FGW and HEx launch Rail-fly

This from First Great Western...

An international airline and two UK train companies are making it possible for their customers to travel from Bristol to Brisbane under just one booking.

Until now this trip, without a car, would have required at least three separate bookings and three separate transactions with three different transport providers.

Soon travellers from 11 Southwest destinations, including Bath, Bristol and Cardiff, can arrange their international flights and rail fares under one booking, thanks to a partnership between Singapore Airlines, Heathrow Express and First Great Western.

If only changing advanced tickets for use on a different service could be made as simple...

Autumn statement on Fares

This from the Chancellor's Autumn Statement:

Rail Fares
1.272 To help households with living costs the government will further cap the average increase in regulated rail fares for the 2014 calendar year to RPI. This will benefit over a quarter of a million annual season ticket holders who will, on average in 2014, save £25. For instance, an annual season ticket from Chelmsford to London should be around £35 less in 2014 than it would have been without this change whilst an annual season ticket from Oxford to London should be around £45 less. This measure will complement the decision by the Mayor of London to cap the average increase in Transport for London fares at RPI for 2014.

1.273 Autumn Statement 2013 confirms that the permitted 'flex’ above the overall cap on average rail fares will be reduced to 2%. A commuter with a £2,000 season ticket could save up to £60 because of this measure, in a scenario in which the operator had chosen to apply the maximum permitted increase.
 
1.274 Autumn Statement 2013 also confirms a trial of flexible rail season ticketing that will take place in the South East. The innovative products being tested will benefit those who work flexibly or part-time.

Hmmm...

Putting aside the challenge of recalculating every fare before tomorrow, this is good news for passengers.
 
Note that our Chancellor even has a sense of humour - focusing on fares from Chelmsford, the home to erstwhile rail minister and the notoriously train-shy Simon Burns MP.

Greater Anglia colleagues, therefore, will be best placed to advise whether this particular policy innovation has been a success

ATOC starts journey from wrong place?

This from Captain Deltic...

I note that ATOC's Michael Roberts has a letter published in the Pink 'Un today, in which he says:

Your article “Network Rail lays out £37bn spending plans” (January 9) states that the “average rail fare has risen 40 per cent in the past decade”.

Rather than taking an average of all the prices that were advertised, looking at tickets people actually purchased reveals that between 2001-02 and 2011-12, the average price paid by passengers for a single journey expressed at 2011-12 prices fell by 1.9 per cent, hovering round £5 through that period. That is down to train companies working to attract passengers by offering a range of good value fares, including cheap advance tickets and Railcard deals.
 
So, the average cost of a journey between 2001-02 and 2011-12 'hovered around £5'.

Yet another case of Year Zero statistical legerdemain.

In 1991-92, with the recession biting the average fare, at 2011-12 prices, was er... £4.30.

And while passenger journeys have increased by just over 80% over the same period, subsidy per journey is still 50% more than in 1991-92!

Proof positive of the triumph of privatisation?

So just how expensive are UK rail fares?

This from The Man in Seat 61...

So the next time someone says (or you read) "Britain has the highest rail fares in Europe", you'll know this is only 15% of the story.  The other 85% is that we have similar or even cheaper fares, too.

Read his analysis here.

Ticket simplification explained

This seen at St Pancras, with a bowler tip to @13milepost...

What could be simpler?

ATOC - Mobile ticketing goes live

Good news indeed from ATOC... 

Buy your rail ticket on the move with National Rail Enquiries

It is now even easier for passengers to buy train tickets on the move using their smartphone, thanks to National Rail Enquiries (NRE) updates and improvements to its mobile website and smartphone app.

Wherever they are and whenever they want, people using either the NRE mobile website or the NRE downloadable app can for the first time get the latest up-to-date train travel information and buy their rail tickets in one place.

So does this mean that passengers can now buy tickets whilst on the train without being treated like criminals? (No, of course not! Ed)

UPDATE: This from Steve Strong...

When I first saw this I got quite excited, thinking that the franchised TOCs had taken a leaf out of the Open Access Operators book and were now allowing passengers to buy tickets aboard trains, through their Smart Phones.

If you can't do this what is the point of announcing this 'improvement' to the app and claiming you can 'buy a ticket on the move'?

Gideon Gripped!

This from @RachTownsendITV (for non Twitter regulars read from the bottom up)...

That's the SOFA slashed then.

Fares and InterCity West Coast

The Fact Compiler has been busy on Twitter today following the announcement of the RPI figures which equate to Ouch.

With the formula for January's rail fare increase being RPI+3 that equates to double Ouch!

Or, in new money, an average fare increase of 6.2%.

Where is Greening?

No matter.

Meanwhile, perhaps readers might like to savour the following musical interlude in advance of tomorrow's excitement.

Where is Greening?

It contains the following lines:

I would have given you all of my heart

but there's someone who's torn it apart

and she's taking almost all that I've got

Indeed!

Enjoy, or not!

And where is Greening?

We've had the circuses, time for the bread!

An interesting week, if the chattering classes are to be believed.

First (ahem) there is tomorrow's announcement on the size of the January fares increase (expected to be RPI plus Ouch).

Having had circuses over the last two weeks surely it is now time for the people to have bread as well? 

So let's see whether Greening has prevailed upon Gideon to throw passengers some stale crumbs by limiting the percentage increase over RPI? Eye doesn't advise holding your breath.

Also on the Horizon is the name of the InterCity West Coast franchise winner, with an announcement expected tomorrow or Wednesday.

Happily it looks as if managing irate passengers and shouty men with beards will fall to Cruella; as Cameron, Clegg and Greening are all taking a well earned post Olympic break.

Perhaps the postal service misplaced their invitation to the sun drenched delights of Necker Island? 

Railway costs explained No94

Good news for fans of costly bureaucracy and pointless man marking!

Whilst NR and the TOCs are attempting, through Alliances, to remove the duplication of roles that adds so much to industry costs what is the Rail Regulator up to?

Why, duplicating the work already undertaken by Passenger Focus!

Compare and contrast: 

This from the ORR published today: Fares and ticketing – information and complexity

With this from Passenger Focus published at the end of last month: Ticket to Ride

One step forward, two steps back, eh?

UPDATE: This from Orrville (Geddit!?! Ed)...

The good people at Passenger Focus are no doubt be delighted that ORR are now also doing their job for them, thus reducing confusion, increasing clarity and building confidence on which of the numerous organisations actually has responsibility for passenger’s interests.

Meanwhile, no comment from Mr Price-Right on the £2.2bn annual increase in Network Rail’s debt...

Fares consultation - slapdash is the word!

This from Mrs A P Tis...

May I salute the Department for Transport for living up to its legendary reputation for attention to detail?

A quick perusal of the Fares & Ticketing consultation document, published on the DfT website yesterday afternoon, reveals incomplete sentences and sections at the bottom of several pages.

Naughty naughty!

If you were passenger and hadn't completed certain journeys you could expect a fine.

Can someone at Marsham Street please get a grip!