Rail companies are offering part-time season tickets, a guarantee that passengers will get the cheapest prices and smartphone-based ticketing across the UK as part of a radical overhaul of British fares.
The rail industry proposals include a weekly fare cap that allows commuters to avoid paying for their season ticket on the days when they don’t use it – something long demanded by campaigners as a benefit for part-time workers.
Another idea is a “best fare guarantee” from the industry, meaning that customers will automatically pay the cheapest fare available at the time of purchase.
It should be possible to use digital tickets – including on smartphones – on all journeys within five years if the plans are accepted, said the Rail Delivery Group (RDG), the industry body making the proposals.
The proposals, which call for testing of the potential systems, pre-empt the findings of a government-sponsored review of the railways from former British Airways chief executive Keith Williams, due in the autumn.
The review was commissioned after last year’s botched summer timetabling changes that wrought havoc on England’s railways and prompted a wave of calls for Chris Grayling, the transport secretary, to resign.
The need for an overhaul of rail fares is almost universally recognised, with passengers often paying more than they need to because of complex options. The RDG estimates that there are 55m separate fares available in Great Britain.
However, the solution to Britain’s railway problems remains deeply contentious.
The train companies argue that regulations prevent them from being able to introduce technologies that would simplify buying tickets for passengers, allowing for airline-style ticketing systems for longer journeys and more “tap in, tap out” pay-as-you-go systems in urban areas, similar to Transport for London’s Oyster system.
Labour is calling for the nationalisation of the railways as train companies’ franchises expire, which it says is necessary to cut fares and deliver a simplified service.
Andy McDonald, the shadow transport secretary, said: “The Rail Delivery Group has neither the track record nor the ability to fix the railway’s broken fares system. A timid call for ‘preparatory work to begin’ and a series of trials just does not match up to the scale of the challenge.
“Any reforms led by private train companies will only serve the interests of shareholders of private train companies, leaving passengers stuck with a confusing and expensive fares system. We don’t need tinkering around the edges; it needs to be replaced entirely.”
The RDG’s proposals are designed to be revenue-neutral, meaning it foresees no need for extra government funding or higher average ticket prices. The promise of no extra cost for users or taxpayers is reliant on forecasts by the accounting firm KPMG that the changes would make rail travel more attractive, resulting in users taking an extra 300m journeys over a decade.
Nevertheless, the changes would create some financial winners and losers. The RDG insisted that the “vast majority” of users, including commuters, will not pay more for tickets.
Among the losers could be those who travel longer distances immediately before or after peak hours, when ticket prices could increase in an attempt to push more people into empty trains during the peak period.
The change would probably affect savvier bargain hunters who would be less able to take advantage of anomalies such as those around “split tickets”, in which buying a single ticket can be much more expensive than splitting it into two journeys – even when the route and timing are identical.
Mick Cash, the general secretary of the rail union RMT, said the proposals would not stop passengers being “ripped off”.
He said: “Whichever way the industry dresses this up, the fragmentation of privatisation will always lead to a complex mix of various fares across the network with passengers caught in the crossfire.”
However, Barry Doe, an independent rail fares expert who has previously described the train companies’ overcharging as “tantamount to legislated theft”, welcomed the attempt to reform the “outdated” system and said the proposals were an “important vision of what the future could look like”.
A Department for Transport spokeswoman said: “RDG’s contribution to the Williams review is welcome. In the short term, we are ready to work with the industry on how their proposals might work and be tested in the real world.”