Railways how to make profit - take note

malc_b

I'm been looking at the local route we would use where the season ticket discount is ~15% for 7 day ticket and 5 days working. But college is not usually 5 days and some days have late starts so you can use a cheaper ticket. Hence there are no savings.

I had assumed the same applied to long distance travel but I've checked and to London return is £115 (79.50 with 16-25, and I was also wrong on 1st class there is no discount). 7 day season ticket is £188 so that is less than 2 days travel or ~80% off. I did wonder how people could afford to commute to London so now I know (although it is still a lot of money I admit). Clearly the season ticket is cheaper on long journeys.

The rules for the rail cards come from the ATOC not individual TOC but it seems TOC can add rules on top. London train system is full to capacity in the rush hour and hence they don't want more traffic and have no discount. It doesn't seem that applies to other areas otherwise they would have similar extra rules.

So the question is, excluding London/SE which already has a extra rule, do the rest of the TOCs want more traffic even in the rush hour? I think the fact they allow a long journey or seniors discount say they do. In which case why do they not offer a short journey discount too? Especially since for short journeys train and bus times are similar so it comes down to money. And the TOCs are not competitive.

robt_2

malc_b wrote: »

So the question is, excluding London/SE which already has a extra rule, do the rest of the TOCs want more traffic even in the rush hour? I think the fact they allow a long journey or seniors discount say they do. In which case why do they not offer a short journey discount too? Especially since for short journeys train and bus times are similar so it comes down to money. And the TOCs are not competitive.

Whether they want it or not is not relevant, there is no capacity for it. Probably the same in every major city.

Altarf

malc_b wrote: »

So the question is, excluding London/SE which already has a extra rule, do the rest of the TOCs want more traffic even in the rush hour? I think the fact they allow a long journey or seniors discount say they do. In which case why do they not offer a short journey discount too? Especially since for short journeys train and bus times are similar so it comes down to money. And the TOCs are not competitive.

But even if you have the capacity does cutting prices increase customer numbers by more than the price cut? This is the same problem that every business has, and is one of the reasons why, for example, insurance companies offer new customer discounts rather than cut prices across the board.

Most of the short journeys will be commuters and any discount that you create to attract more passengers onto the commuter trains will also reduce the amount the commuters pay. So you may carry more passengers, but quite possibly collect less money.

omelette451

They may seem arbitrary but YP minimum fare restrictions are in place to stop discounts being given to commuters and to encourage them to get season tickets instead. Having no such restrictions would be very costly, since young commuters would buy ticktes every day rather than every week/month. Longer journeys are exempt because they are much less likely to be regular or commuter journeys meaning there's no need to try to restrict the number of people using them.

I myself am a YP cardholder and have been inconvenienced by the pre-10am restrictions on many occasions, but I do understand why they're in place and am happy to accept them.

Interestingly, Virgin Trains offers huge discounts to all railcard holders on rush hour trains by allowing us to travel using off peak tickets (the old 'savers') at any time, even on trains where the usual 'Anytime' fare is more than five times as expensive...

Pennywise

malc_b wrote: »

OTrains are perhaps a bit different as you can add more rooms, more carriages, if you have them of course. Railways have a high fixed overhead and a small extra cost per passenger so it makes sense to carry as many passengers as possible to make the fixed cost per head as small as possible. If that means longer trains and discounts to get groups that would not travel otherwise then that would increase profits.

Not any more. In the good old days, with loco hauled trains, you could easily add a few carriages. Stations were built for longer trains. There were huge stocks of carriages stored in sidings that were only ever brought out in reserve for busy times (holiday times etc or football specials). Nowadays, trains are in fixed length sets. Station platforms have been shortened. You can add a couple of full sets together to double the length of a train, but you can't add an extra coach - not only are there no spare coaches, but adding one would completely mess up the power/driving arrangements. Worse still, there are several different types of sets, most of which don't actually couple together. There are also very few spare sets - most are in full daily use anyway. It's all down to a complete lack of planning and forethought over the past 50 years and will take decades to repair.

kitchpoo

Pennywise wrote: »

It's all down to a complete lack of planning and forethought over the past 50 years and will take decades to repair.

Thats assuming the TOC's are doing anything about it. Whilst the system is segregated there is not collective thought in purchasing new trains and cost prevails.

robt_2

kitchpoo wrote: »

Thats assuming the TOC's are doing anything about it. Whilst the system is segregated there is not collective thought in purchasing new trains and cost prevails.

The TOCs don't have a say in what stock they use or what services they run, or indeed own any stock.