LNER’s ‘Simpler Fares’ pilot: the results are in

Tuesday 10th November 2026 The Department for Transport has published a review it commissioned from consultants, Systra, into LNER’s two current fare pilots – ‘Single Leg Pricing’ and the so-called ‘Simpler Fares’. The good news is Single Leg Pricing comes out of the review much more positively than the Simpler Fares trial which for yours truly, as a fairly regular passenger on the East Coast Main Line, comes as no surprise at all. Single Leg Pricing, where return tickets were withdrawn in favour of having just single tickets, began as long ago as January 2020, initially limited to certain destinations (London KIng’s Cross, Leeds, Newcastle and Edinburgh) with an expansion in June 2023 to cover all stations on the East Coast Main Line served by LNER including passengers buying ‘through tickets’ to/from destinations all over the country. So, for example, for a journey from my local station, Hassocks (in Sussex), to Leeds I’d need to buy a single ticket to Leeds and a single home again…

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