Rail industry announces radical overhaul of train fares in Britain

Train travellers between Scotland, Sheffield and London are guinea-pigs for ‘clearer, simpler ticket choices’

Ticket options offered by kiosks at train stations can be confusing (AFP/Getty Images)

Pity the poor traveller who turns up at London St Pancras station and tries to buy an off-peak return ticket to Sheffield, at the end of the East Midlands line, from a machine.

The ticket machine is programmed to offer a bewildering selection of options: for East Midlands Trains only (which is first-class only, at £190); Any Permitted Route (£150); a bizarre combination of Hull Trains and Trans-Pennine Express (£125); and — the correct answer for the next available fast, direct train — “Via Chesterfield” (£115).

To counter such confusion and complexity, the rail industry is promising the most radical overhaul of train fares for more than 30 years.

The move also aims to remove some of the absurdities of ticket prices, and the tricks that some travellers use to cut fares. The result should be greater clarity, with cheaper deals for many passengers whose journeys involve a change of trains.

Travellers between the capital and Scotland’s two biggest cities should be able to access rail fares that are presented as clearly as air fares.

The fares regime across the UK was established in the mid-1980s. At the time far fewer people travelled by train, there was no competition from budget airlines and the main discount tickets were “Savers”, the predecessors of today’s Off-Peak Returns.

Fares arrangements were frozen in at the time of privatisation, a policy intended to protect the travelling public against excessive fares rises or disadvantageous changes to conditions. But the result is a system riddled with inconsistency.

For many journeys, a traveller is incentivised to use “split tickets” — covering a journey with two or more tickets to obtain a lower fare.

Current rules require operators to set and maintain a through price even where there are cheaper deals.

On a trip from Penzance in Cornwall to Kyle of Lochalsh in north-west Scotland, the cheapest through fare a month from today is £233.70. It is a simple matter almost to halve that fare by splitting the journey at Edinburgh, but a determined traveller can save still more with the judicious use of further split-tickets.

The Rail Delivery Group (RDG), which represents train companies and Network Rail, is promising “a best value end-to-end ‘through fare’” on some test routes, combining the cheapest fares for each leg of the journey.

The spurious through fares will be removed from the system, signalling a fundamental change. At present train operators are able only to add fares to the existing options, with no mechanism for removing fares for older, less relevant routes which passengers do not use.

The RDG calculates that between Britain’s 2,500 stations, there are more than 16 million different train fares — “many of which nobody buys,” according to Jacqueline Starr, the organisation’s Managing Director of Customer Experience.

“We know customers can find it hard to get the right ticket for their journey due to complex rules and regulations built up by governments over decades. This also makes it more difficult to give passengers the right, simple options on ticket machines,” she said.

“Working with government, we’re determined to overhaul the system to cut out red-tape, jargon and complication to make it easier for customers to buy fares they can trust, including from ticket machines.”

The East Midlands route has been chosen as a testbed because services have improved so dramatically since privatisation, yet the ticket options remain bewildering.

Between London, Edinburgh and Glasgow, the budget airlines have shown how to present fares in a straightforward manner. But anyone consulting the National Rail website for tickets between the English and Scottish capitals a week from today will be offered “Return from £138” and “2 Singles from £87.50”.

The former is a flexible, “walk-up” off-peak return, the latter a combination of two Advance tickets.

The vision of the RDG is that the prospective traveller would be presented with a simpler message — “Best price £87.50” — with more options available if required.

Change will not happen quickly, but it is hoped the initial trial will begin in May.