Railcard discounts being reduced (albeit a small reduction)

[woodenhead]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpw8j4d1v2do

 

It's always worrying when a cut in a benefit it applied, it rather starts a ball rolling.

[Dava]

You have to look at this in conjunction with the approach by LNER (& possibly by other operators?) to eliminate ‘off peak’ tickets. That increases actual fares & squeezes out the lower cost options.

 

I will renew my railcard next week but use it less than previously. Mainly due to extreme overcrowding on EMR late afternoon services from Leicester.

[Morello Cherry]

Quote

“Salami tactics,” says Rakosi—”demanding a little more each day, like cutting up a salami, thin slice after thin slice."

 

[BoD]

So railcards that advertise 1/3 off are now taking 1/3* off rather than ever so slightly more. 
A non story really.

 

*not exactly,  I know.

[Wickham Green too]

I wonder how they came to be 34% anyway - could someone not work out 33.33333333333333etc333333333333% so settled on the next exact percentage point ??!?

[Fishoutofwater]

53 minutes ago, Wickham Green too said:

I wonder how they came to be 34% anyway - could someone not work out 33.33333333333333etc333333333333% so settled on the next exact percentage point ??!?

Correct. The APTIS machines could only cope with whole numbers so discount was calculated at 34% but there was usually a round-off to the nearest 5p so it was sometimes less than 34% but always at least 1/3rd.

[The Stationmaster]

On 01/09/2024 at 17:15, woodenhead said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpw8j4d1v2do

 

It's always worrying when a cut in a benefit it applied, it rather starts a ball rolling.

Slight error in the article as it will be nothing to do with a decision by train operators but actually a decision made by Daft T - to whom the revenue goes.  So DafT can now tell The Treasury how much they are saving and how clever they are in meeting targets (soon to be) set by the Chancellor.

 

Call me a cynic?  I worked in the industry long enough to know what stories like this really mean and where the orders came from. 

[woodenhead]

3 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

Call me a cynic?  I worked in the industry long enough to know what stories like this really mean and where the orders came from. 

We can't raise the prices but we can certainly cut the discounts and intentionally ration availabilty of cheaper options.

[Michael Hodgson]

2 hours ago, adb968008 said:

Next stop 25% discount instead of 33%.

 

Then railcard sales fall off a cliff, followed by “no one buys railcards anymore, lets scrap them”.

 

We just saw this with tfls attempt to kill the London Travelcard.

It's advertised as 1/3 off.  I didn't know they had been undercharging me.

I really don't have a problem with it still being marginally better than advertised.

 

[RichardT]

“Marginal gains” indeed. Remember the Senior Railcard used to give 50% discount (in the era before Advance tickets).

 

I suspect the next big decision will be to raise the price of railcards. They’ve been £30 for several years.

 

Richard

[spamcan61]

On 01/09/2024 at 17:48, BoD said:

So railcards that advertise 1/3 off are now taking 1/3* off rather than ever so slightly more. 
A non story really.

 

*not exactly,  I know.

Hardly seems worth the admin cost of making the change.

[BoD]

48 minutes ago, spamcan61 said:

Hardly seems worth the admin cost of making the change.

 

In the example they give, for a ticket costing £109,  you would pay 65p more when discounted.  It would take a lot of such journeys to make a significant amount.  Perhaps we are talking about an awful lot of such journeys though.

 

Are such figures readily available anywhere?

Edited September 3, 2024 by BoD

[Morello Cherry]

On 03/09/2024 at 14:07, The Stationmaster said:

Slight error in the article as it will be nothing to do with a decision by train operators but actually a decision made by Daft T - to whom the revenue goes.  So DafT can now tell The Treasury how much they are saving and how clever they are in meeting targets (soon to be) set by the Chancellor.

 

Call me a cynic?  I worked in the industry long enough to know what stories like this really mean and where the orders came from. 

 

Considering the savings the optics for the general public are awful, the optics for the Treasury are fantastic.

It reminds me of an incident a few years back. I was involved with exam marking. This concided with the arrival of Gove and Cummings at the DoE. Gove and Cummings were doing their hardman Daily Mail pandering routine about how exams were too easy. They wanted to show that exams were now tougher - but how do you show that? Simple, if people get lower grades it must be because the exams are tougher. Now the problem is that you can't change the syllabus, you can't change the grade boundaries and you can't change the exam papers. They also couldn't officially change the marking guidelines, but what the 'guidance' (when you do the sample marking) was basically that an answer that in previous years might have got 8/10 (ie a B answer) all of a sudden becomes only worth 6/10 (ie C). As a result, grades dropped, Gove got to parade around in his posing pouch for the Daily Mail to claim he'd made exams tougher, when all they'd done is unofficially mess around with how many marks were given for a specific answer. Nothing had changed in the questions, syllabus, nor the knowledge of the students, and if you were doing your exams that year you were getting screwed over so a politician could have some favourable coverage from the Mail/Telegraph.

Edited September 5, 2024 by Morello Cherry

[Neil]

We should remember that Railcards still offer a significant and worthwhile reduction in fares. Normally Mrs R and I travel on a Two Together card (a good option if you're under 60) but needing to make a solo trip from home in Tywyn back to York to see family I found it advantageous to buy a Senior Railcard just for the one return trip. I know it will be used again later this year, making it even more worthwhile.

[Enterprisingwestern]

 

Somehow I doubt if an 0.6% rise in the £4.75 cost of my old duffers railcard ticket from Birmingham International to Shrewsbury will drive me from the railways and force me to seek alternative transport.

 

Mike.

[woodenhead]

3 hours ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

Somehow I doubt if an 0.6% rise in the £4.75 cost of my old duffers railcard ticket from Birmingham International to Shrewsbury will drive me from the railways and force me to seek alternative transport.

 

Mike.

But it's the thin end of a wedge, little impact now but what if they raised the age you can apply, or reduced the upper age on a young person's etc.

[Enterprisingwestern]

7 hours ago, woodenhead said:

But it's the thin end of a wedge, little impact now but what if they raised the age you can apply, or reduced the upper age on a young person's etc.

 

Very true, but we're not exactly flooded with options are we?

 

Mike.

[DY444]

50 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

More elderly people drive now than in the 1980’s.

Raising the age from 60, to 67 is an obvious one, inline with state retirement age.

There could be an argument for a means tested retirement travel card.

 

If you have receiving state pension and are earning more than the £0 tax limit, do you qualify for a senior railcard discount or just pay full fare.

 

Pensioners most likely to take regular leisure journeys by rail are those with more disposable income.  All making it more expensive will do is encourage them to take their cars instead.  I take a trip to Yorkshire 2 or 3 times a year and the 1st class fare with railcard discount is usually around £70 - £80 for what is less than a stellar journey experience more times than it should be.  If I was obliged to pay the full fat fare of £110 - £120 then the hassle v cost balance shifts totally and I simply wouldn't travel by rail and I suspect I'm not the only one.  

[spamcan61]

17 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

But thats my point…

 

More people drive, every year since the 1960’s.

Theres people around who have never taken a train in their lives.

Encouraging them after they retire, to stop driving and take a train is no more likely to succeed than by asking them to learn French.

 

 

Absolutely, I'm pretty sure my 21 year old son has never used a train, I've not used one in the UK since 2007, much the same for my wife. They're an irrelevance to us and most people I know 

[Neil]

I think we're drifting off into the realms of speculation here. 

[Enterprisingwestern]

 

For those of us outwith the UK and of a delicate age, car hire is phenomenally expensive, especially since covid, and buses aren't all they are cracked up to be, so I am limited in options.

The reasons why people won't/can't use public transport are long, deep and well known.

 

Mike. 

[Michael Hodgson]

3 hours ago, adb968008 said:

More elderly people drive now than in the 1980’s.

Raising the age from 60, to 67 is an obvious one, inline with state retirement age.

There could be an argument for a means tested retirement travel card.

 

 

Increasing the age is likely to happen.

Means testing it depends on whether the government of the day wants to promote "green policies" and encourage the use of public rather than private transport.  There is of course also an economic argument for bus/train travel, in that fewer vehicles on the road should mean less expenditure on maintaining/expanding the highway system, but that's a longer term achievement than a mere 5-year government life cycle.

 

2 hours ago, adb968008 said:

The jobseekers and disabled railcards could be merged / rebadged to be a “govt benefits” related discount card so covers those on low incomes / disabilities of any age, hence allows the eligibility criteria some flexibility…potentially those discounts could be reclaimed via the tax code later too, when it comes to employment related criteria, but ultimately is a govt controlled card.. so those pensioners on low incomes could be managed and made eligable.

 

 

That's a non-starter.  Treating the disabled and jobseekers as the same is politically unattractive as the disabled would see it as attaching them with the stigma of being useless workshy non-productive memebrs of society.  The same applies to pensioners who have worked hard all their lives and feel they have paid into the government all that time.  The schemes have to keep their separate labels even if their economic effect is identical.

 

Edited September 4, 2024 by Michael Hodgson

[Michael Hodgson]

1 hour ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

For those of us outwith the UK and of a delicate age, car hire is phenomenally expensive, especially since covid, and buses aren't all they are cracked up to be, so I am limited in options.

The reasons why people won't/can't use public transport are long, deep and well known.

 

Mike. 

As you say it depends where you live.  Central Londion has an excellent bus service.  Some villages struggle to get one bus a week.  Large parts of the country are miles from the nearest railway, and that line doesn't even go to anywhere they need to visit,

[62613]

11 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

That's a non-starter.  Treating the disabled and jobseekers as the same is politically unattractive as the disabled would see it as attaching them with the stigma of being useless workshy non-productive memebrs of society.  The same applies to pensioners who have worked hard all their lives and feel they have paid into the government all that time.  The schemes have to keep their separate labels even if their economic effect is identical.

 

The situation since the employment act of 2011 came into force a year later. Everyone Must work, even if they are unsuited/incapable of doing so!

[Michael Hodgson]

The problem is that the government's transport policy is made by people whose experience of the railways is limited to commuting (first class) once a week or so from Westminster back to their constituency office somewhere out in the sticks.  If they have to visit somewhere less accessible, they travel in a chauffeur-driven ministerial limo.