As a travel pass holder let me declare an interest.
I agree that the extension of the scheme to peak travel times was rotten vote-buying. But reversing the change won't necessarily give any significant financial savings, and there may be an enforcement cost. If I change from the 5pm to the 3pm to Cork, the company may in theory sell an extra seat on the 5pm. But they can sell seats anyhow even if there is only standing room and if the fare-paying passenger would have travelled on a different train due to the expectation of overcrowding on the 5pm the net result will be much the same in financial terms.
The unambiguous winners would be regular commuters to and from work, whose peak-time trains would be less overcrowded. This is a good argument for re-instating the restriction on peak-time use of travel passes. But the powers that be really don't care about that: they just want to save money, and their lack of a business brain means that they will screw up yet again.
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