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.
