Time to introduce the Basic Fare

One of the key issues for Great British Railways will be to sort out the fares structure.

Innovation and courage are essential. Everyone agrees that the current system is far too complex and unworkable, and incomprehensible to everyone but Barry Doe - and even he, understandably, struggles to explain the logic behind it.

So, without wishing to tread on his territory, here is a potential starting point for any reform: there should be a basic fare for any journey between two stations on the network (the best possible solution would be to use the current off-peak return divided by two).

This Basic Fare would be very widely advertised and be available on as many services as possible. Given that peak services are no longer worthy of the name, very few trains should be designated as such.

The Basic Fare would essentially be based on mileage, although this might be varied in different regions as a form of ‘levelling up’. Season tickets would be based on a certain number of ‘Basic Fares’.

But then… here’s the clever and more difficult bit. Extra amounts would be added on for (say) a faster service, a peak-time train, or First Class. And vice versa - there could be reductions for slower services, for poor rolling stock, railcards, or people travelling in pairs or as families.

The entire railcard system could be scrapped, and instead older and younger people would always qualify for discounts on the basic fare, as would people travelling together.

Moreover, the extras (for, say, peak-time travel) would be calibrated. So, there could be a £10 extra train on the shoulders of the peak, and a £50 extra one at the busiest time. And these would be clearly advertised as such.

The whole idea would be to create a system that is both flexible and simple. The top crazy fares of several hundred pounds for 200-mile journeys would be scrapped, as would the ridiculously low £10 fares at the other end of the scale. Advance booking would qualify for a discount, but then if people took the wrong train, the cost of their journey would only be topped up to the Basic Fare or to the appropriate fare on a peak train - this would reduce the fear factor of buying advance tickets.

The crucial aspect is that each of these would be explicit and properly explained, so that people knew exactly what they were getting and why they were paying a particular amount.

This radical change is made feasible because government now holds all the levers - it just has to be brave and make a decision to radically change the whole structure.

So, can we start a campaign for a Basic Fare? Can anyone object to this as a coherent approach of making a start to break this ghastly deadlock over fares, which has gone for decades?

Yes, there will be winners and losers. Yes, the Treasury may lose out - but I doubt it. And by making fares transparent and clear, the public would respond by jumping on trains.