So ... we have a 2.7% fare rise tomorrow and I have been updating the Melksham Rail User Group pricing pages to reflect the changes.
http://www.mrug.org.uk/localfares.html for local fares
http://www.mrug.org.uk/bristolfares.html for Bath and Bristol fares
http://www.mrug.org.uk/londonfares.html for London fares
Always a complex situation to be explained in simple words, with three sets of
fares to London and three sets back, sometimes a return is more economic and sometimes you'll do better buying two singles. And that's before you add in "Any Permitted", "via Warminster and Salisbury", advanced fares, split ticketing, railcards, groupsave and travel cards.
To Bristol we provide a list of return train times - all changed, as have the connection points. For the outward journey, just say "catch any train and change at the next station". For the return, people have to know which train so they don't end up at Trowbridge when the shuttle train is up at Chippenham, or at Chippenham when it's down at Trowbridge.
The annual round of fare rises is designed simply to keep fares on a parallel course to inflation ... but it always seems to generate a lot of press in August (when there isn't much news around) when the figure is announces and then a lot more in January (when there isn't much news around) when it comes into force. In reality, the press and coverage is more about the general level of fares and some of the inequities of the system that are perpetuated year after year than the actual rise amount. Basically, we have a system that's somewhat complex, a number of decades old, and could do with sorting out.
Problem has been ... governments don't want an alternative system that lessens the farebox income. And in parallel governments don't want a system under which they get the blame for fares going up for their supporter.
Fares don't only go up by headline figures, though; as we saw last month, changing timetables across peak / off peak divides, and whether (or not) concessions on removing peaks over the Christmas holiday season happen can make a substantial but disguised difference. There's a further hidden difference in relation to the number of advanced fares offered in each price bracket; on occasions
GWR▸ will say they are offering more as something of a sop to passenger groups - Pewsey and the North Cotswold line come to mind, but those extra advance fares can be around for a short period then be pared right back with zero announcement anon way to for customer groups to track the quotas.
The Williams review should report soon. And that has targetted to simply fares and make them more uniform, at the same time suggesting that local commuter and regional services will be independently looked after by the regions, and that competing companies with competing product will compete for time slots on busy trunk lines. I fail to see that bringing a uniformity ... but then I'm sure the experts do. The person I asked to explain how it could work said she didn't know either!
And, I suspect, First will be awarded a 2 year "DA3" to run our trains from 1st April 2020. Prior to the election, any award was in doubt as I could foresee a Corbyn government taking over the operation as franchises and agreements expired. By I would be surprised to see four years, because I suspect Boris wants to try out his right wing competition stuff without having to wait four years. Which gives First 2 years to invest and get payback, so I wouldn't expect too much
TOC▸ lead investment.
All of which is a long way to say - "yes, 2.7% this time ... but that just prolongs the out of date system and we may see something more significant changing before 2nd January 2021". Or of course the power than be could decide than any changes other than cosmetic ones and sneaky money grabs would be too dangerous to their popularity to risk.
