Northern telling passengers BOJ not permitted on Off-Peak Day Return

Twitter said:

T James‏ @tomusjames
@northernassist Hi, if I bought a return ticket from Wigan to Manchester, would I be able to stop at each stop on the way?

Hi there if you buy an off peak return you can break your journey on the return but not the outbound however if you buy (1)
an anytime return you can break your journey both ways ^SC (2/2)

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https://twitter.com/tomusjames/status/910802490081325056

The ticket in question has no specific BOJ restrictions: http://www.brfares.com/#faredetail?orig=WGN&dest=MAN&grpo=0446&grpd=MCZ&tkt=CDR

Also related to this I've been told a group of passengers who travelled from Chester to Manchester breaking their return journeys at Mouldsworth, Plumley, Knutsford and Mobberley were told by more than one guard that they should have purchased Cheshire Day Rangers not Off-Peak Returns as they claim with the latter you are only allowed to break your journey once. However, the guards in question didn't insist that they purchased new tickets.

They really are rotten at a corporate level, aren't they?

Nothing will change as long as there is neither a regulator that cares or a real ombudsman with teeth. We would require at least one (preferably both) of those before we see TOCs starting to give a damn about the advice that their staff provide.

What a completely ridiculous situation. I wonder if the agent checked with anyone before posting that.

Maybe we should be pulling all the Northern issues into a single thread? The board seems to be very busy with them of late.

Puffing Devil said:

Maybe we should be pulling all the Northern issues into a single thread? The board seems to be very busy with them of late.

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A summary of the cause of the threads - staff who make up 'rules' on a regular basis; management who either don't care about or encourage such behaviour; and no effective regulator/ombudsman to bring the shyster TOCs into line.

Of course, Northern are not the only TOC with such issues, but they do seem to be at the top (bottom) of the leaderboard.

sheff1 said:

A summary of the cause of the threads - staff who make up 'rules' on a regular basis; management who either don't care about or encourage such behaviour; and no effective regulator/ombudsman to bring the shyster TOCs into line.

Of course, Northern are not the only TOC with such issues, but they do seem to be at the top (bottom) of the leaderboard.

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I'd add a dependence on lightly trained agency staff.

Not being a spring chicken myself, I'm disappointed to say the only serious problems I've had with Northern staff have been with older staff who seem incapable of understanding that things change.

"You can't break your journey on the outward leg. They banned that years ago. You need to buy a WYMetro Rover" Yes but "they" also unbanned it many years (decades?) ago.

"I know this because I worked for 20 years at ........". Yes, but things changed last October.

lejog said:

Not being a spring chicken myself, I'm disappointed to say the only serious problems I've had with Northern staff have been with older staff who seem incapable of understanding that things change.

"You can't break your journey on the outward leg. They banned that years ago. You need to buy a WYMetro Rover" Yes but "they" also unbanned it many years (decades?) ago.

"I know this because I worked for 20 years at ........". Yes, but things changed last October.

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That is fine, but if the management don't send out suitable information telling staff that things changed, or send them people on semi-regular refresher and training courses, with assessments to update their knowledge and check they still know what they are doing, then how are staff meant to know.

The TOC I work at gave us no briefing that the NRCoC changed to the NRCoT, let alone any briefing as to what had actually changed, or more importantly for most staff - how those changes impacted on us, the things we see or the things we sell. All they did was update the copy on the staff mobile phone app, but they didn't even tell you they had done that.

The quality of retail training, and most importantly ongoing refresher training and the dissemination of information about new or changed products is woefully poor to virtually non-existent at most TOCS. As a result most staff, unless they are keen and do their own research have nowhere near enough knowledge. Consequently, as is inevitable, mess room chatter and word of mouth soon spreads false or made up information. And if managers neither know nor care about the correct answer anyway, and give their staff false information, what hope is there? If your manager gives you information do you believe it or not?

Yet on this forum, anybody who does not have a near encyclopaedic knowledge of the fares manual (which on board staff have no access to anymore) is seemingly only fit to be sacked immediately, hung drawn and quartered and fed to the wolves.

Solent&Wessex said:

That is fine, but if the management don't send out suitable information telling staff that things changed, or send them people on semi-regular refresher and training courses, with assessments to update their knowledge and check they still know what they are doing, then how are staff meant to know.

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Not knowing the changes is one thing, but to boldly assert that things cannot possibly be different from what the position was 10/15/20 years ago (which is the standard line from some staff) is another and, quite frankly, is just bizarre. Surely they have noticed that things they encounter in their everyday lives are changing on a regular basis ... yet they seem convinced that railway rules are preserved in aspic on the day they joined.

Solent&Wessex said:

Yet on this forum, anybody who does not have a near encyclopaedic knowledge of the fares manual (which on board staff have no access to anymore) is seemingly only fit to be sacked immediately, hung drawn and quartered and fed to the wolves.

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I do not recognise this. The usual line is that they cannot be expected to know everything but, if they encounter something unfamiliar, the guard etc should either look the relevant info up or, if they cannot or do not want to, give the passenger the benefit of the doubt. It is the 'making things up' (almost invariably to the detriment of the passenger) or the point blank refusal to look at the info being provided by the passenger which is, quite rightly, frowned upon by the forum.

Solent&Wessex said:

If your manager gives you information do you believe it or not?

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Over the course of my working life I have taken information given by managers with a pinch of salt. Such a policy served me well - I could not possibly total up all the many times the 'information' turned out to be false.

sheff1 said:

Not knowing the changes is one thing, but to boldly assert that things cannot possibly be different from what the position was 10/15/20 years ago (which is the standard line from some staff) is another and, quite frankly, is just bizarre. Surely they have noticed that things they encounter in their everyday lives are changing on a regular basis ... yet they seem convinced that railway rules are preserved in aspic on the day they joined....

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How often do you believe staff should check every page of every manual just in case something, no matter how small, has changed?

How much time do you think the companies give staff to do this?

Do you believe the company has a responsibility to inform staff of when changes occur?

How much faith do you put in the words of a person who has a vested interest in you listening to them when you are *certain* of what you are saying? (particularly where no official source has told you otherwise).

sheff1 said:

....I do not recognise this. The usual line is that they cannot be expected to know everything but, if they encounter something unfamiliar, the guard etc should either look the relevant info up or, if they cannot or do not want to, give the passenger the benefit of the doubt. It is the 'making things up' (almost invariably to the detriment of the passenger) or the point blank refusal to look at the info being provided by the passenger which is, quite rightly, frowned upon by the forum.

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So passengers who do not wish to pay can make stuff up and be given the benefit of the doubt? Why are staff not allowed to 'make stuff up', but for passengers it would be fine?

I understand the point of using discretion and common sense (managers don't), but that can only go so far.

sheff1 said:

Over the course of my working life I have taken information given by managers with a pinch of salt. Such a policy served me well - I could not possibly total up all the many times the 'information' turned out to be false.

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I'd suggest a rough ratio for completely correct information given to me is about 1:20 over the past couple of years. Information that turns out to be wildly or completely inaccurate probably gets about the same, but it doesn't need to be completely false to get people doing the job wrong.

hairyhandedfool said:

How often do you believe staff should check every page of every manual just in case something, no matter how small, has changed?

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I thought it was pretty obvious from the other section of my reply you quoted, but clearly not.

There is no need to check anything until such point that they encounter something they have not seen or heard before.

hairyhandedfool said:

So passengers who do not wish to pay can make stuff up and be given the benefit of the doubt? Why are staff not allowed to 'make stuff up', but for passengers it would be fine?

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Where on earth have you got that from ? Nobody is talking about people who do not wish to pay. The cases on this forum, which is what the discussion was about, relate to instances where the passenger had not made anything up and were holding a valid ticket, or were trying to buy one, but staff made up rules to claim the ticket held/requested was not valid.

Exactly. It is the complete unwillingness (on the part of some) to go and find out for certain whether or not the passenger is right (or even to give the benefit of doubt). Some times, even when presented with printed evidence to this effect. Nobody should be expected to know it all; everybody should be expected, in all cases of conflict, to find out for sure, and not rely on "what we've been told" (etc.). And be given the means to do so; and to be trained to give benefit of doubt when they do not have the means or otherwise cannot check.

Hairhandyfool - If a guard or ticket clerk refuses to accept a valid ticket then the TOC is in breach of consumer laws. Giving a passenger the benefit of the doubt doesn't break any laws. Surely guards have some way of displaying ticket code restrictions on their device.

As one of the people responsible for disseminating info at a white and red TOC I can assure you all our front line staff have access to every brief we are sent/produce via their company mobile


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Wallsendmag said:

As one of the people responsible for disseminating info at a white and red TOC I can assure you all our front line staff have access to every brief we are sent/produce via their company mobile

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I don't doubt that but it still doesn't stop staff making things up. In my case a manager of a white and red TOC told me that my Off Peak ticket wasn't valid to travel in the evening peak (it perfectly valid). He went on to tell me that the barriers were programmed to know whether each ticket was valid or not. This was witnessed by several forum members.

sheff1 said:

I thought it was pretty obvious from the other section of my reply you quoted, but clearly not.

There is no need to check anything until such point that they encounter something they have not seen or heard before....

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Okay, so say I have come across a particular situation and I check the rules and deal with it as appropriate, well now I know the rule, right? So how long do I now go before I check it again? five times? fifty times? Once a month? Once a year?

What if I check it every ten times and on the thirty second occasion the rule has actually changed. What happens then? Do I just carry on as I always have?

sheff1 said:

Where on earth have you got that from ? Nobody is talking about people who do not wish to pay....

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How does the guard know who wants to pay the correct fare and who doesn't? Do people have in built displays showing how honest they are? Are staff psychic? How much trust do we put in the words of passengers if we *know* a rule to be different to what they say?

sheff1 said:

The cases on this forum, which is what the discussion was about, relate to instances where the passenger had not made anything up and were holding a valid ticket, or were trying to buy one, but staff made up rules to claim the ticket held/requested was not valid.

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And my point was that if staff *know* something to be true, people are saying they should check it because a passenger comments that they are wrong. So if EVERYONE questions the Guard, or comes up with rules that don't actually exist, which does the Guard chase up and which does he stick to his guns?

If they have to check up everything then the situation actively promotes passengers making stuff up.

If you can say that the Guard need only check something if they believe they might not be right, then it doesn't change anything.

Harpers Tate said:

Exactly. It is the complete unwillingness (on the part of some) to go and find out for certain whether or not the passenger is right (or even to give the benefit of doubt)....

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How much time do you think staff have to give to each thing that may or may not be true?

Harpers Tate said:

....Some times, even when presented with printed evidence to this effect....

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As a general rule, in that situation I would support the idea that a member of staff should check, but if everyone had a print out which contradicted the knowledge of the Guard (genuine or otherwise), how much time should the Guard take on things that appear to be far fetched?

Harpers Tate said:

....Nobody should be expected to know it all; everybody should be expected, in all cases of conflict, to find out for sure, and not rely on "what we've been told" (etc.)....

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If Guards had to double-check everything they had been told how much longer would it take to check the tickets of everyone on the train?

Harpers Tate said:

And be given the means to do so; and to be trained to give benefit of doubt when they do not have the means or otherwise cannot check.

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Benefit of the doubt, discretion and common sense are not wanted by the TOCs, they want staff to follow the rules they lay out, even the ones they don't tell anyone about.

jcollins said:

Hairhandyfool - If a guard or ticket clerk refuses to accept a valid ticket then the TOC is in breach of consumer laws. Giving a passenger the benefit of the doubt doesn't break any laws. Surely guards have some way of displaying ticket code restrictions on their device.

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Have you ever worked a train or railway ticket office? I don't think a day goes by when no-one questions my knowledge, and I'd say my knowledge is well above average. Do I give all of them the benefit of the doubt? Perhaps just those I can't prove are wrong? How long do I spend finding the proof? Or perhaps I know I can prove it so I don't need to look it up?

I haven't used the mobile machines since we had SPORTIS, but I would presume they can check restriction codes on their latest machines. If they had three minutes to check thirty random Off-Peak tickets, how long should they spend looking up restriction codes?

If you're advising a passenger on something, it is your responsibility to ensure that what you were advising is correct.

In my line of work, "nobody told me the rules changed" would never be a defence to, say, a negligence claim from a customer. If I just made stuff up, or relied on hazy memories, I would be disciplined by my employer and, ultimately, found to be incompetent. I don't see why it should be any different on the railways.

As for fare evasion, I'm not sure I agree. For major stuff, such as when an off-peak ticket is valid, it can be proved or disproved in seconds. Same with things like break of journey. It's not rocket science.

For more complicated issues, there is an established procedure in place to resolve ticketing disputes. Use it. Don't just make stuff up.

hairyhandedfool said:

Have you ever worked a train or railway ticket office? I don't think a day goes by when no-one questions my knowledge, and I'd say my knowledge is well above average. Do I give all of them the benefit of the doubt? Perhaps just those I can't prove are wrong? How long do I spend finding the proof? Or perhaps I know I can prove it so I don't need to look it up?

I haven't used the mobile machines since we had SPORTIS, but I would presume they can check restriction codes on their latest machines. If they had three minutes to check thirty random Off-Peak tickets, how long should they spend looking up restriction codes?

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You were implying before that it's not an issue if staff make things up when passengers do it. It is an issue if staff make things up - the sale and use of a ticket has to comply with legislation protecting consumers against dodgy companies where the staff make up conditions.

The "I know so I don't need to check" attitude obviously creates a lot of problems, as we are seeing in various threads. It seems staffed aren't properly briefed when things change. Surely on most trains there's not going to be loads of different restriction codes, so if a passenger disputes a ticket with the ND restriction code not being valid at 16:05 having the ND restrictions ready would solve any disputes.

Arctic Troll said:

If you're advising a passenger on something, it is your responsibility to ensure that what you were advising is correct.

In my line of work, "nobody told me the rules changed" would never be a defence to, say, a negligence claim from a customer. If I just made stuff up, or relied on hazy memories, I would be disciplined by my employer and, ultimately, found to be incompetent. I don't see why it should be any different on the railways.

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I'm not suggesting anyone should "make stuff up" or "rely on hazy memories", but that isn't the same as "It's been this way for years and I haven't been informed that this has changed".

In your line of work, how often do you check every document you have access to for any changes, no matter how small, that might have been made?

Arctic Troll said:

As for fare evasion, I'm not sure I agree. For major stuff, such as when an off-peak ticket is valid, it can be proved or disproved in seconds. Same with things like break of journey. It's not rocket science.

For more complicated issues, there is an established procedure in place to resolve ticketing disputes. Use it. Don't just make stuff up.

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It may take seconds, but if you have to do it ten or twenty times it adds up. And it's not just time restrictions that people question either.

jcollins said:

You were implying before that it's not an issue if staff make things up when passengers do it. It is an issue if staff make things up - the sale and use of a ticket has to comply with legislation protecting consumers against dodgy companies where the staff make up conditions....

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I don't think anyone should "make stuff up", on either side of the fence, but I don't think people should be given reason to do it either.

jcollins said:

....The "I know so I don't need to check" attitude obviously creates a lot of problems, as we are seeing in various threads. It seems staffed aren't properly briefed when things change....

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Quite possibly, but that's not the fault of the Guard and to expect them to go through checks every time someone suggests they are wrong isn't always an option.

jcollins said:

.... Surely on most trains there's not going to be loads of different restriction codes, so if a passenger disputes a ticket with the ND restriction code not being valid at 16:05 having the ND restrictions ready would solve any disputes.

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I think you might be surprised. I mean, sure, many short distance tickets have similar restrictions, but restriction codes do change for different journeys depending on who sets the fare and what they believe the restrictions should be, and sometimes the two digit code remains the same but the setting company re-words it, or adds or removes a small bit of it changing the meaning.

Add to that the many varied journeys that can start or end on the same train, but be of a very different length. Someone going from Manchester to Bolton might be on the same train as someone going from Macclesfield to Preston, and so on.

hairyhandedfool said:

In your line of work, how often do you check every document you have access to for any changes, no matter how small, that might have been made?

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Surely if the TOC management are doing their job properly, you'd receive weekly summaries of (for example) changes to restriction codes. They shouldn't be expecting staff to monitor documents for changes.

rs101 said:

Surely if the TOC management are doing their job properly, you'd receive weekly summaries of (for example) changes to restriction codes. They shouldn't be expecting staff to monitor documents for changes.

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Well you would think so wouldn't you. Seems to be very low on their priority list though (more interested in things that get them a bonus or promotion I think).

I (ticket office) get a weekly PR spin/propaganda email 'newsletter', which mostly tells people to visit a particular webpage to find out more.

I also get a weekly email that contains more nonsense trivia than useful information, usually provides a copy of the above mentioned 'newsletter' and contains timetables for that weekend's engineering work (but not timetables for services altered because of engineering work on connecting routes, or other train companies). This typically gets sent out as early as 4pm on Thursdays (or as late as 3pm on Fridays), with most of the recipients finishing their shifts around 1/2pm.

Now, we do get an email briefing each time the fares revisions come round, but it's not as useful as you might think.

We do get individual briefings, about tickets and such, sent out from time to time, but if it's not late, or riddled with errors and/or omissions (or both), it's probably for something we will rarely, if ever, deal with.

And I imagine Guards have it worse than ticket office as the individual briefings (if not all the others) go to their CTMs, rather than them directly.

hairyhandedfool said:

Have you ever worked a train or railway ticket office? I don't think a day goes by when no-one questions my knowledge, and I'd say my knowledge is well above average. Do I give all of them the benefit of the doubt? Perhaps just those I can't prove are wrong? How long do I spend finding the proof? Or perhaps I know I can prove it so I don't need to look it up?

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I have worked in a railway booking office at at a major station. Obviously I am unable to say that I never ever sold a 'wrong' ticket to a customer, but I can say with 100% certainty that if a customer queried what I was offering them I was always willing to find and show them the relevant information in the fares manual. I doubt this happened more than a handful of times whilst I was selling many 100 thousands of tickets.

The time taken to do so would be minimal, even with the hardcopy in use at the time. If it took longer than the next person in the queue thought was appropriate, then bad luck - that is the way a first-come, first-served system works.

I do not understand the final question. If you can prove it you must be able to provide evidence to the person asking. If you can't provide any evidence, then you are not proving anything.

He means (I think) he's 100% sure he's right.

Which is all very well as long as he is. The original point under discussion here is someone who is (presumably) sure he's right, but isn't.

I hope those present will forgive me if I say that, in my opinion, that is a situation that should NEVER happen. No customer should ever incorrectly be placed in any adverse situation (such as being required to pay an additional or larger fare, have their details taken or anything else) as a consequence of incorrect "knowledge" on the part of a customer-facing railway employee. Never. Not ever. At all.

The FIRST thing each and every railway employee should be required to do, in cases of dispute, BEFORE they start escalating the matter, is to verify their position. If they rely on their certain "knowledge" and are ultimately proven to have been wrong then they should at the very least be asked to explain themselves.

Harpers Tate said:

He means (I think) he's 100% sure he's right.

Which is all very well as long as he is. The original point under discussion here is someone who is (presumably) sure he's right, but isn't.

I hope those present will forgive me if I say that, in my opinion, that is a situation that should NEVER happen. No customer should ever incorrectly be placed in any adverse situation (such as being required to pay an additional or larger fare, have their details taken or anything else) as a consequence of incorrect "knowledge" on the part of a customer-facing railway employee. Never. Not ever. At all.

The FIRST thing each and every railway employee should be required to do, in cases of dispute, BEFORE they start escalating the matter, is to verify their position. If they rely on their certain "knowledge" and are ultimately proven to have been wrong then they should at the very least be asked to explain themselves.

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Sadly such instances keep happening, sometimes the same name crops up time and time again; seven years ago I met zzip00 and successfully got their money back and yet the Guard in question is still at it, all these years - and several victims - later. In fact his x years of service is trotted out as an example of why he is right.

Certain train companies (they know who they are) need to buck their ideas up and deal with staff who cause their company to be in breach of the conditions as well as contract and consumer laws.

Sadly I think they never will

Harpers Tate said:

He means (I think) he's 100% sure he's right. Which is all very well as long as he is....

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Pretty much yes.

Harpers Tate said:

.... The original point under discussion here is someone who is (presumably) sure he's right, but isn't....

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So it's the difference between a person who believes they are 100% right and is right, and a person who believes they are 100% right and is not.

Harpers Tate said:

....I hope those present will forgive me if I say that, in my opinion, that is a situation that should NEVER happen. No customer should ever incorrectly be placed in any adverse situation (such as being required to pay an additional or larger fare, have their details taken or anything else) as a consequence of incorrect "knowledge" on the part of a customer-facing railway employee. Never. Not ever. At all....

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In an ideal world it never happens, but we are not in an ideal world and it will happen from time to time, people are not robots, the real question is how can we limit it as much possible.

Harpers Tate said:

....The FIRST thing each and every railway employee should be required to do, in cases of dispute, BEFORE they start escalating the matter, is to verify their position. If they rely on their certain "knowledge" and are ultimately proven to have been wrong then they should at the very least be asked to explain themselves.

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Unless you want people digging around in manuals every time a query pops up, you have to accept that people are going to be required to work from their knowledge a lot of the time.

What is most important is what happens when rules change, people need to be updated and act on that update, if one of those two fails then we get problems like this.

Equally, when being called into account, those doing the 'investigation' (for lack of a better term) should have a working knowledge of the subject, and unfortunately that just isn't likely to happen.

I've done seven years in the ticket office and seven years as a guard and can confirm that the dissemination of retail bulletins is vastly better in ticket offices, for guards our priority is operational matters and safety of the line. Every week we have to physically collect and sign for our weekly engineering notices (operational) but retail issues are generally posted in the wall in the ticket machine room for us to look at, I'd like to see a change in the way this information is distributed but that's out of my hands. We generally do our best on ticketing matters but we have to operate a safety first culture which means that operational issues will always have a higher priority. Nevertheless our ticket machines can easily check restrictions on any ticket from anywhere to anywhere else (except advance fares).

Irrespective of the level of knowledge that a person holds there is no need for some of the stories that Yorkie could no doubt elaborate further upon.

Matt Taylor said:

Nevertheless our ticket machines can easily check restrictions on any ticket from anywhere to anywhere else (except advance fares).

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Thanks for confirming that. Pity then that some staff refuse to perform this easy check and instead prefer to make things up.

hairyhandedfool said:

Unless you want people digging around in manuals every time a query pops up, you have to accept that people are going to be required to work from their knowledge a lot of the time.

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If I could "dig around in manuals" 40 years ago, I see no reason why people can't do the same now. Especially as "digging around" is much easier with modern IT as has been confirmed a couple of posts back.

I do not accept that people are required to work from their 'knowledge' if that 'knowledge' is incorrect - which it clearly was in the cases under discussion in this thread and others.