UK: New train ticket website targets a £6bn market

[John Ashworth]

New train ticket website targets a £6bn market

By Tom Mcghie
Daily Mail
Last updated at 10:45 PM on 24th April 2010

A battle for the multi-billion pound online train ticket sales market is set to break out this week with the launch of a rival to the long-established thetrainline.com.

For the first time since Thetrainline sold train tickets online in 1999, it faces serious competition other than from the rail companies themselves.

Mytrainticket.co.uk is aiming for £40million of sales in its first year.

As an incentive to travellers it plans to offer one Airmile for every £10 a passenger spends on train tickets.

MyTrainTicket is owned by rail industry website designer Assertis.

The firm, based in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, has spent two years developing its system at a cost of £2 million. It hopes to recoup that in a year.

During the past 11 years, its rival Thetrainline, which was founded by Virgin Rail but sold to Exponent Private Equity for £163 million in 2006, has built up a huge business.

Last year it reported profits of £15.6 million on turnover up 11 per cent at £780.4 million. Since 1999 it has sold to 3.3 million travellers, making more than 14 million transactions.

But while Thetrainline has a powerful grip of the independent online market, it is less than 15 per cent of the total market. Most tickets are bought direct at ticket booths or from rail companies' own websites.

The main reason that Thetrainline has not faced effective opposition is the complexity of setting up a site to take account of the thousands of different train routes and ticket types.

Robin Wells, chairman of Assertis, said: 'It is not surprising that this has put people off. But there is an enormous market out there. It is worth £6 billion and waiting to be tapped.'

Wells said the Government was keen for more people to use the railways and had encouraged competition for ticket sales. 'Our vision is to transform the online rail ticketing market using our market-leading experience in delivering mobile and print-at-home tickets, which use barcode technology,' he says.

'There is huge potential to replicate the transformation achieved in online ticketing for airlines, where more than 50 per cent of tickets are purchased online.'