I got a reply to my rant about the cost of travel to the train company... Dear Mr Tattersall Thank you for your email dated 13 May. I’m sorry to hear that you dislike our fares structure. I understand you were unhappy to be charged £27.00 for a recent journey between London and Ashford, and were even more disappointed to witness a passenger decide not to travel as she was unable to afford the fare to St Leonards Warrior Square. Our fares are worked out on a commercial basis (by demand) and not on a mileage basis. Government’s policy is for passengers to pay more towards the cost of their rail travel and taxpayers to contribute less. So as regulated fares increase, the subsidy given by Government to Southeastern decreases. You’ve mentioned that you’d like to know how advance bookings produce the cheapest fares. You may be aware that Advance fares are single (one-way) tickets offering great value for money on many longer distance journeys - offering the best available price for each journey. They must be purchased in advance of travel, as they’re subject to availability and usually require seat reservations. With the above being said, I can confirm that with the introduction of smartcard tickets, we’ll be able to offer better targeted prices. Although I’m unable to confirm an exact date of when smartcard ticketing is likely to be introduced to our services, I can advise that we’re currently working towards launching smartcard ticketing in the next couple of years. Once again, I’m sorry that our fares are not to your liking, but I hope this information is somewhat helpful. Thank you once again for taking the time to contact us. Yours sincerely
Posted on: Fri, 16 May 2014 11:09:23 +0000