Government to scrap return tickets!!

[woodenhead]

Headline sounds worse that the reality though

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk-news/return-train-tickets-scrapped-government-26161963#comments-wrapper

 

Sounds like a method to go with more Oyster fares where you pay for the journey undertaken not the whole trip.

 

The only concern might be if the new single prices begin to creep up.

[BernardTPM]

So no off peak returns? Will singles come down in price to reflect this? And no paper (or card, I assume) tickets? So how does that work without a nasty mobile phone?

[woodenhead]

As always the devil is in the detail, we will have to wait and see what comes.

 

 

[APOLLO]

Tickets won't be cheaper that's for sure.

 

Hasn't LNER done something along these lines planned or already ?

 

Brit15

[Michael Hodgson]

There's certainly a case for revising the whole fare structure, as it is irrational that a day return is much the same price as a single on many journeys.  It's also irrational that it costs more if you come back tomorrow rather than today.  And I fail to see why it's in the railway's interest for me to buy a group ticket for three people for less than the cost of only two returns as I managed to do when we went to visit the Palace of Westminster recently.  And will season ticket pricing be part of the review? 

 

I sincerely hope this is not merely a dishonest pretext for increasing total ticket revenue/decreasing government subsidies that will merely persuade passengers to use other forms of transport, or has more to do with partisan politcal dogma about competition between train operators or applying further restrictions on which train/what times of day you can travel.  Round here a return ticket is two pieces of paper anyway - one for a single journey in each direction - and the wrong bit is what usually gets shown to ticket inspectors.  Given that most people go back to where they started from on most journeys, it seems more convenient for passengers and more efficient for the railway to buy them both halves as a single transaction rather than having twice as many queues at twice as many machines, but it will be better if those who aren't sure exactly when they will return can keep their options open for the same price by using two transactions.

 

As for doing away with paper and using QR codes, that's all very well for the majority who are permanently glued to a mobile phone, but I see it as problematic for a significant minority who don't carry one/don't charge it regularly/make a habit of going out leaving it on charge or dropping it the bath.

 

This has the the hallmarks of another case of how to lose votes and influence people.  Some things are very difficult to change, even if it is blindingly obvious that reform is needed, because it will have to be revenue neutral and there are bound to be winners and losers.  We've seen this with the introduction of the poll tax in Scotland causing riots.  Successive administrations have found it politcally very difficult to reform the benefit system, and the same tends to be true of tax.  Equality of rights for women meant their retirement age had to go up  to 65 as it would have cost too much for men to retire at 60, and on top of that it was actuarially necessary to raise retirement age for both still further anyway because life expectancy has increased.

[APOLLO]

If this is true it is frightening

 

Return train tickets expected to be scrapped in UK rail shake-up

The often discounted rate is to be replaced with two singles costing the same as the present return fare

 

Return tickets will be scrapped and new digital ticketing introduced under reforms of the British rail system expected to be announced this week.

The two-way tickets, which offer a discounted rate, will be replaced by “single-leg pricing” which will mean that the price of two singles will be the same as the current return fare, according to the Telegraph. The idea was trialled by London North East Railway (LNER) in 2020.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/feb/05/return-train-tickets-expected-to-be-scrapped-in-uk-rail-shake-up

 

Brit15

[BernardTPM]

Most long distance Day Returns disappeared some years ago, replaced by Off Peak Returns. Weekend Returns went around the same time. What has proliferated have been Advance Returns where one specific train in each direction is pre-booked. These don't have flexibilty, of course as they are there to fill up less popular services.

[John M Upton]

Return tickets already consist of two parts, an out and a return so by calling them both singles (presumably with some sort of marking to show they are a matching pair) this sounds more like a pointless rebranding exercise than anything else.

 

Don't get me started on the QR code tickets though, I said before they were introduced back when I was a Guard that they were going to provide an absolute field day for fare evasion, nobody listened, I was right....

[andyman7]

This project has been a long time in gestation and is already partly rolled out. The concept is pretty standard everywhere but the rail industry which has been locked into the archaic BR fares structure because those fare types were regulated in 1995.
The problem as usual is that the Minister has a speech on Tuesday when he has to make some sort of reveal so in true political fashion something that is already happening albeit quite slowly is 'announced' without any sort of detail and thus all sorts of wild speculation is fuelled.

Whilst Government has an important role in deciding the balance between fare payer and taxpayer support for the railway, and therefore what the overall level of fares should be, the fact that they are directly involved in the minutiae of ticket types shows the degree of micromanagement madness we are at right now.

Edited February 6, 2023 by andyman7
Spelling

[andyman7]

1 hour ago, BernardTPM said:

Most long distance Day Returns disappeared some years ago, replaced by Off Peak Returns. Weekend Returns went around the same time. What has proliferated have been Advance Returns where one specific train in each direction is pre-booked. These don't have flexibilty, of course as they are there to fill up less popular services.

Advance tickets are already singles and have been exclusively so for over 15 years. They are mixed and matched to make returns, however by moving all prices over to single legs it becomes much simpler to mix flexible and train specific fares. 

[jjb1970]

I do think there are sound reasons to review ticketing.

 

I remember when people only making a single journey (and there are all sorts of reasons why people make a single journey) would complain (with a fair case) that they could buy a return for the same price even though that was twice the journey.

 

Separating out and back does make some sense, especially when a person may need to travel in the peak in one direction but is flexible in the other direction. Most airlines show prices for a range of outbound flights followed by inbound flights and you get a consolidated price after selecting your preferred journey and people seem quite capable of understanding it and buying tickets. 

 

I have no objection to paperless tickets, but I would question removing the paperless option unless there is another way to ticket a journey such as a stored value card or using a bank card for contactless travel. Quite aside from the fact not everyone has or wants a smartphone (I do, but why should it be mandatory to use public transport if you don't want one?) there is the issue that batteries don't last forever and if there's a complete collapse for a few hours battery life can soon get drained.

 

On the other hand, you don't need to be a genius to look at the state of finances to realise that whichever way the government decides to do it they will be raising revenue and reducing spending. Whether that is good or bad is irrelevant, it is dishonest when pundits and politicians try to deny the reality of the financial hole we are in and that trying to get out of it will be painful.

[nick_bastable]

more excuse to SouthEastern   Railways to rip its customers off even more  standard fare is £41.70  single  for a 70 mile journey on a slow HST that makes a minimum of 5 stops before Ashford

[phil-b259]

7 hours ago, nick_bastable said:

more excuse to SouthEastern   Railways to rip its customers off even more  standard fare is £41.70  single  for a 70 mile journey on a slow HST that makes a minimum of 5 stops before Ashford

 

South Eastern fares routed via HS1 will always be expensive - there is a specific mark up applied to all such tickets to help pay back the construction costs.

 

The fare up as far as Ashford however is exactly the same as what you pay if you were getting an ordinary Electrostar service via Tonbridge / Maidstone - precisely because when on classic infrastructure the Javelin trains are constrained by the infrastructure.

 

Also you might want to pay attention to a map showing population densities before shouting your mouth off!

 

Kent lacks big cities and as such it is necessary for Javelin trains to become all stations stoppers away from HS1 if they are to get enough passengers to make the service worthwhile. That is why they make a load of stops before* Ashford

 

(Note on HS1 proper there are only TWO intermediate stops between St Pancras and Ashford - Stratford and Ebbsfleet. Hence if you are talking about '5 or more' you must be referring to the segment done on the classic routes east of Ashford)

 

 

[Oldddudders]

11 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

Round here a return ticket is two pieces of paper anyway - one for a single journey in each direction - and the wrong bit is what usually gets shown to ticket inspectors. 

Back in 1997 I undertook a brief consultancy for ATOC - now RDG - to look at the costs and savings in having one-piece return tickets, since APTIS was designed to issue one ticket per leg. The savings didn't justify the cost of change. 

[Wickham Green too]

Whether purchasing on line or at a ticket office - remember them ? - it's always been simpler to buy a return ticket as one transaction rather than two ..................... this'll only make rail less attractive to 'optional' users.

[APOLLO]

What about peak, off peak and seat reservations etc ?  They won't go away. It's a minefield. Take Wigan for example

 

A North / South Avanti train will need compulsory reserved seats and peak / off peak will apply.

 

A ticket to Liverpool is peak only in the morning. Wigan is in GMPTE & Liverpool in Merseyrail. The return leg is crossing a boundary. As there is no evening peak on Merseyrail, the GMPTE evening peak does not apply.

 

A ticket to Manchester will have both morning and evening peaks applied as Wigan & Manchester are both in the GMPTE area.

 

Both Wigan to Liverpool & Wigan to Manchester are Northern Rail services.

 

Simple it is not, and can the above be simplified by just issuing singles, or perhaps ditching peak times ?

 

Brit15

Edited February 6, 2023 by APOLLO
info added

[John M Upton]

They tried about ten or twelve years ago to simplify the ticket types and names, all they wound up doing in a classic "Exercise by Committee" move was rename a couple of the ticket types and wound up making it even more of a complicated mess than when they started...

[Reorte]

The idea of two singles costing the same as a return I don't mind (assuming no overall ticket inflation). Those times I've only been doing one way and have paid almost the same as a return fare are irritating.

 

No paper tickets and QR codes? Well that's me never travelling by train again then. I don't have a smartphone and have no desire to get one, and I'm certainly not going to be persuaded one's useful because of contrivances to make things impossible that worked perfectly well without them. Not really keen on the idea of something like an Oyster card being the alternative either for that matter. It would be a good thing if that was useable throughout the country, as an addition, but (especially for short journeys) at the end of the day being able to pay there and then in cash MUST always be a choice. Just a smokescreen over cutting costs by closing ticket offices and being able to sack more people?

Edited February 6, 2023 by Reorte

[Mike_Walker]

Sadly there appears to be a general assumption within government and local authorities that everyone has either a smartphone or internet access.  

 

In our village we have a guy who refuses to have anything to do with such things and has a small gardening business.  This generates green waste that he needs to take to the local dump and because he's a "business" he has to have a license.  When we were still under a District Council he could go to the office in Wycombe each year hand over cash and get his license.  Now we are under the unitary Buckinghamshire Council he can only do it on line.  "But I don't do the internet" he protests. "Then you can't have a license" comes the reply.  In frustration he tells the council he will fly-dump it (no intention of doing so of course) which resulted in him being told if he did it was a criminal offence.  Protestations that he just wanted to be legal and have a license fell on deaf ears.  Eventually, he got a neighbour to do it for him.

 

It is this form of disenfranchising that will harm the railways if this plan goes ahead.  After all, a large proportion of those that don't have smartphones or internet are those that use the railways.

 

We live in a world where the politicians of all colours are totally divorced from the lives of the majority the purport to "serve".

[woodenhead]

We were looking to sell a car to one of those websites like webuyanycar, cazoo etc.

 

You can only use the service if you have online mobile banking, not all of us want our banking on our phone.

 

Now this does differ a little from Mike's comment above in that you don't need to sell your car online, but it is indicative of the direction of travel and anyone who chooses a more offline life is going to find it increasingly difficult.

[Reorte]

4 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

We were looking to sell a car to one of those websites like webuyanycar, cazoo etc.

 

You can only use the service if you have online mobile banking, not all of us want our banking on our phone.

 

Now this does differ a little from Mike's comment above in that you don't need to sell your car online, but it is indicative of the direction of travel and anyone who chooses a more offline life is going to find it increasingly difficult.

 

Quite. When it offers additional services, great. When others are taken away, very bad.

[RichardT]

12 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

I sincerely hope this is not merely a dishonest pretext for increasing total ticket revenue/decreasing government subsidies

In general I’m in favour of the move to singles only. On a work trip for example, you can make the outward journey on the cheapest advance ticket you can get, but buy an open anytime single for the return half to cover the fact that you might be unsure when your business will be finished. Previously to get the latter flexibility you’d have had to make the whole journey on a full price open return.  LNER had been operating this system for a couple of years now.

 

That said, given the ridiculous level of DfT micromanagement of the railways, I suspect that @Michael Hodgson’s comment above captures the real motivation behind this move.

[Mike_Walker]

Personally, whilst I have internet banking via my computer at home, I refuse to have it on my phone in case I lose it or have it stolen.

[pete_mcfarlane]

If they switch to the European model of having 2 singles cost the same as a a return rather than 95%, it will at least stop those poorly researched media stories where they compare the cost of UK single tickets with European ones. 

[woodenhead]

4 minutes ago, pete_mcfarlane said:

If they switch to the European model of having 2 singles cost the same as a a return rather than 95%, it will at least stop those poorly researched media stories where they compare the cost of UK single tickets with European ones. 

Ha, so this is a Brexit benefit - train travel will appear cheaper than it did before Brexit.   🤣