Why isn't a single fare half the cost of a return fare?

It's all about the profit...if they can count on your custom for a return journey,they'll cut you some slack.It's like going into a supermarket and wanting one item at the BOGOF price and not wanting to waste the second item..they don't want to hear that!

Some years ago I wanted to travel from Italy to Denmark. I wasn't going back to Italy so I asked for a one way ticket, but the employee that I talked to said: No, don't buy a one way ticket, it is cheaper for you to buy a return ticket. You can just throw the other half of the ticket away" I did what she said and bought a return ticket instead of one way ticket. I was very surpriced to discover that the return tickets were cheaper. The train stations in my country have introduced a new discount system. The first tickets that you buy are relatively expensive, but the prices decrease according to the number of tickets you buy. There are different kinds of discount levels and if you are a frequent traveller you are able to get cheap tickets after a while. I haven't used their new system, because my husband and I usually travel by car, but it sounds like a good system for people who often travel by train.

That really irks me, when a single ticket is only about 5p or 10p difference from a return, it doesn't make sense at all, you are only doing one journey instead of two so as you say it should in theory be exactly half price, this has always been the case with trains, and yet buses, you pay for a single, and a return is exactly double the single. I also had a Young Person's Railcard when I was younger, then I went to a Network Card which you pay a third, but they have conditions about what time you travel and the price of the ticket as to whether you get a reduction on it.

It never happens that way. If you go round trip, then instead of having a ticket for one way, and another ticket for the return trip - the advantage being that you can visit relatives in that country or take an extended tour without all those tourist type people - they will only have to print one ticket. Now if they allow you time to go visit and see the sights, it would be better to use the round trip, but if you do the single ticket and return ticket separately, are you not paying more because you are seeing so many things? It would make it easier and permit you to see more things that way.

In Japan there are many kinds of economical tickets. We have many choices for one time traveler and frequent traveler. If we commute to work place at least 16.66 days in a month on an average spread in six months, it is better to use six months pass called kaisuken. For some people, for example in my case, there may be multiple offices to commute in a month. In this case it is better to use multiple tickets called teikiken. We get one free ticket for every ten tickets. There is one-day pass which can be used multiple times in one day to travel on a specific rail comapny. Good to know the system in your country. Thanks for bringing out such a wonderful discussion.

That is irritating. It stops you from taking different routes on your travels. The reason that they do this of course, is to make more money. They convince you to take their source of travel both ways by giving you a 'bundle deal'. It's unfortunate, but it will probably not change, just as with place tickets, 2 ways are cheaper per flight than 1 ways.