RAIL fares expert Barry Doe says regulation has added complexity to our fares system.
OH dear! The panel on page 16 in RAIL 834, headed ‘What fares are regulated?’, began: “Broadly speaking, in England and Wales all Standard Class Anytime fares are regulated…”
It might as well have begun: “Broadly speaking, it never rains in the Lake District”! The irony is that if only it had been correct, rail fares wouldn’t be in the mess they’re in today.
On privatisation, the three Standard walkon returns between London and Manchester (using today’s names) were £100 Anytime, £43 Off-Peak and £33 Super OP.
Legislation capped just the OP Return, so I said at the time this would mean the Super OP would be withdrawn and the Anytime would soar ahead, because these were the only ways operators could increase revenue.
Today’s Virgin fares prove I was right, for the only two walk-on returns on offer are the Anytime (£338) and the OP (£83.90). The increase in the Retail Prices Index, still used to calculate capping, is 80% since privatisation - the OP has risen 95% and the Anytime 238%.
My colleague Christian Wolmar’s excellent piece on ‘rail fares anger’, on pages 78-79 of RAIL 834, refers to the ridiculous situation whereby OP returns are £1 more than the single. Well, yes, but historically it was the other way round - British Rail introduced singles at £1 less than the returns. Pedantic? Not quite.
When OP Returns (Savers) were introduced they were only returns. The single applied all day, the Anytime Return was double the single, and the Saver and Super Saver Returns in between.
However, over time we started to get cases where (say) the single was £30 (Anytime Return £60) but the SuperSaver Return was only £29, so at off-peak times clerks sold the £29 SuperSaver Return if someone wanted a single.
That led to confusion among passengers, so BR instituted today’s system whereby any return that is less than the Anytime single must have a corresponding single £1 lower.
Thanks to capping we’ve now reached the
ludicrous situation where many OP returns are well under half the Anytime single. The problem with having new OP singles at half the OP Return is that it would mean today’s OP single from London to Manchester would have to fall from an already-cheap £82.90 to £41.95. Who makes up that loss?
Turning to part-time seasons - they sound a wonderful idea, but how would they work on longer-distance flows?
A Standard Weekly from Winchester to London is £123.80. “Unfair,” cries someone who only works three days a week. “I have to pay £68.30 each day instead.” Really? £123.80 is already cheaper for just two days!
Do you really expect a three-day part-time season pro-rata the weekly at (say) around £75? That’s only a little more than one return. It might attract more people to travel, but that is far from what is wanted on such commuting corridors. We really need a proper debate regarding seasons.
Daily commuters cause the need for extra trains and track capacity at vast extra cost for the industry, and a private business would charge such users more than off-peak travellers to reflect this. Yet our railway charges them vastly less. It’s highly political!