South West Trains are introducing a new type of ticket for those who are travelling towards London in the late morning.

The new ‘off peak’ pricing band will start after the morning peak and before a new ‘super off peak’ band. The new off peak times will vary station by station, but will broadly be on trains arriving into London between 10.00 and 12.00.

* It does not affect peak time commuter fares.
* It does not affect travel out of London Waterloo, only towards it.
* It does not affect travel solely in the Greater London area, as that is covered by the zonal fares structure.
* It does not affect weekends or Bank Holidays.
* The new off peak band will be priced lower than peak fares but higher than the super off peak.

This will represent an increase of up to 20% on current off peak fares. Super off peak fares will rise by up to 3%. However it is still substantially cheaper than travelling in the peak – and that is without using any of the Railcard discounts.

Normal Railcard discounts will apply to both off-peak and super off-peak fares. SWT will also continue to offer value advance purchase fares such as Apex, Super Advance, Saver fares and megatrain.com deals.

The new fares structure will come into force on Sunday 20 May 2007, with details of the different ticket prices available from the beginning of April. Posters and leaflets at stations will clarify the restrictions relating to each fare type and help passengers identify the most appropriate ticket type for their journey.

South West Trains’ Commercial and Marketing Director Bruce Akhurst explained the change. “This new ticket type will bring us into line with a number of other train companies that use a similar pricing structure and allow us to better match demand and pricing, People who decide to travel outside of the peak can still make really good savings by buying one of a range of off peak value tickets and megatrain.com deals and by using a Railcard discount. Our new franchise outlines a number of commitments we have made to improving the facilities and service we offer. These include £40 million in station refurbishments, improved and additional trains providing extra capacity and better security.”

First Class fares will also be affected, with rises of between 15% and 20%.