Flexible season tickets might not be what they seem

New ticket product fails to resolve fundamental structural fare problems.

A new flexible season ticket, accompanied by a considerable fanfare of publicity, was launched to prospective rail travellers from

June 28. The season ticket, as originally conceived, provided a discount for journeys that allowed daily travel for a week or longer, with the added benefit of additional, effectively free, journeys at weekends.

The relevance of the product has been in decline since Privatisation, when 50% of passenger income was from this source. It had been evident before the response to the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated the trend of working from home that the daily trip to a fixed point of work can be avoided using digital technology and conferencing facilities.

Passenger groups have long campaigned for a season ticket with validity that does not assume daily travel and could be used in a similar way to a carnet. These involve the prepurchase of multiple ordinary tickets (often 10), for a price less than if that number of tickets had been purchased individually. Carnets are typically valid for three months and are offered at different price points for peak and off-peak travel.

SMALL REDUCTION

The flexible season ticket product which has been available since June 28

is a more restricted deal that allows eight journeys in a 28-day period, but the price discount is much lower and varies widely in different places. Using a simple division of eight days travel out of 28, the discount that might be expected is 71% – but actual reductions appear to be much smaller.

Critics of the new ticket point out that it resolves few of the structural

problems with fares. These include the need for single-leg pricing, addressing the issue of split ticketing and the excessive demand for the first train in the timetable offering off-peak fares. There is also the evident trend for significantly reduced travel on Mondays and Fridays, as these have developed into the days of choice to work from home.

Joel Coulson London commuters are among those who might or might not benefit from the newly introduced flexible season ticket. TfL is now lengthening Class 345 seven-car units to nine vehicles. The first unit to gain its extra two carriages is No. 345010, seen arriving at Acton Main Line while working a London Paddington-Hayes & Harlington service on June 15.