Counter peak discounts on go?

[ozbob]

Howdy,

When I was in Melbourne I travelled on VLine counter peak flow in the peak time at off peak fares.

With the go card technology it should be easy to identify trips that are counter peak and offer an off peak discount.

Now there are issues with the layout of our public transport eg. INB and counter peak flows. 

Clearly some routes could easily be identified  as counter peak and attract the off peak discount.

Good?  Bad?  Problems?

This notion was brought up during a conversation I had with some staff this morning at Roma St.  Works fine in Victoria on VLine but this clearly counter peak.

Comments??

[somebody]

Only problem I can think of is what to do with trips that are a single zone?

Besides, off peak is only a 10% discount on go.

[Derwan]

The whole idea of off-peak discounts is to reduce congestion during the peak period by encouraging people to travel earlier or later.

Offering discounts for counter peak will do nothing to reduce congestion during the peak period.  Instead it will reduce revenue and give the TTA an excuse to hike prices even further.

It may in fact be counter productive because if you encourage people to arrive at city stations (or bus stops) during peak, the masses have to wait for those disembarking, increasing dwell times.  It would also disrupt the flow of people through fare gates and around bus stops.

Instead, people should be encouraged to travel during off-peak when congestion isn't an issue both on and getting to/from the services.

[somebody]

Derwan,
An interesting perspective; but aren't the effects you are referring to slight?  Nothing compared to the effects of needing more trains/tracks/buses to cope with peak flows.

I actually think that the main thing restraining revenue is completely inadequate peak time fares.  Those that don't like it or are skint, what are they going to do?  Pay them.

[O_128]

Seems to much effort for cubic or the goverment to implement

[#Metro]

I would not support counter-peak pricing because it assumes that everyone is travelling towards Central/CBD.
This is not necessarily true, and will become less true over time as smaller activity centres establish.
And on buses? How would you do this on buses?

I think a lack of counter-flow travel is not due to cost, but simply because it isn't somewhere people want to go at that time.
The price would have to be negative (i.e. they pay you to travel) for this to work.

[ozbob]

Interesting feedback, thanks.

I don't think it is worth pursuing either on our system as there is much two peak flow anyway, as well as the zone complications.

Worth discussing.

On VLine it works well as they are very discreet long haul services, in fact their timetables are colour coded to clearly show which services off peaks fares are valid for and those that are not.

Onwards!