Stop this attempt to abolish flexible & affordable rail tickets in the UK.

Bricks

Currently LNER (which operates trains on the London/Edinburgh route) is undertaking a "pilot scheme" which they are trying to portray as a "simplification of fares".

However, they are trying to abolish something which has been a fundamental feature of UK rail travel for decades - the "off-peak" ticket. This is a ticket with a fixed price, that you can buy right up until train departure, and which is valid on any train on that day except those during the peak rush hours.

In other words, you always know that on any day, you can travel from X to Y for a certain price. If trains are busy, you might not be guaranteed a seat, but you know you can get to where you need to go. Of course, if you're willing to book in advance you might find some cheaper fares that commit to a certain train, but that's your free choice.

LNER want to replace this with something more like airline pricing. They want to replace it with what they are calling a "semi-flexible" ticket that can sell out, and only gives you an hour or so leeway each side of your booked time. If you want to travel at short notice, one of these might be available if you're lucky, and it might be more expensive than the traditional "off peak" ticket it replaces. Your only other option is to pay for an expensive "Anytime" ticket. These, generally, can be more than twice as expensive as an "off peak".

It's a little difficult to explain what is changing - I have made an attempt above - but this is a very significant change because it fundamentally alters long-standing principles of how we can use the railway system.

It might not bother those who mostly use their car and just use the railway occasionally when it's cheap or convenient. But it's a big deal for anyone who mainly relies on public transport, because suddenly, travel at short notice is no longer at a predictable price.

At the moment this is just a "pilot" by LNER but it's important to note that LNER is owned by the DfT and is directed by the government - it's not a private company. This is an experiment carried out under the direction of the government and if they deem it to be a "success" then it may be rolled out to the rail network as a whole.

If you agree that it's important to stop that happening, share the articles below, and/or write to your MP.

Here are some articles that have appeared in the press so far:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/feb/16/lner-simpler-fares-trial-train-journeys-rail-prices

https://www.railfuture.org.uk/Press-release-4th-February-2024

https://twitter.com/seatsixtyone/status/1747193399394857296

https://busandtrainuser.com/2024/01/21/lner-are-taking-us-for-fools/

(would be great if an MSE article could be added to that list! )

katejo

Just recently I was going to travel from Kings Cross to Leeds to visit my brother in hospital. I thought I could get an off peak return but was told that it didn't exist any longer. The ticket office offered me a train at 11am and then wanted me to tie myself to a specific time to return. Even with a senior railcard added, the fare was between £75 and £85. I walked out and refused to travel!

SiliconChip

I'd suggest you might be better to take this to railforums.co.uk where there is likely to be greater knowledge of the policies and rules currently in force.

Bricks

katejo said:

Just recently I was going to travel from Kings Cross to Leeds to visit my brother in hospital. I thought I could get an off peak return but was told that it didn't exist any longer. The ticket office offered me a train at 11am and then wanted me to tie myself to a specific time to return. Even with a senior railcard added, the fare was between £75 and £85. I walked out and refused to travel!

Leeds is not (at present) part of this current project to abolish off-peak fares.

However - about a year ago LNER implemented a previous change, also part of what they describe as "fares simplification". In that phase, they got rid of off-peak returns and replaced them with off-peak singles.

Had the aim of this purely been to simplify fares, they would have priced the off-peak single at exactly half the price of the old off-peak return, but in fact they used the opportunity to raise the fares, so in most cases two off-peak singles cost a bit more than an off peak return would have.

In principle - in my opinion - this particular change (ignoring the sneaky increase in fares) was not necessarily a bad one. In many cases it improves the flexibility and affordability of single journeys.

The ticket office should have offered you two off-peak singles as an alternative to an off-peak return (which, it's true, doesn't exist any more for that journey). Having a quick look now, it seems an off peak single with a railcard should be about £44. If you didn't want to be tied to a specific return time, then they should have offered you an off-peak single for that journey - it sounds like they were probably offering you advance tickets which might be cheaper but don't provide that flexibility.

Going to visit an ill friend or relative is a good example of when it's important that a reasonably affordable, flexible ticket is available at short notice. Under these most recent proposals, where off-peak tickets are abolished completely, if they applied to the Leeds route, then there would only be one fare that would definitely be available on the day, and that would be the "Anytime single" which is priced at £160. If you were lucky, they would also be offering some off the new semi-flexible tickets, which could be any price up to that £160. But there's no guarantee of that. At the moment, the existence of the off-peak fare caps the cost for that journey at about £67.

This is what's important to understand about this proposed change. Currently, if you have to make a short notice trip to Leeds it should not cost you more than £67. Under the pilot scheme, that would change to £160.

mdann52

The problem currently with off-peak fares is the rules around them are so convoluted and stretched, passengers can make legitimate mistakes purchasing them - for example, the wonderful 2C which restricts certain stations, does not restrict others, and has numerous carve outs - and that's not even getting onto the unpublished restrictions!

I can see the intent with the trial to simplify to "One Train", "+/- 70 Mins" and "Anytime", and this will benefit a lot of regular travellers, but I agree the impact to irregular travellers might well be impacted. With any fare changes, there will be winners and there will be losers unfortunately.

I do think this is a genuine simplification for those not using the railways regularly, unfortunately until the TOCs machines are upgraded to take advantage of such things as split ticketing and similar tricks, then you are unlikely to get the cheapest fare at many ticket offices

Bricks

mdann52 said:

The problem currently with off-peak fares is the rules around them are so convoluted and stretched, passengers can make legitimate mistakes purchasing them - for example, the wonderful 2C which restricts certain stations, does not restrict others, and has numerous carve outs - and that's not even getting onto the unpublished restrictions!

However - the rules around them could be simplified without throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

For example - if we were to agree that the +/-70 mins tickets are easier to understand in principle - they could be offered as walk-up tickets with a fixed price and guaranteed availability. But they are not.

The issue is that they aren't just changing the rules on how to determine validity, they are completely throwing out the principle of predictable pricing for travel at short notice.

I don't see how this will benefit regular travellers - quite the opposite.

MilesT6060842

I put a comment on the "Busandtrainuser" blog to state that it is possible to defeat the change when booking online and revert to "traditional" ticketing/pricing

https://busandtrainuser.com/2024/01/21/lner-are-taking-us-for-fools/#comment-49898

Basically:  search for tickets so you don't start/end the journey in KGX or e.g. Newcastle,  start or end a short distance away, and see if you like the price/conditions better.  In theory, for most tickets, you have to travel the route as ticketed (the whole way), and therefore may need some extra local tickets either way, but in practice that may not be necessary, especially if you don't do this frequently (they can and will detect abuses if the ticket goes through an electronic gate).

I think you could also do the same at a ticket office, if you ask explicitly for the potential routings I mention in my comment.

Bricks

MilesT6060842 said:

I put a comment on the "Busandtrainuser" blog to state that it is possible to defeat the change when booking online and revert to "traditional" ticketing/pricing

https://busandtrainuser.com/2024/01/21/lner-are-taking-us-for-fools/#comment-49898

Basically:  search for tickets so you don't start/end the journey in KGX or e.g. Newcastle,  start or end a short distance away, and see if you like the price/conditions better.  In theory, for most tickets, you have to travel the route as ticketed (the whole way), and therefore may need some extra local tickets either way, but in practice that may not be necessary, especially if you don't do this frequently (they can and will detect abuses if the ticket goes through an electronic gate).

I think you could also do the same at a ticket office, if you ask explicitly for the potential routings I mention in my comment.

That's right - this is a workaround for now, while this scheme is a "pilot" that's only applied to certain destinations.

But if they deem their pilot a success, then this will be rolled out to all tickets, and there will be no option to revert to the traditional ticketing. That's why it's important to try and oppose it at this stage.

katejo

Bricks said:

katejo said:

Just recently I was going to travel from Kings Cross to Leeds to visit my brother in hospital. I thought I could get an off peak return but was told that it didn't exist any longer. The ticket office offered me a train at 11am and then wanted me to tie myself to a specific time to return. Even with a senior railcard added, the fare was between £75 and £85. I walked out and refused to travel!

Leeds is not (at present) part of this current project to abolish off-peak fares.

However - about a year ago LNER implemented a previous change, also part of what they describe as "fares simplification". In that phase, they got rid of off-peak returns and replaced them with off-peak singles.

Had the aim of this purely been to simplify fares, they would have priced the off-peak single at exactly half the price of the old off-peak return, but in fact they used the opportunity to raise the fares, so in most cases two off-peak singles cost a bit more than an off peak return would have.

In principle - in my opinion - this particular change (ignoring the sneaky increase in fares) was not necessarily a bad one. In many cases it improves the flexibility and affordability of single journeys.

The ticket office should have offered you two off-peak singles as an alternative to an off-peak return (which, it's true, doesn't exist any more for that journey). Having a quick look now, it seems an off peak single with a railcard should be about £44. If you didn't want to be tied to a specific return time, then they should have offered you an off-peak single for that journey - it sounds like they were probably offering you advance tickets which might be cheaper but don't provide that flexibility.

Going to visit an ill friend or relative is a good example of when it's important that a reasonably affordable, flexible ticket is available at short notice. Under these most recent proposals, where off-peak tickets are abolished completely, if they applied to the Leeds route, then there would only be one fare that would definitely be available on the day, and that would be the "Anytime single" which is priced at £160. If you were lucky, they would also be offering some off the new semi-flexible tickets, which could be any price up to that £160. But there's no guarantee of that. At the moment, the existence of the off-peak fare caps the cost for that journey at about £67.

This is what's important to understand about this proposed change. Currently, if you have to make a short notice trip to Leeds it should not cost you more than £67. Under the pilot scheme, that would change to £160.

I was definitely not offered any off peak singles at all. They wanted me to commit myself to a specific train for my return. when I said I didn't know the exact return time, they said I would have to buy 1 single to go and wait until I got back to Leeds station to get a return. Insisted that no off peak tickets existed anymore. 

prettyandfluffy

I find that I get the best range of options by booking tickets through the relevant train operator's website.  It includes trains and tickets that don't appear on the apps.

MilesT6060842

Bricks said:

katejo said:

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Going to visit an ill friend or relative is a good example of when it's important that a reasonably affordable, flexible ticket is available at short notice. Under these most recent proposals, where off-peak tickets are abolished completely, if they applied to the Leeds route, then there would only be one fare that would definitely be available on the day, and that would be the "Anytime single" which is priced at £160. If you were lucky, they would also be offering some off the new semi-flexible tickets, which could be any price up to that £160. But there's no guarantee of that. At the moment, the existence of the off-peak fare caps the cost for that journey at about £67.

This is what's important to understand about this proposed change. Currently, if you have to make a short notice trip to Leeds it should not cost you more than £67. Under the pilot scheme, that would change to £160.

Price gouging on last minute journeys will just driver customers away--to car rental, coaches, or clever ticketing sites that do bypass routes.  It's counter productive.

On a related point, historically some airlines offered "bereavement discount" schemes--you bought the ticket you needed at the available price last minute, and then put in a claim after the event with proof of entitlement for the discount (e.g. death certificate for near relative); and got a refund or a gift card for future travel.  If there will be high last minute train prices then we need to press for similar schemes.