Train operators are pushing to break the traditional rules of rush hour tickets and replace them with rising airline-style prices.
The industry wants to eliminate peak and low-cost tickets and replace them with “demand-based pricing” for longer trips, reflecting the tactics used by airlines and Uber.
“We’d love to see dynamic pricing,” said Andy Bagnall, executive director of the new train operator Rail Partners.
Bagnall said train operators pushed for “a more demand-based pricing approach that really allows you to offer better value tickets, but offer a better customer experience.”
He said: “You don’t have that horrible first train after the peak ends [experience]which has three times as many passengers [because] everyone has been waiting for the first train because of that edge of the cliff. “
Radical ticket sales reforms are just a number of ideas being discussed with the Government.
“[Customers] they need a much simpler interface so they can have the confidence that they are getting the best rate to meet their needs, ”Bagnall said.
“[Customers want] an industry guarantee that when you sell me the ticket, that does what I want it to do, that will be the best possible price I can get no matter where I go. ”
He rejected the need to reduce the estimated 55 million tickets on British railways.
“What matters to people is not the complexity under the hood. It’s not a case of: do we want to lower it from 55 million to 25 million or five million? [fare types]. ”
Rail Partners is pushing for the private sector to play a bigger role in the country’s train network under the changes announced by Transport Secretary Grant Shapps more than a year ago.
Rail Partners ’predecessor body, the Rail Delivery Group, was previously criticized for having to cater to the needs of state-owned company Network Rail, as well as train operators whose priorities regularly came into conflict.
One of the central pillars of the Shapps reforms was Great British Railways, a new public sector body that would bring together tracks and trains for the first time.
Bagnall warned that if this led to greater state involvement in the train network, the future of the industry was doomed.
“We believe the railroad is at a fork in the road,” he said. “If we make the right decisions, if we take advantage of train companies to respond to customer needs, [we can] attract returning customers.
“On the other hand, [if] we are going the wrong way and making the wrong decisions: we will build a too centralized railway under Great British Railways with the role of unduly restricted operators … Ultimately, we will see a railway with a lower number of passengers, lower revenue, [and] likely to lead to further service reductions “.