Great Western Coffee Shop

Consultation Question 15

a) Do you agree or disagree with these priorities for i) fares and ii) ticketing?
– Agree
– Disagree
Which priorities would you change or add, and why?
b) What changes to the fares structure could be of benefit to you?

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Explanatory text

Fares-setting on the future Great Western franchise will largely be driven by national fares policy. At present, approximately 45% of Great Western ticket revenue comes from fares that are regulated, for which individual fare increases are currently capped at inflation, as measured by the Retail Prices Index. Other aspects of the fares and ticketing regime are also guided by national policy, to maintain consistency across the national network, but the franchise specification could encourage or require the franchisee to:
●● Develop and promote the use of smart cards, contactless payment cards and mobile ticketing, and the range of tickets available by these means;
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●● Develop a wider range of tickets integrated with local buses and other modes, including co-operation with local authority smartcard schemes;
●● Provide more ticket vending machines and ensure that these will offer the full range of fares available, in particular making these easier to use and making it easy to understand which is the most appropriate fare for the journey being made;
●● Address any anomalies in current fares arrangements, e.g. where fares on some routes might, for historical reasons, be being set by an operator who does not operate those routes, or are based on historical splits between different service groups;
●● Promote a wider range of local tourist attractions, e.g. through joint marketing and joint ticketing arrangements

See http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=19037 for the background to this topic

Fares and ticketing are coming high up the list you want to discuss on 7th January, yet not a peep from anyone here yet.


Here's a couple of starters

1. "Off Peak" fares should be available for between 50% and 75% of the time, and should apply at times of day / times of the week when there is reduced demand for travel but that travel is cheaper to provide.

Monday - 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. to midnight
Tuesday to Thursday - 5 a.m. to 7 a.m, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m and 8 p.m. to midnight
Friday - 5 a.m. to 7 a.m and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m
Saturday and Sunday - 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.

2. A resident loyalty card ... 33% off off peak tickets for anyone with an established UK address, priced as other rail cards or perhaps a little more expensive?    Platinum card offering higher initial cost but then 50% discount?

No one has mentioned the extortionate fares being charged for long distance anytime tickets - because they are not regulated!  There must be a absolute cap on Standard Class fares per mile.

No anytime (single) fares to be more than 6x the weekly (two-way) season ticket for the journey

An end to all return fares - all journeys to be charged as single fares.

Either end Day Returns or make them available for all journeys that can reasonably be done in a day. 

No walk-on fares to be higher than the split tickets for journeys where more than 50% of trains stop at the intermediate station used in the split.  (So a swindon Paddington Fare could not be more than the split at Didcot and/or Reading)

Re Off #peak hours.

Not sure I like your evening peak gap. Remember when SR had Pink Off peak tickets. Endless trouble both selling them trying explain they couldn't come back from 16:30 to 19:00 or thereabouts and then enforcement (but I suppose gates solve that???

If you are going to have an evening gap why not have 04:00 07:00 Off peak.

Don't like after 18:00 weekends again have to be explained and enforced is it worth it for the extra revenue.

Agree with ellendune re long distance anytime fares.

Fares in a day my wife did Taplow Edinburgh and back (05:30 start) and stll had time to attend a funeral.

I agree with this as a model for calculating the fares, but the last time I ever did a single rail journey was about 1981! 

I'd still like to be able to buy the properly calculated out and back fare in a single action at a TVM, hopefully when still at the 'first' departure station.
 
Paul

Two quick wins:

Roll the Devon/Cornwall part-time season tickets out across the whole franchise. There has been a lot of mithering in recent years about how to implement part-time tickets. GWR has a model up and running in one part of its network, it just needs to extend it.

Apply a consistent logic for determining the fare-setter for a particular flow. If the journey from Frogsville to Little Mithering is 80% GWR and 20% Some Other Operator, it should be GWR who set the price, not SOO. There are too many places where this isn't the case - there are even some where the fare is set by An Entirely Different Operator, on whose services the passenger would never travel for this flow - and it leads to some serious anomalies. (I'm assuming the 80/20 is calculated by mileage, but there could be a case for 'biasing' it in favour of the intercity operator, etc. etc.)

And a bigger ask:

Discounted advance-only fares should be offered as a last resort where it's not possible to fill seats with walk-up fares. Where possible, walk-up fares should be set at a level to fill trains, thereby maximising revenue and offering maximum flexibility to the passenger - if necessary by offering special walk-up products for shoulder-peak, contra-peak and similar. As with ellendune's suggestion, this should be arranged such that two singles (e.g. shoulder-peak out, peak return) aren't prohibitive when compared to a return ticket.

That would at best discourage, at worst exclude large groups of people from using trains for long distance travel unless they were able to make their journeys on a few services in the middle of the day or late at night - this is not "maximising flexibility" for the majority of people, quite the opposite. Trains are largely already full and over capacity  around peak time anywhere near major centres of work/conurbation albeit in many cases by season ticket holders, so setting fares "at a level to fill trains" doesn't really come into it.

The pressure should be on TOCs to increase capacity, not reduce demand by pricing people off the trains.

It's cheap fares (and, in particular, group discounts) that enable large groups to travel economically, not advance-booked fares. There are TOCs that don't offer any advance-booked fares at all yet still offer group discounts.

Sorry Richard you've misunderstood me - I wasn't referring to group bookings, I meant large numbers of individuals.

I can see that my original post may have been a little ambiguous!

See also http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=19203 - where a light humoured start turned serious.

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I note that there are lots of leisure products that are "3 out of 8" and "8 out of 15" style.  Why not offer such products for season tickets (anytime, two specific end points, any permitted or specific routing) and we'll as the ranger / rover / freedom approach of off peak, any journey with a network / area?