It’s been discussed countless times but now there’s a good chance customers will see the end of ‘cliff edge’ rail fares.
By cliff-edge I refer to the situation on certain mainlines where there’s an astronomical price gap between peak and off peak services.
Now The Sunday Times [paywall] reports that trade body Rail Delivery Group (RDG) wants to abolish such anomalies.
Consider the situation on the (normally) busy London-Manchester route which, at time of writing, has seen many trains suspended.
Here we find that the cost of a standard class London-Manchester excursion is £94.50 off-peak, but a staggering £369.40 (not a misprint) for a peak hour return. Both fares are walk-up and flexible.
We find (currently) that the final off-peak train of the afternoon departs at 1435. If travellers miss that departure they must hang around until 1857 for the next off-peak service.
It means that off-peak trains on either side of the peak operate full to bursting, while conversely some peak trains run with lots of empty seats.
At present it is the government who collects the fares, under ‘emergency measures’, rather than the operators.
During the pandemic The Treasury has spent £17 billion on keeping the network open. It now wants the operators to cut costs, to become more efficient.
Quoted by The Sunday Times, Andy Bagnall, RDG’s director-general said the industry needs to “harness digital technology to have a smoother curve of pricing through the day”.
It means “we will then have fewer trains running with empty seats and with less [off peak] crowding”.
These proposals have been submitted to the government which is currently consulting on a “Whole Industry strategic plan for rail”.