Virgin Trains promises new app that could save passengers £1bn

The train operator is challenging the Department for Transport’s decision to strip it of its West Coast franchise

Departing soon: Virgin Trains will not be running on the West Coast Main Line from March 2020 onwards (Simon Calder)

As Virgin Trains prepares to depart from the UK railway network, the firm has promised a revolutionary new “price-guarantee app” that it claims will save rail passenger £1bn a year.

That sum represents one-11th of the entire fare revenue on the UK rail network.

The new technology, which is due to go live by the end of this year, is claimed to “cut through confusing and outdated ticketing systems to ensure that customers are automatically given the best ticket for their journey at the tap of a button”.

Virgin Trains claims that the app will automatically calculate the best fare, retrospectively, in the same way that Transport for London’s Oyster card delivers savings for travellers in the capital.

The ticket-management system will apply to train operators nationwide. It is intended to allow someone who has a peak-time return but who ends up travelling off-peak to pay the lower fare.

Alternatively, if a customer ended up making multiple journeys where a weekly season ticket would have been cheaper, the system will cap their fares at the price of the weekly ticket.

The train operator says the system will even deliver the benefits of “split-ticketing”, which in some cases can allow travellers to halve the cost of journeys.

On the Virgin Trains service from London Euston to Rugby, passengers who board nonstop trains pay £71 for an Anytime ticket.

But travellers on Virgin Trains that happen to stop at Milton Keynes Central can pay half as much if they buy separate tickets.

The train operator has been told it has been disqualified from the West Coast franchise it has held for 22 years in a row over pension obligations.

Virgin Trains is challenging the Department for Transport’s decision in court.

Meanwhile the train operator is keen to show how customer focused it has been since taking over trains linking Scotland, northwest England, the West Midlands and London in 1997.

Phil Whittingham, managing director of Virgin Trains, said: “We’ve been in the UK rail industry for more than twenty-two years, leading the industry in areas such as introducing automatic delay repay and digital tickets and scrapping the Friday evening peak.

“But we want to do more. The changes we’ve announced today, which align with the Rail Delivery Group’s Fares Reform agenda, could save UK rail passengers around a billion pounds a year, and ensure Virgin Trains continues to deliver for customers whatever happens with the West Coast franchise.”

Virgin Trains expects to go live by the end of the year across the UK.

Other train operators are sceptical about Virgin Trains’ claims for the system.

Jac Starr, chief operating officer at the Rail Delivery Group (RDG), which represents train operators and Network Rail, said: “The rail industry is doing all it can to improve fares for passengers within the constraints of outdated fares regulations but we need to go further.

“An app providing a work around is no substitute for industry-wide root and branch reform of the whole system.”

The RDG has proposed that the current Advance, Off-peak and Anytime rules should be scrapped in favour of demand-based pricing. It claims overcrowding would be reduced and that four out of five off-peak trains would have cheaper walk-up fares than at present.