Before the electrification of the queen st to Waverley line you used to be “lucky” to get on a train at 0815 at the intermediate stations and would literally have spent the whole journey jammed against someone else’s sweaty body, sometimes barely able to breathe. The same getting back on at Waverley at 5.30. Peak pricing to encourage people to travel outside those times made sense. Post covid, the first not peak train (and the last one in the afternoon) can actually be busier that the one before/after it. So it makes sense from a simple price perspective.
I doubt it is actually going to move many people out of their cars though, it that is the objective. The same phenomenon that made the trains hell and now just busy did the same to Edinburgh and Glasgow traffic. Very occasionally I had to take the metal box to the office (usually to bring/collect something heavy). At 3am that is a 25min journey. Pre-covid rush hour it was well over an hour. post-Covid rush hour I’ve done it once recently and it was 38 minutes. Door to door the train would take 22 minutes – if (and it’s a big if) everything runs to plan. If you miss one train or it’s cancelled you are probably as quick driving – with fewer people coughing on you etc.
