Rail passengers in the North to benefit from simpler fares and cheaper tickets thanks to public ownership

• significant passenger savings delivered by making advance fares available across publicly-owned operators at the same time 
• operators estimate they generated £200,000 generated in additional revenue for the railway, helping towards rebuilding a world class service for passengers
• cheaper, simpler journeys will open up more options for people travelling across the North, boosting connectivity and driving growth as part of the Plan for Change

Passengers in the North of England can benefit from cost and carbon savings through a new customer initiative that expands the availability of advance tickets across government owned train operators. 

Publicly owned train operators, LNER, TransPennine Express and Northern, worked with Network Rail to launch a joint initiative to provide more options to people travelling across the North by making fares cheaper on routes that required an interchange between the operators.  

Following a pilot launched June 24 2025, operators have found this initiative has already:  

• delivered significant passenger savings by making advance fares available across the whole route at the same time 
• generated £200,000 in additional revenue for the railway, encouraging people to choose public transport

This builds on the government's plans to overhaul the railways to make them simpler, more flexible and passenger focused. Ahead of the creation of Great British Railways, the government continues to work to deliver positive changes like this for passengers – attracting more people back onto our trains, boosting the economy and delivering on the government's Plan for Change.

Rail Minister, Lord Peter Hendy, said: 

This is exactly the type of collaborative work public ownership enables, allowing us to put passengers first by making train travel simpler and more affordable.

Through these cheaper fares we're opening up more options to people travelling across the North, putting more money in working people's pockets and boosting connectivity and growth as part of our Plan for Change.

In June 2024 a pilot was launched by publicly-owned train operators between Leeds and Manchester to make fares cheaper for customers to provide more options for people travelling across the North. Between Leeds and Manchester, analysis of mobile network data showed that rail's modal share was low despite competitive journey times vs car. Further investigation found that this was due to a lack of clear, consistent ticket options for train journeys involving more than one operator.  

For passengers booking ahead, cheaper advance fares were often available on only one leg of a cross-operator journey, with the walk-up fare on the other – creating an unattractive proposition for would-be rail users looking to book in advance. 

Since the original trial, and by using mobile network data, the publicly-owned train operators and Network Rail identified further underperforming travel flows for cross-operator advance journey options and introduced more affordable fares to encourage more people to choose the train.  

This data-driven approach uses innovative mobile data to track travel patterns and identify customer flows, enabling train operators in public ownership to create smarter, more efficient ticketing options that benefit both passengers and the environment. 

The move is part of a wider effort to make rail travel more attractive, affordable, and sustainable – and shows how public ownership can deliver real benefits for passengers.  

Operators continue to identify further flows to add in the future where we expect to continue to see positive results.