From Roger French latest blog

https://busandtrainuser.com/2026/11/10/lners-simpler-fares-pilot-the-results-are-in/

The Department for Transport has published a review it commissioned from consultants, Systra, into LNER’s two current fare pilots – ‘Single Leg Pricing’ and the so-called ‘Simpler Fares’.

The good news is Single Leg Pricing comes out of the review much more positively than the Simpler Fares trial which for yours truly, as a fairly regular passenger on the East Coast Main Line, comes as no surprise at all.

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Single leg pricing (i.e. the end of return tickets) does make sense.   

I just looked up Trowbridge to Bristol Brabazon fares for opening day, and I am offered ...



11 fares - and I think just two or three singles could be a sensible set
* Advanced fare
* Off Peak
* Anytime
with people adding in another ticket from the same three standards of coming back.

The $64,000 question is what the pricing should be.  Off peak single at half the off peak day return, anytime single at half the anytime day return  - sensible.    Just remove the return fares - near way of putting prices up while saying that you have not increased prices.

The lower priced off peak tickets are "any permitted" - the other off peak tickets are "via Bath Spa".   Yes, I am scratching my head over that one!

 
I assume the 'any permitted' route includes routeing via Swindon and Bristol Parkway. Probably not particularly efficient for BB but looking at BRFares it's in a fare cluster with other destinations including Parkway, Filton etc, so the Swindon routeing could be very useful for other journeys with the same fare.

 
I would hope that with the TOCs being swallowed up into GBR, all TOC related routings should disappear and only geography related routings remain, therefore clearing out the fares database of a lot of duplication.

 
Single Leg Pricing will not work within Devon and Cornwall with fares as they currently stand, with Off-Peak Day Return prices mere pennies more expensive than Singles.

 
It would if the singles were recalculated to half the return fare....

 

True, but when you have an Off-Peak Day Return from Newton Abbot to Exeter with a Railcard at just £5.95, I think it highly unlikely that the Single would be re-priced to just £3.00. 

Or an Off-Peak Single from Exeter St David's to Penzance (a distance similar to Exeter to Paddington!) with a Railcard re-priced to just £10.00.

I'd like to think it would happen, but I doubt DfT would sanction it.

 

Indeed I doubt that the DfT will sanction it, but are we/they missing three things if we/they say "no"?

1. What proportion of tickets sold into regional and local journeys are returns compared to singles?   I don't have more than an educated guess (anyone know better?) but I would estimate that for every 90 return sold, there are just 10 singles.  The majority of journeys are of an out and back nature and most of those within a day.  Even on longer distances, most journeys are return trips though spread out over longer periods.  Further, this vast majority of people would buy both outbound and return legs via the same route and so the total financial "take" will add up to the same.   The headline fare of "just £3" in your example will be sold, yes, but they will be sold two at a time. So selling two singles rather than a return will not result in a substantive loss of income.

2. (a) Why do return tickets, and at good prices compared to two singles, exist in the first place?   Firstly, because of cost-of-sales; if the vast majority of tickets sold are returns sold at ticket offices, is slashed.  Look at my TRO to BBZ example - it is quicker for someone to ask for and purchase a "return to Bristol Brabazon please" at the Trowbridge ticket office or TVM than to make two purchases / two tickets, and that means more staff needed if you go to a singles-only system.   Except - that approaching 90% of tickets are sold online these days, so that argument goes away;  the ticket office is very much more the help desk for the majority of people these days and not the queue of people all purchasing returns that would double in length if only singles were sold.  Online, I can (and do) click on one column for outbound, the next column for inbound, and it does not involve extra staff time or complexity

2. (b) It has been explained to me that return ticket give the revenue team twice the opportunity to catch potential fare dodgers - if it costs £14.50 for a return (TRO to BBZ) but £12.60 for a single, then if I get away with an illegal journey outbound (fictional situation personally) I still end up paying £12.60 - 87% - anyway if I have to buy just the ticket to get me home.   But with closed stations, very much more thorough and quicker on board checking for the most part, that revenue protection issue is much reduced.

3. (a) Offering single tickets at excellent prices where there are alternative public transport services will help encourage integrated transport and journeys to be made by different modes where it works.  Taking examples like Saltash into Plymouth, Melksham to Trowbridge, and you could find many more, there is a real price barrier at present to making outbound journeys by bus and return via train, or vice versa.

3. (b) For people working overnight - a small proportion of passengers - the move to singles would remove the unfair pricing for these shift workers and allow outbound and return travel at an unpenalised fare.

The current fare system is overcomplex for many people, with unnecessary decisions needed on (for example) fares from Melksham into London on when you are coming back.  We are already penalised by (a) the lack of a day return product, (b) the lack of availability of Network card discounts - why from Axminster and Yeovil, but not from Melksham of Trowbridge and (c) the often lack of availability of a return service within an hour when you finish your business in London.   Offering purely single fares at a level that maintained rail income would be a step in the right direction of encouraging rail use, and would reduce the publicity own goals of reported very high single fare prices.

Is there scope for the "Network South East" card to be extended into being a "Network England" card?   Or even a "Network GB", "Network UK" or "Network British Isles" of "Network Europe" card ....

 
Currently I am struck by the "leading" that occurs on the GWR ticket site (and perhaps others). The up front pricing for a journey often leads one to the Advance Single fares. Now whilst this "might" be a bargain for a single journey it is rarely the case for return journeys.

Purchase of 2 Advance Singles is generally more expensive than buying a normal Off-Peak or Super Off Peak return, which also offer flexibility.

So is this "leading" a marketing tool, perhaps still emanating from TOC-specific tickets, or some other revenue generating trick. How many people get misled by this into buying 2 Advances?