High fares - a deterrent to higher passenger numbers

[whole diary]

[JayMac]

I've never heard the news media say, "all trains are always late..."

Vox pops once in a while on/in the media, maybe. But not the media itself.

[grahame]

This won’t off people like me who just get irritated every time I hear it. It probably wouldn’t put off many regular rail passengers who know they can get a better deal than that quoted either by tailoring their travel times or splitting or both.

But for the leisure traveller who never uses trains and wants to take the family for a nice day trip to London?

Many aspects of the fare system were "unfit for purpose" even before covid, and it was structured in such a way that the only great and natural headlines come for the anytime return fares - everything else so complex and mixed up that it doesn't make good comparative headlines.   After covid, I question most/many of the remaining shreds of fitness in current fare structures - although we do need to ask "what is purpose"?

“Good God Mavis, the train fare to London is over £1.00 a mile for each of us and over half that for the kids. I’ll go and out some petrol in the car...”

"Mavis" is by now more a grandparent than a parent and can also save money on the one trip with a senior railcard. She may still be fit and well and able to drive long distances but I hope she has trimmed back or will over coming years on these long distance drives.  For sure, the leisure / group offerings are amongst the aspects that need careful examination.

Popularity graph for forename "Mavis" ( from https://nameberry.com/babyname/Mavis ) over the years (sorry, US data, but I suspect similar pattern to UK^▸ (United Kingdom)). Scale on left hand side is ranking so - for example - Mavis in 1930s was about the 230th most popular name.


Edit to add Mavis graphic sources

[TaplowGreen]

....alternatively Mavis, her husband and both children could go Bath-London Victoria with National Express for around £75 return total for all four of them.

That perhaps puts rail fares into perspective.

[IndustryInsider]

An attractive offer for some, but takes twice as long by coach and there’s only a quarter of the frequency compared with rail.

[TaplowGreen]

An attractive offer for some, but takes twice as long by coach and there’s only a quarter of the frequency compared with rail.

True, and the context is leisure travellers for whom speed is less important, and of course you're guaranteed a seat, which may well be more important.

.....and if you're on a budget, looking at cost and prefer having more money to spend when you get to London rather than spending hundreds of £ just getting there, well it's a very appealing option.

[Bmblbzzz]

Or as little as £26.82 return for four (two child fares), with approximately hourly departures, on Megabus.

[Bmblbzzz]

This won’t off people like me who just get irritated every time I hear it. It probably wouldn’t put off many regular rail passengers who know they can get a better deal than that quoted either by tailoring their travel times or splitting or both.

But for the leisure traveller who never uses trains and wants to take the family for a nice day trip to London?

Many aspects of the fare system were "unfit for purpose" even before covid, and it was structured in such a way that the only great and natural headlines come for the anytime return fares - everything else so complex and mixed up that it doesn't make good comparative headlines.   After covid, I question most/many of the remaining shreds of fitness in current fare structures - although we do need to ask "what is purpose"?

We do. I expect rail operators, government, passengers, and even rail staff and RoSCos have different ideas on this.

[Jamsdad]

Or as little as £26.82 return for four (two child fares), with approximately hourly departures, on Megabus.

I went on National Express from Plymouth to London once. Never again, absolute agony.Took for ever.

[grahame]

I went on National Express from Plymouth to London once. Never again, absolute agony.Took for ever.

Exactly the thoughts that put me off applying for "Race across the World" - and delighted to have been put off when we watched the second series ...

[TaplowGreen]

Or as little as £26.82 return for four (two child fares), with approximately hourly departures, on Megabus.

I went on National Express from Plymouth to London once. Never again, absolute agony.Took for ever.

I gave it a go on several occasions (5 I think) when I had to travel from Plymouth back to London on a Sunday during the Dawlish debacle & the trains were hopelessly unreliable on Sundays during BBQ season.

I have to say my experience doesn't match yours. It wasn't as comfortable as the train but I'm not sure where the agony came from?

It took about as long as was advertised when I booked the ticket.

It was always on time, practically to the minute ,clean & a fraction of the price of the train.

Nowadays I just avoid travelling on Sundays wherever possible!

[IndustryInsider]

Or as little as £26.82 return for four (two child fares), with approximately hourly departures, on Megabus.

Such coach services help to keep the advance rail fares down as well, so everyone’s a winner.  £73.10 return on advance fares with a railcard for two adults and two children.  Also ‘guaranteed’ a seat.

[broadgage]

I have always considered buses and coaches to be inferior to trains as regards comfort and facilities, however as trains get worse the gap is narrowing.

[Bmblbzzz]

Or as little as £26.82 return for four (two child fares), with approximately hourly departures, on Megabus.

Such coach services help to keep the advance rail fares down as well, so everyone’s a winner.  £73.10 return on advance fares with a railcard for two adults and two children.  Also ‘guaranteed’ a seat.

Playing around with dates on the Megabus site, the £26.82 seems to be a standard price, whether travel is today, tomorrow, next month – and amendable up to 24 hours before departure. How can they be so much cheaper than trains? Are their SMT^▸ (Special Measurement Train) philanthropists dedicated to providing cheap public transport with no profit for themselves? Unlikely. Are they experts in efficiency, cutting costs to the bone and maximising utilisation of resources? Perhaps, but that probably only accounts for a small part of the difference. If we want to find the difference, we should probably look at how roads are paid for.

[Mark A]

Take the walk-up return fares Bath to Paddington as an example:

Anytime return £214.20
Off peak £86.80
Super off peak £63.00

If and when the media talk about the cost of rail travel between Bath and London, which one do they quote? You know as well as I do, and it ain’t £86.80 or £63.00...

It can be argued that it's justified to headline with the walk-up anytime return. This is what the one-off traveller has to pay if they need to travel and do not have a choice - travelling on a train for which the season ticket holder in the seat next to them might be paying ~£41 return.

The 'Charge what the market will bear' policy has strengths too, but companies also flourish when they foster long term relationships with their customers.

It can be argued that transport shares qualities with air and water. They're all three essential to living - transport less so than air or water. Companies can adopt a very profitable model - one that asphyxiates the current generation of customers, but they then need a plentiful supply to replace them. In a crowded country, perhaps that's where we are with rail fares.

[Robin Summerhill]

This thread was titled “High Fares – a deterrent to passenger numbers” and that was the context in which my post was written last night.

All of us on this forum will know that there are scores of different fares available for a Bath to London journey other than the anytime “any permitted route” one that the media quotes, but to an extent that is not the point.

My point was that this fare, as quoted, to a non-railway user, plants the impression in their minds that all railway fares are similarly extortionate, and so yes these will deter new business.

I heard a woman rabbitting on radio 4 a couple of weeks ago and I forget the actual figures, but she said something on the lines of “a train ticket from London to Glasgow costs £400 and a plane ticket costs £43.” So it’s all very well taking the view that the anytime price must be quoted because “all the other fares are so complicated” but comparisons like that are being made – and are being heard and believed – by non-rail travellers who will form a view based on this disinformation.

I have told the story before of an old school friend of mine who has lived in Germany for 40 years and, when he came over a couple of years ago, he wanted us to go to the Steam museum at Swindon. He planned to drive from Bristol, pick me up in Chippenham, and then drive on to Swindon. When I asked him what was wrong with the train, the reply I got was on the lines of he thought he’d have to take on a second mortgage for the fare “because UK^▸ (United Kingdom) train fares are so expensive.” It could be argued he should have known better, but the simple fact is that he believed what he’d been told by the media – and not just here, also in Germany!

Many people would baulk at a £214 rail fare from Bath to London. Quite a few would baulk at a fare of half that price, but in my view the railway are doing themselves no favours. They may well think that they are “charging what the market will bear” but I suspect the size of the market that will bear that price is dwarfed by the size of the market that would bear a more reasonable one.

Perhaps it’s time for the sales forecasters to get their spreadsheets out.

Also remember too that the airlines don’t quote their walk-up fares when they advertise – they usually publicise their lowest fare and then add the add-ons later when the customer is hooked.

Finally it was interesting to see so much made of me using the name “Mavis.” Whilst it is true that the name has fallen from favour amongst the white British, that might not necessarily be the case for people with other skin tones. That subject might be a dangerous place to go, even in jest.