If the headline seems a bit odd, it’s nothing compared to the task that’s faced buyers of British rail tickets for years from a confusing system that often makes it cheaper to buy a ticket from A to B and another from B to C, rather than one ticket from A to C.
The Rail Delivery Group, which handles ticketing for the various carriers that ply the tracks and stations of Network Rail (which runs the railroad but not the trains), has hired consultant firm KPMG to help with a 3-month study aimed at creating a single easily-understood system.
The existing jumble, which officials conced is “frustrating,” and which has given birth to a host of websites offering to figure out what ticket to buy when, results in part from tickets that start during peak-fare times and quote the whole distance as peak, when paying the first part at peak and the rest at an off-peak fare saves money.
The study begins June 4; it’s not clear how long after that it will take to design and implement a new system. RDG says whatever the result, it will not create a wave of higher ticket prices; Britain already has by far the most expensive trains in Europe.
Train photo: PeterSkuce/Wikimedia
