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Post by fascinating on Mar 19, 2018 9:19:15 GMT 1
You see, I know for a fact that you are wrong, because I do NOT imagine that rail passengers are poor bedraggled paupers. People do make economic choices, and some of the existing rail passengers have made that choice on the basis of cost. With a 40% increase in rail fares, many will inevitably decide that they will find a way, other than rail, to get to their destination.
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Post by mrsonde on Mar 19, 2018 9:39:58 GMT 1
You see, I know for a fact that you are wrong, because I do NOT imagine that rail passengers are poor bedraggled paupers. Just people who can't find an extra £2.50 to get to work or go on an excursion, I see. I was generous enough to naively presume you'd have the modicum of reflection required to see why your figures were nonsense. I'll give you another nudge. If £2.50 extra on every journey was a 40% increase in rail fares, how much are rail fares? Don't bother trying to work it out - because your whole line of reasoning is wrong in the first place. And I said: even if that were the case, which it isn't, according to clear and unambiguous evidence so far, what's the problem? Hoorah, everyone on the overcrowded trains would say, I can get a seat for once. Hoorah, the government would say - oodles of more revenue from our motoring cashcow, and billions saved from subsidy. hoorah, the train companies would say, we can run a sensible business that makes sense at last - find our price point that delivers a working profit, improve our service, raise all the investment we could possibly want, and make everybody happy. |
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Post by fascinating on Mar 19, 2018 10:08:39 GMT 1
They CAN find it (they are not the poverty stricken huddled masses you seem to imagine), it is just that some of them will find alternatives that are not so expensive as the rail fare, maybe the bus, maybe by car; for some people in some circumstances that will be cheaper and/or quicker.
By dividing the total amount of revenue from passengers by the total number of passenger journeys, it comes to around £6 per journey, like I said earlier.
More traffic on the roads causing more pollution, accidents and noise.
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Post by mrsonde on Mar 19, 2018 14:12:10 GMT 1
Well, they haven't so far - quite the opposite has happened, in fact. Consistently, year after year. Higher rail fares, as the subsidy has been gradually reduced, yet more and more passengers. I see no reason to suppose people would suddenly radically change their behaviour just because the increase is slightly more than usual - on the contrary, there's every reason to conclude it would continue even more rapidly in the same direction, because at last the train companies - including Network Rail - would finally have the resources they need to improve the service.
No, that's not what you said earlier - you may have thought that was what you were saying, or more likely you were hoping the difference wouldn't be noticed and you could jump to this fatuous fallacy, but "revenue" is not at all the same thing as "profit". Clearly, if you believe rail fares average out at little more than six quid a ticket, you haven't been on a train since your pigtail and gingham days.
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Even if your thesis turned out for some reason to be a good prediction, against all hitherto evidence, then the above consequence would soon reverse the situation back to the status quo - a positive feedback mechanism. Not to mention all the reasons I've already mentioned that would soon change such fickle customers' minds. In the meantime, and either way thereafter, it's boomtime for the Exchequer.
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Post by fascinating on Mar 19, 2018 16:32:53 GMT 1
I said on May 15th "Average revenue per passenger journey is around £6".
What do you think the figure is? We know that revenue and profit are different things - what's your point?
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Post by Progenitor A on Mar 19, 2018 18:44:30 GMT 1
With a 40% increase in rail fares, many will inevitably decide that they will find a way, other than rail, to get to their destination. Arrant nonsense You are taking an average fare of £6 or so then saying that an increase of fares of £2.40 is a 40% increase (and hence is infeasible because passengers would go away) In fact you need far more detail of the fare purchase structure before any analysis of the effect of adding an averge of £2.50 per fare can be made For example, if you take an annual season-ticket cost of £4000 pa (typical perhaps -Brighton-London) at 480 trips pa, the cost per trip is £8.33 per trip, then an increase of £2.50 per trip s not 50% but 30%. If you take the average day-return fare it will cost £19 per trip An increase of £2.50 on that will be 13% So the effect upon passenger perception of the rise will not be 50%, but what they actually pay Your 50% increase is a simpleton's view |
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Post by fascinating on Mar 19, 2018 20:49:35 GMT 1
Who said 50%?
mrsonde wants to increase total fare revenue from the current £9.5 billion to about £13.5 billion, which is over 40% more, but I take your point that, if a certain category of fare payer is paying over the average for journeys, then the increase to their fares, as a percentage, will not need to be as high as 40%.
But do you really think that a fare increase of 30%, or even 13%, will have no effect on the number of people buying tickets?
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