In message <6lams71r6ri331sa5vv2mehhp5spsag...@4ax.com>, at 10:15:05 on Sun, 3 Jun 2012, Scott <newsgro...@gefion.myzen.co.uk> remarked:
>>Taking your example of the return from Leeds to London. If you were on
>>a train that did not stop at Doncaster then it would be no use
>>presenting a single ticket to Doncaster because that ticket would be
>>invalid on that train. Similarly it would be no use presenting a
>>ticket from Doncaster to London because that would be invalid for the
>>same reason.
>>However, as you say, if the train does stop at Doncaster, there is no
>>way the any such ploy could be prevented.
>For sake of argument, could the ticket examiner not carry a portable
>device to check that the ticket has passed through a barrier, similar
>to the checking that takes place by inspectors of Oyster cards on
>board trains?
Smartcard tickets could contain such an audit trail, and card tickets could be stamped with old fashioned ink (in the composting machine), but print-at-home and M-tickets (on mobiles) might be more of a challenge.
-- Roland Perry
In message <R9Gyr.1533293$4z7.1475...@fx08.am4>, at 10:24:02 on Sun, 3 Jun 2012, Mrcheerful <g.odonnel...@yahoo.co.uk> remarked:
>> For sake of argument, could the ticket examiner not carry a portable
>> device to check that the ticket has passed through a barrier, similar
>> to the checking that takes place by inspectors of Oyster cards on
>> board trains?
>what, like a little hand held clipper?
A clipper with a built-in mag stripe reader?
-- Roland Perry
<mel.row...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>On Jun 3, 7:45 am, MM <kylix...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>> On Sat, 2 Jun 2012 09:48:33 -0700 (PDT), Mel Rowing
>> <mel.row...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>> >On Jun 2, 4:51 pm, allantracy <allanbintr...@ireland.com> wrote:
>> >> Of course, there are perfectly valid reasons, totally unconnected with
>> >> obtaining the best value fare, where someone might want to split their
>> >> tickets.
>> >> For example, you travel from London to Doncaster (on a return ticket)
>> >> but decide to begin your return journey, for some unforeseen reason,
>> >> from Leeds (requiring a Leeds to Doncaster single by way of excess)
>> >> would this also be outlawed.
>> >> Anyway, I believe there are even mobile phone applications that will
>> >> arrange (work out) the best split ticketing fares nowadays and
>> >> presumably order the tickets online as well.
>> >> It seems the genie has been well and truly let out of the bottle and,
>> >> short of tearing up the existing fare structure, no way of stopping it
>> >> either.
>> >> As for the idea of validation, how do you prove it and how do you stop
>> >> passengers offering just the one ticket, as necessary, when the ticket
>> >> inspection takes place?
>> >That's where the necessity of not using non-stop trains comes in.
>> >Taking your example of the return from Leeds to London. If you were on
>> >a train that did not stop at Doncaster then it would be no use
>> >presenting a single ticket to Doncaster because that ticket would be
>> >invalid on that train. Similarly it would be no use presenting a
>> >ticket from Doncaster to London because that would be invalid for the
>> >same reason.
>> >However, as you say, if the train does stop at Doncaster, there is no
>> >way the any such ploy could be prevented.
>> Huh, I wouldn't put it past those rip-off merchants! They'll come up
>> with a plan somehow, to rip us off even more. The bloody railways
>> should be re-nationalised without compensation! This was a piece of
>> swansong Tory dogma that everybody said at the time was the worst
>> possible way of revamping the railways, yet they wouldn't listen.
>There is but one way to deal with a rip off merchant, if you don't
>like his price then leave him alone. It's not you that has billions of
>pounds worth of plant dedicated towards carrying people from A to B.
>There are plenty of ways of getting there.
>However, something must be being done right. Since privatisation,
>train usage has increased.
>Nontheless, I would agree that the privatisation process was a dog's
>breakfast. The system was neither privatised nor left as it was. It
>amazes me that road transport companies can operate across a national
>road network more or less free of intrusive regulation at any rate.
>However, when we talk of railways in fact a much less complex network,
>it seems to take us back to the days when we played with our train
>sets on the hearth rug.
>There's somehow something different about a railway. It need
>cosseting. It needs regulation, it needs continuous and massive
>injections of public cash, franchises. subsidies and all the rest of
>it.
>IMV you can run a railway in two ways. The first and what most
>countries in fact do is through a nationalised system. If you want a
>system where everybody contributes towards all rail users' fares
>whether they use the system themselves or not then surely
>nationalisation is the answer.
>The other way of course is private provision but if this is to be the
>way the privatisation has to be just that. It hast to be different
>companies (or even, ultimately one company) where the sole source of
>revenue is users' pockets and the system(s) sink or swim on what they
>can earn in the market. There is perhaps just an argument in favour
>of nationalised rail tracks (after all the roads are nationalised)
>but beyond that. Any company should be free to run trains on the
>network. Rationalisations would come about through takeovers one of
>the things that the present rail companies are not allowed to do.
>One gets the feeling that a great opportunity was missed when the
>railways were privatised.
>> How are all those visitors to Britain during the Olympics going to
>> make head or tail of the fares structure? They will hopefully
>> recognise the rip-off and return home to tell others not to come here.
>> Then, maybe, the government (i.e. Tories) will do another U-turn.
>> MM
The fundamental problem with this kind of privatisation is that there
is no true competition. Privatising coal means you can buy your coal
from Supplier A or Supplier B, the two being completely independent of
each other and not govered by any kind of ATOC-like entity. But with
the railways there normally is only ONE track connecting A with B and
you're therefore obliged to take that track if you want to travel by
train. If there were completely independent railway systems
duplicating routes across the country, a ridiculous scenario, but bear
with me, then at least one could truly compare the tickets: Travel
from A to B with Company C and the ticket costs £10. Travel with
Company D and it costs £20. It's a no-brainer. (Unless Company D threw
in free food and 30 minutes of lap dancing, for example.)
But that true competition cannot be achieved with the railways,
therefore its privatisation was a complete farce.
A similar kind of thing happened with water, when there is only one
pipe supplying water in any particular neigbourhood.
>> Welcome to the privatised railway with it's improved "customer choice"
>> of take it (through the nose) or feck off.
> But this all started with BR when they introduced "market pricing" to > replace mileage based fares.
- I'd like some beer, please - how much is it?
- Certainly, sir - it's £5 a pint, or £2 for a half.
- Excellent, I'll have two halves please.
We have many virtues in this country, but one area where we are not good is in our tendency to treat the symptom rather than the disease. It isn't split ticketing that is "trying to beat the system", but rather the railway's operating a system in which - contrary to intuition and all normal commercial practice - one does not get a bulk discount but a bulk premium.
Personally I cannot see that an attempt to outlaw the practice can be made without huge expense and risk. The biggest risk is that a lot of money is spent on some kind of system but at the end of the day the court - when it has stopped laughing - will say "don't be so silly".
>>> Welcome to the privatised railway with it's improved "customer choice"
>>> of take it (through the nose) or feck off.
>> But this all started with BR when they introduced "market pricing" to >> replace mileage based fares.
> - I'd like some beer, please - how much is it?
> - Certainly, sir - it's £5 a pint, or £2 for a half.
> - Excellent, I'll have two halves please.
> We have many virtues in this country, but one area where we are not good > is in our tendency to treat the symptom rather than the disease. It isn't > split ticketing that is "trying to beat the system", but rather the > railway's operating a system in which - contrary to intuition and all > normal commercial practice - one does not get a bulk discount but a bulk > premium.
> Personally I cannot see that an attempt to outlaw the practice can be made > without huge expense and risk. The biggest risk is that a lot of money is > spent on some kind of system but at the end of the day the court - when it > has stopped laughing - will say "don't be so silly".
> Regards
> Jonathan
I don't know about beer but I often come across supermarket pricing along the lines of "special offer" 200g = £2.00 whilst 100g packs cost 75p each.
And, I agree, the railways let this particular cat out of the bag. I suspect that at the time of the prosecution they felt it was a small (minuscule even) risk against the benefits of market pricing and now, particularly with the rise of electronic communication allowing people to pick up on this much more easily than old fashioned word of mouth, they've suddenly realised the size of the problem they've created.
Even if the government introduced a new law (or tried to) to outlaw split ticketing the cry would go up.
allantracy <allanbintr...@ireland.com> wrote:
>But surely, the biggest laugh is whatever is being saved by split
>ticketing is nothing compared to the TOCs own book ahead deals.
There is no reason that the two cannot be combined - split tickets and
book ahead deals. You can book a journey using split tickets, each of
which is a very cheap Advance.
On Jun 3, 10:15 am, Scott <newsgro...@gefion.myzen.co.uk> wrote:
> On Sat, 2 Jun 2012 09:48:33 -0700 (PDT), Mel Rowing
> >However, as you say, if the train does stop at Doncaster, there is no
> >way the any such ploy could be prevented.
> For sake of argument, could the ticket examiner not carry a portable
> device to check that the ticket has passed through a barrier, similar
> to the checking that takes place by inspectors of Oyster cards on
> board trains?
>Well for a professor he seems remarkably dim to have signed an invoice
>stating he'd pay later.
>Although witnessing the educational standards of your average Brit,
>many of whom he will have taught, I can understand why.
>What next? Beefeater Restaurants pursuing you for a meal that you've
>paid for but left because you left the restaurant due to other
>reasons?
There have been instances of restaurants offering self service buffets
on an "eat as much as you like" basis charging people for food they
had served on to their plates but did not eat.
I recall going to one that stated explicitly on the menu that there
would be a charge for food taken but not eaten. The charge also
bought you a container to take the food home.
Mel Rowing <mel.row...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>On Jun 3, 10:15 am, Scott <newsgro...@gefion.myzen.co.uk> wrote:
>> On Sat, 2 Jun 2012 09:48:33 -0700 (PDT), Mel Rowing
>> >However, as you say, if the train does stop at Doncaster, there is no
>> >way the any such ploy could be prevented.
>> For sake of argument, could the ticket examiner not carry a portable
>> device to check that the ticket has passed through a barrier, similar
>> to the checking that takes place by inspectors of Oyster cards on
>> board trains?
>That would eliminate the practice entirely yes.
If that was introduces, all that would be needed is a dash for the
barriers, exiting on one ticket and re-entering on the next. So it
might be slightly inconvenient for the passenger but certainly would
not eliminate the practice.
>>Well for a professor he seems remarkably dim to have signed an invoice
>>stating he'd pay later.
>>Although witnessing the educational standards of your average Brit,
>>many of whom he will have taught, I can understand why.
>>What next? Beefeater Restaurants pursuing you for a meal that you've
>>paid for but left because you left the restaurant due to other
>>reasons?
>There have been instances of restaurants offering self service buffets
>on an "eat as much as you like" basis charging people for food they
>had served on to their plates but did not eat.
>I recall going to one that stated explicitly on the menu that there
>would be a charge for food taken but not eaten. The charge also
>bought you a container to take the food home.
That does make some justification, though, because uneaten food is, in at
least some meaningful sense, wasted. And the argument that it's no more of
a cost to the restaurant than the same amount of food taken and eaten fails
for two reasons: Firstly, the restaurant, like all commercial
establishments, has to pay for waste disposal and uneaten food therefore
has a direct cost to them; and, secondly, because if there is no penalty
for taking more than you can eat then people may do so simply because they
can't be bothered to estimate their requirements more accurately, thus
generating deliberate (or at least, reckless) waste.
By conteast, there is absolutely no meaningful sense whatsoever in which a
seat that is empty for the final leg of a paid for journey is wasted. After
all, if you had simply not taken the journey at all - if, say, you were
unable to travel due to illness, or merely changed your plans at the last
minute - then there would be no suggestion of charging you extra for not
taking the journey as compared to actually taking it.
If you buy an advance ticket and don't make the journey at all, the TOCs
consider that to be your loss and won't refund you.
If you buy an advance ticket and don't make all the journey, the TOCs
consider that to be their loss and expect you to compensate them for it.
If it were not for the fact that the railways' conditions of carriage are
protected by legislation and are not subject to normal contract law, that
discrepancy would be totally unsustainable in court.
In message <ktlms75ee65n926c466elrrqh0tdtbp...@news.markshouse.net>, at 13:47:00 on Sun, 3 Jun 2012, Mark Goodge <use...@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk> remarked:
>If you buy an advance ticket and don't make all the journey, the TOCs
>consider that to be their loss and expect you to compensate them for it.
>If it were not for the fact that the railways' conditions of carriage are
>protected by legislation and are not subject to normal contract law, that
>discrepancy would be totally unsustainable in court.
Airlines seem to manage to have similar restrictions. It's very common to pay a negative amount to make an extra leg. For example when I flew to the USA from Birmingham via Amsterdam a few years ago, the ticket was £100 cheaper than flying just from Amsterdam to the USA.
And their T&C say if you don't turn up for the first leg, the ticket is cancelled.
The reason the pricing is like this is because single-leg flights[1] attract a premium because they are more convenient, and yet there are still some spare seats which can generate a profit by "paying people" to take the feeder flight.
I'm not aware that such pricing has been outlawed anywhere.
[1] In this case Amsterdam to the USA direct, and not via some other hub like Paris.
-- Roland Perry
On Jun 3, 11:16 am, MM <kylix...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> On Sun, 3 Jun 2012 02:32:31 -0700 (PDT), Mel Rowing
> The fundamental problem with this kind of privatisation is that there
> is no true competition. Privatising coal means you can buy your coal
> from Supplier A or Supplier B, the two being completely independent of
> each other and not govered by any kind of ATOC-like entity. But with
> the railways there normally is only ONE track connecting A with B and
> you're therefore obliged to take that track if you want to travel by
> train.
Yes and I would guess that there is only one road between your house
and the nearest town but that doesn't stop several bus or freight
operators providing a service between that town (or anywhere else) and
your house.Ownership of the road comes not into the equation because
the road is publicly owned. There is no reason why rail tracks should
not be publicly owned as are the roads and companies using them are
levied as are road vehicles if this were deemed the best solution.
Alternatively the track could by owned by a separate company itself
owned jointly by the user companies.
>If there were completely independent railway systems
> duplicating routes across the country, a ridiculous scenario, but bear
> with me, then at least one could truly compare the tickets: Travel
> from A to B with Company C and the ticket costs £10. Travel with
> Company D and it costs £20. It's a no-brainer. (Unless Company D threw
> in free food and 30 minutes of lap dancing, for example.)
Given such competition Company D is destined to run empty trains
unless it can offer a premium service to justify the premium fare. One
company could undercut the other to the point where one succumbed and
was replaced by the other. Something which icidentally the presnt
franchised
"Ah!" I hear you say, "What about competition?" It was competition
that drove BR onto the rocks and onto the nipple of the tapayer but
obviously not competition between train companies. Rather it was the
competition camefrom privately owned coach and freight haulage
companies utilising the motorway network. Road transport clearly has
one major advantage over rail in point to point service. Rail however,
has the edge in terms of comfort (passenger service) speed and
capacity. With long journeys (London - Scotland for example) even Air
transport comes into the picture.
> But that true competition cannot be achieved with the railways,
> therefore its privatisation was a complete farce.
So therefore the competion question hardly arises. Even if commerical
pressures left us with just one rail operator running on its own
tracks the competiton would still be there.
> A similar kind of thing happened with water, when there is only one
> pipe supplying water in any particular neigbourhood.
The problem there was that the water and sewage systems were in need
of heavy investment. They had been the poor relations of public
utilities for decades. You turn on a top water comes out - miraculous
You pull out a plug, press a lever or pull a chain and it's gone! Out
of sight out of mind! The mains were rotting (some still are) the
seawage systems were polluting our rivers and coastlines. Megabucks
were needed to correct the shortcomings. If a government increases the
charge for water people tend to see that as extra tax? In those pre-
privatisation days, didn't we, if only in the vernacular, refer to
water charges as rates? Were they not assessed on the value of a
property as rates were.
From the politician's perspective, better by far that the job of
raising all this money (plus a consideration of course) fell on
private companies. They don't have to get re-elected.
>In message <ktlms75ee65n926c466elrrqh0tdtbp...@news.markshouse.net>, at >13:47:00 on Sun, 3 Jun 2012, Mark Goodge ><use...@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk> remarked:
>>If you buy an advance ticket and don't make all the journey, the TOCs
>>consider that to be their loss and expect you to compensate them for it.
>>If it were not for the fact that the railways' conditions of carriage are
>>protected by legislation and are not subject to normal contract law, that
>>discrepancy would be totally unsustainable in court.
>Airlines seem to manage to have similar restrictions. It's very common >to pay a negative amount to make an extra leg. For example when I flew >to the USA from Birmingham via Amsterdam a few years ago, the ticket was >£100 cheaper than flying just from Amsterdam to the USA.
>And their T&C say if you don't turn up for the first leg, the ticket is >cancelled.
That works for two reasons, though. For a start, multi-leg air trips are
genuinely multiple flights (unlike split train tickets which are two
tickets for different segments of the same journey), so there is, as you go
on to say, also a genuine difference in convenience to the passenger which
can reasonably be reflected in the price. And the requirement to check in
at the start of an air journey makes "starting long" a genuine
inconvenience to the airline as it means they have to process your initial
departure from a location where they are not expecting to do so (and where
doing so may result in significant security considerations). So it's
reasonable for them to impose a penalty (such as cancelling the ticket) if
you try to do it.
Neither of those considerations applies to split tickets on a railway
journey. There is no gain in convenience to a passenger by booking a single
journey instead of split tickets, and it creates no administrative overhead
on the TOC if a passenger does start long or end short.
>The reason the pricing is like this is because single-leg flights[1] >attract a premium because they are more convenient, and yet there are >still some spare seats which can generate a profit by "paying people" to >take the feeder flight.
The other point worth noting here is that multi-leg journeys by rail are
precisely the case where a requirement for compostage can't outlaw split
ticketing, since if you have to change trains anyway then you can validate
the second ticket when you do so.
>I'm not aware that such pricing has been outlawed anywhere.
I suspect it might still be vulnerable to challenge, though.
>I read in today's Daily Telegraph that the Association of Train
> Operating Companies (ATOC) is pressing the government to make the
> practice of "split ticketing" illegal or to find some way of stopping
> it. particularly now that various internet sites have sprung up
> advertising it and telling travellers how to do it.
> Because of the complexity and illogicality of British train fares and
> ticketing, it is possible to save considerable sums of money by
> splitting a journey into two or more sections.
> For example, buying a return ticket from Nottingham to London costs
> say £X but if I buy a ticket from Nottingham to say Kettering and then
> another ticket from Kettering to London, I not only spend less money
> overall but may avoid the bar on peak hour trains leaving London on
> the way back. I may also get an all-zones LU travelcard thrown in.
> The only proviso to this is that the trains in both directions must
> stop at Kettering to allow me to get off and kiss the platform in true
> papal style before getting back on board to continue my journey.
> I think it will be extremely difficult to ban the practice and police
> it in view of the number of people on the trains and with the amount
> of potential criminal offences travelling by rail leaves one open to,
> perhaps every train should carry a mobile "jail car" for those
> unfortunate enough to fall foul of the rules intentionally or by
> mistake!
> --
> Alasdair.
I don't believe anyone has yet raised the issue of the current system that OCCASIONALLY requires you to purchase split tickets. I suppose that reverting to mileage based fares would overcome that.
However, I can't see the railway industry going back to mileage based fares.
> If you buy an advance ticket and don't make the journey at all, the TOCs
> consider that to be your loss and won't refund you.
> If you buy an advance ticket and don't make all the journey, the TOCs
> consider that to be their loss and expect you to compensate them for it.
> If it were not for the fact that the railways' conditions of carriage are
> protected by legislation and are not subject to normal contract law, that
> discrepancy would be totally unsustainable in court.
No, it wouldn't. And split ticketing has nothing to do with the conditions relating to Advance tickets.
So far as the Advance ticket rules are concerned, it is perfectly permissible (although unusual) for a normal contract to impose an "entire condition" - in this particular case to provide that the passenger must undertake the whole journey (if at all) in exchange for the discount - it is merely an exception to the general rule.
Whether the conditions relating to particular Advance tickets do in fact make the point sufficiently clear is a matter of opinion.
In message <UfCdnT5GqKSPo1bSnZ2dnUVZ8qidn...@bt.com>, Jonathan Morton <jonathan.mortonBUTIGNORET...@btinternet.com> writes
>- I'd like some beer, please - how much is it?
>- Certainly, sir - it's £5 a pint, or £2 for a half.
>- Excellent, I'll have two halves please.
This happens quite a lot in Tesco, where it's not uncommon to have the smaller item on "offer" making it cheaper that the big one. This week two packets of "Hobnobs" separately was cheaper than a combined two in one pack.
-- Clive
In message <irpms79p7f4820l3htf8jr4nmj4jhkv...@news.markshouse.net>, at 14:50:15 on Sun, 3 Jun 2012, Mark Goodge <use...@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk> remarked:
>>>If you buy an advance ticket and don't make all the journey, the TOCs
>>>consider that to be their loss and expect you to compensate them for it.
>>>If it were not for the fact that the railways' conditions of carriage are
>>>protected by legislation and are not subject to normal contract law, that
>>>discrepancy would be totally unsustainable in court.
>>Airlines seem to manage to have similar restrictions. It's very common
>>to pay a negative amount to make an extra leg. For example when I flew
>>to the USA from Birmingham via Amsterdam a few years ago, the ticket was
>>£100 cheaper than flying just from Amsterdam to the USA.
>>And their T&C say if you don't turn up for the first leg, the ticket is
>>cancelled.
>That works for two reasons, though. For a start, multi-leg air trips are
>genuinely multiple flights (unlike split train tickets which are two
>tickets for different segments of the same journey),
Not always. Sometimes the splitting happens at a place you are changing trains already. For example you can save money going to Luton by splitting at Bedford (on the MML). And you have to change trains at Bedford anyway (or take advantage of the double-back easement from Airport Parkway, which may not work so well anyway).
> so there is, as you go on to say, also a genuine difference in >convenience to the passenger which can reasonably be reflected in the >price. And the requirement to check in at the start of an air journey >makes "starting long" a genuine inconvenience to the airline as it >means they have to process your initial departure from a location where >they are not expecting to do so (and where doing so may result in >significant security considerations).
I'm not sure why there are "significant" security considerations. Baggage from UK-NL-USA is put through security checking again anyway (I know that because the delay of so doing meant it missed the onward flight).
>So it's reasonable for them to impose a penalty (such as cancelling the >ticket) if you try to do it.
It's revenue protection, pure and simple.
>Neither of those considerations applies to split tickets on a railway
>journey. There is no gain in convenience to a passenger by booking a single
>journey instead of split tickets,
There's the FUD about missing connections. If you are splitting a ticket at a place you are staying on the train, that doesn't arise, but not many people would be brave enough to concatenate an AP ticket from A via B (change) to C (stay on train), then C to D, and stand up for their rights to use the C to D ticket on a completely wrong train when the connection at B is missed.
>and it creates no administrative overhead
>on the TOC if a passenger does start long or end short.
The problem it would give the ToC is that they can't identify "popular flows" and give a discount, without eroding the pricing for intermediate points. Then there are the case where the flow is A (small town) to B (big town) to C (big town) when passengers travelling from A to C are in effect given a discount to use the train, because the fare is cheaper than B to C.
>The other point worth noting here is that multi-leg journeys by rail are
>precisely the case where a requirement for compostage can't outlaw split
>ticketing, since if you have to change trains anyway then you can validate
>the second ticket when you do so.
Depending on how far you have to go to do it and the transfer time. Platform 2 at Nottingham (the bay) is a *very* long way from the ticket barriers!
>>I'm not aware that such pricing has been outlawed anywhere.
>I suspect it might still be vulnerable to challenge, though.
In message <ZeWdnQeuWe7k8lbSnZ2dnUVZ8rqdn...@bt.com>, at 15:05:20 on Sun, 3 Jun 2012, Jonathan Morton <jonathan.mortonBUTIGNORET...@btinternet.com> remarked:
>Whether the conditions relating to particular Advance tickets do in fact
>make the point sufficiently clear is a matter of opinion.
It varies from ToC to ToC, I expect. This is what Megatrain say:
"Megatrain passengers should note that you must alight and board at
these points and it is a condition of travel that you do not alight or
board at other points on the route."
-- Roland Perry
In message <WNqdnbJXe7G-8FbSnZ2dnUVZ8qWdn...@bt.com>, at 14:56:39 on Sun, 3 Jun 2012, Graham Harrison <edward.harris...@remove.btinternet.com> remarked:
>I don't believe anyone has yet raised the issue of the current system >that OCCASIONALLY requires you to purchase split tickets.
If you need to go "off route", for example doubling back via a nearby much better served station.
>I suppose that reverting to mileage based fares would overcome that.
Would a mileage-based fare allow unlimited doubling back, but be based on the direct mileage between end points only?
>However, I can't see the railway industry going back to mileage based >fares.
In part because it would raise fares unaffordably on minor routes, at the same time it reduced fares on well known "high priced premium routes", if it was revenue neutral.
-- Roland Perry
On Sun, 3 Jun 2012 05:52:01 -0700 (PDT), Mel Rowing
<mel.row...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>On Jun 3, 11:16 am, MM <kylix...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>> On Sun, 3 Jun 2012 02:32:31 -0700 (PDT), Mel Rowing
>> The fundamental problem with this kind of privatisation is that there
>> is no true competition. Privatising coal means you can buy your coal
>> from Supplier A or Supplier B, the two being completely independent of
>> each other and not govered by any kind of ATOC-like entity. But with
>> the railways there normally is only ONE track connecting A with B and
>> you're therefore obliged to take that track if you want to travel by
>> train.
>Yes and I would guess that there is only one road between your house
>and the nearest town
Well, you'd be wrong, then. There are half a dozen different routes I
could take.
> but that doesn't stop several bus or freight
>operators providing a service between that town (or anywhere else) and
>your house.
I'm not on any bus route.
>Ownership of the road comes not into the equation because
>the road is publicly owned. There is no reason why rail tracks should
>not be publicly owned as are the roads and companies using them are
>levied as are road vehicles if this were deemed the best solution.
>Alternatively the track could by owned by a separate company itself
>owned jointly by the user companies.
There is only ONE trackbed! Ergo, no competition.
>>If there were completely independent railway systems
>> duplicating routes across the country, a ridiculous scenario, but bear
>> with me, then at least one could truly compare the tickets: Travel
>> from A to B with Company C and the ticket costs £10. Travel with
>> Company D and it costs £20. It's a no-brainer. (Unless Company D threw
>> in free food and 30 minutes of lap dancing, for example.)
>Given such competition Company D is destined to run empty trains
>unless it can offer a premium service to justify the premium fare.
Well, Waitrose and M&S cater to a particular class of clientele, but I
choose not to buy my grocery items there. That is proper choice.
> One
>company could undercut the other to the point where one succumbed and
>was replaced by the other. Something which icidentally the presnt
>franchised
You say undercut as if that is a bad thing. It's how competition
works. Through more efficient working practices, better sales teams,
more advantageous negotiating with suppliers, one company can supply
the same or better service than another. Aldi and Lidl do it all the
time.
>"Ah!" I hear you say, "What about competition?" It was competition
>that drove BR onto the rocks and onto the nipple of the tapayer but
>obviously not competition between train companies.
BR sucked considerably less from the public tit than the privatised
railways are doing. BR was a national *service* to the country, like
Deutsche Bahn (Die Bahn) is in Germany or SNCF in France or
Nederlandse Spoorwegen in Holland.
> Rather it was the
>competition camefrom privately owned coach and freight haulage
>companies utilising the motorway network. Road transport clearly has
>one major advantage over rail in point to point service. Rail however,
>has the edge in terms of comfort (passenger service) speed and
>capacity. With long journeys (London - Scotland for example) even Air
>transport comes into the picture.
Air transport comes into the picture because of the exorbitant fares
charged by the ToCs for long distances.
>> But that true competition cannot be achieved with the railways,
>> therefore its privatisation was a complete farce.
>So therefore the competion question hardly arises. Even if commerical
>pressures left us with just one rail operator running on its own
>tracks the competiton would still be there.
Eh?
>> A similar kind of thing happened with water, when there is only one
>> pipe supplying water in any particular neigbourhood.
>The problem there was that the water and sewage systems were in need
>of heavy investment. They had been the poor relations of public
>utilities for decades. You turn on a top water comes out - miraculous
>You pull out a plug, press a lever or pull a chain and it's gone! Out
>of sight out of mind! The mains were rotting (some still are) the
>seawage systems were polluting our rivers and coastlines. Megabucks
>were needed to correct the shortcomings. If a government increases the
>charge for water people tend to see that as extra tax? In those pre-
>privatisation days, didn't we, if only in the vernacular, refer to
>water charges as rates? Were they not assessed on the value of a
>property as rates were.
That was then, but now we have water meters, well, I have, so I pay
only for what I use. However, I pay through the nose for all the
millions of litres wasted every day through leaks that the water
company never gets round to fixing. Basically, you had an inefficient
public monopoly before and an expensive private monopoly now.
>From the politician's perspective, better by far that the job of
>raising all this money (plus a consideration of course) fell on
>private companies. They don't have to get re-elected.
Ah, so it was a nefarious political ruse to pass the buck and you're
okay with that and the rip-off prices we are now charged! Excellent.
In Germany, the local council (equivalent) is responsible for the
water supply, so when there's a leak, residents are on the phone to
complain directly to their electable representatives. Result? Germany
wastes far less water per capita.
On Sun, 3 Jun 2012 15:33:38 +0100, Clive <cl...@yewbank.demon.co.uk>
wrote:
>In message <UfCdnT5GqKSPo1bSnZ2dnUVZ8qidn...@bt.com>, Jonathan Morton ><jonathan.mortonBUTIGNORET...@btinternet.com> writes
>>- I'd like some beer, please - how much is it?
>>- Certainly, sir - it's £5 a pint, or £2 for a half.
>>- Excellent, I'll have two halves please.
>This happens quite a lot in Tesco, where it's not uncommon to have the >smaller item on "offer" making it cheaper that the big one. This week >two packets of "Hobnobs" separately was cheaper than a combined two in >one pack.
Sainsburys manage it too, not usually with their own products but with
the above type of offer which occasionally undercuts the Sainsburys
price with 2 for 1s and 3 for 2s on what often seems to be the same
product re-badged.
> In message <WNqdnbJXe7G-8FbSnZ2dnUVZ8qWdn...@bt.com>, at 14:56:39 on Sun, > 3 Jun 2012, Graham Harrison <edward.harris...@remove.btinternet.com> > remarked:
>>I don't believe anyone has yet raised the issue of the current system that >>OCCASIONALLY requires you to purchase split tickets.
> If you need to go "off route", for example doubling back via a nearby much > better served station.
No. I've seen it on A-B-C in a straight(ish) line with no doubling back but A or C has usually been somewhere small.
> In message <UfCdnT5GqKSPo1bSnZ2dnUVZ8qidn...@bt.com>, Jonathan Morton > <jonathan.mortonBUTIGNORET...@btinternet.com> writes
>> - I'd like some beer, please - how much is it?
>> - Certainly, sir - it's £5 a pint, or £2 for a half.
>> - Excellent, I'll have two halves please.
> This happens quite a lot in Tesco, where it's not uncommon to have the > smaller item on "offer" making it cheaper that the big one. This week > two packets of "Hobnobs" separately was cheaper than a combined two in > one pack.
I've also seen this in the co-op, where 100g jars of their own-brand
instant coffee are repeatedly on offer for less than half the price
of the corresponding 200g jars. (So I buy 2 x 100g jars instead of
my usual 200g jar.)
In message <aqmdnYz4XNhoElbSnZ2dnUVZ8n6dn...@bt.com>, at 17:25:12 on Sun, 3 Jun 2012, Graham Harrison <edward.harris...@remove.btinternet.com> remarked:
>>>I don't believe anyone has yet raised the issue of the current system >>>that OCCASIONALLY requires you to purchase split tickets.
>> If you need to go "off route", for example doubling back via a nearby >>much better served station.
>No. I've seen it on A-B-C in a straight(ish) line with no doubling >back but A or C has usually been somewhere small.
Sure that A-B-C is a valid route, or is it a case of there being no ticket priced for A-C at all?
-- Roland Perry
> I've also seen this in the co-op, where 100g jars of their own-brand
> instant coffee are repeatedly on offer for less than half the price
> of the corresponding 200g jars. (So I buy 2 x 100g jars instead of
> my usual 200g jar.)
Just this week, we picked up a 400ml shampoo that was on offer at a
price cheaper then the 200ml size, of the same brand, on the very same
shelf next to it.
