Train firm offers commuters three-day-week season ticket to help get commuters back to work

20 July 2020, 10:35 | Updated: 20 July 2020, 11:13

By Polly Foreman

Great Western Railway is proposing offering commuters a 'three days in seven' season ticket.

One of the country's largest railway firm plans to offer Brits a three day season ticket in a bid to help commuters get back to work.

Great Western Railway, which runs services between towns and cities including Bath, Cardiff, Reading, London and Oxford, is looking at offering a 'three days in seven' ticket to help get workers back to the office and reboot the economy.

The network also said they are considering introducing a new 12-day travel pass.

A spokesperson for the Railway company said, according to The Sun: "Our research suggests commuters will travel, on average, into work three days a week, rather than the current five."

This comes after Boris Johnson announced that businesses can use discretion to bring employees back to the office from August 1.

Boris Johnson announces that businesses can bring workers back to the office from August 1

He said: "Instead of government telling people to work from home, we are going to give employers more discretion, and ask them to make decisions about how their staff can work safely."

Read more: Boris Johnson unveils plan for 'significant return to normality' by Christmas

Speaking about the affect this should have on transport, Anthony Smith, chief executive of independent travel watchdog Transport Focus, said, according to the report: "A get-back-to-work message has got to be matched by the get-back-to-work rail products to underpin it.

"The only certainty about the future is that there will be less travel to work."I think the annual season ticket, except for a very few people, is probably pretty much dead.

"People . . . don’t want to rush back to the old way."

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According to the report, Rail firms will submit plans to the Department of Transport this week, but they could take months to come into force.

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