Great Western Coffee Shop

From the Manchester Evening News (https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/virgin-trains-peak-charges-scrapped-15357260)


Are there any lessons here for Friday evening departures from Paddington?

Basically, it is cancelling the Friday evening peak fares.....must mean a drop in income?

I think so but I’m sure there will be plenty who will post to say why it wouldn’t work.

For what it’s worth I think it would relieve the chronic overcowding on services just after 7pm you sometimes see on a Friday evening.

Times have changed, many either work from home on a Friday or don’t work at all that day.

Respect to Virgin Trains for making this change. Would be good if GWR would give it a try too.

I'm sure Virgin have crunched the numbers. They've stated there was no revenue impact during the trial period.

They've essentially given up trying to yield manage Friday afternoon/evening. There may be some increases in price point/reduction in availability of Advance Purchase fares to compensate.

There is a difference between Euston and Paddington though. Virgin only have Off Peak and Anytime. At Paddington there is three steps. Super Off Peak, Off Peak and Anytime. There are also differing restrictions if your Off Peak journey is beyond a certain point. For example an Off Peak ticket to Plymouth is valid after 1801. For Exeter it's 1831.

There is still a problem with overcrowding on long distance services on the first trains after the evening peak at Paddington. Whether GWR will follow Virgin's lead remains to be seen. During this protracted electrication/IET introduction period I don't think they'll be doing any fares tinkering. I imagine GWR's yield management is all the over the place at the moment.

The time to look at fares changes is when all the IETs are in service, and the new timetables have bedded in. The increase in capacity those changes will bring will inform yield management and pre/post peak period loadings.

The other big difference is that Virgin out of Euston doesn't really have a 'Reading' with its large commuter demand for season ticket holders.  I don't think Crossrail will have much effect on that, though depending on how the IET timetable is structured, some trains not stopping at Reading might.

Further angle on the story - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-46056276

Excellent idea - well done Virgin - possibly the first example of a TOC putting the customer first, but to be fair they are streets ahead of GWR when it comes to customer service.

Bear in mind that for London - Cornwall passengers off peak have been valid on the 1703 on Fridays for some time, but not  Monday - Thursdays

Times and loading balances are changing ... with Friday being what Saturday was 50 years ago, perhaps, and is Thursday becoming the new Friday?   Season ticket sales are down as people aren't travelling all five days but working some from home, etc .... and it makes sense to re-balance fares to ensure best use of seats and best loadings. 

Think I saw a comment about 3,500 extra journeys on Virgin as a result of their change - not sure over what period, but if the change has helped reduce the standing and brought more users to rail, then it's good for the passengers, and actually not such a slows leader for the operators!

I was reminded - but tangential - of the graphic that's now about 10 years old - the DfT's passenger journey start times on a  weekday, superimposed with the then - running TransWilts times of 06:12 and 18:44 from Swindon, and 07:04 and 19:35 from Westbury.

(http://www.savethetrain.org.uk/bystarttimex.jpg)

I think I remember reading, from Stop HS2 or similar, that a survey had revealed some long distance departures were only around half full during peak hours from Euston, before the first off-peak ones were swamped.  That certainly isn’t the case for Paddington.

…….which would suggest a compelling case for GWR to follow Virgin's example!  ;)

The opposite really, as the trains from Paddington are full of season ticket holders (mostly) for Reading already.  Unless you make more trains pick up only at Reading but then you just push Reading commuters onto other already busy trains.

Straying off the "Friday peak fares" topic ... looking at the logic of crammed peak trains to Reading but more seats available thereafter, isn't there logic in replacing one IET (9 carriage or 10 carriage, effective 8) with a 12 car electric unit shuttling Paddington to Reading every 15 minutes and offering a slightly lower fare on it?   That way, the passenger load of the whole IET's run would be much better balanced, and indeed dwell time at Reading - with lots and lots of people getting off at the ends of carriages before any can get back on - could be reduced.

Paths?  Perhaps the Bedwyns and the Cheltenhams combine as 5+5,  the North Cotswolds and Banburys do the same thing,  one of the Bristols divides at Chippenham offering a Weymouth portion ...

No point in redeucing fares - most users at that time as mentioned are season ticket holders....

Very interesting. Last night (Friday 14th December 2018) I left Paddington on the 18:15 for Swansea - a ten (5+5)  car IET.  Announcements through the train before it left that "this is a peak train", and that only anytime tickets were valid all the way to Swansea, and not off peak or super off peak.    Train was very lightly loaded indeed - in my standard class carriage - in the forward unit ahead of mid-train first - I would estimate that only around 20% of seats were taken.  Frankly, shocked at the lack of crowd.

I happened, yesterday, to be able to use that train with my particular ticketing - but more normally I would catch the 19:00 to Swindon and it would be much, much busier off peak ... or if I missed the 19:00 cram onto the 19:30 all the way to Chippenham, cursing I had missed the last Melksham connection and the fact the 234 bus has gone, but at least being able to put the difference between an off peak and super off peak fare toward the cost of a taxi for the final journey section.

I suspect my experience indicates there could be some benefit in evening out train loading on a Friday evening by amending the peak designations ... whether that would result in an unwelcome financial hit on GWR is, of course, quite another matter!

I think a peak time uplift in fares is reasonable to spread the passenger loadings. However the difference in peak fares versus off peak is staggering , if that was reduced (not just by increasing off-peak!) the problem might be minimised. You  get a similar situation at Swindon around 9:00 when trains stop for Paddington with empty seats, whilst there are people waiting for the  heavily loaded 9:10.

Which is, of course, incorrect. Off Peak Day Returns from Didcot to certain stations outside Greater London, in Kent, Essex and Hertfordshire, would be valid on the 1814 Swansea train.