Comments | andrewducker: Interesting Links for 18-08-2013

andrewducker

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xenophanean August 18 2013, 19:04:21 UTC

This doesn't match up with my results searching just now. My results from

http://www.raileurope.co.uk/Default.aspx?tabid=101
and
http://www.thetrainline.com/buytickets/combinedmatrix.aspx?Command=TimeTable

show that the French service is better in every way. Either the article is old or the author has been intentionally picking very favourable statistics taking in the very best special offers he could find on specific dates.

Any sign of editorial bias? Well, this, from Wikipedia:

"The site is a personal project run by Mark Smith, formerly a manager in the rail industry"

Stats:

Dijon to Paris, tomorrow:

Distance: ~ 165 miles
Time: ~ 1:40
Price: Av ~ £45 (38.50* - 56.50)
(No peak/off peak prices always in this range)

* 6 of these fares available

Sheffield to London. tomorrow:
Distance: ~ 165 miles
Time: ~ 2:20
Price (peak): £104/£105
Price (off peak): Av ~ £70 (£41** ~ £82.20)

** 2 of these fares available, hence higher average.

nojay August 18 2013, 20:26:18 UTC

Shinkansen, Tokyo to Nagoya

Distance:~ 220km (about 160 miles)

Time:~ 1:40 (Nozomi, the fastest service)

Price: 10800 yen one-way, about £80 at current exchange rates (a few months ago it would have been a lot more in sterling, £100 at least). All journeys are one-way, no return tickets at lower cost.

No off-peak price tickets available, some ticket scalping does happen but it's not condoned by JR-West who run the Sanyo route. There are occasional special deals for regular JR travel (seishun 18 kippu etc.) but rarely on shinkansen routes.

From what I understand the various JR companies are privately owned but have tight connections with the Japanese government. If they are subsidised it's not clear to outsiders just how it's done.

xenophanean August 18 2013, 22:15:33 UTC

Madrid - Albacete (another PPP) £35. Rome - Florence £38.50.
Berlin - Chemnitz £55
All PPP operated.

One example in another continent doesn't prove the badness of a scheme. However, perhaps I'm over-stating the case too, Germany (probably the most similar country to us in the world), has trains which are, under some circumstances, more expensive.

andrewducker August 18 2013, 21:09:36 UTC

Yeah, I think more data is needed (from a nice impartial source over a large dataset) - I'd like to see it broken down into commuter trips and non-commuter trips. It looks like UK prices bottom out at the same level as France, but go up much higher for peak prices, from what you found.

xenophanean August 18 2013, 21:37:09 UTC

Essentially, however it's worth mentioning that if you want one of the cheap trains in France, you can go at most times a day, in the UK it has to be a very specific train. I agree that a truly impartial source would be useful here.

steer August 18 2013, 22:28:21 UTC

I have to say, there is some real cherry picking going on there. If I ask for the same price on the Sheffield route a month in advance for a weekend I can get the price to £25 but only if I take a train which takes 4 hours. The price is more likely ot be £50. I think our train fares are incredibly carefully priced -- so off peak trains get cheap but peak trains are ruinous. Picking the example of travelling at mid-day in the week... well, you're not business travel (you would have set off earlier for a morning meeting or later if you were travelling for next day)...

naath August 19 2013, 09:55:43 UTC

Even if you are willing to take the 4 hours train you would have to commit to a *specific train* weeks if not months in advance to get that price.

Which is fine if what you are comparing it to is flying (I'm taking the train to Glasgow next month to go on holiday), but it's no bloody use for "I think I'd like to go and see my friend today".

steer August 19 2013, 15:12:51 UTC

It's problematic. So much of our rail network long distance is vastly over capacity. The east coast line I travel on very regularly and unless you pick very unusual times of day into and out of London the seats are 90% full (and the other 10% are booked). There's clearly more people wanting to travel at certain times than can (IMHO) and the only way to get a system like that efficient is some airline like system. But it's really really not nice if you've a last minute urgent journey or miss a train and need to get the one after.

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