No. When you're planning a journey from London to Edinburgh you should be able to go to the national rail journey planner and get the cheapest ticket, the shortest travel time, and then first class options on top.
http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/
You shouldn't need to go to a separate website to include weird options like split tickets, broken journeys, or alternate routes. These should all be built into the system.
The reason these weird options exist is because the UK train ticketing system is so stupidly complicated.
Prices for you aren't going to come down, but those of use that know what they're doing will lose out.
Also, people want to get from A to B the quickest. Taking longer, and possibly slower alternative routes is absolutely not an option, considering how our trains are already slow compared to most other nations anyway.
> Also, people want to get from A to B the quickest
Clearly that's not right. Some people want to travel the quickest. Some want to travel the cheapest. Some want to travel in the most comfortable way.
(OK everyone wants to travel at 125mph non stop from their local station to their destination, with a service every 5 minutes, for free. These changes aren't going to do that, they'll simply remove the choices that people have, and removing choice gives no benefit to the traveling public.)
As multiple people have pointed out you seem to live in a dreamworld where everyone can sit down and work out pricing, and doesn't mind going slower or less comfortably. But here's a thought, what if it's possible to have all of those things at a reasonable price? That's the aim of such changes, by removing shareholders all profits can go back into improvements, just look at TfL. Travelling in London, while not 100% awesome, is still miles better than the rest of the country.
I'm at uni in exeter, it's sometimes cheaper to fly from Yorkshire down there than take the train, that is absolutely ridiculous.
You're the exception, not the rule my friend.
Most european countries spend far more per passenger-mile in subsidies for the rail network. This would allow cheaper tickets, but that would mean more students taking the train instead of the coach, and therefore even less room. Until we build more infrastructure we can't sensibly reduce ticket prices.
The changes in discussion now are nothing to do with removing shareholders, it's about 'simplifying' the tickets. This will cause 1% of passengers to pay £50 more, and 99% of passengers to pay 50p less, all because that 99% value their time over buying their tickets from someone other than 'thetrainline' (which saves £1 a ticket straight up)
However if you do remove shareholders, you'll save about 3% on the price of train tickets -- i.e. they'll cost the same next year that they do today. Whoppee.
I went to Exeter Uni, I drove down from Warrington. The train is expensive, but the reason for that is that crosscountry trains are massively overcrowded, and the decision not to run longer trains on crosscountry routes is down to the government, not to Arriva (or whoever runs crosscountry)
Last time I took the train to the south west I chose to travel on ATW and FGW rather than Cross Country.
However if I were going to travel Leeds to Exeter tomorrow, I would go to 'trainsplit.com', type "Leeds", "Exeter", and select the date, and within 30 seconds find a fare for £62.61 (including the fee for using the service)
Now if you were to buy it at the station it would cost £153, which is silly.
Banning split ticketing ("simplifying") will not drop the price Renationalising the rail network may drop that price to £148
The reason that "simplifying" tickets and "removing anomolies" is again in the news is because more and more people are doing it, and this is harming profits.
All those travel options are still there. But now instead of paying something (but a bit less than other people) you're paying nothing (the same as everyone else).
I don't see how losing your cheaper price is a disadvantage if you're now paying nothing.
People who like obscure routing hacks can still optimise for stuff - quicker trains, more scenic journeys, nice rolling stock, not Virgin.
So .. how exactly do the savings come about? The electricity comes from the same power stations. You're not buying it on the spot market. Literally the only thing the power companies do is billing. The only way they make a profit is through confusing pricing and market inertia.
As someone else said, spending ages getting cheap tickets is only free if your time is worthless.
It's not true that it's as simple as putting numbers in a price comparison website because energy companies use bafflement pricing.
We know they use bafflement pricing because we need Tariff Comparison Rates so people can compare.
Ignoring for a moment that some tenants can't change; some can change but are told they can't; some people in debt or on prepayment meters can't change; people with some smart meters have limited options; (this list is quite a few people who can't change) we are left with people who need to work out if they need cheap price per unit (but with a large standing order charge), or cheap standing order charge with a higher price per unit.
The other two reasons we know it's not easy to switch are 1) OFGEM has to regulate the price comparison websites to prevent poor behaviour and 2) most people never switch.
(I find it annoying g you've been downvoted. You're making points in good faith and not being rude.)
However I strongly suspect you're wrong -- people choose cheaper tickets all the time, they book specific trains in advance and they travel at non-business times of the day ("off-peak"), and they choose cheaper services (say 'virgin only' from Crewe to Manchester, rather than 'any permitted')
This is good -- it allows you to make choices. Why would you want to take those choices away?
We are talking urban transit here and not advance bookable trains. If given the choice of a 20% cheaper ticket but half the trains people would take the more frequent service.
Why take the choice away? Because more operators means fewer trains/busses/trams per operator as the infrastructure is generally limited. So in urban areas shared ticketing is what customers prefer.
"The same with transport -- there's half a dozen ways to travel from say Edinburgh to London"
That's not urban transport.
> Why take the choice away? Because more operators means fewer trains/busses/trams per operator as the infrastructure is generally limited. So in urban areas shared ticketing is what customers prefer.
In well run urban areas (like London) the competition comes from providers bidding to run the service, but the actual specification of the service including the conditions and ticketing, are done by the local authority. There are multiple bus operators in London, but most people don't realize that.
The day to day choice comes down to choosing Bus vs Tube vs Bike vs Uber vs Taxi.
In poorly run areas (like Manchester), the on-bus competition rarely exists, and when it does tickets aren't interchangable.
> If given the choice of a 20% cheaper ticket but half the trains people would take the more frequent service.
Some people would. You and I would, because we're highly paid IT professionals. Others wouldn't -- hence the reason that where direct commuting services do compete (say Milton Keynes to London), some buy flexible tickets, others buy "Virgin only" ones to save 15%.
Board the 1900 or 1920 ('off peak') and it's standing room only.
Transport is not 'primarilly for commuters'. There are very few commuters traveling from Warrington to London.
You're taking your corner case (local commuting on a metro style service) and applying it to the network as a whole. This is a failing. However you still have a choice. I used to commute from Leighton Buzzard to London. I could either
1) Take the London Midland service into Euston and tube on (most frequent, least comfortable, slightly faster) 2) Take the Southern service to Shepherds Bush and walk (less frequent, more comfortable, slightly slower) 3) Take the commuter bus (slower, far cheaper, less frequent) 4) Drive (slower, cheaper than the train, more hassle)
When we were both doing 5 days a week we took the train, as it was less hastle. When we dropped to 3 days a week we drove, as it was far cheaper.
Commuter tickets are already massively subsidized (35% discount for being a commuter traveling from Guildford to London for example vs a one off trip), I hope those are got rid of when they get rid of break of journey. That will allow large scale price cuts across the network.
That's fine, until the Lazy people conspire to take away the choice from the rest of us.
In the UK, we have people complaining about the price of power, however all you have to do is visit a site like uswitch.com, put in your details, and save hundreds, yet millions of people haven't done that, instead spending their energy complaining about the prices.
The same with transport -- there's half a dozen ways to travel from say Edinburgh to London, including Planes, Train (multiple operators), Car, Taxi and Coaches. They all have pros and cons.
But because people can't be bothered to either look up different options themselves, or go somewhere like trainsplit.com, there is a lot of pressure to "remove loopholes" like break of journey, split ticketing, slower but cheaper trains, etc, meaning those of us who do travel cheaply will lose out, because a few selfish lazy people can't be bothered to visit a website.