[MarkyMarkD]

I agree, andy. Oswyn's insurance suggestion is just over-complicating matters. As I said a few posts ago, if you want flexibility, pay for a flexible ticket. If you don't, then live with the conditions.

The TOCs shouldn't change their way of doing business just to stop ill-informed people moaning to the newspapers. The same issue arises in many different businesses. I work in banking and the press (and forums) is constantly full of ill-informed drivel about how awful banks are, and how anything they do which involves making a few pence profit is "profiteering". Well - d'oh - banks are businesses! As are the TOCs.

[transmanche]

Originally Posted by MarkyMarkD

The TOCs shouldn't change their way of doing business just to stop ill-informed people moaning to the newspapers.

That's not a very customer-focused approach though is it? Businesses which provide services need to flex to customer demand in order to survive. Arrogant businesses which work on the 'our way or the highway' principle, will suffer in the long term.

Even the budget airlines realise this. EasyJet offer an option which allows you to pay a £50 fee if you miss your flight and travel on a later service, rather than a simple 'pay full price'.

A good example of this sort of flexibility in the railway industry is Southern's 'Rainy Day Guarantee'.

[SS4]

There are some customers that it's not worth the trouble to keep - how many of these are simultaneously complaining about the coach, the car, the plane, the boat?

[GadgetMan]

Rail passengers threatened with fines and even prosecution by train guards – despite buying a ticket – have called on the rail passenger watchdog to challenge their legality amid growing consumer anger.

So far it has ruled out a legal challenge.

Why? Probably because they know they wouldn't win.

He said he opposed a legal challenge but didn't rule out an appeal to the rail regulator adding: "This is a battle we will win."

If that's the case then battle away.





Using common sense and showing discretion is fine, but then this leads to a false sense of security to some passengers who then feel they should be shown the same discretion the next time they balls up.

It is very common to hear passengers with invalid tickets say, well the last time the guard was really nice and they let me off. You should be more like that person rather than a jobsworth. This just shows it's usually a minority of people who repeatedly keep falling foul of the rules.

There is a balance to be struck, and at the moment I don't think the system is too unfair to passengers. If you want flexibility then you need to purchase an appropriate ticket.

If we are going to start excessing Advance tickets after their first train has been missed then what's the cut off point going to be? 1 hour from the time of departure, 2 hours, 3 hours, days? What then stops someone using a Advance ticket one day and it not being stamped, then making the same journey the next day wanting to pay an excess to the walk up fare?

Campaigners do just that, campaign. Even if they get their way, they won't be satisfied, the very next day they'll find something else to cry about.


As to 'the man on the platform said', the simple solution to that is for any relaxing of rules by an authorised person to be included as an endorsement on the ticket or a separate note. All staff should be told to provide any rule bending in writing, and passengers should be educated to expect nothing less to cover their back.

[SS4]

Originally Posted by GadgetMan

Why? Probably because they know they wouldn't win.

If that's the case then battle away.


Using common sense and showing discretion is fine, but then this leads to a false sense of security to some passengers who then feel they should be shown the same discretion the next time they balls up.

It is very common to hear passengers with invalid tickets say, well the last time the guard was really nice and they let me off. You should be more like that person rather than a jobsworth. This just shows it's usually a minority of people who repeatedly keep falling foul of the rules.

There is a balance to be struck, and at the moment I don't think the system is too unfair to passengers. If you want flexibility then you need to purchase an appropriate ticket.

If we are going to start excessing Advance tickets after their first train has been missed then what's the cut off point going to be? 1 hour from the time of departure, 2 hours, 3 hours, days? What then stops someone using a Advance ticket one day and it not being stamped, then making the same journey the next day wanting to pay an excess to the walk up fare?

Campaigners do just that, campaign. Even if they get their way, they won't be satisfied, the very next day they'll find something else to cry about.


As to 'the man on the platform said', the simple solution to that is for any relaxing of rules by an authorised person to be included as an endorsement on the ticket or a separate note. All staff should be told to provide any rule bending in writing, and passengers should be educated to expect nothing less to cover their back.

Well said.
If I may just quote this paragraph to give further attention to

If we are going to start excessing Advance tickets after their first train has been missed then what's the cut off point going to be? 1 hour from the time of departure, 2 hours, 3 hours, days? What then stops someone using a Advance ticket one day and it not being stamped, then making the same journey the next day wanting to pay an excess to the walk up fare?

I agree. A tier of Advance+ would be interesting (i.e. this train and 1 train either side of it) although the reservation would be valid only on the original.
As soon as refunds are given you'll get people snapping up all the advance tickets and essentially having a walk up ticket with being able to refund all their other advances - an administration fee will only be effective if the cost of all tickets after refund is less than a walk up

[RPM]

The key to all this is to protect revenue and discourage fraudulent travel without throwing out the baby with the bathwater and criminalizing honest passengers who have either made a genuine mistake or have fruitlessly sought the means to buy a ticket to no avail.
It seems the general direction we are moving in as an industry is towards a narrowing of walk-on ticket buying facilities coupled with a zero-tolerance policy on ticketless travel. This has to be addressed, not only in regard to straightforward fairness, but also in order to rescue the industry from a massive PR own-goal. Sadly the McNumpty proposals are directing the railway ever further up this frankly suicidal blind alley.

It really is time the railway realised that it has a responsibilty to collect fares rather than expecting its customers to have a knowledge of its complex fares and restrictions and woe betide anyone who gets it wrong.

We have bylaws on the railway that are massively empowering, but with those bylaws comes a responsibilty to use those powers wisely.

[MarkyMarkD]

Originally Posted by transmanche

That's not a very customer-focused approach though is it? Businesses which provide services need to flex to customer demand in order to survive. Arrogant businesses which work on the 'our way or the highway' principle, will suffer in the long term.

Even the budget airlines realise this. EasyJet offer an option which allows you to pay a £50 fee if you miss your flight and travel on a later service, rather than a simple 'pay full price'.

A good example of this sort of flexibility in the railway industry is Southern's 'Rainy Day Guarantee'.

Souther's RDG is a great feature and there is little reason why their competitors don't offer it, for walk-up fares. It doesn't help the Advance situation, though.

The Easyjet £50 upgrade fee is interesting, as is the proposal (in a later post) for an "Advance+" ticket price which allows flexibility +/- one train either way. I can see many people being prepared to pay that extra amount - but a proportion of those customers are those who would currently buy (at their employer's expense, normally) a flexible ticket, and it will still leave those who only wish to pay the cheapest fare level and then complain when they miss their booked train!

I take issue, once again, with RPM's comment

Originally Posted by RPM

It seems the general direction we are moving in as an industry is towards a narrowing of walk-on ticket buying facilities

as I don't see any restriction of walk-on ticket options, in the slightest. The issue, surely, is that the price of walk-on ticket options is more than most passengers wish to pay? Which isn't exactly the same thing.

[AndyLandy]

I think the point I was trying to get at was that having an Advance be wholly worthless if you miss the train is a bit brutal. But there's a large area between that and face-value trade-up. If you charge an "Excess fee" for trading up an advance, you're then offering your screwed up customers a way out, without encouraging people to buy Advances as a "deposit" on a walk-on fare.

[SS4]

The missing vital point that in the eyes of the press the railway can do no right. It'll always be a PR own-goal regardless of what they do.

There really isn't anything all that complicated about ticketing for the average passenger; online sites will (should) not sell a ticket which isn't valid for the journey the passenger wants to make, booking offices will ask for the time of travel and either sell a valid ticket for said time or advise the passenger when it's valid. Both will make clear that Advance tickets are valid only with reservation and only valid on the train specified on the reservation coupon (and possibly an itinerary)

Heaven forbid someone actually reads, or at least have an idea of, the terms and conditions before buying their ticket.

The second you start offering refunds on advance tickets you'll see them being snapped up by passengers who want a spread, effectively hedging their bets and refunding the ones they don't use. When excesses are allowed much the same thing will happen

Let's say that advances are £6 each way (so £12 total) and an off-peak return costs £45 and there are 3tph. Our passenger knows he wishes to travel about 1pm but not the exact time and return about 8pm. He can buy advances out on the 1240, 1300 and 1320 and back on the 1940, 2000 and 2020 and pay £36 - a saving of £9.

[RPM]

Originally Posted by MarkyMarkD

I take issue, once again, with RPM's comment as I don't see any restriction of walk-on ticket options, in the slightest.

You are unaware then of London Midland's plans to reduce ticket office opening hours and completely close several ticket offices? This is unquestionably a restriction of walk-on ticket options. And before someone mentions TVMs - sorry but they just don't cut the mustard.

[island]

Originally Posted by SS4

The missing vital point that in the eyes of the press the railway can do no right. It'll always be a PR own-goal regardless of what they do.

Exactly right. Simply put, if the flexibility suggested by several people above were to come into effect, the TOCs would have to increase the ticket prices in order to maintain revenue at the same levels. Cue Daily Fail "CHEAPEST RAIL TICKETS INCREASE 200%; FAMILIES WANT A CHEAP DAY OUT NOT FLEXIBILITY".

[MarkyMarkD]

Originally Posted by RPM

You are unaware then of London Midland's plans to reduce ticket office opening hours and completely close several ticket offices? This is unquestionably a restriction of walk-on ticket options. And before someone mentions TVMs - sorry but they just don't cut the mustard.

For the purpose of this thread, "walk-on" has been used to mean "flexible", not actually to refer to whether the ticket is bought immediately before travel rather than in advance.

I agree, of course, that either the full range of tickets should be available from a ticket office, or from a TVM, or from a guard on the train if not from the first two sources.

I don't agree that TVMs are inherently inadequate, but most of those currently available do offer a restricted set of tickets and don't adequately explain the options available in the way that a human being could.

[neilmc]

I catch planes a fair bit and appreciate the concept that I have to be at the airport in good time because chances are if I miss the plane there won't be another that day or maybe even for the week, so you factor in silly amounts of time to spend at the airport, which is exactly what everyone concerned with the aviation industry wants.

But for an advance train ticket to have no value whatsoever on a service when there will (usually) be a half-empty train running twenty minutes behind the one I missed is just bad, totally unnecessary and easily perceived as fraudulent marketing, similarly the stipulation that I can't get off before my destination without paying a full standard fare single in lieu of my advance deal. OK so the public should be more savvy but remember these deals are heavily marketed so many people will think they in fact are the "standard" fare outside of business hours, and we're not dealing with fraudsters but people who did buy a ticket in good faith.

The TOCs could stand firm and say "no refunds" and let the media vilify them even more but why expect passengers to lie down and accept these stupid and vindictive conditions when the Daily Mail or consumer websites can make the TOCs grovel, and get them their money back?

[bluenoxid]

Why don't the operators print the conditions/restrictions for each ticket with the ticket.

With the era of E Ticketing, why can passengers not be given a code for their ticket, which allows them to present their ticket in whatever format they so choose (such as fingerprint or code or ID)

[Greenback]

Originally Posted by neilmc

I catch planes a fair bit and appreciate the concept that I have to be at the airport in good time because chances are if I miss the plane there won't be another that day or maybe even for the week, so you factor in silly amounts of time to spend at the airport, which is exactly what everyone concerned with the aviation industry wants.

In other words, the consequences of missing the flight are too serious not to turn up in plenty of time. But potentially the consequences of missing a booked train can be financially serious as well, which is why most people allow plenty of time before embarking on long distance Advance ticketed journeys.

Originally Posted by neilmc

But for an advance train ticket to have no value whatsoever on a service when there will (usually) be a half-empty train running twenty minutes behind the one I missed is just bad, totally unnecessary and easily perceived as fraudulent marketing,

Please explain how it is fraudulent to offer a highly restricted product at a (usually) discounted cost compared to a product with less restrictive conditions.

It has also been explained that the consequnces of allowing excesses on Advance tickets would fundamentally change the economics of these tickets.

Originally Posted by neilmc

similarly the stipulation that I can't get off before my destination without paying a full standard fare single in lieu of my advance deal.

Those are the terms of the ticket, but it is debatable how enforceable this is and there are many different variables that come into play.

Originally Posted by neilmc

OK so the public should be more savvy but remember these deals are heavily marketed so many people will think they in fact are the "standard" fare outside of business hours, and we're not dealing with fraudsters but people who did buy a ticket in good faith.

I would not begin to argue that the ticketing system is faultless, it is very complicated for staff and customers. However, when buying an Advance ticket is very difficult to avoid the terms and conditions and phrases such as 'valid on booked train only'.

Originally Posted by neilmc

The TOCs could stand firm and say "no refunds" and let the media vilify them even more but why expect passengers to lie down and accept these stupid and vindictive conditions when the Daily Mail or consumer websites can make the TOCs grovel, and get them their money back?

There is a difference between showing flexibility in the interests of customer service, and offering refunds as a matter of course. TOC's do give refunds without any media involvement, but it usually depends on the particular circumstances.

Frankly, this post reveals that some people do not adhere to the T&C's of Advance tickets because they have the notion that as there will be other trains running the passenger should not be tied to one particular service regardless of what ticket is actually held.

These sort of arguments do not help the cause of genuine passengers who have made an honest mistake at all. The media is often unable to differentiate between those who don't believe that the rules apply to them, and those that are merely the victims of unusual circumstances. In fairness, it is often hard to judge, as any member of train crew will agree.