I can’t help but think that the railway is likely to resist this interpretation
Of course it will, it’ll do anything not to pay out a few quid, even if it costs an order of magnitude more to do so. It’s pettier than some of its users.
and if it is used too much we might find a less favourable definition being written into the rules.
Maybe we need to be a little careful in what we wish for.
Agreed, though I would say this thread is more of a risk than the small number of people utilising this right.
I'm sure we were briefed some time ago that a 1 minute delay would trigger a fee free refund on any type of ticket if the customer decided not to travel
It makes sense, they’re the rules as we interpret it. It can’t really be abused.
The "Published Timetable of the Day" idea will likely have originated with the DfT, since they are the ones ultimately funding Delay Repay costs.
I’m not hugely convinced on this. I think these things often start with someone at an operator (or retailer in this case) not following the rules for financial gain, this then gets seen by many as a good little earner and spreads. It’s only then that it becomes a rule. This is what happened with PToD, Northern had been unlawfully rejecting delay repay on these grounds well over a year before this rule came into play, and in that time we saw a few more TOCs jump on board because they knew Northern were getting away with it. Then as if by magic the rule comes in. It takes a lot of different law breakers to make a railway.
So if a train was expected to depart 1L but arrived on time at its destination, should someone be eligible?
Yes. There are trains I catch that a 1 or 2 minute delay will mean missing a path further down which will turn into a 6 or 7 minute delay which will lead to a missed connection which will turn into a 2 hour delay. As it’s already quicker and much cheaper than a flexible ticket to drive direct to the destination then I see no issue in treating a delay of 1 or 2 minutes as a high risk and abandoning the journey by rail. Every situation is different, someone going to the next stop would be the same 1 minute late, so it’s unlikely to affect them but do we change the rules to mean I’m forced to be 2 hours late because they’d only be 1 minute late? That sounds very ……. Actually that does sound like the railway.
Yes. There is no way to know before abandoning a journey because of an already existing delay whether the train will arrive at the destination on time, early, or be further delayed.
We take a chance everytime we catch a train On Time that it won’t be delayed, just as we do when we get in the car and head to the motorway. So something already delayed is higher risk.