journeys through that section should be equal) (break of journey would no longer be an issue either)
• Season tickets replaced by national oyster card type scheme giving discount for frequent use (good idea relex109)
• The same cards would also allow any traveller to pay the appropriate fare for the journey they actually took rather than the one they guessed they might take when they booked!
• The regulated fare should be the same type of ticket for every journey

The tricky problem is with off-peak reductions. How about defining the heavily loaded sections of track where demand is an issue and give reductions for not passing through those sections in the peak periods.  Hopefully there could then be some consistency to the definition of peak periods. The reductions would be applied to these sections only. That way long distance travellers are not penalised for using a half empty train for most of the journey just because they go through the first or last bit in the peak. If there are two peak demand sections on the journey these could also be easily accommodated in pricing.

Should there also be a reduction for using a (significantly) slower train rather than an express?

[RichardB]

My question to all of you is why should anyone take the big extra steps needed to change the current system?  It would take a system-wide champion devoting a year or two to it and for, in my view, dubious benefit.

The point of a day return is to attract custom at off peak times.  Particularly outside London, it is very price sensitive as we found on the Tarka^▸ (Line from Barnstaple to Exeter) Line (Barnstaple) back in 2006 when we persuaded First Great Western to reduce the Cheap Day Return from Barnstaple to Exeter from ^10.70 to ^7.00.  This has helped lead to huge growth on the line.

Filling otherwise empty seats is why we have Off Peak/Cheap Day Returns.

[LiskeardRich]

not only on the trains is it cheaper to do a day  return, I am also a ferry enthusiast (and anything transport really) and to take a 24hr fare with brittany ferries is a lot cheaper than say a 5 day return, which again is a lot cheaper than a longer return.