What is the point of a day return?

[whole diary]

[ellendune]

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.

Nothing wrong with off-peak tickets why day returns?  But some day returns aren't off peak they just give a cheaper fare for coming back the same day! Thats why split tickets are discussed so much!

If you don't think the present system is terminally broken look at other posts in fares fare. 

[inspector_blakey]

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.

And yet if you want a cheap long-haul flight there is generally a requirement buried away in the fare rules for your trip to include a Saturday night stay! Not to mention avoid flying Thursday - Sunday.

(with apologies for wandering off topic...)

[RichardB]

Nothing wrong with off-peak tickets why day returns?  But some day returns aren't off peak they just give a cheaper fare for coming back the same day! Thats why split tickets are discussed so much!

If you don't think the present system is terminally broken look at other posts in fares fare. 

Split tickets are a completely different issue and I would abolish the need for them.  It should not be cheaper to buy split tickets.

Day Returns attract shoppers and all manner of leisure travellers to the railway and are priced accordingly.  The railway needs their business.

The fares system is complicated but for a reason, because there are lots of different fares to attract off peak custom (Advance Purchase, Rangers, Rovers etc).  Peak fares reflect peak demand (and, to be frank, people's willingness to pay).

Yes, it's not pretty but I'd far rather have the system we have than a more restrictive one that prices off many leisure journeys.

[Andrew1939 from West Oxon]

Different fares are what is sometimes called "fractioning the market" in economic terms. Rail travel is basically one commodity with a wide market but some people have greater needs to travel than others, i.e. peak hour commuters and the business traveller. The leisure traveller's needs are less and they have to be persuaded to travel by offering them lower fares and this is done by placing various conditions on the tickets that prevent the essential rail traveller from using the lower fares. Remember, the rail industry has relatively high fixed costs to operate and relatively low variable costs so the full fare traveller has to pay in his ticket price for most of the fixed costs. Cheap off peak fares make business sense when the revenue generated is more than the marginal costs even if the cheap fares make little contribution to the fixed costs. Operationally, variable fares enables the railways to persuade some travellers to change their travel times so helping to ease over crowding of peak hour trins and fill up empty seats on off-peak trains - but you knew all that already. My offpeak advance Saturday fare from Oxford to Paddington of around ^2.55 with my rail card persuades me not to use the alternative slightly more costly but still cheap Stagecoach Tube coach service for a leisure day out. Its all quite simple really but the railways somehow seem to make everything so complicated for the rail user.

[ChrisB]

Fraud, purely & Simply. People were repeatedly, in the days before barriers, using the reurn portion more than once. Higher fares in L&SE meant a lot of money was being lost over the month of validity....so it was changed to a day.

[paul7575]

Fraud, purely & Simply. People were repeatedly, in the days before barriers, using the reurn portion more than once. Higher fares in L&SE meant a lot of money was being lost over the month of validity....so it was changed to a day.

I tried that explanation in post #3.  No one took much notice, so I wish you luck...

Paul

[ChrisB]

It's true - I researched it via ATOC^» (Association of Train Operating Companies See - here) a while ago.

[ellendune]

I have no problem with off-peaks, super off-peaks (so long as te ordinary passenger can understand what the restrictions are) or even advanced fares.  These seem to justifyably fraction the market as CLPG^» (Cotswold Line Promotion Group - about) says. 

It seems to me that thew day return has no role in this and is being used to unreasonably disadvantage travellers from one place against another See earlier post comparing Swindon and Oxford fares. Surely the demand and capacity constraints are just the same from Oxford and Swindon? It is the line from Reading to Paddington. 

The regulator for the water industry would not allow such blatent discrimination in the water pricing scheme so why does ORR^» (Office of Rail and Road formerly Office of Rail Regulation - about)?

[ChrisB]

This now dates back to the Network SouthEast area before privatisation. Thst was the time that day returns ought to have gone.

They're now part if the franchised fare system. I suspect they are revenue earners for L&SE TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) and there's no appetite for change amongst TOCs, including reduced fraud.

[super tm]

You have to have day returns.  They should be only for short journeys up to say about 30 miles in length.  Anything longer should be the one month return. 

If you abolished day returns then a ticket from Worle to Weston Super Mare would be valid for one month.  To stop the ticket being reused you would need to have a lot of extra staff.  In order to do a full check between these two stations on an HST^▸ (High Speed Train) would probably need 4 staff.  For such a small fare that would not be justified. 

The other option would be to increase the penalty fare to something like ^100 and have make the passenger cancel their own ticket before boarding at Worle.  Caught with out a ticket or one that has not been validated would get the penalty fare.

[Andrew1939 from West Oxon]

As ChrisB says, much goes back to before privatisation. BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) incereased fares on certain routes more than others when it thought the market would stand such increases. The old Great Western Trains inherited many of these fare structures. However Thames Trains, inherited some lower fare structures and many of both have been frozen into the regulated fares system. It has left us with some longer journeys where there is a choice of routes (e.g. Hereford/Worcester to Paddington with major fare differences according to route chosen. This encourages all this research into finding the cheapest fare or combination of fares. Do other country's rail systems have such complexities?

[Chris from Nailsea]

... If you abolished day returns then a ticket from Worle to Weston Super Mare would be valid for one month. To stop the ticket being reused you would need to have a lot of extra staff. In order to do a full check between these two stations on an HST^▸ (High Speed Train) would probably need 4 staff.  For such a small fare that would not be justified.

Agreed. 

And I think you would need a similar number of staff on the class 150s from Nailsea & Backwell to Weston-super-Mare via Yatton, Worle, (and yes, even Weston Milton!) just to negotiate their way through those severely crowded carriages, in order to check tickets, in the holiday season ...

[SusanW]

Having once commuted into London from Oxford, and now (occasionally) from Swindon, I've always wondered why the fares were so different. The answers here partly explain the reason, but don't make it any fairer!

I once questioned FGW^▸ (First Great Western) over the difference in fares for a similar 1hr journey and then told me it was because Swindon gets far more frequent services than Oxford! But that doesn't make any difference to me.

Unfortunately the Fair Fares 4 Swindon campaign http://fairfares4swindon.wordpress.com/ hasn't really moved recently but it does have some useful figures for comparison!

[ChrisB]

The differences you mention Susan, are down to the Network SouthEast region - Oxford within & Swindon outside.  Historically, fare rises were treated differently, and generally people didn't commute enmasse from Swindon until a decade or so ago.

Since privatisation, fare rules became the same across the country & trapped anomalies within the system. They are difficult to iron out without losing a lot of money on the best flows. It also doesn't help that Didcot & Oxford fares are now the same - so you can't just increase Didcot-London fares as everyone would just buy from Oxford, cheaper.

Oxford & Cotswold fares will rise I'm sure. They are lower because of the service limitations on the Cotswolds. Now this is less of a problem after redoubling, I suspect that the fare loadings Didcot & north thereof will rise towards the Swindon level of fares, so the dustance travelled reflected in each fare more fairly. It isn't that Swindon is over-expensive, rather that Oxford is over-cheap on mileage covered

[ellendune]

It isn't that Swindon is over-expensive, rather that Oxford is over-cheap on mileage covered

What fare per mile would you consider is the correct one for an anytime return then? 71p a mile is considerably more than it would cost me to drive it? Surely the prie should at least not make it more expensive than a lone driver at rather more than the current 45p inland revenue mileage rate.