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The proposed removal of affordable, flexible rail tickets in the UK. Don't let them get away with it!

teuchter

teuchter

je suis teuchter
As of this week, LNER are "piloting" a new fare structure on their main routes (London to Newcastle and Edinburgh).

TLDR: they are removing off-peak tickets and replacing them with a new kind of advance ticket with no guarantee of availability and no price cap.

I've put that bit in bold because it's not how they are trying to present it - they are trying to present it as part of "fares simplification" amongst other things.

Important to note: LNER is effectively nationalised and under the control of the DfT. This means that this is not just a pilot by a private train company (in fact they'd not be allowed to do this) it is something directed by the government and they potentially want to roll it out to the whole network.

The DfT-directed LNER have a stated aim of increasing revenue per rail journey.

I think it's important to try and make people aware of what's actually being changed, because it's quite easy for them to try and obfuscate it in what's already a confusing fare structure in the UK. And unless enough people object to this, they will deem the pilot scheme a "success" and we'll find the whole UK fare structure changed as a result.

Off-peak tickets are important because they don't sell out, you can buy them just before you travel, and the price is fixed. On the various threads we have about buying train tickets, I'm quite often pointing people to Off-peak tickets as the ones they should be looking at, when they think their only option is an excruciatingly expensive "Anytime" ticket. Anytime tickets are expensive but under the current system, the only time you're obliged to pay for them is when you have to travel at a peak time. Under the new system, if you need to travel at short notice, you might find yourself forced to buy an Anytime even if you are able to travel outside of the peaks. That's because you might look for a ticket on your chosen off-peak train and find out that no Advance tickets are left. Alternatively, there might be one of these new tickets (which they are calling "Semi-flex" but which is really a type of Advance ticket) available but they are free to set the price to whatever they want. So it might be cheaper than an Anytime, but still significantly more expensive than the current Off-peak price.

Some people will try and argue that this is all fine, it's just going to a system more like the airlines use, and why shouldn't we maximise revenue. But the railways are supposed to be a public service, part of the public transport system that gives mobility to those who don't have the option of using a car. It's already the case that car users have more flexibility in their journey plans - you don't have to book a ticket three weeks ahead to guarantee your slot on the motorway, and petrol doesn't increase in price the closer you are to making your journey. It's already the case that if you want to travel by train, it's not made that easy for you to be flexible (or you have to pay for the privilege) but this will make the imbalance significantly worse.

There is an article here on Railfuture:

Railfuture | Press release 4th February 2024

Railfuture
www.railfuture.org.uk www.railfuture.org.uk

Apparently it got a mention on Radio 4 yesterday:

www.bbc.co.uk

You and Yours - Train Fares; Banking Vans; Crochet and Knitting - BBC Sounds

There are more options for getting train tickets but choosing can be difficult.
www.bbc.co.uk www.bbc.co.uk

Here's a thread from the man in seat 61:

 
The whole fare structure is a mess. I know Northern actually offer a fare online for a regional routing that no longer exists. So if you ask a conductor for it. It’s not on their machine, but for some reason Northen put it on their online fares offered. The Rail Delivery Group is a complete mess. Fragmentation has solved nothing.
 
LNER has been upping costs for a while, all their fare were made one-way fares, so where previously you could get an off-peak open return where the return was valid for a month, now you need two singles and if you can't fix both the outward and the return the costs go through the roof.

No doubt DB and SNCF will be watching with interest...
 
teuchter said:
As of this week, LNER are "piloting" a new fare structure on their main routes (London to Newcastle and Edinburgh).

TLDR: they are removing off-peak tickets and replacing them with a new kind of advance ticket with no guarantee of availability and no price cap.

I've put that bit in bold because it's not how they are trying to present it - they are trying to present it as part of "fares simplification" amongst other things.

Important to note: LNER is effectively nationalised and under the control of the DfT. This means that this is not just a pilot by a private train company (in fact they'd not be allowed to do this) it is something directed by the government and they potentially want to roll it out to the whole network.

The DfT-directed LNER have a stated aim of increasing revenue per rail journey.

I think it's important to try and make people aware of what's actually being changed, because it's quite easy for them to try and obfuscate it in what's already a confusing fare structure in the UK. And unless enough people object to this, they will deem the pilot scheme a "success" and we'll find the whole UK fare structure changed as a result.

Off-peak tickets are important because they don't sell out, you can buy them just before you travel, and the price is fixed. On the various threads we have about buying train tickets, I'm quite often pointing people to Off-peak tickets as the ones they should be looking at, when they think their only option is an excruciatingly expensive "Anytime" ticket. Anytime tickets are expensive but under the current system, the only time you're obliged to pay for them is when you have to travel at a peak time. Under the new system, if you need to travel at short notice, you might find yourself forced to buy an Anytime even if you are able to travel outside of the peaks. That's because you might look for a ticket on your chosen off-peak train and find out that no Advance tickets are left. Alternatively, there might be one of these new tickets (which they are calling "Semi-flex" but which is really a type of Advance ticket) available but they are free to set the price to whatever they want. So it might be cheaper than an Anytime, but still significantly more expensive than the current Off-peak price.

Some people will try and argue that this is all fine, it's just going to a system more like the airlines use, and why shouldn't we maximise revenue. But the railways are supposed to be a public service, part of the public transport system that gives mobility to those who don't have the option of using a car. It's already the case that car users have more flexibility in their journey plans - you don't have to book a ticket three weeks ahead to guarantee your slot on the motorway, and petrol doesn't increase in price the closer you are to making your journey. It's already the case that if you want to travel by train, it's not made that easy for you to be flexible (or you have to pay for the privilege) but this will make the imbalance significantly worse.

There is an article here on Railfuture:

Railfuture | Press release 4th February 2024

Railfuture
www.railfuture.org.uk www.railfuture.org.uk

Apparently it got a mention on Radio 4 yesterday:

www.bbc.co.uk

You and Yours - Train Fares; Banking Vans; Crochet and Knitting - BBC Sounds

There are more options for getting train tickets but choosing can be difficult.
www.bbc.co.uk www.bbc.co.uk

Here's a thread from the man in seat 61:

Click to expand...

you say 'don't let them get away with it' but then you don't propose any action to support this opposition. how would you propose people register their objections?
 
Needs a successful slogan like how 'dump the pump' totally worked for rising petrol costs. 'Refrain From The Train!' That'll do it.
 
Anyone currently involved in UK rail fare pricing should be taken around the back of their office building tomorrow and shot.

They should all be immediately replaced with people who witnessed the executions. The new people are given a month to sort the shitshow out. If they fail, they get shot too.

And so on.

We'd have a sensible fare structure within 6 months.
 
Bahnhof Strasse said:
LNER has been upping costs for a while, all their fare were made one-way fares, so where previously you could get an off-peak open return where the return was valid for a month, now you need two singles and if you can't fix both the outward and the return the costs go through the roof.
Click to expand...

Yes, that was also run as a "pilot" initially, and then introduced as a permanent feature of LNER pricing. It went a bit under the radar which is why I think it's important not to let the same thing happen with this one, which introduces a much more fundamental change.

I think that the introduction of off-peak singles was a good thing, but not the removal of the off-peak returns that they replaced, for the reasons you say. It was presented as a "simplification" but it was not mentioned that it would make certain journeys more expensive. In addition, because it's only been applied to LNER pricing, it makes the overall UK pricing system even more complicated than it was before, because now off peak returns are available on some journeys but not others, and not following any pattern which is intuitive to understand for rail passengers.
 
Pickman's model said:
you say 'don't let them get away with it' but then you don't propose any action to support this opposition. how would you propose people register their objections?
Click to expand...
At present, I don't think there is a formal route to registering an objection but if I become aware of any I will post them on this thread, or maybe others can.

Initially I think it's important to try and make people aware of what they are doing (nd who is doing it), which is why I started this thread. If it is being talked about generally there is a better chance of it getting picked up by the media and so on.

The proposal a few months ago to close ticket offices got attention, and they didn't get away with that, because they backed down on it.

Anyone could of course choose to write to their MP. There might be, somewhere, a template letter, or maybe one will appear at some point.
 
Spymaster said:
Anyone currently involved in UK rail fare pricing should be taken around the back of their office building tomorrow and shot.

They should all be immediately replaced with people who witnessed the executions. The new people are given a month to sort the shitshow out. If they fail, they get shot too.

And so on.

We'd have a sensible fare structure within 6 months.
Click to expand...
Who gets to decide whether they've succeeded or failed, at each iteration?
 
teuchter said:
Who gets to decide whether they've succeeded or failed, at each iteration?
Click to expand...

The metric is if I can do it, on the first attempt, with the price I pay being the fare, not one of a dozen.

That's the ticketing - for actually going in the train, it has to compete - in the round - with driving. Costing (a bit) more is fine, but costing three times as much, and taking half as long again, is not competing.

We fancied going up to Edinburgh - from Worcester - for a weekend. Two kids, two adults. 3 or 4 weeks in advance, Friday afternoon to Sunday. £600. I'm not interested in trawling a dozen different websites, and fucking about with split tickets, I just want to see the price on the first place I look, and decide what I want.

It's about £100's worth of diesel. £600? Just fuck the fuck off.
 
kebabking said:
for actually going in the train, it has to compete - in the round - with driving. Costing (a bit) more is fine, but costing three times as much, and taking half as long again, is not competing.
Click to expand...
That's a separate issue.

The solution is either (or both) of subsidising public transport more, or taxing motoring more. Either solution is easy in principle, you just have to persuade the electorate.
 
Puddy_Tat said:
it's a shame we no longer have a resident expert on railway ticketing round here...
Click to expand...
These are my go to savants on the topic Fares Advice & Policy

It has become a mildly unhealthy obsession. My recent trip to Lewes resulted in my decision making losing me 2.00 or so compared to the optimum. The emotional distress at the short change being slightly out of proportion..
 
Last edited:
kebabking said:
The metric is if I can do it, on the first attempt, with the price I pay being the fare, not one of a dozen.

That's the ticketing - for actually going in the train, it has to compete - in the round - with driving. Costing (a bit) more is fine, but costing three times as much, and taking half as long again, is not competing.

We fancied going up to Edinburgh - from Worcester - for a weekend. Two kids, two adults. 3 or 4 weeks in advance, Friday afternoon to Sunday. £600. I'm not interested in trawling a dozen different websites, and fucking about with split tickets, I just want to see the price on the first place I look, and decide what I want.

It's about £100's worth of diesel. £600? Just fuck the fuck off.
Click to expand...
My attitude to trains (in the UK) is that they are a last resort only when there is no other viable alternative. The only scenario where that really currently happens is going into Central London and even then I will drive to Luton and park up there.
my last trip into Birmingham I did try the train and while it was very competitive price wise compared to driving the shit service undermined the savings with cancelled and overcrowded trains complicating things.
Big fan of trams though I go into Nottingham a lot and Sheffield a fair bit and in both cases being able to drive to a park and ride on the outskirts of the city and get a tram in is a massive improvement. We need a shit load more tram systems and the ones we have need extending.
 
MickiQ said:
My attitude to trains (in the UK) is that they are a last resort only when there is no other viable alternative. The only scenario where that really currently happens is going into Central London and even then I will drive to Luton and park up there.
my last trip into Birmingham I did try the train and while it was very competitive price wise compared to driving the shit service undermined the savings with cancelled and overcrowded trains complicating things.
Big fan of trams though I go into Nottingham a lot and Sheffield a fair bit and in both cases being able to drive to a park and ride on the outskirts of the city and get a tram in is a massive improvement. We need a shit load more tram systems and the ones we have need extending.
Click to expand...

I want to travel places by train - the up and down to Glasgow to see #1, popping down to Bristol or London for the day, take some of the strain off the commute - it's just that the experience makes it so hard to try it again instead of picking up the car keys.

They are just so unreliable - that's the fundamental problem - that even once you've got on the thing you've no real certainty that it's going to get you where you want to be.

We really liked Nottingham - we used the trams to get into town from the park & ride, the kids enjoyed the whole 'is it train the goes on the road, is it a bus that goes on rails?' witchcraft...
 
In general, rail fares and services should be such that they encourage people out of their cars. Of course.

The issue this thread is about, though, is mainly to do with the impact on people who don't have the car as an alternative. That is, they have to rely on public transport in one form of the other, and trains are a fundamental part of that network.

For someone who can't just say "oh well I'll take the car instead", flexible and predictably priced tickets are important.

So maybe there are better threads where people who have cars can moan about the hardship they endured when they once travelled by train. Delays, crowding and expense are things that everyone wants less of, including those who have no choice but to put up with them.
 
to be blunt, if you want cheap (free?), reliable, robust, comprehensive, public transport then you need people with cars to want it to.

The way to that public transport system is through people with cars, not least because there are far more of us, and given the socio-economics of car ownership and it's correlation with voting, we're the people who political parties want to suck up to.

Use the wisdom of the people who built the welfare state...
 
kebabking said:
to be blunt, if you want cheap (free?), reliable, robust, comprehensive, public transport then you need people with cars to want it to.

The way to that public transport system is through people with cars, not least because there are far more of us, and given the socio-economics of car ownership and it's correlation with voting, we're the people who political parties want to suck up to.

Use the wisdom of the people who built the welfare state...
Click to expand...
Yeah I know all this. Hence the first sentence in my previous post.

What's your point that's relevant to what this thread is specifically about? Do you think what they are piloting is likely to tempt more people out of their cars?
 
As a driver (well as someone who drives a bit), I must say if I’m going to somewhere quite big like Birmingham or London to visit someone, I much prefer the train to driving.

You’d think shifting 200 people in one big vehicle would be way more efficient than having lots of little ones, so I’ve never figured out how the fares can be what they are.

I’m missing something in the mechanics of it all…

I also think it’s farcical that any Government can claim to be serious about climate change while this situation persists.
 
teuchter said:
...Do you think what they are piloting is likely to tempt more people out of their cars?
Click to expand...

I can only surmise that the people who run the railway system have an unspoken desire to utterly destroy it.

Personally I see no point in distinguishing between peak and off-peak in terms of pricing - I can see that advance Vs turn up on the day pricing is useful, but I'm not going to die on a hill to protect it.

I'd be interested to see what free/ridiculously cheap (say £20 return from Bristol to Berwick) would cost and what getting rid of the Byzantine ticketing/pricing/revenue protection efforts would save, and what investment would be required to bring our railways up to European standards.

If the trains were reliable and of a similar cost to driving, we'd use them every weekend.
 
kebabking said:
I can only surmise that the people who run the railway system have an unspoken desire to utterly destroy it.
Click to expand...
I think in an ideal world they'd be paid to run empty trains without having to deal with the inconvenience of passengers.

I've just looked up London - Newcastle which a journey I often buy an off peak single for, to give a bit of flexibility in case my plans change (I usually get an advance ticket going south). Now I'd be paying around the same price (£80ish) for this new ticket which is less flexible, or I'd have to get an anytime single for the bargain price of £192. The conditions aren't clear (where's Bungle when you need him? :D) if you need a new reservation if you change trains. If you do then the chances of being able to change things last minute are pretty minute.

This doesn't really seem like progress to me :hmm:
 
kebabking said:
Is that a £400 round trip?

£90 or so in diesel - and probably about £400 to fly it...

Christ.
Click to expand...
It would be if bought anytime tickets, which I don't :D

I've just looked up the last time I did it - £56 for the advance south and £83 for the off peak return, so £139 which isn't too bad compared to driving, plus it's quicker. That was me on my own though, when there's two of us then it quickly starts to add up, even with a Two Together railcard.
 
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