W14_Fishbourne wrote in
oups.com:

Interesting, that's two franchises now where warning has been given of
increases in off-peak fares has been (though it's not a commitment,
one way or the other).

You don't suppose that DfT was a bit p****d off with Stagecoach's
suddenly jacking up off-peak fares on SWT in one massive go.

So when SWT comes up for renewal, as long as a bidder says beforehand: "We
intend to quadruple all our fares every two weeks" that will be okay and
they're bound to be the front-runner...?

More seriously, as pointed out by several people in various places: a major
benefit of running much more frequent services is that it attracts
passengers to "turn up and go". If you make walk-on services far more
expensive even at off-peak times (eg with ATW's abolition of the
Supersaver, which didn't attract the volume of complaints it should have
done) then you negate the advantages of having a "turn up and go" railway
in the first place!

--
Bewdley, Worcs. ~90m asl.