Train Fares

In his UK Transport blog, Patrick Crozier claims that rail fares haven't really risen; although walk-on fares have gone through the roof (and are the highest in Europe), the availability of cheap inflexible book-weeks-in-advance tickets mean average fares have come down.

I'm not sure that's a valid argument; the reason a greater proportion of travellers buy advance tickets is that that's all they can afford. To me, a restricted ticket with no option to change schedule which has to be booked a considerable time in advance is worth rather less than a walk-up ticket which can be bought immediately before travel and gives a choice of return journey.

He gave me this reply to my emailed comment:

I hope to get round to a proper reply on fares - I've had quite a lot of feedback on this one. I would just say this: to me a cheap fare albeit with restrictions is lot more valuable than a more expensive, flexible one. It is the difference between travelling and not travelling.

I'm afraid I don't buy his argument here; a heavily restricted ticket is worth less because of the restrictions; over the past couple of years I've made a lot of journeys by Virgin Trains; on all occasions I've had to purchase the more expensive "saver" tickets because either I haven't been able to book far enough ahead, or I've needed the flexibility to change my return journey. This applies to an awful lot of journeys, especially business travel.

Posted by TimHall at August 12, 2002 10:48 AM