Discussion about "Train ticket enforcement must be fair and proportionate, watchdog warns"

[Krokodil]

To be fair they have much lower fares so the "penalty" for an incomplete journey would be lower. A fare cap of £100 here is just not going to happen.

As I said, it's not "unworkable", it's a question of political priorities.

I like the way the French do it, with train numbers. It makes it simpler all round, even with walk up tickets.

I'm standing at Crewe. I'm not from the UK, so neither my geographical knowledge of British settlements, nor my English language skills are great.

For example:
I have an Anytime return to Preston. I know the train is at 1410. I look at the departure board. ****! Do I need the 1410 to Pembroke Dock from platform 12? The 1410 to Glasgow from platform 6? The 1410 to Newark Castle from platform 3?

Much easier if there's a specific number to look out for.

Could be worse. Under the previous timetable you could have an Advance ticket to Birmingham New Street, booked on the 07:19. So which 07:19 Birmingham train should you board? The 350 on platform 6 or the 153 on platform 7? Both shown as Birmingham trains on the departure board, not even a "via Shrewsbury" to indicate that you would have a very long, slow trip on the latter unless you examine the calling pattern. Choose wisely, you may get stung.

 

[Solent&Wessex]

The problem is that people want simplification but don't want to give up the idea of being able to get an Advance for 25p, or something.

It's one or the other. Simple or cheap. Both aren't possible without a massive increase in subsidy.

See also LNER.

Yes my sources suggest that may well have been the problem. They want it simplifying but at the same time don't want anyone paying any more than they currently do. And there was some mention of how seperate companies can't be seen to be colluding as that is anti competitive.

 

[styles]

The problem is that people want simplification but don't want to give up the idea of being able to get an Advance for 25p, or something.

It's one or the other. Simple or cheap. Both aren't possible without a massive increase in subsidy.

See also LNER.

Yes it's a curious thing really - I advocate for simpler fares, but assuming simpler fares would bring some fares up and others down, I currently benefit from the complicated fares system by understanding it a bit more than the average passenger. Split tickets, railcards, groupsave, rovers/rangers, regional railcards, knowing when annual special offers will land, cashback sites, etc. I tend to find quite cheap fares, unless it's last-minute. Cheaper than driving even if there were 4 of us in a car sometimes. But ultimately that's not good for the public generally, as they're ending up paying whatever fares National Rail Enquiries throws up.

 

[PeterC]

What would the maximum fare be from Birmingham New Street?

What would someone who taps in at New Street and travels to Canley on a packed train but forgets to tap out be charged. The journey takes place on a packed train in the evening peak with absolutely no chance of an onboard check.

I can board the Elizabeth Line without having the fare to Reading available on my card so I am sure that an equivalent could be found for the West Midlands.

 

[Benjwri]

Yes it's a curious thing really - I advocate for simpler fares, but assuming simpler fares would bring some fares up and others down, I currently benefit from the complicated fares system by understanding it a bit more than the average passenger. Split tickets, railcards, groupsave, rovers/rangers, regional railcards, knowing when annual special offers will land, cashback sites, etc. I tend to find quite cheap fares, unless it's last-minute. Cheaper than driving even if there were 4 of us in a car sometimes. But ultimately that's not good for the public generally, as they're ending up paying whatever fares National Rail Enquiries throws up.

I would argue the average passenger benefits significantly. The 'not simple' fares are off peaks, cheap advances and operator restrictions. As mentioned people using those are the ones prices will increase for, and that is often the normal passenger.

 

[AlterEgo]

I would argue the average passenger benefits significantly. The 'not simple' fares are off peaks, cheap advances and operator restrictions. As mentioned people using those are the ones prices will increase for, and that is often the normal passenger.

Advances are the simplest ticket on the railway, I probably wouldn’t include those in the list.

 

[35B]

Advances are the simplest ticket on the railway, I probably wouldn’t include those in the list.

I would. Their existence, especially as unregulated fares and as the de facto standard for many journeys, in a system that treats turn up and go tickets as the de jure standard, is at the heart of a lot of the confusion about what restrictions actually mean and hence the disputes that arise.

 

[Krokodil]

Advances are the simplest ticket on the railway, I probably wouldn’t include those in the list.

You might think (as @Bletchleyite does) that they are, but that doesn‘t tally with my years of experience dealing with passengers.

For most journeys (we've discussed routing restrictions that were probably unintentional and should be lifted) an Anytime, Any Permitted ticket is as simple as it can get. Let's take Chester to Manchester. Buy an Any Permitted SDR and you can travel out and back by any reasonable route. Just jump on the next train going vaguely the right way, whether that is the TfW one via Warrington, the Northern one via Altrincham, the Leeds train or even go via Crewe. All reasonable routes are covered. If one route is disrupted then you can use a different one with no need for ticket acceptance agreements. If you finish work early or late you can just jump on any of the other trains without a second thought, because there is nothing complicated about an Anytime, Any Permitted ticket. The only conflict I ever have with these is the very occasional person trying to take the mick and go via Liverpool - no Sir, that is not a reasonable route and so it is not permitted. Very rare that anyone will try that on.

Advances however give me an enormous amount of earache. Passenger has ticket for "fourteen fifty something to Manchester Piccadilly". So they jump on the 14:52. Nope, your ticket was for the 14:56, the blue train on platform 6. "But this is going to Manchester" - yes, but your ticket isn't valid. You see, this is complicated for many passengers.

God knows we get enough threads on the subject of excessive announcements, I would love not to have to spend dwell times at Chester, Newton-le-Willows, Oxford Road, Piccadilly and the Airport nagging everyone to double check that their ticket is valid before I sting them for £20 for a new one. I would also love to be able to answer "is this the train to Manchester" with "yes", rather than "what sort of ticket do you have?". But I have to do these things because Joe Public finds advance tickets (as well as the various TOC-specific ones) more complicated than Anytime, Any Permitted.

Bear in mind that I am at no point condoning LNER's "simplification". It's nothing of the sort, it's a price hike.

 

[Lewisham2221]

I would. Their existence, especially as unregulated fares and as the de facto standard for many journeys, in a system that treats turn up and go tickets as the de jure standard, is at the heart of a lot of the confusion about what restrictions actually mean and hence the disputes that arise.

The problem isn't Advance tickets. As others have said, they're dead simple - valid on this specific train, and this specific train only. No confusion about route, operator, peak/off peak times. Okay, there could be an issue of identifying the correct service if you have multiple departures in the same direction in quick succession, or if there a multiple trains to multiple destinations at the same time, but that's far less of an issue, in my experience.

The problem is how online retailers sell Advances.

Take a quick, admittedly not wonderfully scientific, survey of 5 online retailers/apps - Trainline, TrainPal, Uber, Northern and RailUK.

Of those 5, the majority treat the Advance as the default standard ticket and don't make it abundantly clear what your other ticket options are - input your journey details, select a particular service and then it displays the ticket details for an Advance, complete with clear and obvious prompts to continue with your purchase; the only mention of other tickets being available is a small text link, which then takes you to the list of alternatives.

The 2 better performing ones - whilst still automatically highlighting/selecting the cheapest Advance option - display a list of available fares, lowest to highest, along with a brief summary of the restrictions/terms of those fares. This makes it far clearer to the average passenger that there are other fare options available, with differing terms and levels of flexibility, which may be more suitable for them and their journey.

Uber and Northern were the better performing retailers in this regard.

Anytime (Any Permitted) is clearly also a simple ticket, barring the incomprehensible minefield that is the Routing Guide - although for most passengers on most journeys it's a case of the direct train or a common sense interchange point for a connection. The trouble with common sense or "reasonable" routing though, is different people potentially having different interpretations. There have been a couple of fairly recent discussions on here about routes that seem perfectly logical, but are apparently not valid - IIRC one was something like Worcester to Wrexham(or Chester) not being valid Hereford, the other was something like Chesterfield to Chester only being valid via Stockport (and not Stoke-on-Trent).

Ideally, that's the two options I'd have - cheaper, fixed itinerary Advance or more expensive, but much more flexible Anytime (albeit with some of the ridiculously hiked-up fares brought down a peg or three!). It's all the stuff in between - off-peak with all the varying restrictions, TOC specific and route specific tickets that cause all the headaches - along with poorly retailed Advances

 

[Bletchleyite]

With regard to Chester to Manchester via Liverpool, I don't see what is unreasonable about it myself. In BR days Aughton Park to Manchester was valid via Chester, and that's no more or less silly. To get from Chester to Manchester you need to go north and east, that one just does the north before the east rather than in the middle or at the end.

That highlights what's confusing about permitted routes nicely.

As for Advances I bet a lot are just trying it on and know full well what train it is valid on. Though if we'd use "flight numbers" it would be simpler, they do exist, the Retail Service ID.

 

[35B]

The problem isn't Advance tickets. As others have said, they're dead simple - valid on this specific train, and this specific train only. No confusion about route, operator, peak/off peak times. Okay, there could be an issue of identifying the correct service if you have multiple departures in the same direction in quick succession, or if there a multiple trains to multiple destinations at the same time, but that's far less of an issue, in my experience.

I did not say Advance Tickets are the problem, but that their position within the overall structure of fares makes them part of the picture of complexity for many users.

The distinction between "flexible" (itself a complicated combination of time and route rules) and "advance" is lost on many people, especially where you have formal itineraries generated, with or without seat reservations. That may be compounded by how retailers choose to present options, but is inherent to the current mixed economy.

The point is not that X or Y ticket is complex, but that the complexity comes from the interaction of various ticket types on the network - and that the rules for UK railways are different from other modes of transport and of other countries.

 

[jfollows]

The operators all push advance tickets at us because they get more money from them, leading to people thinking that they’re the only type of ticket. We had a regular poster discovering a cheap day return recently and being amazed by the flexibility it offered - ”I can return when I want!”. The memory of things like cheap day returns and “Savers” - off peak returns - has gone. The operators try and fool us into buying their advance tickets at 10p less than the flexible tickets, and it’s only the minority of us in the know who understand this.
I also said elsewhere that corporate mandates have fallen for this lie - nowadays anyone on business travel who doesn’t buy an advance ticket may be in trouble.

 

[Lewisham2221]

I did not say Advance Tickets are the problem, but that their position within the overall structure of fares makes them part of the picture of complexity for many users.

The distinction between "flexible" (itself a complicated combination of time and route rules) and "advance" is lost on many people, especially where you have formal itineraries generated, with or without seat reservations. That may be compounded by how retailers choose to present options, but is inherent to the current mixed economy.

The point is not that X or Y ticket is complex, but that the complexity comes from the interaction of various ticket types on the network - and that the rules for UK railways are different from other modes of transport and of other countries.

The issue is clearly all the stuff in between Anytime (fully flexible) and Advance (not-flexible).

By your own reasoning, you could argue that it should be Anytime (Any Permitted) fares that should be done away with as it is merely the presence of those tickets - with no restrictions - that causes passengers to mistakenly assume that all tickets have no restrictions (despite the fact that the existence of any more than one ticket type would logically imply to pretty much anyone that there must be some differing terms/conditions between the tickets).

 

[Adam Williams]

Of those 5, the majority treat the Advance as the default standard ticket and don't make it abundantly clear what your other ticket options are - input your journey details, select a particular service and then it displays the ticket details for an Advance, complete with clear and obvious prompts to continue with your purchase; the only mention of other tickets being available is a small text link, which then takes you to the list of alternatives.

Not entirely true for RailUK; Advances can be filtered out across all results with one click (old site) or two clicks (new site, but only because we added more advanced filtering options).

On the Ticket Information, if you have proceeded with an Advance, you're told it's non-refundable/fixed to booked trains in a specific box and a whole grid of ticket choices (in ascending price order of varying ticket types, restriction codes and different fare locations/destinations) is available to view with a single click:



I'd be interested in alternative suggestions here - but do bear in mind that many passengers do just want to travel on a specific train and they will compare the headline prices offered by different retailers by default. Many of them want the cheapest price.

 

[35B]

The issue is clearly all the stuff in between Anytime (fully flexible) and Advance (not-flexible).

By your own reasoning, you could argue that it should be Anytime (Any Permitted) fares that should be done away with as it is merely the presence of those tickets - with no restrictions - that causes passengers to mistakenly assume that all tickets have no restrictions (despite the fact that the existence of any more than one ticket type would logically imply to pretty much anyone that there must be some differing terms/conditions between the tickets).

You could misuse my argument to conclude that. But that would miss the point about the complexity of the interactions in the system as a whole.

@Adam Williams makes the point well that there is not a simple view of what customers want when we buy tickets.

 

[Adam Williams]

@Adam Williams makes the point well that there is not a simple view of what customers want when we buy tickets.

One of the random "experiments" that the design agency involved in the old site tried once upon a time was this dropdown that would actually ask you "What are you looking for?" at the very outset of your journey search and you could choose between Best Value, Fastest and Cheapest:



If you spend no time thinking about it at all, it seems like a fantastic idea. The software just picks a journey and fare for you, and you can continue on your merry way. No cognitive overload at all!

But most customers don't know exactly what they want. They want an overview of the options and to assess the price trade-offs themselves, because that can inform their choice. They don't want a computer to compute its own secret blend of speed, changes and cost to come up with an opaque magical "value score". They want to see what the service patterns actually are like between their origin and destination.

So Raileasy threw that design in the bin very quickly after launch.

 

[Titfield]

What I invariably want is a fixed time journey outbound and a flexible time journey inbound.

I want to see the fares for a FIX FIX versus a FIX FLEX so I can then judge whether the additional fare (difference between fix and flex) for the FLEX on the inbound is something I am prepared to pay.

 

[Adam Williams]

What I invariably want is a fixed time journey outbound and a flexible time journey inbound.

Agree this would be nice to offer

 

[AlterEgo]

You might think (as @Bletchleyite does) that they are, but that doesn‘t tally with my years of experience dealing with passengers.

For most journeys (we've discussed routing restrictions that were probably unintentional and should be lifted) an Anytime, Any Permitted ticket is as simple as it can get. Let's take Chester to Manchester. Buy an Any Permitted SDR and you can travel out and back by any reasonable route.

Well, you can travel by any Permitted Route, something which is defined by a series of arcane maps, easements, and railway mileage. With many Any Permitted tickets, permitted routes are not reasonable and some reasonable routes are not permitted.

The ticket is actually very complex but the way it is presented to the customer is simple.

Advance tickets are extremely simple, though I take @35B's point that their presence in a more complex structure of fares - where the walk-up is the norm - is unhelpful.

 

[Krokodil]

With regard to Chester to Manchester via Liverpool, I don't see what is unreasonable about it myself.

There may be a case for an easement, given that time-wise it takes no longer than the Mid Cheshire stopper. Even so, it's not an obvious route and wouldn't occur to 99% of passengers so they don't try it, therefore it's not really an issue. I often end up endorsing passengers who mistakenly board the wrong train at Frodsham and send them onto the CLC at South Parkway to complete their journey.

As for Advances I bet a lot are just trying it on and know full well what train it is valid on.

There's a mixture. Some who are trying it on. Some who should have been on a Northern service (generally the Leeds) from that didn't turn up for whatever reason and were told (with no ticket acceptance or even a written note from a station to prove that they've been instructed by staff) to criss from Vic to Pic and get on the TfW service there. Some who turned up at Piccadilly, asked the staff there where the train to Chester was and were told Platform 14 without being asked what ticket they held. Some who click through things without reading. None of whom would have had the slightest issue if they were holding an Anytime Day Single/Return. Unfortunately the former in particular is grossly overpriced as ATW hiked it to keep a lid on the overcrowding.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 6 Jun 2025 ==

What I invariably want is a fixed time journey outbound and a flexible time journey inbound.

I think that applies to most people. They want to travel out on the next departure, but aren't sure when they will come back.

Well, you can travel by any Permitted Route, something which is defined by a series of arcane maps, easements, and railway mileage. With many Any Permitted tickets, permitted routes are not reasonable and some reasonable routes are not permitted.

99.9% of passengers do not run into issues with Anytime, Any Permitted tickets. They go out, they come back, they have no problems in between. The "reasonable but not permitted" routes should be looked at, but almost all reasonable routes are covered. Far more board the wrong train with an Advance - whether through their fault, the railway's fault, or something outside of anyone's control. Where multiple operators serve the same flow it is usually another operator's train they board. I occasionally even get EMR advances to Warrington Central turn up to use my train to Bank Quay. No disruption, they just didn’t make their departure time at Oxford Road. Wouldn't have been an issue if you had an Anytime Day Return, but now I'm charging you for a single.

 

[Titfield]

I think that applies to most people. They want to travel out on the next departure, but aren't sure when they will come back.

Yes but even when booking well in advance. Many of us are going for business or leisure reasons where we know the time we have to be there but are unsure when we will finish and therefore what time we need a service home.

Contrary to what some may think, I occasionally travel OGS (On Govt Service) and we are exhorted to purchase the lowest price ticket. We are told to purchase advance singles and if necessary pay for the inbound ticket to be altered. That is all well and good but I dont particularly enjoy trying to get an advance changed.

 

[Lewisham2221]

Not entirely true for RailUK; Advances can be filtered out across all results with one click (old site) or two clicks (new site, but only because we added more advanced filtering options).

On the Ticket Information, if you have proceeded with an Advance, you're told it's non-refundable/fixed to booked trains in a specific box and a whole grid of ticket choices (in ascending price order of varying ticket types, restriction codes and different fare locations/destinations) is available to view with a single click:

View attachment 181455

I'd be interested in alternative suggestions here - but do bear in mind that many passengers do just want to travel on a specific train and they will compare the headline prices offered by different retailers by default. Many of them want the cheapest price.

Ok, let's take a simple search for a single journey from Crewe to Manchester Piccadilly, departing around 16:00 today. In both instances, I've selected the journey with the cheapest headline fare, which is the 16:16 Northern service. The screenshots below show the next screen displayed to the customer on both the RailUK ticketing site and the Northern app. Which makes it more clear and obvious, to someone trying to quickly purchase a ticket, that more flexible options are available?

 

[MrJeeves]

The screenshots below show the next screen displayed to the customer on both the RailUK ticketing site and the Northern app.

I think it'd be more fair to compare app vs app and website vs website.

 

[Kite159]

The issue with advance vs flexible fares is when 2x advance singles barely offers a saving over a flexible day return (say 10p) and limits that passenger into only using those particular trains

Great if only heading one way (where the flexible day single is 10p less than the day return) but can easily catch someone out whom boards the wrong train. Especially on routes with multiple operators & a 'turn up and go' style frequency.

Simplest way is to turn back time and do away with advance fares on short local journeys and have the flexible fare as reasonable as possible. I.e. Manchester Piccadilly to Stockport

 

[jthjth]

Yes but even when booking well in advance. Many of us are going for business or leisure reasons where we know the time we have to be there but are unsure when we will finish and therefore what time we need a service home.

Contrary to what some may think, I occasionally travel OGS (On Govt Service) and we are exhorted to purchase the lowest price ticket. We are told to purchase advance singles and if necessary pay for the inbound ticket to be altered. That is all well and good but I dont particularly enjoy trying to get an advance changed.

This is govt madness. If your govt tickets cost less then govt has to pay more in subsidy. If you buy expensive govt tickets then that money flows back to govt via the DfT. All wooden dollars. All this policy does is to increase inefficiency by making you waste time changing tickets.

 

[35B]

This is govt madness. If your govt tickets cost less then govt has to pay more in subsidy. If you buy expensive govt tickets then that money flows back to govt via the DfT. All wooden dollars. All this policy does is to increase inefficiency by making you waste time changing tickets.

Which is fine, except that budgets need to be managed further down the tree - and that means that the direct cost matters more than the ultimate, post wooden dollar, cost.

It's a standard employment practice - my employer takes the same view and is very clear that, on average, it works out cheaper than buying fully flexible tickets.

 

[jthjth]

Which is fine, except that budgets need to be managed further down the tree - and that means that the direct cost matters more than the ultimate, post wooden dollar, cost.

It's a standard employment practice - my employer takes the same view and is very clear that, on average, it works out cheaper than buying fully flexible tickets.

Standard employment practice in the private sector, yes that makes sense. But not in the government sector. Managing budgets is just a symptom of the disease. Just extend the use of rail warrants and have and end to this. It’s basically just a government run and financed railway these days.

 

[Haywain]

Standard employment practice in the private sector, yes that makes sense. But not in the government sector. Managing budgets is just a symptom of the disease. Just extend the use of rail warrants and have and end to this. It’s basically just a government run and financed railway these days.

Yes, just put them all on Anytime tickets just to keep the money moving round. I can imagine the headlines!

 

[jthjth]

Yes, just put them all on Anytime tickets just to keep the money moving round. I can imagine the headlines!

The point is that it stops the money go-round. Avoiding headlines is not a good reason for policy, though sadly it happens far too often.

 

[Sonic1234]

This is govt madness. If your govt tickets cost less then govt has to pay more in subsidy. If you buy expensive govt tickets then that money flows back to govt via the DfT. All wooden dollars. All this policy does is to increase inefficiency by making you waste time changing tickets.

Different budgets. Ultimately, the source of all the money might be the same but it isn't accounted for like that. You can find plenty of evidence of TOCs acting like little kingdoms even now all the money flows back to the DfT - although that might happen at the highest level, it's not how local TOC management see it (and they may even have targets for their "pot").

It's like how store managers for a chain store will have targets for their shop, not the chain as a whole. It's a problem for a store manager if you go to another branch, even though the same company benefits.