Disingenuous departure board at London Victoria

[Peter Sarf]

Which also raises the question of whether you can avoid the premium even if it is a GX train - is there some sort of removable barrier? I wasn’t aware of the PAYG rules having any notion of tapping in in the wrong place.

There is a gate between the buffer end of platform 13 and Metro platform 12 downwards that the staff usher un-boarding passengers through if the arriving train was not a Gatwick Express. In the opposite direction (boarding) you are shooed away from the obvious barriers for 13/14. Only last Friday I watched passengers trying for the obvious route to platform 13 and being irked by the instruction to walk the long way round !. It is the same on non-strike days and relies on staff being there to prevent expensive use of the wrong barriers. Irony was we were getting on a GX branded red train - my 8 year old Granddaughter was worrying about this. I was reconciling this with the "Southern Service" quoted on the platform screen but this led to which one do you believe. She really did not want to get on. Gatwick Express is really a hopelesly branded product.

I think the barriers to platforms 13 & 14 at Victoria should be different barriers as they are for non-Oyster fares. I mean they should not work for non-GX tickets. Same at the Gatwick end - dedicated platform. And for pitys sake don't use the wrong branded trains on other services. What clues really are there - its a minefield for the uninitiated. As it is there is not enough distinction between Gatwick Express and the normal trains. Its a cheap and dirty attempt.

 

[Horizon22]

While I agree with that and I personally normally use the quicker Penge East service, I'd bet more go Sydenham Corrdior stations than Box Hill. Is it really right to have Streatham Hill, West Norwood, Gipsy Hill and Crystal Palace (all will be the same train), but not Sydenham, which has a 50% of being the right train? Change one for Sydenham or even just London Bridge and you've basically covered every station.

The board could probably be tidied up a bit sure, but that's some of the logic about why certain stations are there. You might get someone go to Sydenham or maybe even Forest Hill but that's about.

 

[Peter Sarf]

The board could probably be tidied up a bit sure, but that's some of the logic about why certain stations are there. You might get someone go to Sydenham or maybe even Forest Hill but that's about.

I am assuming that putting one station on the "fasted service to" board that covers many statiosn on the same route/service with identical stopping patterns suffices.

 

[Jimini]

Presumably that is what was being described.

Seems a little odd they’d be walking up and down the airport queue flogging tickets before people had even boarded the aircraft, but AIUI the cabin crew earn commission on this kind of thing, so are incentivised do the hard sell.

Aye, I’ve only ever encountered it whilst airborne during the drinks / “duty free” service.

 

[Deepgreen]

There is a gate between the buffer end of platform 13 and Metro platform 12 downwards that the staff usher un-boarding passengers through if the arriving train was not a Gatwick Express. In the opposite direction (boarding) you are shooed away from the obvious barriers for 13/14. Only last Friday I watched passengers trying for the obvious route to platform 13 and being irked by the instruction to walk the long way round !. It is the same on non-strike days and relies on staff being there to prevent expensive use of the wrong barriers. Irony was we were getting on a GX branded red train - my 8 year old Granddaughter was worrying about this. I was reconciling this with the "Southern Service" quoted on the platform screen but this led to which one do you believe. She really did not want to get on. Gatwick Express is really a hopelesly branded product.

I think the barriers to platforms 13 & 14 at Victoria should be different barriers as they are for non-Oyster fares. I mean they should not work for non-GX tickets. Same at the Gatwick end - dedicated platform. And for pitys sake don't use the wrong branded trains on other services. What clues really are there - its a minefield for the uninitiated. As it is there is not enough distinction between Gatwick Express and the normal trains. Its a cheap and dirty attempt.

I agree - the widespread use of dedicated branded stock elsewhere is a disaster from a PR viewpoint. The whole operation is poorly-managed and is utterly un-passenger-focused. A dedicated airport service is fine in principle but local factors have to be taken into account, including rolling stock deployment, which has fallen over badly in recent years.

 

[Horizon22]

I am assuming that putting one station on the "fasted service to" board that covers many statiosn on the same route/service with identical stopping patterns suffices.

It's a manual input effectively - the TOC decides what X stations are to be put on the board.

 

[PGAT]

The London Bridge - Victoria service only came back in September 2022, so the stations on the board were probably decided before then

 

[Deepgreen]

"Disingenious" or 'disingenuous'?

 

[AlbertBeale]

I am assuming that putting one station on the "fasted service to" board that covers many statiosn on the same route/service with identical stopping patterns suffices.

But that relies on everyone knowing the expected stopping patterns of trains from Victoria - ie, if you want the earliest arrival at X it'll be the same train as the earliest arrival at Y, so you only need check the latter. But I live north of the river, and when I venture onto Sarf London trains I'd need to check a map to see which stations are on which routes [yes, my uncle was a cabbie!]. And even then, I wouldn't be sure, from the "fastest trains" destination list alone, of the specific stopping pattern.

 

[yorkie]

I’ve had the on board crew pushing tickets for the Gatwick Express fairly often on my travels en route back to LGW (EasyJet).

How recently was this, and what price was it?

 

[Horizon22]

But that relies on everyone knowing the expected stopping patterns of trains from Victoria - ie, if you want the earliest arrival at X it'll be the same train as the earliest arrival at Y, so you only need check the latter. But I live north of the river, and when I venture onto Sarf London trains I'd need to check a map to see which stations are on which routes [yes, my uncle was a cabbie!]. And even then, I wouldn't be sure, from the "fastest trains" destination list alone, of the specific stopping pattern.

Do you need to know? You just need to know the next service for your station. Or staff will say "yes Platform 11 for the Dorking servce, that's your next train to Hackbridge".

There are of course regular departure screens underneath the "next fastest to".

 

[b0b]

I can’t think of another airport I have visited abroad that has the amount of bull**** you witness at the likes of Heathrow and Gatwick to try and entrap you into higher fares.

Chicago L train system is a flat fare $2.50 from any station except O'Hare where it is $5.00

 

[Peter Sarf]

But that relies on everyone knowing the expected stopping patterns of trains from Victoria - ie, if you want the earliest arrival at X it'll be the same train as the earliest arrival at Y, so you only need check the latter. But I live north of the river, and when I venture onto Sarf London trains I'd need to check a map to see which stations are on which routes [yes, my uncle was a cabbie!]. And even then, I wouldn't be sure, from the "fastest trains" destination list alone, of the specific stopping pattern.

I agree it requires a certain amount of knowledge of the service you need but some sort of decision will have had to be made about which stations to choose. There are far to many stations for the "fastest service to" board/screen to report all of them.

 

[zwk500]

Do you need to know? You just need to know the next service for your station. Or staff will say "yes Platform 11 for the Dorking servce, that's your next train to Hackbridge".

There are of course regular departure screens underneath the "next fastest to".

I agree with @AlbertBeale on this one. There are very few stations where you can reliably say 'for X follow Y' or similar. Given it's not hard to put the majority of the stations up on the 'Next Fastest' board it is a better presentation of information in a busy environment to keep them up than to try and streamline it and have a succession of passengers double checking info on their phones or with staff.

People who know their train's patterns will be able to identify the xx.yy time and terminus pretty quickly from the main departure screens anyway.

Separately, does Victoria still send Fast Brighton Line passengers up to the 15-19 ticket barrier to stack them slightly closer?

 

[Horizon22]

I agree with @AlbertBeale on this one. There are very few stations where you can reliably say 'for X follow Y' or similar. Given it's not hard to put the majority of the stations up on the 'Next Fastest' board it is a better presentation of information in a busy environment to keep them up than to try and streamline it and have a succession of passengers double checking info on their phones or with staff.

People who know their train's patterns will be able to identify the xx.yy time and terminus pretty quickly from the main departure screens anyway.

Separately, does Victoria still send Fast Brighton Line passengers up to the 15-19 ticket barrier to stack them slightly closer?

No but there's only so much space - not every station is going to be up there. Presumably a metric was chosen to select those specific stations, although that's not to say it couldn't do with tweaking.

They're redoing that whole 15-19 concourse area in future to make it feel less cramped.

 

[XAM2175]

Chicago L train system is a flat fare $2.50 from any station except O'Hare where it is $5.00

Having a surcharge for using an airport station is very common, and in my mind not really unreasonable so long as it's made clear to passengers in advance. Heathrow and Gatwick are in the special class they are because the surcharge applies only to particular trains, and Gatwick is in the extra-special class it is because of how hard the surcharged service is pushed on passengers, and how the surcharged service delivers effectively zero material benefit to those passengers.

 

[AlbertBeale]

I agree it requires a certain amount of knowledge of the service you need but some sort of decision will have had to be made about which stations to choose. There are far to many stations for the "fastest service to" board/screen to report all of them.

Well - Manchester Picc, when I was there recently, had a massive display in the middle of the concourse* which must have shown the "next quickest arrival at" (or however it was phrased) for scores of stations. Maybe not every possible destination given the range of places you can get to from there, but many times more than on the Victoria display (*in tiny print!). (Unfortunately, there was almost no actual useful - to a non-local - information I could find, showing sequential departures in the normal way.) But maybe the last point is for another thread.

 

[nw1]

The railway is heavily subsidised. There might be an argument for subsidy for a social railway but there certainly isn't an argument to subsidise people on business trips and going on foreign holidays, so if they are charged more for a dedicated service there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. It isn't as though Gatwick Airport stops aren't displayed on the departure board for other services. They are and the photo in the OP is just a specially selected partial photo of the departure board to try and make a point.

The key point here is that the departure boards are misleading to casual passengers who rarely use the route. If the railway is to adopt a public-service ethos rather than a Thatcherite one, it should honestly show the earliest-arriving next service of any type to Gatwick, so as not to mislead infrequent passengers. (And, ideally, if the next service is the Gatwick Express, it should clearly be marked "PREMIUM FARE" with an alternative displayed).

The Gatwick Express at inflated fares and being run using basically the same stock (unlike the old 73-hauled operation) as the other services is a complete waste of scarce paths. That said, I do see the merit of a dedicated airport shuttle priced with normal fares and ideally stopping at Clapham Junction, to keep airport passengers from overcrowding the regular Southern services (while recognising that such a service is also difficult to path and could not be operated right now in any case due to Southern's stock shortages).

 

[rmt4ever]

When will the Gatwick Express return to half hourly?

The only advantage of the service vs Southern trains is that if you get a Gatwick terminator (rather than a Brighton continuer) and walk down to coach 1 of 12 you get the carriage to yourself.

 

[PGAT]

When will the Gatwick Express return to half hourly?

I think you mean every 15 minutes?

It’s not happening

 

[rmt4ever]

I think you mean every 15 minutes?

It’s not happening

Apologies, yes, I did indeed mean to every 15 minutes.

That is a shame. Is there any reason why not? Half hourly for the second busiest airport is very poor. The HEX service returned to 15 minute frequency very soon after the covid debacle.

 

[XAM2175]

The key point here is that the departure boards are misleading to casual passengers who rarely use the route. If the railway is to adopt a public-service ethos rather than a Thatcherite one, it should honestly show the earliest-arriving next service of any type to Gatwick, so as not to mislead infrequent passengers. (And, ideally, if the next service is the Gatwick Express, it should clearly be marked "PREMIUM FARE" with an alternative displayed).

The Gatwick Express at inflated fares and being run using basically the same stock (unlike the old 73-hauled operation) as the other services is a complete waste of scarce paths. That said, I do see the merit of a dedicated airport shuttle priced with normal fares and ideally stopping at Clapham Junction, to keep airport passengers from overcrowding the regular Southern services (while recognising that such a service is also difficult to path and could not be operated right now in any case due to Southern's stock shortages).

The fairest thing to do would be to apply the special fare to entries and exits from the Gatwick Airport station (with a suitable concession scheme for airport staff and local residents as appropriate). That way there's no need for any of the "pretend the cheap trains don't exist" rigmarole, allowing GX services to actually segregate airport traffic.

 

[stevieinselby]

Apologies, yes, I did indeed mean to every 15 minutes.

That is a shame. Is there any reason why not? Half hourly for the second busiest airport is very poor. The HEX service returned to 15 minute frequency very soon after the covid debacle.

There are at least 6 fast trains per hour throughout the day between Victoria and Gatwick, with at most 2 intermediate stops – the time difference between the "regular" trains that call at CLJ and ECR, and the "express" trains that don't, is negligible. Increasing the frequency of GEx just for the sake of having a higher frequency airport service is unnecessary, because there is already a high-frequency airport service – the only reason to step the GEx up to 4tph is if the current service pattern doesn't offer enough capacity to meet demand.

 

[nw1]

The fairest thing to do would be to apply the special fare to entries and exits from the Gatwick Airport station (with a suitable concession scheme for airport staff and local residents as appropriate). That way there's no need for any of the "pretend the cheap trains don't exist" rigmarole, allowing GX services to actually segregate airport traffic.

Does this mean charging the inflated fare for all journeys to Gatwick? Don't like the sound of that if so.
If that's not what you mean, apologies.

 

[XAM2175]

Does this mean charging the inflated fare for all journeys to Gatwick? Don't like the sound of that if so.
If that's not what you mean, apologies.

I didn't mean applying the current GX fare, no, though I can see it easily reads like I did. Something like a £5 surcharge on all entries and exits from the station was closer to what I had in mind. This is quite common in other countries where the airport railway station has been funded by the airport operator or a third party - the surcharge has the ostensible purpose of recovering the costs of construction and operation from the people who are actually using the station.

 

[greatkingrat]

I didn't mean applying the current GX fare, no, though I can see it easily reads like I did. Something like a £5 surcharge on all entries and exits from the station was closer to what I had in mind. This is quite common in other countries where the airport railway station has been funded by the airport operator or a third party - the surcharge has the ostensible purpose of recovering the costs of construction and operation from the people who are actually using the station.

That might work on a metro system with a simple fare structure, but I don't see how it could work at Gatwick. You'd just end up with people buying tickets to Three Bridges and stopping short.

 

[Horizon22]

There are at least 6 fast trains per hour throughout the day between Victoria and Gatwick, with at most 2 intermediate stops – the time difference between the "regular" trains that call at CLJ and ECR, and the "express" trains that don't, is negligible. Increasing the frequency of GEx just for the sake of having a higher frequency airport service is unnecessary, because there is already a high-frequency airport service – the only reason to step the GEx up to 4tph is if the current service pattern doesn't offer enough capacity to meet demand.

And of course this doesn’t even consider fast Thameslink trains too.

 

[PGAT]

(In peaks)

8tph Southern to Victoria
2tph Gatwick Express to Victoria
8tph ThamesLink to London Bridge and beyond

 

[XAM2175]

That might work on a metro system with a simple fare structure, but I don't see how it could work at Gatwick. You'd just end up with people buying tickets to Three Bridges and stopping short.

Strictly speaking it would work in the current fare structure if a station use surcharge were levied in addition to the normal fare, rather than being incorporated into the normal fare to Gatwick. It would need some adjustments to the NRCoT to enable it, but the effect would be that a passenger stopping short would still have to pay the surcharge (in much the same way as an excess) in order to lawfully leave the station.

Or just explicitly revoke at Gatwick the right to stop short, if you want to take the sledgehammer approach

 

[nw1]

Strictly speaking it would work in the current fare structure if a station use surcharge were levied in addition to the normal fare, rather than being incorporated into the normal fare to Gatwick. It would need some adjustments to the NRCoT to enable it, but the effect would be that a passenger stopping short would still have to pay the surcharge (in much the same way as an excess) in order to lawfully leave the station.

Or just explicitly revoke at Gatwick the right to stop short, if you want to take the sledgehammer approach

I still think a surcharge would be a retrograde step and bad for the passenger: there hasn't been one in place since Gatwick opened AFAIK, so why now?

In an ideal world, I'd just replace Gatwick Express with a 'regular' Southern service, in the same path, calling additionally at Clapham Junction, and operated by standard Southern stock (12 cars, as it'll get busy due to also serving Brighton).