[Albion] Albion to launch matchday travel scheme review

[pastafarian]

Have the club said what the figures are? ie how much is spent on travel assistance and how much that reflects toward the overall ticket price the club charges?
They well may have done, but if they have i missed it................just asking

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

“Red tape” is an interesting point to make. The car parks, park-and-rides and paying Southern don’t strike me as excessively bureaucratic.

 

[atomised]

“Red tape” is an interesting point to make. The car parks, park-and-rides and paying Southern don’t strike me as excessively bureaucratic.

I took red tape to refer to the conditions we signed up for during the planning process

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

I took red tape to refer to the conditions we signed up for during the planning process

Fair point having re-read the red tape bullet.

 

[Paulie Gualtieri]

Am I right in thinking that Southern just have a management contract rather than a franchise and therefore their income is a fee from the government so aren't bothered about ticket income or for that matter, levels of service.

As for the review, guessing it is looking at cost savings. Unfortunately, there needs to be an improvement of the service, more buses for the park and ride, particularly Mill Rd, more train services if there can be (although I think people will help themselves if they don't all rush of for the trains at the final whistle). Bennetts field returning to service would help. I'm guessing the reference to legislation is the planning permission that required a travel scheme.

Where they might help themselves is better data collection. I'm guessing there is very vague info about how ,many use the trains and local buses.

I read they would be writing to all season ticket holders on the matter to gage an opinion in March

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

I like the principle of having travel included in the ticket; it’s what many progressive cities do these days for big events.

But equally I can understand the opposition to this because the public travel options are so shit.

 

[Blue3]

I hope the investigation involves the fans as a whole and not just those sitting with the board

 

[jcdenton08]

I can’t see how it can be “improved” because the club is limited hugely by infrastructure factors completely outside of their control.

I read this to be cost cutting from the club, and that essentially means stuff being taken away not added.

That or monorail.

 

[dazzer6666]

I hope the investigation involves the fans as a whole and not just those sitting with the board

FAB too presumably, or are they too busy researching flags ?

 

[JJ McClure]

I get that costs are considerable and increasing for the club, but they are for punters too so any removal or reduction of the travel zone will lead to hard choices for some and potentially mean people giving up watching the Albion.

 

[drew]

The placement student at my work is doing his dissertation on the train service to our ground (along with two others) funnily enough, I’m doing an interview for him next week as I’ve been to all three by rail.

There cannot be more train services without a massive signalling upgrade sadly. The contract Southern have means it does matter about both of those, levels of service are stipulated within the contract, and have to be maintained. Every single match day the service on the line is increased to two extra trains per hour above that requirement, so the idea on here that Southern are providing the bare minimum just isn’t true.

But is the additional service they are asked to put on during match days included in the minimum service requirements stipulated in their contract? Also, does the money the club pay go to Southern or, as I believe, like other ticket income, does it go straight to the government?

 

[CheeseRolls]

Southern lose money on this, this isn’t a lucrative revenue stream, if there’s no engineering works elsewhere they actually lose quite significant money. Southern cannot physically add anymore carriages to the service, no matter how many people come up with a magic planning alternative on North Stand Chat. There are 6 trains an hour all with a minimum of 6 carriages. If you want an improvement in the service the DfT and Network Rail is where you need to go, to improvement the infrastructure. Electronic ticketing? How’s that meant to work.

I do want an improvement to the service and yes it can be done. Anyone who has to travel from within the travel zone West of Brighton, will have expereinced the joy of squeezing on to 3/4 carriage trains hours before kick off. We have had services which have missed out most of the stops between Shoreham and Hove due to dangerous overcrowding. The service on the way back is equally shoddy and unreliable.

If you were involved in launching Southern "The Key" a few years back it would explian your lack of knowledge of how electronic tickets work. Not many people use them on Southern. Not Southern's fault but destination outside of their core area have different barrier readers. Within the travel zone all barriers have similar technology to that implemented at the ground. Whereas the season ticket works with both Apple Wallet and Google Wallet, Southern's effort does not integrate with Google Wallet. All that is required is a time bound ticket with a QR code valid for a return journey within the travel zone.

https://www.railnews.co.uk/news/2022/03/25-govia-thamelink-wins-newstyle-national.html Details the management contract with £22.5m dependent on performance. This usually equals trains "on time" and passenger numbers. My guess is that this loss making service is quite important to them, when passenger numbers into London are falling.

 

[Bozza]

I do want an improvement to the service and yes it can be done. Anyone who has to travel from within the travel zone West of Brighton, will have expereinced the joy of squeezing on to 3/4 carriage trains hours before kick off. We have had services which have missed out most of the stops between Shoreham and Hove due to dangerous overcrowding. The service on the way back is equally shoddy and unreliable.

If you were involved in launching Southern "The Key" a few years back it would explian your lack of knowledge of how electronic tickets work. Not many people use them on Southern. Not Southern's fault but destination outside of their core area have different barrier readers. Within the travel zone all barriers have similar technology to that implemented at the ground. Whereas the season ticket works with both Apple Wallet and Google Wallet, Southern's effort does not integrate with Google Wallet. All that is required is a time bound ticket with a QR code valid for a return journey within the travel zone.

https://www.railnews.co.uk/news/2022/03/25-govia-thamelink-wins-newstyle-national.html Details the management contract with £22.5m dependent on performance. This usually equals trains "on time" and passenger numbers. My guess is that this loss making service is quite important to them, when passenger numbers into London are falling.

But you did say...

"My main hope is that this really puts Southern in the spot light. The threat of removing a lucrative revenue stream, just might force them to start considering how they might improve the service."​

​

1. The revenue from Albion's 19 home league games a season will be a drop in the ocean of Southern's overall annual take.

2. Or what? How are Albion going to get c30k to and from the Amex for each game without the train doing a lot of the heavy lifting? We muddle though on the odd occasion when trains are not available, but it's not long-term sustainable.

Note: I'm not saying that things can't be improved at all, although I certainly listen when the likes of @jackalbion with hands-on knowledge or rail operations detail how difficult that is, but I really don't think the club have much if any leverage on that. We need Southern far more than they need us.

 

[Neville's Breakfast]

We probably have the best travel scheme anywhere in the league, will be interesting to see how they can improve it, I imagine it will be making it optional again, as the minority who park at the ground will say they don't want to pay and then the vast majority buy it anyway. I do think parking at the bridge should be included in the scheme though.

Wouldn’t that mean everyone subsiding the few who manage to get parking spaces and also massively increase demand ?

 

[atomised]

Wouldn’t that mean everyone subsiding the few who manage to get parking spaces and also massively increase demand ?

I'd think so I've always thought the pricing of the car parking has several purposes not least managing numbers

 

[amexer]

On basis since opening of Amex Albion have made considerable saving by not replacing Mithras house P&R and withdrawing subsidy to Seagull Travel it will be good to hear from club exactly where there cost have increased. With all games selling out and now 1000 plus extra seats match day income must be well up.
A little cynical I know but would think wages are biggest problem. Maybe wrong but on opening of Amex PB was earning £500k and now on near £2m
Because we are in PL and doing well match day tickets walk out of door I would think not to long term Albion supporters but this wont last for ever.
It is good Albion are looking into this but with Amex out in sticks and a pain to get to and fro and feel they need to give priority to make it as easy and reasonable to get to as possible.

 

[CheeseRolls]

But you did say...

"My main hope is that this really puts Southern in the spot light. The threat of removing a lucrative revenue stream, just might force them to start considering how they might improve the service."​

​

1. The revenue from Albion's 19 home league games a season will be a drop in the ocean of Southern's overall annual take.

2. Or what? How are Albion going to get c30k to and from the Amex for each game without the train doing a lot of the heavy lifting? We muddle though on the odd occasion when trains are not available, but it's not long-term sustainable.

Note: I'm not saying that things can't be improved at all, although I certainly listen when the likes of @jackalbion with hands-on knowledge or rail operations detail how difficult that is, but I really don't think the club have much if any leverage on that. We need Southern a lot more than they need us.

Might being the operative word. I don't have high expectations, but there are plenty of improvements, which don't involve adding capacity between Brighton and Lewes.

 

[jackalbion]

But is the additional service they are asked to put on during match days included in the minimum service requirements stipulated in their contract? Also, does the money the club pay go to Southern or, as I believe, like other ticket income, does it go straight to the government?

No the minimum service they have to provide for matchdays is what the minimum service is for the line, which is 4 trains per hour, they provide 6 trains per hour. The contract is a mess really, anything they make as profit goes to the government, it a terrible contract but thats the GB Rail future we are all heading full steam ahead for.

 

[BigBod]

In terms of exiting that car park, which I agree is horrendous, I'm really not sure what can be done.

That volume of vehicles all trying to leave at the same time, single-file, through a narrow runnel and immediately hitting a major set of traffic lights is not going to be easy to improve in any meaningful way.

Why can't they change the sequence of traffic lights just outside the tunnel in favour of cars leaving after the game. Would help a lot.

 

[Hotchilidog]

I think the club actually do a lot to get fans to and from the game. The train and bus subsidy is pretty impressive and I cannot think of any club that goes out of it's way to do this.

I really hope the aim is not to remove the subsidy but keep the tickets the same price. Bringing back the use of ticket barriers at Brighton and Falmer stations would be chaos.