Fare Dealer
RAIL fares expert Barry Doe says limiting advance ticket sales can help to retain the walk-on railway.
IT is undoubtedly true that there has been a huge growth in the number of passengers using the railway since privatisation.
Nigel Harris, in his editorial in RAIL 809, discusses the increase in frequency that has occurred on some routes. He says British Rail would have priced people off the trains with real fare rises, and that if a return to British Rail led to lower fares across the board the problem of overcrowding would get worse.
He is right. However, in my opinion, he is wrong to say we shall soon need to bid farewell to the walk-on railway as a result.
We need to ask what it is about privatisation that has caused this growth. It’s a topic that is rarely debated properly, usually because of entrenched political views. I was really annoyed, for example, to read in RAIL 808 of Transport Select Committee member Will Quince MP referring to the “bad old days of British Rail sandwiches”. What a pitifully trivial comment from someone who was only 13 when privatisation took place. In fact, although BR did have real fare
i th i i ti ti h journey-times and (Standard) Peak and OffPeak (OP) Returns at ten-year intervals since 1961. I confess several aspects surprised me. The memory plays tricks!
Firstly, if you showed the table to people who didn’t know when privatisation took place, what date would they come up with? If real improvements in frequency and speed define a big change then 1971 for Manchester, 1981 for Bristol and 1991 for Newcastle. All BR!
Yes, 2011 for Manchester again (frequency and speed), but one thing is certain: BR was not t t it d h th
introduction of HSTs it was 13 minutes faster in 1981 than today.
Look at the vast speed-up to Manchester between 1961 and 1971 - it was not bettered for another 40 years. Finally, look at the gradual (but huge), improvements in speed for Newcastle over three decades, down to 2hrs 36mins by 1991 - 11 minutes faster than today’s best.
Yes, there have been increases in frequency, but only Manchester’s 46 a day is really dramatic. And trains generally now have far Anytime) Returns shown increased between 18- and 20-fold. Yes, BR had real increases - although OP Returns rose less than inflation.
Since 1991 inflation has only doubled. But many Anytime Returns have quadrupled, while OP Returns have risen rather more than inflation.
In other words, fares have risen rather faster in real terms since 1991, compared with the previous 30 years under BR. The last 15 years wholly within the privatised era has featured retail prices rising by 50%, yet Anytime Returns to Bristol rose 180% and OP 75%.
So why are peak trains so crowded, despite these real price rises? It seems to me there are two reasons. Firstly, faster and more frequent services have attracted long-distance seasonticket holders who (although they never like to admit it) travel very cheaply.
Secondly, all the above ignores advance tickets. These were invented (by BR) to fill empty seats at quiet times. Instead, they have become available at all times and cause overcrowding.
It is ludicrous that while the £130 OP Return to Newcastle is rightly barred in the afternoon peak and only the £278 Anytime Return is allowed, if you look at the website a month or so ahead you can find every peak train having seats for only £64.
It is this that causes overcrowding. We don’t have to say farewell to the walk-on railway. All that’s needed is for operators to cease offering advance tickets in the peaks.
I’d go one step further. Far from having the peaks as reservation-only (which would create its own problem of trains leaving with lots of no-shows), bar all reservations in the peaks.
Incidentally, would a season ticket holder from Doncaster be told that he could reserve just one train home, and that if he worked late and missed it he couldn’t return until after the peak? And could a £332 ‘Anytime’ Return to Manchester be restricted to one reserved train home? It’s unworkable.
So no, we don’t need higher fares to price people off. Just ensure only season ticket holders and those with Anytime fares are allowed on peak inter-city trains - and make them literally turn-up-and-go with no reservations permitted.