Rail passengers face ‘dynamic’ airline-style surge pricing

AIRLINE-STYLE surge pricing could be introduced on the railways under reforms being considered by ministers.

Train operators want peak and offpeak rail fares to be scrapped and replaced with “demand-led pricing” for longer journeys. Those reforms would be coupled with a guarantee that commuters pay the lowest possible fare on shorter distance services.

“We would like to see dynamic pricing,” said Andy Bagnall, the chief executive of the new train operator body Rail Partners. He said train operators were lobbying for “a more demand-led pricing approach that actually allows you to give better value tickets, but give a better customer experience”.

Mr Bagnall said: “You don’t have that awful first train after the peak ends [experience], which has three times as many passengers [because] everyone’s been waiting for the first train because of that cliff edge.”

Sweeping reforms to ticketing are just a range of ideas being discussed with the Government.

“[Customers] need a much simpler interface so that they can have confidence they are getting the best fare to meet their needs,” said Mr Bagnall. He dismissed the need to reduce the estimated 55m ticket types on Britain’s railways. “What people care about is not the complexity under the bonnet.”

Rail Partners is pushing for the private sector to play a greater role in the country’s train network under changes announced by Grant Shapps, the Transport Secretary, more than a year ago.

A central plank of Mr Shapps’ reforms was Great British Railways, a new public sector body that would bring tracks and trains together for the first time.

Mr Bagnall warned that if this led to greater involvement in the network by state, the industry’s future was doomed. “We believe that the railway is at a fork in the tracks,” he said. “If we make the right choices, if we harness the train companies to respond to customer needs, [we can] attract customers back.”