Major reform set as Mark Harper also commits to Boris Johnson’s Great British Railways, a new public body
By Oliver Gill, CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT and
Camilla Turner, CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT
5 February 2023 • 9:40am
Return tickets are set to be scrapped as Rishi Sunak gives the green light to long-awaited sweeping reforms of Britain’s railways.
Mark Harper, the Transport Secretary, will next week announce plans for new ticketing arrangements as he outlines how the Government will address a crisis on the railways.
The rollout of “single-leg pricing” will be unveiled, The Sunday Telegraph has been told.
It means that two singles will equal a return – making return tickets redundant – having proved a success during trials with passengers.
Mr Harper will also commit to Great British Railways (GBR), a new public body that will bring the operation of track and trains under the same place for the first time. GBR was first unveiled by Boris Johnson and Grant Shapps in May 2021, but progress has stalled amid criticism that the body was tantamount to “nationalisation through the back door”.
During the hiatus, fears have grown that GBR would be scrapped. Mr Harper will show that “the idea that GBR is dead, is dead”, according to one person who has seen a draft of his speech announcing the reforms next week.
A Government source said that the speech was still being finalised this weekend. The new public body is expected to take on responsibility for timetabling and ticketing, which are currently controlled by the Department for Transport.
Transport Secretary Mark Harper arrives at BBC Broadcasting House in London,
Transport Secretary Mark Harper CREDIT: PA
Ticket pricing reform ranks among the most complicated issues that remain unsolved, since privatisation by successive governments. There are 55 million different fares, according to trade body the Rail Delivery Group.
Mr Harper is expected to hint at the greater use of ticketing technology – a signal that paper tickets could soon be scrapped in favour of QR codes and smartcards similar to the Oyster Card in use across public transport in London.
Single-leg pricing was trialled in 2020 by east coast train operator LNER. Return tickets were dropped in favour of two single tickets at the same price.
At the time, LNER said: “Rail tickets can be confusing. We want to make choosing and buying rail tickets simpler and more transparent. We hope this new structure is more straightforward: there are no more return tickets – one journey requires just one ticket.”
Keith Williams, the former deputy chair of John Lewis and ex-chief executive of British Airways, is expected to attend Mr Harper’s speech, which will be delivered in Westminster on Tuesday evening. Mr Williams conducted a two-a-half-year “root and branch” review of the railways on behalf of the Government and was the first to propose the idea of a “guiding mind” public body to prevent state meddling in day-to-day train operations.
But critics argue that Mr Johnson’s interpretation of Mr Williams’s concept would have meant greater rather than less state intervention. Mr Williams previously envisaged the public body to be akin to the “Fat Controller” after the cantankerous character from Thomas the Tank Engine. Sources say that under Mr Sunak, the Fat Controller “will be put on a diet”.
Fears persist, however, that GBR will throttle the role of the private sector on the railways.
Former minister John Penrose, Conservative MP for Weston-super-Mare, said: “Rather than bureaucrats or politicians pretending they know how much each passenger’s journey should cost, why not get lots of different rail firms competing to beat each others’ prices so tickets are always as cheap as possible?”
MP for Blackpool North Paul Maynard, rail minister under Boris Johnson added: “Mr Harper’s speech is long awaited. We are all keen to understand the shape and scope of GBR, and how the balance will be struck between the guiding mind and fat controller.
“As always, I’ll be looking to see the passenger’s interest placed firmly at the centre of policy making – and a recognition we need to get the passengers back if the railway is to avoid more painful times ahead.”
The current ticketing systems is an overcomplicated mess (especially when you look at things like split ticketing), so this sounds like a good idea *in theory*. But I can’t help suspecting that the end result will be that travelling by train will get even more expensive…
> Fears persist, however, that GBR will throttle the role of the private sector on the railways.
Wouldn’t that be terrible
return fares seem to have been redundant for years – apart from day returns. some sort of uniformity of pricing structures and options across the networks would be nice.
Ok so the idea is that the government takes control of ticket pricing, is looking to scrap paper tickets in favour of apps and two singles will be equal to the price of a return. Ok
So the trip from my town to Birmingham is something like £6.50 single, and few pennies more return. I would bet anything you like that all they’re going to do is keep the single ticket prices the same and make the return unavailable, effectively doubling the price.
And what happens if my phone gets nicked or dies or the app doesn’t work on my phone because it’s old, or *shock horror* not a smart phone? My elderly father hasn’t ever had a smart phone and never will.
I’m all for reform but they’re doing what they’ve been doing since 2010, not thinking it through and just throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks.
Well, if seats are limited on the days I want to travel, booking a *return* means I manage to buy either *both ways* or nothing at all.
If I have to buy two singles, I could end up managing to buy my ticket out, but not my ticket back. Unless there’s going to be a way of buying both tickets in a single transaction… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Return tickets are always cheaper than two singles so I’m concerned this will just push the price up even more.
Why scrap paper tickets? Let them die out on their own as more and more people are comfortable using contactless cards, but let the people who still need to use them (like elderly people) continue to do so.
That’s what Paris still does, years after saying they were ‘phasing out’ paper metro tickets. Some people just need them.
As soon as I’m too old for a railcard, I’m not travelling by train any more. I’ll have to get a car.
Also – they’re going to (I bet) make train fares EVEN more expensive than they already are at present, by removing return tickets.
We need a national strike against using the trains. They’re terrible. You need a mortgage to go on a day out.
to be fair. The ticketing should be done on energy expended. This includes riders weight including bags, speed and acceleration of the train. Number of stops. Temperature of the rails. Peak hours. Number of conductors sick that day. Then each rider would pay their fair share. the train operators would walk around with scales and make sure your paying for the weight that they are pulling.
They’ve effectively done this already.
I took a trip to London a few months back and was surprised to find that the all the types of return tickets weren’t showing up as options on the machine (inc some I knew were valid for the time I wanted to travel).
When I asked in the ticket office, the very helpful guy told me that now singles can be bought any time up to departure (rather than up to 24 hours before) so if you want flexibility it’s best to just rock up and pay before each leg. And.. that would almost always be significantly cheaper than the open return, so the machine doesn’t show them.
The guy was right too. I took the gamble and just bought the single back from Kings Cross at the station. The combined price of the two tickets was something crazy like eighty quid cheaper than the off peak return I’d set out to buy would have been (I wasn’t paying, so it didn’t really matter of course).
So returns will be the cost of two singles then – and effectively will be much more expensive
Arseholes
Reform the whole process by nationalising the rails and bringing it all under one owner. You won’t need to worry about peak/off peak tickets, you won’t need multiple tickets for different routes owned by different companies; it will make the whole system simple and easy to understand for everyone. Return tickets should stay though, seeing as they are going to be used by practically everyone for their journey and are cheaper. That money saving is an incentive to get people back on trains, which are still running below pre-pandemic levels by 10-20%.
Are Oyster cards still a thing in London apart from school kids?
I stopped using one years ago now you can just tap in with a bank card.
>There are 55 million different fares, according to trade body the Rail Delivery Group.
Crazy.
My daily train commute is £8 return at present.
It is £6.40 for a single ticket each way.
Does this mean I can look forward to a £13.20 daily commute now?
Tory logic: If they pay £10 for a single and £11 for a return we should get rid of returns and make it £9 for a single, this way we “reduced the prices of singles” while actually we were just fucking over working people again.
Ah, the old “55 million fares” line. Sounds scary, yes?
But: there are about 2500 stations, so roughly 2500*2499 possible journeys. That’s a bit over 6 million fares. Plus returns: that’s 12 million fares. Plus child variants of each of those fares, and we’re up to 24 million fares. Now add all the types of railcards, PlusBus, through tickets to London Underground, trams, Ireland and the Netherlands…
Here’s the thing – if you book a return ticket and there is a delay to either leg of the journey, then the *whole* ticket has to be refunded.
If you buy two singles, they only have to refund the leg of the journey that was delayed.
They’ve been using split-ticketing to screw customers out of that protection for quite a while.
I lived in France .. better faster train . and less expensive !! same in Germany !!this is not a change to make it easy system but to milk more money from us !!I booked a ticket return from Aldershot to Southall !! price was about £21.7 return !! single was £21.6 !!! this means next time will need to pay £43.2 !!! that is double the price !!!
LOL I will buy a car if that happens . this is absurd and against all gov policy to encourage sustainable method of transportation using public transport !! this is hypocrisy at highest level bcz this action do exactly the inverse
Government web services – when left to the department to sort out how it needs to work – generally come out fairly well. I’m thinking on line tax (HMRC) and car tax for example.
When It’s the actual government (e.g. cabinet office) trying to sort out on-line services for something that spans multiple private companies and some government departments we will end up with a total shambles. The design will be full of horrendous incompatible compromises, and the government will insist on it going live when it’s really no better than a dodgy beta version, and of course they will have spent 10 X the reasonable cost for the system because some dodgy pub owner friend of a cabinet minister will have “won” the systems contract.
Should be a boon for private bus companies and car sales and building more roads because “market forces” have shown no-one want to use the railways. Look forward to railway lines being converted to roads (As Edinburgh have already done also see see Beeching Cuts).
So this is supposed to make singles cheaper and leave returns at current prices. For some inexplicable reason I doubt that this will happen, the whole plan will be fucked up and we will just pay more on all tickets…..
Seriously, I get we can vote and everything, but that’s hopeless anyways. The current government is a bunch of cunts, the next will be a different bunch of cunts and everyone will be as corrupted as ever.
How do we make a real change and improve things?
Another positive since Rishni and his cabinet have come into power. Tories are working hard.
Tories doing Tory things, making a mess of everything they touch. Don’t vote Tory folk.
All I’m wondering is, what’ll happen to anytime day tickets? I currently buy anytime returns to get to and from uni, cause my lectures can end at unpredictable times, and it gives me the freedom to stay and study as long as I want… I stopped buying fixed singles years ago, and I’m not really interested in going back
25 comments
Article text:
Transport Secretary to scrap return rail tickets
Major reform set as Mark Harper also commits to Boris Johnson’s Great British Railways, a new public body
By Oliver Gill, CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT and
Camilla Turner, CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT
5 February 2023 • 9:40am
Return tickets are set to be scrapped as Rishi Sunak gives the green light to long-awaited sweeping reforms of Britain’s railways.
Mark Harper, the Transport Secretary, will next week announce plans for new ticketing arrangements as he outlines how the Government will address a crisis on the railways.
The rollout of “single-leg pricing” will be unveiled, The Sunday Telegraph has been told.
It means that two singles will equal a return – making return tickets redundant – having proved a success during trials with passengers.
Mr Harper will also commit to Great British Railways (GBR), a new public body that will bring the operation of track and trains under the same place for the first time. GBR was first unveiled by Boris Johnson and Grant Shapps in May 2021, but progress has stalled amid criticism that the body was tantamount to “nationalisation through the back door”.
During the hiatus, fears have grown that GBR would be scrapped. Mr Harper will show that “the idea that GBR is dead, is dead”, according to one person who has seen a draft of his speech announcing the reforms next week.
A Government source said that the speech was still being finalised this weekend. The new public body is expected to take on responsibility for timetabling and ticketing, which are currently controlled by the Department for Transport.
Transport Secretary Mark Harper arrives at BBC Broadcasting House in London,
Transport Secretary Mark Harper CREDIT: PA
Ticket pricing reform ranks among the most complicated issues that remain unsolved, since privatisation by successive governments. There are 55 million different fares, according to trade body the Rail Delivery Group.
Mr Harper is expected to hint at the greater use of ticketing technology – a signal that paper tickets could soon be scrapped in favour of QR codes and smartcards similar to the Oyster Card in use across public transport in London.
Single-leg pricing was trialled in 2020 by east coast train operator LNER. Return tickets were dropped in favour of two single tickets at the same price.
At the time, LNER said: “Rail tickets can be confusing. We want to make choosing and buying rail tickets simpler and more transparent. We hope this new structure is more straightforward: there are no more return tickets – one journey requires just one ticket.”
Keith Williams, the former deputy chair of John Lewis and ex-chief executive of British Airways, is expected to attend Mr Harper’s speech, which will be delivered in Westminster on Tuesday evening. Mr Williams conducted a two-a-half-year “root and branch” review of the railways on behalf of the Government and was the first to propose the idea of a “guiding mind” public body to prevent state meddling in day-to-day train operations.
But critics argue that Mr Johnson’s interpretation of Mr Williams’s concept would have meant greater rather than less state intervention. Mr Williams previously envisaged the public body to be akin to the “Fat Controller” after the cantankerous character from Thomas the Tank Engine. Sources say that under Mr Sunak, the Fat Controller “will be put on a diet”.
Fears persist, however, that GBR will throttle the role of the private sector on the railways.
Former minister John Penrose, Conservative MP for Weston-super-Mare, said: “Rather than bureaucrats or politicians pretending they know how much each passenger’s journey should cost, why not get lots of different rail firms competing to beat each others’ prices so tickets are always as cheap as possible?”
MP for Blackpool North Paul Maynard, rail minister under Boris Johnson added: “Mr Harper’s speech is long awaited. We are all keen to understand the shape and scope of GBR, and how the balance will be struck between the guiding mind and fat controller.
“As always, I’ll be looking to see the passenger’s interest placed firmly at the centre of policy making – and a recognition we need to get the passengers back if the railway is to avoid more painful times ahead.”
The current ticketing systems is an overcomplicated mess (especially when you look at things like split ticketing), so this sounds like a good idea *in theory*. But I can’t help suspecting that the end result will be that travelling by train will get even more expensive…
> Fears persist, however, that GBR will throttle the role of the private sector on the railways.
Wouldn’t that be terrible
return fares seem to have been redundant for years – apart from day returns. some sort of uniformity of pricing structures and options across the networks would be nice.
Ok so the idea is that the government takes control of ticket pricing, is looking to scrap paper tickets in favour of apps and two singles will be equal to the price of a return. Ok
So the trip from my town to Birmingham is something like £6.50 single, and few pennies more return. I would bet anything you like that all they’re going to do is keep the single ticket prices the same and make the return unavailable, effectively doubling the price.
And what happens if my phone gets nicked or dies or the app doesn’t work on my phone because it’s old, or *shock horror* not a smart phone? My elderly father hasn’t ever had a smart phone and never will.
I’m all for reform but they’re doing what they’ve been doing since 2010, not thinking it through and just throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks.
Well, if seats are limited on the days I want to travel, booking a *return* means I manage to buy either *both ways* or nothing at all.
If I have to buy two singles, I could end up managing to buy my ticket out, but not my ticket back. Unless there’s going to be a way of buying both tickets in a single transaction… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Return tickets are always cheaper than two singles so I’m concerned this will just push the price up even more.
Why scrap paper tickets? Let them die out on their own as more and more people are comfortable using contactless cards, but let the people who still need to use them (like elderly people) continue to do so.
That’s what Paris still does, years after saying they were ‘phasing out’ paper metro tickets. Some people just need them.
As soon as I’m too old for a railcard, I’m not travelling by train any more. I’ll have to get a car.
Also – they’re going to (I bet) make train fares EVEN more expensive than they already are at present, by removing return tickets.
We need a national strike against using the trains. They’re terrible. You need a mortgage to go on a day out.
to be fair. The ticketing should be done on energy expended. This includes riders weight including bags, speed and acceleration of the train. Number of stops. Temperature of the rails. Peak hours. Number of conductors sick that day. Then each rider would pay their fair share. the train operators would walk around with scales and make sure your paying for the weight that they are pulling.
They’ve effectively done this already.
I took a trip to London a few months back and was surprised to find that the all the types of return tickets weren’t showing up as options on the machine (inc some I knew were valid for the time I wanted to travel).
When I asked in the ticket office, the very helpful guy told me that now singles can be bought any time up to departure (rather than up to 24 hours before) so if you want flexibility it’s best to just rock up and pay before each leg. And.. that would almost always be significantly cheaper than the open return, so the machine doesn’t show them.
The guy was right too. I took the gamble and just bought the single back from Kings Cross at the station. The combined price of the two tickets was something crazy like eighty quid cheaper than the off peak return I’d set out to buy would have been (I wasn’t paying, so it didn’t really matter of course).
So returns will be the cost of two singles then – and effectively will be much more expensive
Arseholes
Reform the whole process by nationalising the rails and bringing it all under one owner. You won’t need to worry about peak/off peak tickets, you won’t need multiple tickets for different routes owned by different companies; it will make the whole system simple and easy to understand for everyone. Return tickets should stay though, seeing as they are going to be used by practically everyone for their journey and are cheaper. That money saving is an incentive to get people back on trains, which are still running below pre-pandemic levels by 10-20%.
Are Oyster cards still a thing in London apart from school kids?
I stopped using one years ago now you can just tap in with a bank card.
>There are 55 million different fares, according to trade body the Rail Delivery Group.
Crazy.
My daily train commute is £8 return at present.
It is £6.40 for a single ticket each way.
Does this mean I can look forward to a £13.20 daily commute now?
Tory logic: If they pay £10 for a single and £11 for a return we should get rid of returns and make it £9 for a single, this way we “reduced the prices of singles” while actually we were just fucking over working people again.
Ah, the old “55 million fares” line. Sounds scary, yes?
But: there are about 2500 stations, so roughly 2500*2499 possible journeys. That’s a bit over 6 million fares. Plus returns: that’s 12 million fares. Plus child variants of each of those fares, and we’re up to 24 million fares. Now add all the types of railcards, PlusBus, through tickets to London Underground, trams, Ireland and the Netherlands…
Here’s the thing – if you book a return ticket and there is a delay to either leg of the journey, then the *whole* ticket has to be refunded.
If you buy two singles, they only have to refund the leg of the journey that was delayed.
They’ve been using split-ticketing to screw customers out of that protection for quite a while.
I lived in France .. better faster train . and less expensive !! same in Germany !!this is not a change to make it easy system but to milk more money from us !!I booked a ticket return from Aldershot to Southall !! price was about £21.7 return !! single was £21.6 !!! this means next time will need to pay £43.2 !!! that is double the price !!!
LOL I will buy a car if that happens . this is absurd and against all gov policy to encourage sustainable method of transportation using public transport !! this is hypocrisy at highest level bcz this action do exactly the inverse
Government web services – when left to the department to sort out how it needs to work – generally come out fairly well. I’m thinking on line tax (HMRC) and car tax for example.
When It’s the actual government (e.g. cabinet office) trying to sort out on-line services for something that spans multiple private companies and some government departments we will end up with a total shambles. The design will be full of horrendous incompatible compromises, and the government will insist on it going live when it’s really no better than a dodgy beta version, and of course they will have spent 10 X the reasonable cost for the system because some dodgy pub owner friend of a cabinet minister will have “won” the systems contract.
Should be a boon for private bus companies and car sales and building more roads because “market forces” have shown no-one want to use the railways. Look forward to railway lines being converted to roads (As Edinburgh have already done also see see Beeching Cuts).
So this is supposed to make singles cheaper and leave returns at current prices. For some inexplicable reason I doubt that this will happen, the whole plan will be fucked up and we will just pay more on all tickets…..
Seriously, I get we can vote and everything, but that’s hopeless anyways. The current government is a bunch of cunts, the next will be a different bunch of cunts and everyone will be as corrupted as ever.
How do we make a real change and improve things?
Another positive since Rishni and his cabinet have come into power. Tories are working hard.
Tories doing Tory things, making a mess of everything they touch. Don’t vote Tory folk.
All I’m wondering is, what’ll happen to anytime day tickets? I currently buy anytime returns to get to and from uni, cause my lectures can end at unpredictable times, and it gives me the freedom to stay and study as long as I want… I stopped buying fixed singles years ago, and I’m not really interested in going back