New Initiative Expands Advance Ticket Availability in Northern England

A new customer initiative is aiming to expand the availability of advanced train tickets across government owned train operators in the UK.

LNER, TransPennine Express and Northern have worked with Network Rail to launch a joint initiative that plans to provide more options to passengers looking to travel across the North of England with the introduction of cheaper fares on routes requiring an interchange between operators.

The pilot was launched on 24 June 2025, and thus far has generated 200,000 GBP in additional revenue.

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.

Initially introduced by publicly-owned train operators between Leeds and Manchester; the pilot was put into action following an analysis of mobile network data that showed rail’s modal share was low, with further investigation suggesting that this could be due to a lack of consistent ticket options for train journeys requiring travel with more than one operator.

Since its introduction, mobile network data has shown a number of additional underperforming travel flows for cross-operator advance journey options, with more fares being introduced in order to tackle the issue.

The move is part of an wider effort to tackle affordability within rail travel, as well as showcase how public ownership may deliver benefits for passengers.