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Author Topic: Return rail tickets to be scrapped  (Read 4620 times)
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« Reply #15 on: February 07, 2023, 16:32:44 »

Yep, now working....moving on to today's press - now including announcement about how GBR (Great British Railways) is going to work -

From the i paper, via MSN

.

Just do not know why Government Ministers bother giving speeches when they release 90% of it's contents a week in advance 


Certainly looking like the end of CDRs (Off Peak Day Return [ticket type] (formerly 'Cheap Day'))

In a few years someone will have a brainwave and offer a deal if you return the same day your tickets will be cheaper ................. more or less how BR (British Rail(ways)) invented them in the first place  Grin
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« Reply #16 on: February 07, 2023, 22:41:56 »

Quote
Rail fares will fluctuate based on demand, in a similar way to airline tickets, under a trial to be announced by Mark Harper, the transport secretary.
Tickets on some London North Eastern Railway (LNER» (London North Eastern Railway - about)» ) services will be more or less expensive depending on how many seats have been filled.
The Department for Transport believes so-called demand-based pricing will help manage capacity while also raising revenue.

Quote
The practice, known as dynamic pricing, is widely used in the airline industry, with fares progressively increasing as more seats sell. Airlines have come under fire for massively inflating prices on school holiday dates and for major events, particularly overseas sporting finals.

What would Mr Harper (or the adviser with the hyperactive mind and no empathy with his fellow human beings who thought this up) say if he called in at his nearest convenience store on the way home after a long days work to buy a pint of milk, only to be told that he was lucky, he had the last one in the shop this evening, so that will be £50 please?

And having seen the airline industry's woeful overall financial performance over the years why copy their business model? Is is really appropriate for terrestrial public transport, much of which is still walk up and buy your ticket? Many of its less affluent customers (and probably most of the rest of us) would regard not being able to know what it costs in advance as being a huge drawback and flaw in the service.
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« Reply #17 on: February 08, 2023, 00:12:45 »

It’s wonderful that they want to scrap returns and offer only singles instead. However will I still be able to buy two singles at the start of my journey to make up the return I would have otherwise bought? Will there be an option to buy two singles to make up a return as easily and quickly as buying a return now? The last thing we need is to have everyone have to go through buying two individual singles because that will clog up the ticket machines at Paddington and elsewhere.

I very often arrive at the station to start my return journey with very little time to spare. I do not want to have to buy a ticket for the return journey after the outward one. I certainly don’t want to have it on a device or pick it up from a machine at the station.
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« Reply #18 on: February 08, 2023, 00:19:21 »

This, I think, the relevant bit of Mark Harper's speech:
Quote
Let me start, however, with customers. To raise revenue, we must instil a customer first culture. That means reliable services, comfortable journeys and accessible stations. But it also means tackling the issue which tops passenger lists of biggest concerns, which is fares and ticketing. With 55 million fares available how can anyone feel confident they’re getting the best value for money? Ticketing should be hassle free, something you barely have to think about. Which is why, today, I can confirm the extension of Pay-As-You-Go ticketing, with 52 stations across the south-east set to be completed this year including on Chiltern, London Northwestern, and C2C services.

Ticket prices should also be fairer but often there is little difference between the cost of a single or a return. Operators are often unable to significantly reduce prices on quieter services. So, after LNER» (London North Eastern Railway - about)’s successful single leg pricing trial we’ll extend it to other parts of the LNER network from the spring and then carefully consider the results of those before extending more widely. It means a flexible single fare will always be half the cost of the equivalent return – giving passengers more flexibility and better value. This is not about increasing fares, I want passengers to benefit from simpler ticketing that meets their needs.

We’re also going to learn from the aviation sector and better manage capacity as well as raise revenue by trialling demand-based pricing on some LNER services too.

That last sentence is too vague to tell you what is really being proposed here, even as a trial.
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« Reply #19 on: February 08, 2023, 00:31:04 »

This, I think, the relevant bit of Mark Harper's speech:
Quote
Let me start, however, with customers. To raise revenue, we must instil a customer first culture. That means reliable services, comfortable journeys and accessible stations.


I very much doubt they’re going to replace all those Fainsa seats  Wink
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« Reply #20 on: February 08, 2023, 00:32:43 »

It doesn't actually make sense. How can a single be half the price of a return, as opposed to just a pound or ten pence less, if "operators are unable to significantly reduce prices"? How can a single be half the price of a return, if a return has no fixed price, as is consequent on demand-based pricing? And how can "anyone feel confident they're getting the best value for money" when they're unable to know the price in advance?
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« Reply #21 on: February 08, 2023, 01:19:58 »

It doesn't actually make sense. How can a single be half the price of a return, as opposed to just a pound or ten pence less, if "operators are unable to significantly reduce prices"? How can a single be half the price of a return, if a return has no fixed price, as is consequent on demand-based pricing? And how can "anyone feel confident they're getting the best value for money" when they're unable to know the price in advance?

It’s easy, you purchase your single outward and return ticket at the current price at the time, assuming the Ticket Vending Machine allows you to purchase tickets starting at another station at a future date.

If it doesn’t allow you then you have to purchase your outward ticket at the station at the start of your journey. Then you purchase the single for the return journey from the destination station at the prevailing price then. Now obviously with dynamic pricing, that price may have gone up (or rather unlikely down) since you bought the outward ticket. So at this point it’s pot luck as to whether you’ll have enough money to afford the return and could be stranded.

If it has gone up then you’ve got to pay the extra to get home assuming you can afford it. Obviously though this increase should be capped in some way. It’s not fair for the price to be able to go up by a totally unlimited amount. A limit of four times the original price of the outward ticket should be sufficient.

Obviously that’s claptrap and they’d never introduce a situation like that - I hope.

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« Reply #22 on: February 08, 2023, 08:11:30 »

It doesn't actually make sense. How can a single be half the price of a return, as opposed to just a pound or ten pence less, if "operators are unable to significantly reduce prices"? How can a single be half the price of a return, if a return has no fixed price, as is consequent on demand-based pricing? And how can "anyone feel confident they're getting the best value for money" when they're unable to know the price in advance?

OK so How did GWR (Great Western Railway) do it when it did this for most of its fares a few years ago?
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« Reply #23 on: February 08, 2023, 09:05:52 »

I am reminded of the Wizard of Oz. Where a great deal of bluster and clanking around turns out to be just a bloke operating loads of levers and making something look far grander than it really is.  Someone has recognised the call to deliver to a dream to the lion, the tin man, Dorothy and the scarecrow and indeed has all four excited about it ... just to find that it's an extension on LNER» (London North Eastern Railway - about), with perhaps the highest proportion of long distance journeys and fewer day returns than most, of something already under trial.   We might have anticipated an elephant, but perhaps we have been given a mouse?
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« Reply #24 on: February 08, 2023, 09:18:54 »

It doesn't actually make sense. How can a single be half the price of a return, as opposed to just a pound or ten pence less, if "operators are unable to significantly reduce prices"? How can a single be half the price of a return, if a return has no fixed price, as is consequent on demand-based pricing? And how can "anyone feel confident they're getting the best value for money" when they're unable to know the price in advance?

Operators *currently* are unable to reduce prices; once these reforms are in, the single in a lot of cases will be reduced in price.

Returns will be no more, so it would be (one of?) the three types of single - likely the Advance, I'd say - that will fluctaute (as it does now, so no real change actually)

I suspect & hope that the other two types of singles (off-peak & Anytime) won't be demand-based priced, but fixed.

No mention of fixing the peak times across the country to be the same everywhere (or no peak at certain stations where flows permit), which I feel was a missed opportunity.
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« Reply #25 on: February 08, 2023, 12:50:14 »

If Advances fluctuate but Off-Peak and Anytime continue to be fixed, then not a lot changes except, presumably, the degree and rapidity with which the Advance prices fluctuate. I'm not sure that's how airline prices work though; don't they all fluctuate? In any case, that doesn't help people feel confident they've got the best VFM; if they've paid a fixed price, they're likely to feel others have got the same ticket cheaper. If they've bought an Advance, they might feel they could have got it cheaper by buying a week earlier or an hour later. This doesn't matter to everyone (probably not even to most people) but it's uncertainty not confidence.
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« Reply #26 on: February 08, 2023, 12:51:10 »

It doesn't actually make sense. How can a single be half the price of a return, as opposed to just a pound or ten pence less, if "operators are unable to significantly reduce prices"? How can a single be half the price of a return, if a return has no fixed price, as is consequent on demand-based pricing? And how can "anyone feel confident they're getting the best value for money" when they're unable to know the price in advance?

OK so How did GWR (Great Western Railway) do it when it did this for most of its fares a few years ago?
Which of those things did GWR do?
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« Reply #27 on: February 08, 2023, 14:09:28 »

My concern is over day returns. For many local journeys the only fares available are singles and day returns with the former often only a few pence cheaper than the latter. If returns are abolished this could mean that local journeys almost double in price unless the single fare is significantly reduced.
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« Reply #28 on: February 08, 2023, 14:29:10 »

For the record, Here's the SoS's speech in full

Quote
Good evening and thank you to Andy Bagnall and his team at Rail Partners for organising this event and for inviting me to deliver what is my first rail speech since becoming Transport Secretary.

What a fantastic setting this is, surrounded by reminders of Britain’s glorious engineering history and Bradshaw in whose name we meet today (7 February 2023). Whose timetables brought order to the chaos of the Victorian network is as much a part of rail’s story as Stephenson, Brunel and others honoured throughout this building.

I would also like to pay tribute to Adrian Shooter who sadly passed away in December. Over the past 30 years, few have played a bigger role in the growth and modernisation of the railways and I’m sure he’s missed by many a friend and colleague here today.

I realise I’m the second Transport Secretary to give this prestigious address. And I’m pleased to see Patrick in his seat. But me and Lord McLoughlin, Patrick as we all know him, or chief as I used to call him, have a bit more in common. We both hail from working class backgrounds: my dad a labourer, his a coal miner. We both grew up in historic railway towns: Swindon in my case and Stafford in his. And we were both promoted from the whips office to running the Department for Transport. Though admittedly, he was a bit faster than me I spent an interlude on the backbenches.

Now, 6 years may not seem like a long time but, as Andy says, during that period we’ve since left the EU» (European Union - about), emerged from a global pandemic, had 2 general elections and my party may have had one or two changes in leadership. Yet the more things have changed outside the railways, the more they seem to have stayed the same inside.

Patrick’s 2016 Bradshaw Address was a passionate call for a more flexible, more accountable and more joined-up railway. That still rings true today, as do the reflections of previous Bradshaw speakers. Lord Hendy’s case for a whole system railway in 2018. Keith Williams, a year later, with his relentless and right focus on passengers and even Rick Haythornthwaite’s warning at the inaugural Bradshaw Address in 2011 of a disillusioned public not trusting the way our railways are run. Those all sound eerily familiar.

So, I’ve spent my first few months in this job listening to the experts, indeed to many people in this room, drawing on my experience in government and many years in business, to understand what’s holding back meaningful change and how we move forward.

Modernisation

There’s clearly a lot of frustration in the industry. There’s a widespread desire to end the sense of drift. By moving on from re-diagnosing the industry’s ills to getting on with fixing them. The government’s policy is clear. The Plan for Rail has already been announced to the House of Commons in May 2021 so delivering that policy, moving from the words to action that is my priority.

Because the railways, quite frankly, aren’t fit for purpose. We’re mired in industrial action, which lets down passengers and freight customers down. And historically unable to deliver major improvements at good value for the taxpayer. Britain is yearning for a modern railway that meets the needs of the moment. One reliable enough to be the 7-day-a-week engine for growth businesses expect. Nimble enough for post pandemic travel, whilst allowing more flexibility for freight and efficient enough when public spending is rightly scrutinised like never before.

The railways need fundamental reform and that is what we will deliver. And what I will try to set out this evening is how we re-energise that process. Freeing reform from the sidings and getting it back onto the mainline.

Context

But first, I must provide some important context. In putting an end to last year’s unwelcome political and economic turbulence this government promised to be straight with the public about the difficult choices ahead. We set out a plan to restore economic stability and that plan is working.

We’ve seen a significant settling of the market, we’ve reassured investors, calmed the markets and strengthened the currency. It’s a strong base from which to deliver the Prime Minister’s 2023 economic priorities: halve inflation, growing the economy, and reducing debt.

It is testament to this industry’s huge economic potential that even amidst a challenging fiscal climate we gave full backing to the £96 billion Integrated Rail Plan.

The largest single investment ever made in our railways will take HS2 (The next High Speed line(s)) from Euston to Manchester. Northern Powerhouse Rail across the Pennines. East West Rail between Oxford and Cambridge. And that has the Chancellor’s full support.

We’re not wasting any time. In December, I saw the huge construction effort underway at the site of Curzon St Station in Birmingham. It will be the first new intercity terminus built since the 19th century. Attracting tens of thousands of jobs and sparking housing and commercial regeneration across the city.

Broken model

Don’t take my word for it go and talk to Andy Street and you’ll get a very passionate case about the transformation that HS2 is bringing to his city.

But we risk wasting that future infrastructure spending if our railway model is stuck in the past and thanks to Keith’s painstaking work, we know what the underlying issues are. A fragmented structure that quickly forgets the customer. Decision making with too little accountability, but with too much centralisation. And a private sector rightly criticised for poor performance but with too few levers to change it. An industry in “no man’s land” as Andrew Haines correctly described it in his Beesley lecture.

And in the end it’s rail’s customers that suffer. Like on the East Coast Mainline, where passengers still await the full benefits of billions of pounds in taxpayer investment and years of infrastructure upgrades. I know this first hand. As a backbench MP (Member of Parliament), when I was trying to get a Sunday train from my constituency to London, I remember constantly refreshing the First Great Western timetable to find half the trains weren’t running. Like many passengers, I had no choice but to give up and take the car instead.

Andrew, who was then running First Group, probably remembers my rather irate emails from the station platform, interrogating him about why the service was so unreliable. Four months into this job, I now know why. I possibly owe him an overdue apology. It wasn’t entirely his fault. Because Sunday services are essentially dependent on drivers volunteering for overtime. Which means, despite best efforts, we can’t run a reliable 7-day-a-week railway on which customers can depend. It’s why I and the Rail Minister, Huw Merriman, have been clear throughout this period of industrial action that modernising working practices must be part of reform.

Pandemic impact

Finally, the pandemic has made a bad problem worse, a lot worse. Thanks to hybrid working, an economic model dependent on 5-day commuting is out of date. Take season ticket sales, which are at just 28% of pre-COVID levels.

Unsurprisingly, and you don’t need a chartered accountant like me to tell you this, the impact on the industry’s bottom line has been stark. Revenue is around £125-175 million lower each month and costs keep rising year on year.

Any other industry would have collapsed years ago but the railways have only survived because of the taxpayer and the public purse. The source of over 70% of income over the past 2 years at a cost of £1,000 per household. I won’t mince my words: operating the railways is currently financially unsustainable and it isn’t fair to continue asking taxpayers to foot the bill. Most of them don’t regularly use the railways. Including plenty of my constituents in the Forest of Dean.

But they find themselves subsidising an industry that delivers only 1.5% and 2% of all journeys that are taken by the public. That disproportionately serves commuters in the south-east and whose funding comes at the expense of other vital transport upgrades. At a time when sacrifices are being made across the economy we must be aware of the trade-offs when it comes to public spending and remind ourselves, as Patrick rightly said in his address, that the Department for Transport isn’t the “Department for the Railways”.

So, we have a broken model. Unable to adapt to customer needs and financially unsustainable. Left untreated, we will drive passengers away with poor performance, that will lead to fewer services, that will drive more passengers away and so on and so on. Only major reform can break that cycle of decline and Keith’s blueprint is the right place to start. So yes, we will create a more customer focussed and joined up railway. But we want to go further, I want to go further, and actually enhance the role of the private sector. Not just in running services but in maximising competition, innovation, and revenue growth right across the industry. Which the benefits of the private sector has delivered time and again.

Customers
Let me start, however, with customers. To raise revenue, we must instil a customer first culture. That means reliable services, comfortable journeys and accessible stations. But it also means tackling the issue which tops passenger lists of biggest concerns, which is fares and ticketing. With 55 million fares available how can anyone feel confident they’re getting the best value for money? Ticketing should be hassle free, something you barely have to think about. Which is why, today, I can confirm the extension of Pay-As-You-Go ticketing, with 52 stations across the south-east set to be completed this year including on Chiltern, London Northwestern, and C2C services.

Ticket prices should also be fairer but often there is little difference between the cost of a single or a return. Operators are often unable to significantly reduce prices on quieter services. So, after LNER» (London North Eastern Railway - about)’s successful single leg pricing trial we’ll extend it to other parts of the LNER network from the spring and then carefully consider the results of those before extending more widely. It means a flexible single fare will always be half the cost of the equivalent return – giving passengers more flexibility and better value. This is not about increasing fares, I want passengers to benefit from simpler ticketing that meets their needs.

We’re also going to learn from the aviation sector and better manage capacity as well as raise revenue by trialling demand-based pricing on some LNER services too.

Yet, passengers aren’t the industry’s only customers. Carrying tens of billions of pounds worth of goods we cannot overstate rail freight’s untapped potential for green growth. So I intend to create a duty to ensure the new industry structure realises that potential with a dedicated Strategic Freight Unit tasked with creating better safeguards, more national coordination and, later this year, listening to what was said earlier, setting a long-term freight growth target.

Structure

However, turning towards customers requires us to turn away from the current industry structure. So, we will establish Great British Railways, or GBR (Great British Railways). As we prepare for that, we’ll pick up the pace of reform. I am pleased to announce that the winner of the GBR HQ (Headquarters) competition will be revealed before Easter. And by the summer, we will respond to the consultation on GBR’s legislative powers.

The industry has long called for a guiding mind to coordinate the network so GBR will be responsible for track and train, as well as revenue and cost. Which means finally treating the railway as the whole system it should be rather than a web of disparate interests that it’s become. Passengers won’t longer face the excuse-making and blame-shifting of years past. Instead, GBR will be wholeheartedly customer-focussed. Serving as the single point of accountability for the performance of the railway and crucially, following ministerial direction, the GBR Transition Team will develop the guiding long-term strategy for rail which we will publish later this year and I hope will provide strategic direction to the sector.

Yet there remains a lot of misinformation about GBR. So let me tackle some of these myths head on.

This is not going to be Network Rail 2.0, nor a return to British Rail. Taking politics out of the railways is the only way to build a truly commercially led industry and, for me, that is non-negotiable. That’s why GBR will be an arm’s length body ensuring a balanced approach to both infrastructure and operations. With both sides getting a seat at the table and both sides delivering an efficient, high performing railway for customers.

The role of ministers is to provide strategic direction and be accountable to Parliament. It is not the role of ministers to pore over operational decisions. For example, I shouldn’t need to approve whether a passenger train ought to be removed from the timetable to allow a freight train to run instead, as I was doing earlier today. That will be left to industry experts in 5 regional GBR divisions working in partnership with regional bodies such as the Greater Manchester and the West Midlands Combined Authorities.

Similarly, we can’t take the other extreme view. Public oversight of our critical infrastructure is needed. Especially to support those passenger services that don’t turn a profit, yet still play an important economic and social role. That’s why we need a pragmatic partnership between state and industry, harnessing the necessary oversight of the state. With the dynamism, innovation and efficiency of the private sector.

This integrated model works, and not just with the railways. That was how we achieved one of the quickest and most successful COVID vaccine rollouts in the world, and its what we need to do in the railways.

Private sector offer

Which brings me to the final area of reform. To enhance the role of the private sector, which I see as central to the future of the railways. Under privatisation and thanks to a resilient and world class supply chain, passenger numbers doubled to 1.75 billion by the eve of the pandemic. With private sector investment in rolling stock reached nearly £7 billion over the past 10 years.

I don’t want to turn my back on that commercial expertise. The National Rail Contracts and current overcentralised approach are temporary, a short-term fix that has helped steer the industry through the pandemic and this will be phased out.

I want the private sector to play its most important role in our railways yet. To reinvigorate the sector, drive innovation and most importantly, attract more customers to the railway. It will do so in partnership with GBR. GBR will help set the right commercial conditions across several key areas.

There will be new Passenger Service Contracts that will balance the right performance incentives with simple, commercially driven targets. But they won’t be a one-size fits all approach. In the past, we know some operators took on more financial risk than they could handle. So, now that risk will sit where it is best managed and that includes with operators, but only where it drives the best outcomes for passengers and taxpayers. We shouldn’t be afraid to let managing directors of train operating companies actually manage and direct their operations. Which is not what they’re able to do at the moment.

We’ll also open up railway data and systems, whilst lowering barriers to entry for the industry. For ticketing, that means a more competitive retail market and I will welcome new players to spur more innovation and give passengers the services they need.

We will expand commercial opportunities around land and property near stations. In Japan, rail companies take full advantage of these investments, generating even more income for the railways and we should look to do the same.

And finally, we will support more open access services where it benefits passengers and taxpayers. We’ve seen this work well with Hull Trains and Grand Central as well as with Lumo on the East Coast Mainline. All offering passengers greater choice and more direct links. Open access operators will play an important role in the industry’s future, especially as we grow new markets and make best use of spare capacity on the network.

Conclusion

Let me finish by saying that despite being the second Transport Secretary to deliver this address I’m probably the first to be given a biblical nickname. Modern Railways Magazine described the rail industry as waiting for “Moses Harper to come back from the mountain with tablets of stone.” Whilst I’m, of course, flattered by that comparison, unlike Moses, I do plan to live long enough to reach the promised land of rail reform. And whilst my words this evening have not been divinely inspired they do have the full support of the Prime Minister and the Chancellor, which, in politics, is the next best thing.

As a whole government, we are pressing ‘go’ on rail reform. Day-to-day work will be ably led by the Rail Minister, Huw Merriman, who’s here tonight and has long championed the need for a reformed railway, including when he was chairman of the Transport Select Committee. He will provide the stability and leadership needed, while also giving the industry freedom to deliver meaningful change and I hope you will all rise to the challenge:

to put customers first
to realise the benefits of GBR
to help enhance the role of the private sector
Because only then can the railway earn the public trust it needs to grow.

As we look ahead to the industry’s 200-year anniversary in 2025, this is our chance to resurrect some national pride in our railways. A chance to harness the political will that is there, the economic imperative and I believe the industry buy-in to build the modern railway Britain deserves.

It’s a chance we cannot waste.
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« Reply #29 on: February 08, 2023, 14:31:55 »

My concern is over day returns. For many local journeys the only fares available are singles and day returns with the former often only a few pence cheaper than the latter. If returns are abolished this could mean that local journeys almost double in price unless the single fare is significantly reduced.

If there is only one type of flexible return, then the single will be half the price of that return. That has been stated clearly.

My concern is where a CDR (Off Peak Day Return [ticket type] (formerly 'Cheap Day')) exists *alongside* a longer-dated flexible return. It has also been stated that there will only be one type of off-peak single, and it won't be the off-peak day single.
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