A tale of two tickets

16 May 2011

London to Manchester. Not sure if I will get 06.55 or 07.25. The Tube can usually get you to Euston quickly at that time of the morning and, of course, wanting to take advantage of the great frequency of the service and get to Manchester quickly I go for open single which can be used on any train. £133 ouch.

Off peak single coming back – can be used on any train after 9.35 – £33 which is really good value.

Guess which train is the more crowded? The cheaper afternoon one of course. This pricing seems to be all about revenue generation not capacity management. Need to bear this in mind as Government and industry starts to mull changes to long-distance ticketing. If the industry had its way virtually all long-distance travel would be book ahead only, perfect for the industry, but sadly not the way passengers actually like to use the railway as our research shows.

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