I abolutley agree with the idea of making a unified ITSO card and ticketing system here as the Dutch and to an extent, the Belgians have too. Frankly as soon as Oyster came along, something should've been done to make that the standard. I still don't like advance tickets though. Especially with people able to boot you out of a seat because they booked a seat 3.53 seconds before arrival or how easy it is to bleed money if your train gets cancelled or altered. Ban that sick filth.
They are somewhat necessary to get reasonably priced tickets on long journeys though - and probably always will be if you don’t make the regular fare unsustainably low.
@@GWVillager If advance tickets become necessary for long journeys due to their price, they may as well become the standard, removing the turn up and go aspect of the railway. I went from Pepinster to Antwerpen and it cost me €22 to go ~100 mi. London to Leicester which is the same-ish distance is £71 with a SUPER off-peak ticket. Anytime ticket and it becomes £100. If a route isn't affordable, I won't use it. Plain and simple. I shouldn't be forced to get advance tickets for 100 mile journeys. Even Wellingborough costs £70 from London. Maybe EMR don't want the business...
@@MaverickHunterDaniel Well, EMR *don't* really want the business. We're in the fortunate/unfortunate enough position in Britain that our network is rather overcrowded, and that's with the stupidly high fares. If capacity stopped being such a problem, then I completely agree, but it is. Also we're a much bigger country than Belgium, and comparable long distance trains in Europe often use exclusively demand-based pricing (most notably the TGV).
@@GWVillager That's true, but even countries with bigger and busier rail networks like France and Germany have sensibly sized trains to at least mitigate overcrowding a bit, jokes about DB aside. I still don't like advance tickets or demand based pricing at all since the railway is designed with a turn up and go system in mind. I understand why it's used and why you'd suggest it and all, but in a current world where people with decent employment are struggling to buy food, keep warm and have expendable income measured in dust particulates, making train travel without consistent pricing doesn't feel like the best of ideas if you ask me. The only train services I'm 100% fine with advance tickets are Eurostar and the sleepers because everyone who boards them has to book in advance.
@@MaverickHunterDaniel You're right, demand based pricing is an evil, but a necessary one nonetheless, at least at the moment. With almost dangerous levels of overcrowding on some Intercity TOCs (ahem, Avanti and XC) you have to choose between turning people away and some price variations. In the system I proposed, the maximum cost of a London to Manchester single would be £61.13, which is still far more affordable than what is currently offered and not an unreasonably turn up and go fare for a journey of that length/prestige. Waiting just an hour can see it reduced to £36.68, which would be the maximum ticket price for the respective train.
I currently live in Switzerland, and although things in general are a little more expensive here, I think the UK could take a lot from the Swiss railway's ticketing system. I paid the equivalent of around £166 for a year to get a half fare travel card, which gets me half price tickets on the train as well as some other modes of public transport. There are no time restrictions on the discount and I can use it across the country. My tickets, season tickets and travelcard are all stored on a card with my photo on it, which is scanned by ticket inspectors on board trains and buses. I think although it's slightly more expensive initially, the savings through having a discount available regardless of departure time or route would make up for it a little. I don't think a UK equivalent to the half fare travelcard should be as pricey as the Swiss one, but I would gladly pay a little more to have a wider discount available.
The UK does have a card (smartcard) which allows tickets to be stored on as well. At least for season tickets, they also require a photo and name. Normal tickets do not show who the ticket is for although it may still be illegal to give it or sell to another (which is why some countries require a name to be shown on train tickets, especially PDF and mobile ticketas and even require you to carry ID or passport) I have one issued by EMR (EAst Midlands Railway). Each company issues their own but its safe to say it works on stations owned/served by that company and not sure on the rest. Railcards also exist to give 1/3 discount on fares
The UK government subsidise railways by 9 billion Euro or so for a supposed population of 66 million (or so). The Swiss government spends 5 billion Euro on subsidies for a population of nearly 9 billion. Not a good comparison I know. But it does show something.
What about speed based ticket pricing, where the fare is proportional to the distance travelled divided by the time taken? That would mean intercity trains would be more expensive to ease overcrowding, and delays would increase the journey time, providing an automatic discount
About the Dutch OV-chipcard, well that comes in a variety of choices. The (prepaid) annonimous card, which you showed in the video, a personalized card, usually used by commuters and a Business-card. In addition to those basic possibilities recently one can also use a mobile phone, debt-card or even credit-card. Besides those possibilities one can also buy a ticket on-line (QR-code). Ofcourse there are also several products (price reduction and subscribtions) one can buy and store on the OV-chipcard. The system only sucks when traveling cross-border into Germany or Belgium...
There is no incentive for tickets to change. The UK has become conditioned to sub standard service, ancient hardware and lack of innovation. Just look at the length of time it’s taken to partially build HS2 before they scrapped half of it. Any other country would have finished building it and have it fully in use in half the time.
Kishore Mahbubani might be like: "That's why Global South is superior" (when the UK announced it was scrapping 1/2 of HS2, Indonesia was also opening it's Jakarta-Bandung HSR built by Chinese)
It will be interesting to see how Scotrail's trial of removing peak time fares goes, and whether trains in what we think of as the peak period do experience overcrowding now that they are cheaper. Another iniquity that I would like to see disappear is the distinction between day return and open return fares, where even if you are returning the same day you pay a hefty premium if you are travelling more than 50 miles just to have the privilege of having the option of returning on a different day. There are a couple of points that make pay-per-mile tricky: • very short journeys would be _too_ cheap, such that you wouldn't cover your costs. 30p to go between adjacent stations? There would need to be some kind of minimum or surcharge for very short journeys. • what do you do where there are multiple routes? eg Hull to Doncaster is 40 miles via Goole, or 50 miles via Selby. Both are sensible routes and take about the same time. Would you have two return fares, one at £18 and one at £22.50, and make passengers pay the higher fare in case they might want to go via Selby in one direction? They aren't insurmountable problems, but they do need thinking about.
For the short journeys, it would have to be relatively case-by-case. Most such trips would be within city boundaries, and I would argue that fares there should really be integrated with the local transport network (buses, trams etc.), and charged differently than the conventional network. As for routing, I discussed this in more detail in response to another comment, but basically the default fare would cover the shortest route, with the option to add an excess for one or both legs of a return, if you decided to take a different, longer route.
Before distance based pricing was abolished starting in 1968 the price per mile was never fixed but generally decreased as the journey became longer. There were several good reasons to get rid of the distance-based pricing - not least because it resulted in multiple fares for journey by different routes. To take your example, there's no sensible reason for the Hull to Doncaster fare to be different depending on whether you travel via Goole or Selby. In any case the alleged complications in the ticketing system are greatly exaggerated.
The one thing I like about our existing system, albeit more of an edge case, is how it can allow for alternate routes for the same journey even if they would take different speeds or different distances. It has come in handy many times. That might contradict with distance based pricing though.
I think it's also important to tocuh on digital tickets. You should be able to add your smartcard and railcard to your phone's wallet, or even pay for single fares with a contactless card (or mobile wallet). The weird triple system of fare gates is also cumbersome, and replacing these all with tapable or scanable paper and digital tickets would make the most sense. And fare gates really don't make much sense in many main line rail stations, where your ticket is checked on the train anyway.
Considering the quality of this channel and videos in it, I am very surprised to learn that you have only a bit more than 5k subscribers! Amazing work.
Would distance-based fares makes sense for all routes though? Some routes are wiggly and take a long time despite not being that far as-the-crow-flies, and some routes might require a somewhat inconvenient change that require going far from the as-the-crow-flies straight line?
I have thought about this, and generally agree that the most obvious instances would need special fares. But, in most cases, the distance based fare wouldn’t be more than the existing one anyway.
@@GWVillagerHow about if different trains take multiple routes, or there are different reasonable routes, which are different distances (sometimes slightly, sometimes considerably as with e.g. Leeds to Carlisle)? Especially if you don't go through ticket barriers when changing trains?
@@seprishere A ticket from Glasgow to Leeds via Appleby is cheaper than a ticket Glasgow to Leeds via any route. You have to specify it though, they don't sell it to you automatically. It's the same when I visit a friend in Grindleford on the Hope Valley line. There is a fare from Glasgow valid via any route (i.e. including Sheffield) and a cheaper fare valid only via Lancaster and Manchester, although you have to specifically ask for the latter.
The Belgian Duo ticket is only available during July and August to encourage train travel when demand is lowest (I wish we had it all the time 😄). I think one of the most interesting rail ticket products offered here is the multi, a carnet of 10 single tickets to anywhere in the country. €57 if you’re under 26, €93 for any age. Obviously that’s priced given Belgium’s size, but it makes medium/long distance ticketing cheap and easy to understand.
I stopped going to Manchester and London when I couldn't just buy a fairly priced (for the UK) ticket at the station, wait for the next train, and get on and go. On the one exception I remember buying tickets to London via a friend's mobile on the platform for a trip the week after. It's just too complicated, too expensive, and too worrying.
Booking tickets in advance is really the best way to get a cheaper journey at the moment. If you're not keen on buying them digitally, you can book them at ticket offices (in advance, of course), which are thankfully staying.
A bit of a story here but i was buying a ticket cant remember the exact details and we checked with the website of the franchise operator and got a small selection of prices.After phoning to ask about those prices. The person on the phone gave completely diffent quotes. Then we went to the station where they managed to get a price that beat all the other prices! It would be nice to at least have some consistency. However sometimes you find random weird tickets that no one hears about. Like stenaline partnered with some fanchise operators to offer a ferry+ train fair on one ticket. But no one tells you about it.
There is one complication that arises when going with a purely "cost-per-mile" are system-there are certain journeys where charging more money for the the longer route doesn't make any sense. One example being the North London Line-before the 1980's passengers going from, say, Richmond to Broad Street paid less taking the crowded Underground through Central London than the circuitous North London Line because the distance traveled was longer. This resulted in lower passenger numbers on the North London Line-spurring on many, many attempts to close it completely. This was actually the catalyst for British Rail shifting to demand-based pricing in the 1980's, and even to this very day TfL offer cheaper fares for passengers making journeys across London that avoid Zone 1. We should really let other British cities have their own equivalent to TfL and they could set up similar fare-zone systems as well. Honestly, I think fare zones work perfectly fine for Urban commuter rail, though unfortunately very few-if any-British cities outside of London have an orbital rail route that avoids the city centre. That being said, there are routes outside of Urban commuter lines where this principle also holds true. London Euston to Birmingham New Street via Northampton should not be more expensive than on the express trains taking the direct route. Perhaps a tiered "pay-per-mile" system could work? Say 30p per mile on stopping inter-urban trains, and 45p per mile on the intercity express trains? We should try to solve this problem somehow, but adding too many special exceptions will only result in the convoluted mess we currently have.
I touched on this in reply to some other comments, you can find what I think in more detail there! But yes, I do think that there should be case-by-case exceptions, and (in the instance of the North London Line) fare zones in urban areas, negating the problem somewhat. I don't think there should be pricing distinctions made between different speeds of train, though. Passengers should just be able to pay a fare and take the best means to their destination, without having to second guess the system to figure out the cheapest option.
British Rail abolished distance-based pricing starting in 1968 (for most journeys outside the South-East area) and by the early 1970s for all journeys. They described the replacement system as "market-based". One reason for the change was to get rid of multiple fares for journeys by (often slightly) different routes.
@@jeremybarker7577 I checked back through my book on the history of the North London Line and sure enough you are right-it was indeed September 1968 when British Rail abolished mileage-based fares. I was getting it mixed up with the establishment of London's fare-zone system-THAT's what happened in the '80s. Thank you very much for the correction.
@@GWVillager Come to think of it, the only places (outside of Urban commuter areas) where these special exceptions would need to apply would for certain inter-urban journeys where duplicate routes exist, such as London to Birmingham. There are probably less than 50 of these throughout the entire country. It may very well be possible to add special fares for all of these without complicating things too much.
A smartcard like oyster would encourage people to use public transport so much. It's a pain to get on a bus, you have to remember the stop you want to get to, make sure you have the right amount of coins, if you could just tap in and go anywhere, knowing how much you would be charged it would be so much simpler and would definitely encourage people to use public transport more instead of using their cars
I like the Pay-by-Mile as an idea. but i think a better way is pay-by-minute, as a highspeed train covers miles very quickly but its no less expensive to run a trundling commuter train. thus the fare should be the best time the company can do the journey, and delays will cost them in time and money. It also adds fare for the slower branchlines that are often underfunded.
I believe what you mean is an inverse of what you just proposed, where the longer a journey is, the cheaper it is. Honestly, neither of these are very reliable nor make sense for either customers or the company. I think that the distance-based pricing would be far better. At the moment, it is CONSIDERABLY cheaper for me to travel several stops further on the EXACT same train service. That just makes no sense, especially when that train is already running, stops at both locations, AND the closer destination absolutely has more demand than the cheaper one, so cheaper fares would further incentivise passengers and thus increasing profits.
Good film, I don't see the Rail Delivery group wanting to change things unless they make more money out of it. They are only there to make money - passenger convenience doesn't come into it. The LNER seem to have abolished return tickets, you can only buy singles. My personal experience is that it has made my journeys more expensive - so it's a bit of a con really. Station ticket offices - I like the Merseyrail approach of calling them "Tickets and assistance" which recognises the latter function. The Rail Delivery Group - being money-obsessed - talk about the fact that "only 12% of ticket sales are done at ticket offices" showing that they are either unaware of the assistance function, or believe it to be irrelevant as it doesn't generate cash for them.
The RDG has become little more than a puppet of the Department for Transport recently, indeed. LNER only selling singles is actually a trial recommended by their document, if they decide it works well they'll implement it nationwide. I can't say I like it either, though.
Ultimately I think the most important thing is to be consistent and easy to understand. Pricing based on distance as the crow flies and based on single legs journeys only should be the way forward. Personally I'd say maybe 20p per mile but with numerous discount options. A Railcard could reduce this to say 12p per mile. Possibly add a small additional fee for use of intercity services or first class.
I feel like 9,30am on weekdays (off peak) is busier than 6-9am (peak) for the reasons of travelling just outside the peak due to high cost. With smartcards, I am not sure if it has to be to and from a station served/owned by that TOC, so does this mean I can use my EMR smartcard from London to Norwich (GA) or from London to Cambridge (GA, Thameslink, Great Northern), which you cannot really travel via EMR. You also cannot really get advance tickets on smartcards or even normal tickets and has to be an e ticket from your phone or printed out. But you can definitely travel on ScotRail booked thru EMR (and vice versa) so there is some form of interoperability.
I've thought about this intently for quite some time, and I think it's really quite interesting that we've come to such different conclusions given I agree with you on almost everything else! My thoughts, if you're interested: 1. Price per mile isn't suitable everywhere for reasons stated in other comments, but I'd suggest an upper limit cap on fares based on this would be reasonable. Also, the price you suggest is a lot more expensive than it costs me to drive (approx. 16p per mile) so I'd never get the train! 2. Return fares shouldn't be a thing, and even if they remain they should be precisely the cost of two singles. Why should someone returning on the same route on the same day have such a discount relative to returning via a different route, for instance. My solution is to expand the current way advance fares work to all tickets, but with some main points: 1. All tickets must obey the triangle inequality, so split ticketing is never an advantage. The through ticket should always just be the best possible split price by default, which wouldn't be hard to calculate if done systematically. 2. Fares on local unreserved trains can all be the same price, as is the case currently. 3. Flexibility needs to still be a thing (unlike for airlines, where it makes a bit more sense overall) but for instance if you would like a day single, this would be the cost of the most expensive advance you could buy for that day, and then you essentially reserve a seat on that train. Thus less flexibility will usually be cheaper, as required. Please do point out any major problems you have with the last points and I'll rethink!
1. If you take a return journey, the price per mile comes to 22.5p. And then you have to worry about insurance, the upfront cost of a car, tax etc. when driving, so I think that's relatively competitive. 2. I personally like getting a reduction when returning, it helps incentivise full trips. I would also clarify that, with the excess fares system mentioned in response to some other comments, you could take an alternative route back at the discounted rate. It is quite subjective, though, and the RDG report makes it quite clear most people feel the same way as you. I'm not completely opposed to it, I just prefer the return discounts myself! That's a very interesting idea, and I do like it. However, wouldn't that mean that advance tickets would have to be fixed per train? Otherwise other trains would become more expensive and you'd either be able to board trains you really shouldn't or would be blocked from them with relatively little notice.
@@GWVillager Indeed, fair enough. And of course going into big cities by train is vastly preferable in any case, but long distance routes still need to be cheaper than that I feel. I find that needing to get home at some point is usually enough incentive to get a return ticket. But I also know of many people who can't at all comprehend why LNER has done away with them, and think that they are now paying more even though they definitely aren't. So you may be right. I don't think they need to be tied to a train - you pay your price for that flexible ticket and that remains the same even if other advances later become more expensive. People buying a flexible ticket closer to the time will just have to pay more, and there would be no flat 'day single' rate for routes involving reservable trains.
My suggested basic unit of measure wouldn't be distance per se but rather a fixed cost per mile per mile per hour, so you pay more for a faster service, where: 1) Distance is to measured between the stations "as the crow flies" (to encourage running services on the routes people want to use plus incentivising building new lines in the right places). 2) Time is to be measured as the total time taken from journey start to journey completion (including any time spent waiting for connecting services) using the fastest method possible (e.g. favouring Avanti rather than London Northwestern Railway) PLUS half of the median time between departures (to encourage a frequent service). Also, we assume that everybody deserves a seat, so if the average number of passengers travelling each day during same period one year prior exceeds the number of seats available on Avanti services at the times when people want to travel then we assume that the remaining passengers "can't" travel by Avanti (regardless of whether they actually choose to or not) and apportion them to London Northwestern instead, thus lowering the average MPH figure and lowering the ticket price for everyone. (Oh and if they sell more tickets than the total number of seats available on all of the trains running then some of the virtual passenger sims get apportioned a £0 fare) Whatever definition of "same period" is adopted it must be simple to understand and not cause numerous or dramatic price variations, nor be exploitative, e.g. by inflating fares around Christmas. Perhaps a division into 4 basic annually recurring seasons, none more than 1/3 shorter than any other, plus variations for daily and weekly recurring peak times (but the same peak times everywhere), oh and between 1st and 2nd class if one insists on maintaining such a division.
I agree with the unified charging, but also that fast trains should also be a premium to ease congestion. Although a travel card would be handy, I think people want to understand what theyre buying when the charges are larger. And technology has overtaken these slightly. I think a UK rail app would be better, where you just put in your journey, choose your options (1st class, return, fast train) and you pay. pretty much how it works now but in one app which doesnt charge fees. your discounts would be applied automatically and instead of QR codes, the ticket would be loaded to your wallet (NFC) to make tapping in/out work. having the option of a card for people who cant/dont want to use their phone would be good too.
Another option for over crowded intercity trains is requiring a seat booking. If the price structure were flat people making advance bookings would naturally spread out over the available trains
I don’t think it could really work on Britain’s network, though, where intercity trains often fill the roll of regional services on parts of their journeys. It would get rid of their “turn up and go” appeal.
The problem for distance based pricing is that this causes issues, *especially for return tickets*, when there are multiple routes between stations (including where alternate trains on the same route go by different routes, e.g. Sheffield to York or London to Manchester). This will make turn-up-and-go tickets much less attractive than now as there might be three trains an hour but you can only use one of the three. Unless "distance" means "shortest rail distance", but this may itself lead to anomalies. "Crow-flies distance" *definitely* would, as e.g. an Inverness to Glasgow passenger would probably buy a Kyle of Lochalsh to Mallaig ticket.
The original cut of this video had a section on this, but I cut it out as I didn't think I really worded it well. Anyway, my views on the matter are generally as follows: A ticket between two stations would only be valid on the shortest route by track mileage, with the exception of clear anomalies, especially ones with poor frequencies on the technically shortest path. Now, excess fares should become much more readily available. Any ticket should be able to have a "bolt-on" diversion excess for the cost of the extra mileage you might decide to take taken, which can be paid either in an app, at a station or on a train, courtesy of the guard. This could be purchased with the initial ticket (rather like the via feature today) or added on belatedly, and could be selected to only apply to one half of a return ticket.
@@GWVillager Which is also useless, especially on services which don't have guards or where the guard doesn't come. Plus it's a massive hassle (and the risk of a penalty fare or prosecution if instead an inspector turns up or you need to go through a barrier, which for a second offence can result in prison). Plus how are people supposed to know what the shortest route actually is (it may well not be the route that direct trains take)? Or if the only services on the direct route are express and as such don't stop at the relevant station (e.g. Elsenham/Newport to Stansted Airport)
That sort of problem was one of the reasons why British Rail abolished distance-based fares starting in 1968. One thing that returning to them would definitely not achieve is simplifying the fares structure. It would also complicate market-based pricing which is the principal reason why BR got rid of distance-based fares.
Maybe this will be covered in a later video, but Scotland already have stuff unified with the National Entitlement Card and they've not had peak fares in a couple of months
Currently watching this on a train in Ireland. I love your suggestions, and there are actually some of them we could do with in Ireland. The trains may not be that good in Ireland, but at least they’re not very expensive. The ‘leap card’ is a smart card and works nationwide, however not on intercity trains unfortunately because they haven’t installed touch points for it everywhere. It’s also very cheap. There’s a 90 minute fare of just €2.
I think if you make fares easy to understand and payments easy to make, almost anything will work. The Dutch have it down to a science, with Switzerland and SBB not far behind. Even France has a decent model (TER is fixed price, Ouigo/InOUI varies like air fares).
Totally agree that rail fares should primarily be distance-based, and also that rover tickets should be far less restrictive, far cheaper and much better publicised. Take the Swiss GA card for example, this allows unlimited travel on practically all of Switzerland's public transport (not just trains!) for around £3600pa adult 2nd class. And, even better, Switzerland also has a half fare Railcard available to all. Why can't we do this in the UK? It would appear there is little interest in increasing demand for rail travel Nationwide, presumably because the Government and private companies don't want to commit to spending vast sums of money in providing enough capacity to meet this demand. They are quite happy instead for people to resort to using their cars, clogging up our roads, polluting our air, creating excessive noise, and increasing NHS demand due to sedentary behaviour.
The ticket pricing is bad enough but the real killer is "Issue with train crew" that suddenly appears half way through your journey and you don't get home!
This is becoming a real problem living in Glasgow, as Avanti have on several occasions recently stopped running any trains north of Preston, putting passengers in buses or taxis for the remaining 200 miles! It happens when it rains, or when Network Rail had to inspect a bridge. British Rail had diversionary routes via the Settle & Carlisle, via Barrow, or via Dumfries, but Avanti don't/won't/can't organise diversionary routes. It's a big deterrent to using Avanti from Glasgow, knowing that you're likely to get shoved into a taxi at Preston for the last 200 miles home, with a delay of several hours.
The reality is, the world will push for automated car use over the next century, yet the easiest option - one that is in existence in many instances - is to automate rail. If automation is *at all* going to be a discussion, then it should be a priority that we make the railways the main beneficiary. It is the best option due to rail forming closed circuits, it is easier to integrate sensors for rail networks than road networks, and it is easier to co-ordinate trains on a network than cars. Rail can also be co-ordinated with timetabled buses, and passenger capacity requirements based on ticket sales data. I appreciate that we may be some way off - however it is not a technological problem, it is an infrastructure problem and matter of political will. A problem that could be solved, but there is little drive to do so. As it is mainly an infrastructure task, every time have the chance to implement automated technology, and avoid it, the problem becomes impossible to rectify for decades. All the while, the railways become increasingly unreliable and cars become increasingly appealing.
i think the basic tickets should be single, return and open return, with 3 times (super off-peak, off-peak, anytime), with no LNER 70min flex or other random tickets like that for a single. i do think advance tickets should exist, and railcards, but inly like 2 or 3 types of railcards or something, i dont know. every type of rover should have a 1-day option, 7-day option, and 2 or 3 of 7 days option, all should have mals showing how far you can go. i think there should be a set price/mile across the entire network, but im no good at money so i wont suggest a price
Good video, enjoying the series! I agree with the broad thrust of the approach, with the view that universal public transport billing would massively improve things. A unified system would be technically more complex than you suggest on an implementation level. Oyster is non-standard and limited due to the technical underpinnings, so migration to ITSO would be necessary, which is part of why TfL is already trying to kill off parts of Oyster and Paper Ticketing in a migration to contactless. Likewise - Contactless Card payment would need to be supported too - otherwise the system is limited by physical cards available, and becomes harder to turn-up-and-go for occasional/one-off users. Contactless payment limits are at around £100 for a single transaction in the UK - this would be reasonable per-day cap, barring first-class upgrades, perhaps. (Either dedicated first-class ITSO cards or separate supplementary "first-class" entitlement purchases would be needed, as you state.) Ending all peak fares would make sense, as would weekly, monthly, yearly capping. Concessionary fares would be achieved by dedicated ITSO cards, with the caveat that they should probably be reduced in necessity, by better capping. In the context of distance-based fares you probably need a minimum cost of at least £1/£2 per journey to ensure that billing for a journey is viable (even if you then definitely need to have to have regional capping, too!). Separately, I might suggest that distance-related cost shouldn't scale entirely linearly - pence/per mile should taper somewhat such that a journey from Birmingham to Newcastle might not necessarily be double that of a train to London. Likewise, Obviously, the more one tinkers, the more complicated it gets, which is how we got into this mess in the first place!
The original cut of this video did have a section on this, but I wasn't happy with it. I think that (at least in the short term) both ITSO and Oyster should be available within London, but that options should be explored for moving Oyster over to ITSO within the next few years. It would have to be carefully done so as to ensure that existing credit isn't lost.
Don't forget the dutch ov chipkaart doesn't have the fare cap. A lot of people are still not willing to take public transport due to fact that longer travels are mostly cheaper by car. In the city's cars are less common but outside the city's especially after covid have really hit hard on the buscompanies poeple have a car and only really students (mostly with a state funded student travel card) use public transport.
i live in a small village 100 metres from the station. no ticket office so i have to use the APP .. i should be able use a smart card to any destination in the UK with my veterans railcard linked to it or my couples discount card . so in my case i would need 2 smart cards .. I do prefer mileage as a calculation on this system. i should be able to go to a post office or ticket office to do this or online. Those who need to buy season tickets like my missus did before the pandemic should be price of the daily return once a week. just my thoughts . i hate all these off peaks advance tickets connect to 1 rail company then another to get the cheapest fair. HS2 didnt go far enough for me also NPH and eastwest rail. 20 + beeching lines need to be reinstated, biggest for me is the missing link between Bere Alston and Okehampton. cheers Chris
In the South East the 'peak' fares before 09.30 are purely about maximising revenue. Buy a ticket at 06.00 you'll pay peak fare and travel on a pretty empty train. Even trains arriving in London at 08.30 have usually got plenty of empty seats these days. Yet travel on a Saturday or Sunday and often the trains are rammed solid, far more people than a weekday, yet it's off-peak. They are just old fashioned, out of date, arbitary definitions. To add even more complexity, the outer London area, has the Oyster, 'pay as you go' system along side national rail. This has it's own fare structure and peak and off peak times. Off peak single journeys are charged at half the return so the unwary traveller may buy a paper ticket for twice the price rather than 'tap'in' An absolute minefield.
Isn't the rail ticket system based on the airline ticket systems, with the added benefit that in many cases you can choose the train you travel on and where you sit?
Hi. Thanks for your videos. I often drive rather than take the westcoast mainline just because it is so much more expensive - train journeys are a treat nowadays unfortunately. I found what you briefly mentioned about hs2 - capacity and ticket prices rather interesting; I was wondering if you had considered an analysis of hs2 now that it has been cancelled? Anyway, thanks regardless 😊
I think there are other people who could do a far better job than I at that, but I might talk about it (and the general state of the railways) one day. Thank you for the kind words!
Fantastic video! As a frequent rail rover and ranger user, some elements of this system leave a lot to be desired for enthusiasts like me. Would you change this style of tickets, and if so, how? Thanks!
I would probably follow a similar system as used in London, where fare caps (which can be purchased as tickets) can cover travel in a particular region so, in short, no, I'd keep the rovers.
Hmm can't help but be sceptical of this a bit. "Main benefits are to people taking the obscure journeys" surely that's the kind of the opposite of what you would want? Also that demand based wiggleroom in your system seems to small to me, I could be wrong there, but feel like the most popular WCML and ECML times would be rammed at that small of a price change. In my opinion you have to lean into demand based pricing a lot (especially for the big intercity routes), it would smooth and regular-ise the level of busyness on services, and surely also help the obscure routes as if theyre obscure they'll be low demand. Id also like to see prices go up less if you still pre-book an advanced single but say 2 weeks out compared to a month out, and have that increase be more regular. I used to do Kings X to York a lot and sometimes the difference between 1 month out and 2 weeks out was nothing, sometimes the price had doubled. You might say thats demand-based pricing but I would want it based on more broad demand trends ie "Saturdays in the evening in summer" rather than "this train is filling fast, jack the price uppp". Might cause occasional busy anomalies but I think any system would have them. This comment is a real written thought-vomit😬
That's certainly another idea. But I think it's less necessary now, demand does seem to be better distributed post pandemic. Of course, ideally, capacity will be sufficient enough that crowds can be managed at all times, so there's no need for demand-based pricing, which is the long term goal.
I have three railcards - a Senior Railcard, a ScotRail Club 50 Railcard, and a Scottish bus pass which has rail validity in the West of Scotland. Sometimes I have to present all three at the ticket office to get the best deal. Without the ticket office, I would probably be conned by a machine into buying a dearer ticket than I need.
Personally, I find it to be the other way around. It is very difficult to get a clear picture of the routes and prices open to you, when you are stood in a queue trying to talk to a person through a speaker behind a glass shield. Buying tickets online is the easiest way to find the cheapest prices, in my opinion.
@@samuelmelton8353The UK Government sincerely believe that ticket offices have to be closed because nobody uses them. So I wonder what sort of planet you live on where you talk about "ticket office queues"? They do not exist, according to Conservative Party Mantra. I find ticket office staff at stations I use are very friendly and helpful, i.e. Glasgow Central and Glasgow Queen Street, (occasionally Carlisle!) so I don't seem to share your experience of life..
@@Clivestravelandtrains I think ticket offices are important, and should remain for the benefit of those with special requirements, and for people who do not use online purchasing. My mother and my grandmother would have no idea how to purchase a ticket online, and should they ever wish to use the railways, I'd hope they are accessible to them. That said, Salisbury, my local station, often *does* have people queuing at the ticket office. Never have the staff there, or any other ticket office I have used been very helpful (not to knock the staff, I'm just saying the service is not useful). As such, I would be happy for ticket offices to be more oriented towards assisting those with special requirements, and not exist as an extra cost to the passenger who doesn't use them.
@@samuelmelton8353 So you want ticket offices to remain for the benefit of the disadvantaged, but you don't want to pay for them? That means you would promulgate higher tax rates for the disabled, so that able-bodied people don't have to pay for them?
@@Clivestravelandtrains No, maybe I wasn't clear. I'm saying they only need a few for the use of those who most need them, and I would be very happy to pay so that those who need them can benefit from them. I don't care about keeping extra ones open, or for keeping them open for the average person who doesn't like using them. I think extra booths should be gradually phased out over the coming decades in favour of higher quality ticket machines and improvements to online services. Ideally, I'd rather the most needy in society had completely ticket-free transport, something entirely possible, but people in this country are obsessed with driving everywhere so rail is underfunded.
Train operator c2c need to replace their horrible ticket machines that always keep on breaking down as there has been lots of complaints about the ticket machines. That keeps on breaking down and not working and many commuters who use c2c have seen enough. I use c2c quite a bit whenever I want to travel into London for a day but I have seen lots of ticket machines not working at stations and people have been ranting about the ticket machines not properly working.
Is it possible to get double deck trains as that could sort out the WCML problem. Tbf they should've added more tracks instead of HS2 as HS2 is a far worse idea that won't actually increase capacity that much. Have 2 express tracks and two local tracks. Get 125mph capable stadler KISS units if it is possible. That would be great.
I hope we get something like the Deutschland-ticket (France will do a 49 euro ticket soon) but because many areas lack local stopping services and regional and intercity seem more blurred here, such a ticket should charge a bit more at £99/ month to include intercity by default. It should be simple to addon tube/ metro, tram or ferry travel in the few UK cities/ regions that have them with buses included in the original price. Anytime/ peak and probably super off peak should be abolished altogether. First class should only exist on intercity, they have no place on commuter services! I think distance based is a good idea but it should be more like 20p/ mile which would make London to Bristol one way £23.60 instead of currently £41, double the price for first class. For returns, simply double the price, for weekly - equivalent to 10 single journeys and monthly - 40 single journeys. Simplify railcards by having just one for everyone in the existing groups, there is currently too much duplication with railcards, still a 1/3 off travel but at anytime. Child fares generally at half fare still but make them a flat £1 fare if travelling with 1 or 2 adults. Slower journeys should be a little cheaper than fast services too. As for advance fares, keep them but start the fare at half the standard single and I agree the price for these should be demand based. And if I miss the specific train don't punish us by making us a buy a new full priced ticket, instead if it costs more have us pay the difference in cost instead, the same if we wish to upgrade to first class. Also if they can fine us for having no ticket, they can sell a ticket on board so they should give the option of buying a ticket on the train. Many existing ticket types like rovers are still only available at a ticket office, this needs to change too. Regional tickets should be promoted way more. I also think the issues with our train tickets also expose just how lacking in capacity our trains really are, too many missing routes and not enough cities with their own metro or tram systems. Overall, the system should be simple to understand but flexible too.
Ultimately, all *new* housing should be medium density and within walking distance to stations. Unfortunately you get the usual nutters who think walking places is a '15 minute city conspiracy' or some nonsense. Roads shouldn't get funding priority over rail. Cheap/ free tickets should be the norm for intercity travel. Easy to understand family and duo tickets should be prioritised. Often the railways are missing out entirely by being more expensive than driving. At least they would make some money if this option was improved.
Why not eliminate Return ticketing all together? A return should just be two singles. I’d obviously like that to be 50% of the current cheaper Return tickets, therefore lowering prices across the board.
Living in Manchester and using SailRail to Dublin via Holyhead for 21 years to visit family in Ireland, aside from any other aspects, one should be free to use any U.K. rail operator without being tied to one or the other, especially since there are very few direct services, usually a change of train required at Chester, Crewe or Lladnuo - I also prefer to use Irish Ferries rather than Stena at Holyhead and I’ve seen some tickets with validity on Stena only and ideally, I’d prefer to go via Liverpool to Dublin - and in this digital age, why are they still insisting on wasteful paper tickets when I could simply have my ticket on my phone as a QR Code on the App, which is a particular problem at Holyhead and at Dublin - even Irish Rail has caught up with this technology and the only paper tickets they must issue is for SailRail, which for Irish Rail staff, has become a frustrating process
I'm really curious why ticket stations should stay open. Maybe I'm being dumb but most people nowadays should be able to use online ticketing providers, even the elderly. Most elderly people I am aware of do use technology frequently... So I'm just not sure what the benefit is... Perhaps if anything there should be a global helpline for customer queries/help and ticketing services, otherwise I don't see the benefit(?)
The two things aren't related. In the UK, we could set distance-based fares of 5p/mile and have trains absolutely packed, or we could set distance-based fares of £5/mile and have them virtually empty. It isn't simply having a distance-based fare system that makes the difference, it is what level it is set at.
Are you going to tell the general public how to book a space for a bike on a train? How to get a seat in the carriage next to the bike carriage? The bike companies do not issue person tickets any where near the bikes. You can order several bike tickets even though you are not going to travel on all those trains. Consequently, the computer says all bike spaces are taken, but when you get on that train, there are bike spaces! Some companies say they are bike-friendly. Anyone can write that on their website, and that is all they do, they do not make it easy to book your bike and you cannot travel with it. In other countries there are seats in the bike carriage, so you end up chatting to the other cyclists. Some companies make you get a bike reservation then they let uncooked bikes on the train. Some have only 2 bike spaces, so get lost if you are a family of four. Complete and utter chaos.
Bring back British Railways, we all moaned about the railways in the sixties, seventies etc, privitisation of the railways DOES NOT WORK, when will we learn, I for one cannot afford to travel on the railways, the ticket system is broken and absurd. GNER went bust now it's called LNER and the government took back the franchise. Most of the time there are not enough carriages on the Norwich to Birmingham route, why do we put up with being sardines.Private railway companies are not interested in providing a service, it's all about profit for the shareholders. HS2 should be scrapped, so start opening all the railway lines Mr Beeching closed, the railways are for the people not for private companies.
Tapping in and out is something I inherently disapprove of. Where fares are simple and transparent and everybody knows in advance what they'll be charged, fine. But if I'm going to have to resort to a journey planner or enquire at the ticket office in order to discover the fare on the specific route and at the specific time i want to travel, then why not just offer to sell me an e-ticket or ticket there and then? I much prefer a system where I say what journey I want to make, the retailer confirms with me when and by what route I'm going to travel and quotes me a price, and I can decide if I want to pay it. If I don't want to pay it I might consider alternatives including travelling at a different time or by a different route whereby it's cheaper, using another mode of transport or not making the journey at all. A system where I just travel and let the railway charge me whatever it thinks I ought to pay is not attractive to me except, perhaps, for journeys I make regularly where I know exactly what the fare is, when the peak hours are, and so on and I want to avoid the faff of buying a ticket.
@@philwoodward5069 Ticket machines and ticket offices, as mentioned, wouldn't be going anywhere. Take a look at the Dutch system, whereby you can, of course, buy any ticket as usual at a machine or window, and indeed you really should if you're travelling any reasonable distance. However, for regular journeys, tap on/tap off is so much more convenient, and saves both the passenger and railway money, so it really ought to be an option.
@@philwoodward5069 You can still buy a ticket before you travel if you prefer. Even if smartcards and TITO became used across the country, there would still need to be the option to buy an actual ticket, just like you can do now when travelling on the UndergrounD. But for most people, the convenience of TITO is a huge benefit. The railway isn't charging you "whatever it thinks you ought to pay", the fares are set and standardised, you can check them out beforehand if you are worried about the cost - but wouldn't you do that anyway, rather than turn up at the station, find out the ticket costs more than you are prepared to pay, and walk away in disgust? The whole point under GWV's plan is that fares would be simplified, and it would be much _easier_ to predict what your fare would be than it is now!
@@stevieinselby You're quite correct to point out that you can still buy a paper ticket on the underground, but the fares are not the same. Any fares regime that gives the option of either PAYG or tickets but charges different fares for each runs counter to the simplification agenda. One of my main objections to the use of Oyster and contactless for journeys where the ordinary LU zonal fares are not charged (including any journey that goes beyond the mapped zones and any journey wholly or partly one of the many national rail lines that charge pirate fares within the zones) is that passengers are encouraged to think contactless will be the cheapest option when, very often, it isn't. Day return Slade Green to Maidenhead on a Saturday with a network railcard, for instance: £13.70 if you buy a paper ticket, £20.80 on contactless. 🤷
@@philwoodward5069 Part of the paper ticket price discrepancy is due to contactless not offering railcard discounts. I don't know how that can be fixed but it needs to be. However, even without the railcard a paper ticket is cheaper at £20.20.
Adding a Burger King to every train would lower prices because the Burger King would make prices go down because when people buy a whopper some of that profit goes to trains and therefore tickets can cost less. You’re welcome trains
I abolutley agree with the idea of making a unified ITSO card and ticketing system here as the Dutch and to an extent, the Belgians have too. Frankly as soon as Oyster came along, something should've been done to make that the standard. I still don't like advance tickets though. Especially with people able to boot you out of a seat because they booked a seat 3.53 seconds before arrival or how easy it is to bleed money if your train gets cancelled or altered. Ban that sick filth.
They are somewhat necessary to get reasonably priced tickets on long journeys though - and probably always will be if you don’t make the regular fare unsustainably low.
@@GWVillager If advance tickets become necessary for long journeys due to their price, they may as well become the standard, removing the turn up and go aspect of the railway. I went from Pepinster to Antwerpen and it cost me €22 to go ~100 mi. London to Leicester which is the same-ish distance is £71 with a SUPER off-peak ticket. Anytime ticket and it becomes £100.
If a route isn't affordable, I won't use it. Plain and simple. I shouldn't be forced to get advance tickets for 100 mile journeys. Even Wellingborough costs £70 from London. Maybe EMR don't want the business...
@@MaverickHunterDaniel Well, EMR *don't* really want the business. We're in the fortunate/unfortunate enough position in Britain that our network is rather overcrowded, and that's with the stupidly high fares. If capacity stopped being such a problem, then I completely agree, but it is. Also we're a much bigger country than Belgium, and comparable long distance trains in Europe often use exclusively demand-based pricing (most notably the TGV).
@@GWVillager That's true, but even countries with bigger and busier rail networks like France and Germany have sensibly sized trains to at least mitigate overcrowding a bit, jokes about DB aside.
I still don't like advance tickets or demand based pricing at all since the railway is designed with a turn up and go system in mind. I understand why it's used and why you'd suggest it and all, but in a current world where people with decent employment are struggling to buy food, keep warm and have expendable income measured in dust particulates, making train travel without consistent pricing doesn't feel like the best of ideas if you ask me.
The only train services I'm 100% fine with advance tickets are Eurostar and the sleepers because everyone who boards them has to book in advance.
@@MaverickHunterDaniel You're right, demand based pricing is an evil, but a necessary one nonetheless, at least at the moment. With almost dangerous levels of overcrowding on some Intercity TOCs (ahem, Avanti and XC) you have to choose between turning people away and some price variations.
In the system I proposed, the maximum cost of a London to Manchester single would be £61.13, which is still far more affordable than what is currently offered and not an unreasonably turn up and go fare for a journey of that length/prestige. Waiting just an hour can see it reduced to £36.68, which would be the maximum ticket price for the respective train.
I currently live in Switzerland, and although things in general are a little more expensive here, I think the UK could take a lot from the Swiss railway's ticketing system. I paid the equivalent of around £166 for a year to get a half fare travel card, which gets me half price tickets on the train as well as some other modes of public transport. There are no time restrictions on the discount and I can use it across the country. My tickets, season tickets and travelcard are all stored on a card with my photo on it, which is scanned by ticket inspectors on board trains and buses. I think although it's slightly more expensive initially, the savings through having a discount available regardless of departure time or route would make up for it a little. I don't think a UK equivalent to the half fare travelcard should be as pricey as the Swiss one, but I would gladly pay a little more to have a wider discount available.
The UK does have a card (smartcard) which allows tickets to be stored on as well. At least for season tickets, they also require a photo and name. Normal tickets do not show who the ticket is for although it may still be illegal to give it or sell to another (which is why some countries require a name to be shown on train tickets, especially PDF and mobile ticketas and even require you to carry ID or passport) I have one issued by EMR (EAst Midlands Railway). Each company issues their own but its safe to say it works on stations owned/served by that company and not sure on the rest. Railcards also exist to give 1/3 discount on fares
The UK government subsidise railways by 9 billion Euro or so for a supposed population of 66 million (or so). The Swiss government spends 5 billion Euro on subsidies for a population of nearly 9 billion. Not a good comparison I know. But it does show something.
What about speed based ticket pricing, where the fare is proportional to the distance travelled divided by the time taken?
That would mean intercity trains would be more expensive to ease overcrowding, and delays would increase the journey time, providing an automatic discount
And would provide a slight incentive for railways to improve speeds and punctuality
About the Dutch OV-chipcard, well that comes in a variety of choices. The (prepaid) annonimous card, which you showed in the video, a personalized card, usually used by commuters and a Business-card. In addition to those basic possibilities recently one can also use a mobile phone, debt-card or even credit-card. Besides those possibilities one can also buy a ticket on-line (QR-code). Ofcourse there are also several products (price reduction and subscribtions) one can buy and store on the OV-chipcard. The system only sucks when traveling cross-border into Germany or Belgium...
There is no incentive for tickets to change. The UK has become conditioned to sub standard service, ancient hardware and lack of innovation. Just look at the length of time it’s taken to partially build HS2 before they scrapped half of it. Any other country would have finished building it and have it fully in use in half the time.
Kishore Mahbubani might be like: "That's why Global South is superior" (when the UK announced it was scrapping 1/2 of HS2, Indonesia was also opening it's Jakarta-Bandung HSR built by Chinese)
It will be interesting to see how Scotrail's trial of removing peak time fares goes, and whether trains in what we think of as the peak period do experience overcrowding now that they are cheaper.
Another iniquity that I would like to see disappear is the distinction between day return and open return fares, where even if you are returning the same day you pay a hefty premium if you are travelling more than 50 miles just to have the privilege of having the option of returning on a different day.
There are a couple of points that make pay-per-mile tricky:
• very short journeys would be _too_ cheap, such that you wouldn't cover your costs. 30p to go between adjacent stations? There would need to be some kind of minimum or surcharge for very short journeys.
• what do you do where there are multiple routes? eg Hull to Doncaster is 40 miles via Goole, or 50 miles via Selby. Both are sensible routes and take about the same time. Would you have two return fares, one at £18 and one at £22.50, and make passengers pay the higher fare in case they might want to go via Selby in one direction?
They aren't insurmountable problems, but they do need thinking about.
For the short journeys, it would have to be relatively case-by-case. Most such trips would be within city boundaries, and I would argue that fares there should really be integrated with the local transport network (buses, trams etc.), and charged differently than the conventional network.
As for routing, I discussed this in more detail in response to another comment, but basically the default fare would cover the shortest route, with the option to add an excess for one or both legs of a return, if you decided to take a different, longer route.
Before distance based pricing was abolished starting in 1968 the price per mile was never fixed but generally decreased as the journey became longer. There were several good reasons to get rid of the distance-based pricing - not least because it resulted in multiple fares for journey by different routes. To take your example, there's no sensible reason for the Hull to Doncaster fare to be different depending on whether you travel via Goole or Selby. In any case the alleged complications in the ticketing system are greatly exaggerated.
The one thing I like about our existing system, albeit more of an edge case, is how it can allow for alternate routes for the same journey even if they would take different speeds or different distances. It has come in handy many times. That might contradict with distance based pricing though.
I have travelled down to London on the WCML in the parcel baggage van more than once in my day.
I think it's also important to tocuh on digital tickets. You should be able to add your smartcard and railcard to your phone's wallet, or even pay for single fares with a contactless card (or mobile wallet). The weird triple system of fare gates is also cumbersome, and replacing these all with tapable or scanable paper and digital tickets would make the most sense. And fare gates really don't make much sense in many main line rail stations, where your ticket is checked on the train anyway.
It's far from a given that they are, even taking the intercity train to London from Bath to London, I still get checked less often than I don't
on the train routes i've been on (basically exclusively the SWML and Eurostar) there are 0 ticket officers now, or maybe thats to do with the strikes?
Considering the quality of this channel and videos in it, I am very surprised to learn that you have only a bit more than 5k subscribers! Amazing work.
Would distance-based fares makes sense for all routes though? Some routes are wiggly and take a long time despite not being that far as-the-crow-flies, and some routes might require a somewhat inconvenient change that require going far from the as-the-crow-flies straight line?
could do it via displacement
I have thought about this, and generally agree that the most obvious instances would need special fares. But, in most cases, the distance based fare wouldn’t be more than the existing one anyway.
@@GWVillagerHow about if different trains take multiple routes, or there are different reasonable routes, which are different distances (sometimes slightly, sometimes considerably as with e.g. Leeds to Carlisle)? Especially if you don't go through ticket barriers when changing trains?
They often don't make sense which is part of the reason that British Rail abolished them starting in 1968.
@@seprishere A ticket from Glasgow to Leeds via Appleby is cheaper than a ticket Glasgow to Leeds via any route. You have to specify it though, they don't sell it to you automatically. It's the same when I visit a friend in Grindleford on the Hope Valley line. There is a fare from Glasgow valid via any route (i.e. including Sheffield) and a cheaper fare valid only via Lancaster and Manchester, although you have to specifically ask for the latter.
The Belgian Duo ticket is only available during July and August to encourage train travel when demand is lowest (I wish we had it all the time 😄). I think one of the most interesting rail ticket products offered here is the multi, a carnet of 10 single tickets to anywhere in the country. €57 if you’re under 26, €93 for any age. Obviously that’s priced given Belgium’s size, but it makes medium/long distance ticketing cheap and easy to understand.
I stopped going to Manchester and London when I couldn't just buy a fairly priced (for the UK) ticket at the station, wait for the next train, and get on and go. On the one exception I remember buying tickets to London via a friend's mobile on the platform for a trip the week after. It's just too complicated, too expensive, and too worrying.
Booking tickets in advance is really the best way to get a cheaper journey at the moment. If you're not keen on buying them digitally, you can book them at ticket offices (in advance, of course), which are thankfully staying.
I fully agree with your plan. Train travel would be so much more usable and convenient than right now. Great video as always
A bit of a story here but i was buying a ticket cant remember the exact details and we checked with the website of the franchise operator and got a small selection of prices.After phoning to ask about those prices. The person on the phone gave completely diffent quotes. Then we went to the station where they managed to get a price that beat all the other prices! It would be nice to at least have some consistency. However sometimes you find random weird tickets that no one hears about. Like stenaline partnered with some fanchise operators to offer a ferry+ train fair on one ticket. But no one tells you about it.
Ah yes, Sail Rail. It’s a great deal, but rarely publicised.
There is one complication that arises when going with a purely "cost-per-mile" are system-there are certain journeys where charging more money for the the longer route doesn't make any sense. One example being the North London Line-before the 1980's passengers going from, say, Richmond to Broad Street paid less taking the crowded Underground through Central London than the circuitous North London Line because the distance traveled was longer. This resulted in lower passenger numbers on the North London Line-spurring on many, many attempts to close it completely. This was actually the catalyst for British Rail shifting to demand-based pricing in the 1980's, and even to this very day TfL offer cheaper fares for passengers making journeys across London that avoid Zone 1.
We should really let other British cities have their own equivalent to TfL and they could set up similar fare-zone systems as well. Honestly, I think fare zones work perfectly fine for Urban commuter rail, though unfortunately very few-if any-British cities outside of London have an orbital rail route that avoids the city centre.
That being said, there are routes outside of Urban commuter lines where this principle also holds true. London Euston to Birmingham New Street via Northampton should not be more expensive than on the express trains taking the direct route. Perhaps a tiered "pay-per-mile" system could work? Say 30p per mile on stopping inter-urban trains, and 45p per mile on the intercity express trains? We should try to solve this problem somehow, but adding too many special exceptions will only result in the convoluted mess we currently have.
I touched on this in reply to some other comments, you can find what I think in more detail there! But yes, I do think that there should be case-by-case exceptions, and (in the instance of the North London Line) fare zones in urban areas, negating the problem somewhat. I don't think there should be pricing distinctions made between different speeds of train, though. Passengers should just be able to pay a fare and take the best means to their destination, without having to second guess the system to figure out the cheapest option.
British Rail abolished distance-based pricing starting in 1968 (for most journeys outside the South-East area) and by the early 1970s for all journeys. They described the replacement system as "market-based". One reason for the change was to get rid of multiple fares for journeys by (often slightly) different routes.
@@jeremybarker7577 I checked back through my book on the history of the North London Line and sure enough you are right-it was indeed September 1968 when British Rail abolished mileage-based fares. I was getting it mixed up with the establishment of London's fare-zone system-THAT's what happened in the '80s. Thank you very much for the correction.
@@GWVillager Come to think of it, the only places (outside of Urban commuter areas) where these special exceptions would need to apply would for certain inter-urban journeys where duplicate routes exist, such as London to Birmingham. There are probably less than 50 of these throughout the entire country. It may very well be possible to add special fares for all of these without complicating things too much.
@@zeddessell Such is my thinking. There isn't much duplicate trackage left.
A smartcard like oyster would encourage people to use public transport so much. It's a pain to get on a bus, you have to remember the stop you want to get to, make sure you have the right amount of coins, if you could just tap in and go anywhere, knowing how much you would be charged it would be so much simpler and would definitely encourage people to use public transport more instead of using their cars
Yeah. That’ll happen.
I like the Pay-by-Mile as an idea. but i think a better way is pay-by-minute, as a highspeed train covers miles very quickly but its no less expensive to run a trundling commuter train. thus the fare should be the best time the company can do the journey, and delays will cost them in time and money.
It also adds fare for the slower branchlines that are often underfunded.
That would incentivise slower trains, however, and make expresses cheaper than stoppers.
I believe what you mean is an inverse of what you just proposed, where the longer a journey is, the cheaper it is.
Honestly, neither of these are very reliable nor make sense for either customers or the company.
I think that the distance-based pricing would be far better. At the moment, it is CONSIDERABLY cheaper for me to travel several stops further on the EXACT same train service. That just makes no sense, especially when that train is already running, stops at both locations, AND the closer destination absolutely has more demand than the cheaper one, so cheaper fares would further incentivise passengers and thus increasing profits.
Good film, I don't see the Rail Delivery group wanting to change things unless they make more money out of it. They are only there to make money - passenger convenience doesn't come into it. The LNER seem to have abolished return tickets, you can only buy singles. My personal experience is that it has made my journeys more expensive - so it's a bit of a con really. Station ticket offices - I like the Merseyrail approach of calling them "Tickets and assistance" which recognises the latter function. The Rail Delivery Group - being money-obsessed - talk about the fact that "only 12% of ticket sales are done at ticket offices" showing that they are either unaware of the assistance function, or believe it to be irrelevant as it doesn't generate cash for them.
The RDG has become little more than a puppet of the Department for Transport recently, indeed. LNER only selling singles is actually a trial recommended by their document, if they decide it works well they'll implement it nationwide. I can't say I like it either, though.
Ultimately I think the most important thing is to be consistent and easy to understand. Pricing based on distance as the crow flies and based on single legs journeys only should be the way forward.
Personally I'd say maybe 20p per mile but with numerous discount options.
A Railcard could reduce this to say 12p per mile.
Possibly add a small additional fee for use of intercity services or first class.
I feel like 9,30am on weekdays (off peak) is busier than 6-9am (peak) for the reasons of travelling just outside the peak due to high cost. With smartcards, I am not sure if it has to be to and from a station served/owned by that TOC, so does this mean I can use my EMR smartcard from London to Norwich (GA) or from London to Cambridge (GA, Thameslink, Great Northern), which you cannot really travel via EMR. You also cannot really get advance tickets on smartcards or even normal tickets and has to be an e ticket from your phone or printed out. But you can definitely travel on ScotRail booked thru EMR (and vice versa) so there is some form of interoperability.
It depends on the ticket and TOC, but, generally, you can use any smartcard for any journey. It's just more complicated than it needs to be.
I've thought about this intently for quite some time, and I think it's really quite interesting that we've come to such different conclusions given I agree with you on almost everything else!
My thoughts, if you're interested:
1. Price per mile isn't suitable everywhere for reasons stated in other comments, but I'd suggest an upper limit cap on fares based on this would be reasonable. Also, the price you suggest is a lot more expensive than it costs me to drive (approx. 16p per mile) so I'd never get the train!
2. Return fares shouldn't be a thing, and even if they remain they should be precisely the cost of two singles. Why should someone returning on the same route on the same day have such a discount relative to returning via a different route, for instance.
My solution is to expand the current way advance fares work to all tickets, but with some main points:
1. All tickets must obey the triangle inequality, so split ticketing is never an advantage. The through ticket should always just be the best possible split price by default, which wouldn't be hard to calculate if done systematically.
2. Fares on local unreserved trains can all be the same price, as is the case currently.
3. Flexibility needs to still be a thing (unlike for airlines, where it makes a bit more sense overall) but for instance if you would like a day single, this would be the cost of the most expensive advance you could buy for that day, and then you essentially reserve a seat on that train. Thus less flexibility will usually be cheaper, as required.
Please do point out any major problems you have with the last points and I'll rethink!
1. If you take a return journey, the price per mile comes to 22.5p. And then you have to worry about insurance, the upfront cost of a car, tax etc. when driving, so I think that's relatively competitive.
2. I personally like getting a reduction when returning, it helps incentivise full trips. I would also clarify that, with the excess fares system mentioned in response to some other comments, you could take an alternative route back at the discounted rate. It is quite subjective, though, and the RDG report makes it quite clear most people feel the same way as you. I'm not completely opposed to it, I just prefer the return discounts myself!
That's a very interesting idea, and I do like it. However, wouldn't that mean that advance tickets would have to be fixed per train? Otherwise other trains would become more expensive and you'd either be able to board trains you really shouldn't or would be blocked from them with relatively little notice.
@@GWVillager Indeed, fair enough. And of course going into big cities by train is vastly preferable in any case, but long distance routes still need to be cheaper than that I feel.
I find that needing to get home at some point is usually enough incentive to get a return ticket. But I also know of many people who can't at all comprehend why LNER has done away with them, and think that they are now paying more even though they definitely aren't. So you may be right.
I don't think they need to be tied to a train - you pay your price for that flexible ticket and that remains the same even if other advances later become more expensive. People buying a flexible ticket closer to the time will just have to pay more, and there would be no flat 'day single' rate for routes involving reservable trains.
My suggested basic unit of measure wouldn't be distance per se but rather a fixed cost per mile per mile per hour, so you pay more for a faster service, where:
1) Distance is to measured between the stations "as the crow flies" (to encourage running services on the routes people want to use plus incentivising building new lines in the right places).
2) Time is to be measured as the total time taken from journey start to journey completion (including any time spent waiting for connecting services) using the fastest method possible (e.g. favouring Avanti rather than London Northwestern Railway) PLUS half of the median time between departures (to encourage a frequent service).
Also, we assume that everybody deserves a seat, so if the average number of passengers travelling each day during same period one year prior exceeds the number of seats available on Avanti services at the times when people want to travel then we assume that the remaining passengers "can't" travel by Avanti (regardless of whether they actually choose to or not) and apportion them to London Northwestern instead, thus lowering the average MPH figure and lowering the ticket price for everyone. (Oh and if they sell more tickets than the total number of seats available on all of the trains running then some of the virtual passenger sims get apportioned a £0 fare) Whatever definition of "same period" is adopted it must be simple to understand and not cause numerous or dramatic price variations, nor be exploitative, e.g. by inflating fares around Christmas. Perhaps a division into 4 basic annually recurring seasons, none more than 1/3 shorter than any other, plus variations for daily and weekly recurring peak times (but the same peak times everywhere), oh and between 1st and 2nd class if one insists on maintaining such a division.
I like that idea.
I agree with the unified charging, but also that fast trains should also be a premium to ease congestion.
Although a travel card would be handy, I think people want to understand what theyre buying when the charges are larger. And technology has overtaken these slightly. I think a UK rail app would be better, where you just put in your journey, choose your options (1st class, return, fast train) and you pay. pretty much how it works now but in one app which doesnt charge fees. your discounts would be applied automatically and instead of QR codes, the ticket would be loaded to your wallet (NFC) to make tapping in/out work. having the option of a card for people who cant/dont want to use their phone would be good too.
Another option for over crowded intercity trains is requiring a seat booking. If the price structure were flat people making advance bookings would naturally spread out over the available trains
I don’t think it could really work on Britain’s network, though, where intercity trains often fill the roll of regional services on parts of their journeys. It would get rid of their “turn up and go” appeal.
@@GWVillager I think it could now with technology. If you could use an app to check the train and book a seat up to departure time
“Unusually” more like “Permanently “
The problem for distance based pricing is that this causes issues, *especially for return tickets*, when there are multiple routes between stations (including where alternate trains on the same route go by different routes, e.g. Sheffield to York or London to Manchester). This will make turn-up-and-go tickets much less attractive than now as there might be three trains an hour but you can only use one of the three.
Unless "distance" means "shortest rail distance", but this may itself lead to anomalies. "Crow-flies distance" *definitely* would, as e.g. an Inverness to Glasgow passenger would probably buy a Kyle of Lochalsh to Mallaig ticket.
The original cut of this video had a section on this, but I cut it out as I didn't think I really worded it well. Anyway, my views on the matter are generally as follows:
A ticket between two stations would only be valid on the shortest route by track mileage, with the exception of clear anomalies, especially ones with poor frequencies on the technically shortest path. Now, excess fares should become much more readily available. Any ticket should be able to have a "bolt-on" diversion excess for the cost of the extra mileage you might decide to take taken, which can be paid either in an app, at a station or on a train, courtesy of the guard. This could be purchased with the initial ticket (rather like the via feature today) or added on belatedly, and could be selected to only apply to one half of a return ticket.
@@GWVillager Which is also useless, especially on services which don't have guards or where the guard doesn't come. Plus it's a massive hassle (and the risk of a penalty fare or prosecution if instead an inspector turns up or you need to go through a barrier, which for a second offence can result in prison).
Plus how are people supposed to know what the shortest route actually is (it may well not be the route that direct trains take)? Or if the only services on the direct route are express and as such don't stop at the relevant station (e.g. Elsenham/Newport to Stansted Airport)
That sort of problem was one of the reasons why British Rail abolished distance-based fares starting in 1968. One thing that returning to them would definitely not achieve is simplifying the fares structure. It would also complicate market-based pricing which is the principal reason why BR got rid of distance-based fares.
Maybe this will be covered in a later video, but Scotland already have stuff unified with the National Entitlement Card and they've not had peak fares in a couple of months
Currently watching this on a train in Ireland.
I love your suggestions, and there are actually some of them we could do with in Ireland.
The trains may not be that good in Ireland, but at least they’re not very expensive.
The ‘leap card’ is a smart card and works nationwide, however not on intercity trains unfortunately because they haven’t installed touch points for it everywhere. It’s also very cheap. There’s a 90 minute fare of just €2.
That’s very good value. I do always find Irish trains cheap, even in first class which is quite a nice treat!
Well first class isn’t really much better.
@@anoniaino It is on the Enterprise, at least.
I think if you make fares easy to understand and payments easy to make, almost anything will work. The Dutch have it down to a science, with Switzerland and SBB not far behind. Even France has a decent model (TER is fixed price, Ouigo/InOUI varies like air fares).
Totally agree that rail fares should primarily be distance-based, and also that rover tickets should be far less restrictive, far cheaper and much better publicised. Take the Swiss GA card for example, this allows unlimited travel on practically all of Switzerland's public transport (not just trains!) for around £3600pa adult 2nd class. And, even better, Switzerland also has a half fare Railcard available to all. Why can't we do this in the UK? It would appear there is little interest in increasing demand for rail travel Nationwide, presumably because the Government and private companies don't want to commit to spending vast sums of money in providing enough capacity to meet this demand. They are quite happy instead for people to resort to using their cars, clogging up our roads, polluting our air, creating excessive noise, and increasing NHS demand due to sedentary behaviour.
The ticket pricing is bad enough but the real killer is "Issue with train crew" that suddenly appears half way through your journey and you don't get home!
This is becoming a real problem living in Glasgow, as Avanti have on several occasions recently stopped running any trains north of Preston, putting passengers in buses or taxis for the remaining 200 miles! It happens when it rains, or when Network Rail had to inspect a bridge. British Rail had diversionary routes via the Settle & Carlisle, via Barrow, or via Dumfries, but Avanti don't/won't/can't organise diversionary routes. It's a big deterrent to using Avanti from Glasgow, knowing that you're likely to get shoved into a taxi at Preston for the last 200 miles home, with a delay of several hours.
The reality is, the world will push for automated car use over the next century, yet the easiest option - one that is in existence in many instances - is to automate rail. If automation is *at all* going to be a discussion, then it should be a priority that we make the railways the main beneficiary. It is the best option due to rail forming closed circuits, it is easier to integrate sensors for rail networks than road networks, and it is easier to co-ordinate trains on a network than cars. Rail can also be co-ordinated with timetabled buses, and passenger capacity requirements based on ticket sales data.
I appreciate that we may be some way off - however it is not a technological problem, it is an infrastructure problem and matter of political will. A problem that could be solved, but there is little drive to do so. As it is mainly an infrastructure task, every time have the chance to implement automated technology, and avoid it, the problem becomes impossible to rectify for decades. All the while, the railways become increasingly unreliable and cars become increasingly appealing.
i think the basic tickets should be single, return and open return, with 3 times (super off-peak, off-peak, anytime), with no LNER 70min flex or other random tickets like that for a single. i do think advance tickets should exist, and railcards, but inly like 2 or 3 types of railcards or something, i dont know. every type of rover should have a 1-day option, 7-day option, and 2 or 3 of 7 days option, all should have mals showing how far you can go. i think there should be a set price/mile across the entire network, but im no good at money so i wont suggest a price
Good video, enjoying the series! I agree with the broad thrust of the approach, with the view that universal public transport billing would massively improve things. A unified system would be technically more complex than you suggest on an implementation level. Oyster is non-standard and limited due to the technical underpinnings, so migration to ITSO would be necessary, which is part of why TfL is already trying to kill off parts of Oyster and Paper Ticketing in a migration to contactless.
Likewise - Contactless Card payment would need to be supported too - otherwise the system is limited by physical cards available, and becomes harder to turn-up-and-go for occasional/one-off users. Contactless payment limits are at around £100 for a single transaction in the UK - this would be reasonable per-day cap, barring first-class upgrades, perhaps. (Either dedicated first-class ITSO cards or separate supplementary "first-class" entitlement purchases would be needed, as you state.) Ending all peak fares would make sense, as would weekly, monthly, yearly capping. Concessionary fares would be achieved by dedicated ITSO cards, with the caveat that they should probably be reduced in necessity, by better capping.
In the context of distance-based fares you probably need a minimum cost of at least £1/£2 per journey to ensure that billing for a journey is viable (even if you then definitely need to have to have regional capping, too!). Separately, I might suggest that distance-related cost shouldn't scale entirely linearly - pence/per mile should taper somewhat such that a journey from Birmingham to Newcastle might not necessarily be double that of a train to London. Likewise, Obviously, the more one tinkers, the more complicated it gets, which is how we got into this mess in the first place!
The original cut of this video did have a section on this, but I wasn't happy with it. I think that (at least in the short term) both ITSO and Oyster should be available within London, but that options should be explored for moving Oyster over to ITSO within the next few years. It would have to be carefully done so as to ensure that existing credit isn't lost.
Don't forget the dutch ov chipkaart doesn't have the fare cap. A lot of people are still not willing to take public transport due to fact that longer travels are mostly cheaper by car. In the city's cars are less common but outside the city's especially after covid have really hit hard on the buscompanies poeple have a car and only really students (mostly with a state funded student travel card) use public transport.
i live in a small village 100 metres from the station. no ticket office so i have to use the APP .. i should be able use a smart card to any destination in the UK with my veterans railcard linked to it or my couples discount card . so in my case i would need 2 smart cards .. I do prefer mileage as a calculation on this system. i should be able to go to a post office or ticket office to do this or online. Those who need to buy season tickets like my missus did before the pandemic should be price of the daily return once a week. just my thoughts . i hate all these off peaks advance tickets connect to 1 rail company then another to get the cheapest fair. HS2 didnt go far enough for me also NPH and eastwest rail. 20 + beeching lines need to be reinstated, biggest for me is the missing link between Bere Alston and Okehampton.
cheers
Chris
In the South East the 'peak' fares before 09.30 are purely about maximising revenue. Buy a ticket at 06.00 you'll pay peak fare and travel on a pretty empty train. Even trains arriving in London at 08.30 have usually got plenty of empty seats these days. Yet travel on a Saturday or Sunday and often the trains are rammed solid, far more people than a weekday, yet it's off-peak. They are just old fashioned, out of date, arbitary definitions. To add even more complexity, the outer London area, has the Oyster, 'pay as you go' system along side national rail. This has it's own fare structure and peak and off peak times. Off peak single journeys are charged at half the return so the unwary traveller may buy a paper ticket for twice the price rather than 'tap'in' An absolute minefield.
Newbury to Newbury racecourse would have a feild day with 30p/mile
And why ever not!
@@GWVillager also Westbury to dilton marsh as well
Great video, sensible souning idea.
One question though; how did you get that announcement at the end?
Ah, it's quite a long story. Basically, a friend knows Julie Berry (the announcer), and she agreed to record it.
Isn't the rail ticket system based on the airline ticket systems, with the added benefit that in many cases you can choose the train you travel on and where you sit?
Plus break of journey & option to use a different route or operating company in many cases?
That's the case with advance tickets, but regular "day" fares are set basically at the will of the DfT and train operator.
Hi. Thanks for your videos. I often drive rather than take the westcoast mainline just because it is so much more expensive - train journeys are a treat nowadays unfortunately. I found what you briefly mentioned about hs2 - capacity and ticket prices rather interesting; I was wondering if you had considered an analysis of hs2 now that it has been cancelled? Anyway, thanks regardless 😊
I think there are other people who could do a far better job than I at that, but I might talk about it (and the general state of the railways) one day. Thank you for the kind words!
Fantastic video! As a frequent rail rover and ranger user, some elements of this system leave a lot to be desired for enthusiasts like me. Would you change this style of tickets, and if so, how? Thanks!
I would probably follow a similar system as used in London, where fare caps (which can be purchased as tickets) can cover travel in a particular region so, in short, no, I'd keep the rovers.
Hmm can't help but be sceptical of this a bit. "Main benefits are to people taking the obscure journeys" surely that's the kind of the opposite of what you would want? Also that demand based wiggleroom in your system seems to small to me, I could be wrong there, but feel like the most popular WCML and ECML times would be rammed at that small of a price change. In my opinion you have to lean into demand based pricing a lot (especially for the big intercity routes), it would smooth and regular-ise the level of busyness on services, and surely also help the obscure routes as if theyre obscure they'll be low demand. Id also like to see prices go up less if you still pre-book an advanced single but say 2 weeks out compared to a month out, and have that increase be more regular. I used to do Kings X to York a lot and sometimes the difference between 1 month out and 2 weeks out was nothing, sometimes the price had doubled. You might say thats demand-based pricing but I would want it based on more broad demand trends ie "Saturdays in the evening in summer" rather than "this train is filling fast, jack the price uppp". Might cause occasional busy anomalies but I think any system would have them.
This comment is a real written thought-vomit😬
That's certainly another idea. But I think it's less necessary now, demand does seem to be better distributed post pandemic. Of course, ideally, capacity will be sufficient enough that crowds can be managed at all times, so there's no need for demand-based pricing, which is the long term goal.
I have three railcards - a Senior Railcard, a ScotRail Club 50 Railcard, and a Scottish bus pass which has rail validity in the West of Scotland. Sometimes I have to present all three at the ticket office to get the best deal. Without the ticket office, I would probably be conned by a machine into buying a dearer ticket than I need.
Personally, I find it to be the other way around. It is very difficult to get a clear picture of the routes and prices open to you, when you are stood in a queue trying to talk to a person through a speaker behind a glass shield. Buying tickets online is the easiest way to find the cheapest prices, in my opinion.
@@samuelmelton8353The UK Government sincerely believe that ticket offices have to be closed because nobody uses them. So I wonder what sort of planet you live on where you talk about "ticket office queues"? They do not exist, according to Conservative Party Mantra. I find ticket office staff at stations I use are very friendly and helpful, i.e. Glasgow Central and Glasgow Queen Street, (occasionally Carlisle!) so I don't seem to share your experience of life..
@@Clivestravelandtrains I think ticket offices are important, and should remain for the benefit of those with special requirements, and for people who do not use online purchasing. My mother and my grandmother would have no idea how to purchase a ticket online, and should they ever wish to use the railways, I'd hope they are accessible to them.
That said, Salisbury, my local station, often *does* have people queuing at the ticket office. Never have the staff there, or any other ticket office I have used been very helpful (not to knock the staff, I'm just saying the service is not useful). As such, I would be happy for ticket offices to be more oriented towards assisting those with special requirements, and not exist as an extra cost to the passenger who doesn't use them.
@@samuelmelton8353 So you want ticket offices to remain for the benefit of the disadvantaged, but you don't want to pay for them? That means you would promulgate higher tax rates for the disabled, so that able-bodied people don't have to pay for them?
@@Clivestravelandtrains No, maybe I wasn't clear. I'm saying they only need a few for the use of those who most need them, and I would be very happy to pay so that those who need them can benefit from them.
I don't care about keeping extra ones open, or for keeping them open for the average person who doesn't like using them. I think extra booths should be gradually phased out over the coming decades in favour of higher quality ticket machines and improvements to online services.
Ideally, I'd rather the most needy in society had completely ticket-free transport, something entirely possible, but people in this country are obsessed with driving everywhere so rail is underfunded.
Train operator c2c need to replace their horrible ticket machines that always keep on breaking down as there has been lots of complaints about the ticket machines. That keeps on breaking down and not working and many commuters who use c2c have seen enough.
I use c2c quite a bit whenever I want to travel into London for a day but I have seen lots of ticket machines not working at stations and people have been ranting about the ticket machines not properly working.
Is it possible to get double deck trains as that could sort out the WCML problem. Tbf they should've added more tracks instead of HS2 as HS2 is a far worse idea that won't actually increase capacity that much. Have 2 express tracks and two local tracks. Get 125mph capable stadler KISS units if it is possible. That would be great.
Fares need to be competitive with driving - my car costs £0.10/mile, the train needs to match this, or better.
How did you get Julie Berry to do talking at the end?
A friend knows her and she agreed to do that.
This is part 4 but title says part 5
Good spot, fixed.
I hope we get something like the Deutschland-ticket (France will do a 49 euro ticket soon) but because many areas lack local stopping services and regional and intercity seem more blurred here, such a ticket should charge a bit more at £99/ month to include intercity by default. It should be simple to addon tube/ metro, tram or ferry travel in the few UK cities/ regions that have them with buses included in the original price. Anytime/ peak and probably super off peak should be abolished altogether. First class should only exist on intercity, they have no place on commuter services! I think distance based is a good idea but it should be more like 20p/ mile which would make London to Bristol one way £23.60 instead of currently £41, double the price for first class. For returns, simply double the price, for weekly - equivalent to 10 single journeys and monthly - 40 single journeys. Simplify railcards by having just one for everyone in the existing groups, there is currently too much duplication with railcards, still a 1/3 off travel but at anytime. Child fares generally at half fare still but make them a flat £1 fare if travelling with 1 or 2 adults. Slower journeys should be a little cheaper than fast services too. As for advance fares, keep them but start the fare at half the standard single and I agree the price for these should be demand based. And if I miss the specific train don't punish us by making us a buy a new full priced ticket, instead if it costs more have us pay the difference in cost instead, the same if we wish to upgrade to first class. Also if they can fine us for having no ticket, they can sell a ticket on board so they should give the option of buying a ticket on the train. Many existing ticket types like rovers are still only available at a ticket office, this needs to change too. Regional tickets should be promoted way more. I also think the issues with our train tickets also expose just how lacking in capacity our trains really are, too many missing routes and not enough cities with their own metro or tram systems. Overall, the system should be simple to understand but flexible too.
Ultimately, all *new* housing should be medium density and within walking distance to stations. Unfortunately you get the usual nutters who think walking places is a '15 minute city conspiracy' or some nonsense.
Roads shouldn't get funding priority over rail. Cheap/ free tickets should be the norm for intercity travel.
Easy to understand family and duo tickets should be prioritised. Often the railways are missing out entirely by being more expensive than driving. At least they would make some money if this option was improved.
Why not eliminate Return ticketing all together? A return should just be two singles. I’d obviously like that to be 50% of the current cheaper Return tickets, therefore lowering prices across the board.
Put the trains and ALL utilities back in public ownership!
Living in Manchester and using SailRail to Dublin via Holyhead for 21 years to visit family in Ireland, aside from any other aspects, one should be free to use any U.K. rail operator without being tied to one or the other, especially since there are very few direct services, usually a change of train required at Chester, Crewe or Lladnuo - I also prefer to use Irish Ferries rather than Stena at Holyhead and I’ve seen some tickets with validity on Stena only and ideally, I’d prefer to go via Liverpool to Dublin - and in this digital age, why are they still insisting on wasteful paper tickets when I could simply have my ticket on my phone as a QR Code on the App, which is a particular problem at Holyhead and at Dublin - even Irish Rail has caught up with this technology and the only paper tickets they must issue is for SailRail, which for Irish Rail staff, has become a frustrating process
It is infuriating - TOC restrictions on tickets should be abolished.
I'm really curious why ticket stations should stay open. Maybe I'm being dumb but most people nowadays should be able to use online ticketing providers, even the elderly. Most elderly people I am aware of do use technology frequently... So I'm just not sure what the benefit is... Perhaps if anything there should be a global helpline for customer queries/help and ticketing services, otherwise I don't see the benefit(?)
An awful lot of people still do use ticket offices, and there are many things you can only do at a ticket office - like issuing a photocard.
@@GWVillager thanks for the response, very informative. I really imagined everything would be digitised now since the pandemic. I guess not though
If I can recall correctly Japan also uses a distance based ticketing system and those trains are packed.
The two things aren't related.
In the UK, we could set distance-based fares of 5p/mile and have trains absolutely packed, or we could set distance-based fares of £5/mile and have them virtually empty. It isn't simply having a distance-based fare system that makes the difference, it is what level it is set at.
Are you going to tell the general public how to book a space for a bike on a train? How to get a seat in the carriage next to the bike carriage? The bike companies do not issue person tickets any where near the bikes. You can order several bike tickets even though you are not going to travel on all those trains. Consequently, the computer says all bike spaces are taken, but when you get on that train, there are bike spaces! Some companies say they are bike-friendly. Anyone can write that on their website, and that is all they do, they do not make it easy to book your bike and you cannot travel with it. In other countries there are seats in the bike carriage, so you end up chatting to the other cyclists. Some companies make you get a bike reservation then they let uncooked bikes on the train. Some have only 2 bike spaces, so get lost if you are a family of four. Complete and utter chaos.
Bring back British Railways, we all moaned about the railways in the sixties, seventies etc, privitisation of the railways DOES NOT WORK, when will we learn, I for one cannot afford to travel on the railways, the ticket system is broken and absurd. GNER went bust now it's called LNER and the government took back the franchise. Most of the time there are not enough carriages on the Norwich to Birmingham route, why do we put up with being sardines.Private railway companies are not interested in providing a service, it's all about profit for the shareholders. HS2 should be scrapped, so start opening all the railway lines Mr Beeching closed, the railways are for the people not for private companies.
Would an ordinary person be able to buy a train a start a business for a local area? (Obvs assuming a big bank account)
Yes, open access operators should be encouraged in my opinion.
@@GWVillager I will start Caerleon railways
Thumbnails that could be my valentine's card to someone
do you have any views on Scotlands networks and potential improvment
I can't say I really do at the moment, I don't know too much about the Scottish system.
I would like rail fares to be simplified, but not under a government that wants to reduce subsidy. That would be bad.
Tapping in and out is something I inherently disapprove of.
Where fares are simple and transparent and everybody knows in advance what they'll be charged, fine. But if I'm going to have to resort to a journey planner or enquire at the ticket office in order to discover the fare on the specific route and at the specific time i want to travel, then why not just offer to sell me an e-ticket or ticket there and then?
I much prefer a system where I say what journey I want to make, the retailer confirms with me when and by what route I'm going to travel and quotes me a price, and I can decide if I want to pay it. If I don't want to pay it I might consider alternatives including travelling at a different time or by a different route whereby it's cheaper, using another mode of transport or not making the journey at all.
A system where I just travel and let the railway charge me whatever it thinks I ought to pay is not attractive to me except, perhaps, for journeys I make regularly where I know exactly what the fare is, when the peak hours are, and so on and I want to avoid the faff of buying a ticket.
@@philwoodward5069 Ticket machines and ticket offices, as mentioned, wouldn't be going anywhere. Take a look at the Dutch system, whereby you can, of course, buy any ticket as usual at a machine or window, and indeed you really should if you're travelling any reasonable distance. However, for regular journeys, tap on/tap off is so much more convenient, and saves both the passenger and railway money, so it really ought to be an option.
@@philwoodward5069 You can still buy a ticket before you travel if you prefer. Even if smartcards and TITO became used across the country, there would still need to be the option to buy an actual ticket, just like you can do now when travelling on the UndergrounD. But for most people, the convenience of TITO is a huge benefit. The railway isn't charging you "whatever it thinks you ought to pay", the fares are set and standardised, you can check them out beforehand if you are worried about the cost - but wouldn't you do that anyway, rather than turn up at the station, find out the ticket costs more than you are prepared to pay, and walk away in disgust? The whole point under GWV's plan is that fares would be simplified, and it would be much _easier_ to predict what your fare would be than it is now!
@@stevieinselby You're quite correct to point out that you can still buy a paper ticket on the underground, but the fares are not the same. Any fares regime that gives the option of either PAYG or tickets but charges different fares for each runs counter to the simplification agenda.
One of my main objections to the use of Oyster and contactless for journeys where the ordinary LU zonal fares are not charged (including any journey that goes beyond the mapped zones and any journey wholly or partly one of the many national rail lines that charge pirate fares within the zones) is that passengers are encouraged to think contactless will be the cheapest option when, very often, it isn't. Day return Slade Green to Maidenhead on a Saturday with a network railcard, for instance: £13.70 if you buy a paper ticket, £20.80 on contactless. 🤷
@@philwoodward5069 Part of the paper ticket price discrepancy is due to contactless not offering railcard discounts. I don't know how that can be fixed but it needs to be. However, even without the railcard a paper ticket is cheaper at £20.20.
when i come to power, i will bannd all ironing board seats...
And say someone wanted to do their ironing on the way to work? A public consultation is needed.
Adding a Burger King to every train would lower prices because the Burger King would make prices go down because when people buy a whopper some of that profit goes to trains and therefore tickets can cost less. You’re welcome trains
that's a really cool idea, but i think it should be something civilised like a greggs as burger king fucking sucks
What's wrong with Burger King?
@@Sebi1963 it’s shit
@@Sebi1963It's not Greggs
DB tried this with McDonalds. It failed.
GWVillager for PM or Transport Security after these videos? Maybe not tho... your ideas seem far too logical for government 😄
Maybe If Chris Grayling Returned To The DFT All These Issues With Ticket Price's Can Be Fixed 👍