Rail passengers asked: Should fares be based on quality of service?

RAIL passengers will be asked whether fares should be based on quality of service.

It is one of a number of concepts being consulted on by the rail industry as it develops proposals to overhaul rail ticketing.

Respondents must state whether they believe it should be cheaper to travel on routes with slower, less regular and more basic trains, with better services becoming more expensive.

Other possibilities included in the consultation are abolishing peak and offpeak fares so passengers are charged the same throughout busier and quieter periods, giving discounts to regular travellers and reducing prices for e-tickets, but increasing them for paper tickets to reflect the difference in transaction costs.

The consultation is being launched on Monday by the Rail Delivery Group (RDG), which represents the industry, alongside passenger watchdog Transport Focus.

They will use the responses to produce a report containing proposals for governments to consider.

Any measures will be designed to be revenue neutral, with no change in average fares and no extra support from taxpayers.

The ticketing system is underpinned by regulations unchanged from the mid1990s, and have not kept pace with technology or how people work and travel.

Several layers of complexity have been added through individual franchise agreements over the past three decades, with little taken away. Around 55 million different fares exist, including long-standing anomalies such as charging a peaktime fare when half a trip is on an off-peak service, and split ticketing, where it can be cheaper to buy several tickets for a single journey.

RDG chief executive Paul Plummer said he wants to create “an easier-to-use fares system”.

He went on: “Reforming the rules about how tickets are sold and bought has the potential to transform the buying experience for customers, making it easier for people to be confident they are getting the right ticket.

“These reforms support what the industry is already doing to make improvements to fares alongside record investment in new train carriages, upgraded stations and extra services.”

Research commissioned by the RDG found that only one in three (34%) passengers are “very confident” they bought the best value ticket for their last journey, and just 29% were “very satisfied” with the ticket-buying experience.

Transport Focus chief executive Anthony Smith said: “Our research shows that rail passengers want a fares system that is simple to use, easy to understand and is flexible enough to cater to how people work and travel today.”

The consultation is hosted on britainrunsonrail.co.uk and involves a questionnaire that can be completed online or by post.