Train operators working on changes to ‘dead’ season tickets
Train operators are drawing up plans for new season tickets that reflect post-pandemic patterns of working, RAIL can exclusively reveal.
With fewer people expected to commute five days a week, individual train operating companies have been submitting proposals to the Rail Delivery Group, which will then submit a plan for Department for Transport approval.
The Government’s official ‘work from home’ advice is being dropped from August 1, with employers given discretion to encourage staff back to the workplace. Rail services are operating at 16% of pre-COVID levels, while road traffic has returned to 86% of normal.
Great Western Railway has put forward plans for a season ticket valid for three days in any seven, or 12 days out of 28. Spokesman Dan Panes said: “These are just proposals at this stage. We know that 50% of our commuters have had conversations with their employers about working from home more often. Our research suggests commuters will travel into work three days a week on average.”
GWR had aimed to trial a flexible season ticket in 2021 but has brought the process forward. It had also planned to test it on specific routes but now proposes it across all services. The rate of discount has not been specified.
A survey by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) found that one in three office workers expect to work from home - at least initially - after the pandemic. That’s more than ten million people. And 44% of London workers want to make the change to remote working.
CEBR found that overall, 25-30% of employees will still be working from home on any given day throughout 2021, three times the number in 2019.
Pablo Shah, a CEBR economist, said: “This seismic shift, taking place in months rather than decades, will transform the worlds of transport, property and retail. Ten years ago, this would not have been possible.”
Transport Focus Chief Executive Anthony Smith described the annual season ticket as “pretty much dead”.
Northern has already announced new flexible season tickets. Its “flexi” ticket gives ten unlimited travel days for the price of nine, to be used at any time during a six-month period. The new season tickets are loaded onto smartcards valid initially on only one route in Yorkshire.
Mark Powles, customer and commercial director at Northern, said: “Unlike a normal season ticket, customers now only have to pay for the days they travel. Initially we are trialling the new flexi-season ticket for journeys between Harrogate and Leeds, but plan to roll the scheme out to other parts of the Northern network in the coming months.”
South Western Railway also
submitted a proposal adapting its current Carnet and Tap2Go smartcard products, while Govia Thameslink Railway is planning a flexi-season ticket on its Southern brand.
GTR’s website claims: “You can buy carnet tickets to travel whenever you want within three months, while paying less than you would if you bought a ticket on the day.”
The company says it is working to develop a new range of ticket products “to better meet the needs of the flexible worker”.
Abellio, which operates the Merseyrail and Greater Anglia franchises, promises “dynamic discounting” where passengers will get money off each time they travel on a route in a 12-month period.
A source at one train operator said: “Most train operators are putting in suggestions based on what they can deliver with their technology and their gatelines. They’re each going to be a bit different. What I resent is seeing people moaning that we’re not trying to change things. We know we have to do so.”
A separate source told RAIL: “You’ll still end up with more products layered on top of existing ones, and it will be down to consumers to look into their crystal balls when buying a ticket, to figure out what their travel patterns are likely to be. This solution is definitely sub-optimal in a flexible and digital world. Reform of fares regulation is really the key.”
Robert Nisbet, director of nations and regions at the Rail Delivery Group, said: “We fully understand that the way people are working and travelling is changing, and that new types of ticket are needed to reflect that. We are working with the Department for Transport on proposals for flexible season tickets and will be putting forward suggestions for how this could work very shortly.”
Campaign for Better Transport Chief Executive Darren Shirley said: “The Government should insist that all operators offer such tickets and that they give an equivalent (or better) discount to full-time season tickets. Part-time commuters do not need a repeat of carnet tickets that offered little savings.”
A DfT spokesman said it wanted reforms to benefit commuters nationwide and that it would announce further details “in due course”.