Rush hour train ticket rules should be replaced with airline-style surge pricing, the industry says.
Train operators want to replace peak and off-peak tickets with "demand-led pricing" for longer journeys, similar to how airlines and Uber set their prices.
Currently, commuters make up just 15% of the pre-pandemic total, and commuter journeys are still at 45% of pre-pandemic levels, according to free-market think tank, the Centre for Policy Studies, which had called for train operators to scrap peak tickets and introduce 'rail miles' loyalty schemes.
Ticketing reforms are among the ideas being discussed with the government.
Andy Bagnall, chief executive of Rail Partners, the new train operator body, said a dynamic pricing policy would be welcome, reports Telegraph.
Bagnall said train operators are pushing for "a more demand-driven pricing approach" that gives better value tickets, though he opined there was no need for Britain's railways to reduce its estimated 55mln ticket types.
As part of changes announced by transport secretary Grant Shapps more than a year ago, Rail Partners is calling for a greater role for the private sector in the country's train network.
Rail Partners' predecessor, the Rail Delivery Group, was previously criticised for serving both Network Rail and train operators whose priorities regularly clashed.
Great British Railways was a central plank of Shapps' reforms, bringing tracks and trains together for the first time under a new, public entity.