Who makes the excess rules?

robbeech · 8 Dec 2018

So with the ongoing sagas with various TOCs on strike and having monumental rolling stock issues I was wondering why people still feel it is acceptable to not being able to excess from a TOC specific ticket. (I’m talking about walk up tickets specifically not advances).

Given that during disruption a fee free refund is available and you can purchase another ticket, why can we not cut out the faff and have an excess?

Who makes this rule and why?

As an example, if someone holds a Retford to London Hull Trains only ticket and realises when they get to the station that there is once again disruption to services, why can’t they go to the ticket office to excess to an any permitted. The excess would register so the money could be redistributed. If the person went to Hull trains to get a refund (if they bought it from their website) they would be 3 months before they got it.

I can see the flaws with people abusing the system so how about imposing rules on it.
Maybe the same rules about buying an initial ticket. For example if ticketing facilities allow it it must be purchased before boarding. This would go some way to reducing the number of people chancing it.

It’s far from perfect and I understand it’s easy to just leave it as it is but that’s not really good customer service.

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yorkie · 8 Dec 2018

It's supposedly because the original fare cannot be redistributed through the ORCATS system, due to archaic limitations, ie. the tail wagging the dog.

However this is a spurious and flawed argument as route specific tickets such as "via High Wycombe" suffer from the same technical limitations, yet the rules do allow these to excessed.

Virgin get no revenue from tickets only valid on WMT only, or routed via High Wycombe, between, say London and Coventry, yet Virgin are compelled to excess the latter while treating the former as no ticket held.

It's bonkers and unfair on passengers.

The DfT are to blame as they control these things. Try sending them an FOI request but I am sure they will refuse to acknowledge or address my valid point above.

cactustwirly · 8 Dec 2018

robbeech said:
So with the ongoing sagas with various TOCs on strike and having monumental rolling stock issues I was wondering why people still feel it is acceptable to not being able to excess from a TOC specific ticket. (I’m talking about walk up tickets specifically not advances).

Given that during disruption a fee free refund is available and you can purchase another ticket, why can we not cut out the faff and have an excess?

Who makes this rule and why?

As an example, if someone holds a Retford to London Hull Trains only ticket and realises when they get to the station that there is once again disruption to services, why can’t they go to the ticket office to excess to an any permitted. The excess would register so the money could be redistributed. If the person went to Hull trains to get a refund (if they bought it from their website) they would be 3 months before they got it.

I can see the flaws with people abusing the system so how about imposing rules on it.
Maybe the same rules about buying an initial ticket. For example if ticketing facilities allow it it must be purchased before boarding. This would go some way to reducing the number of people chancing it.

It’s far from perfect and I understand it’s easy to just leave it as it is but that’s not really good customer service.

I don't see how it can be abused, because at the end of the day, you'll be paying the same as if you'd just bought the Any Permitted fare.

robbeech · 8 Dec 2018

cactustwirly said:
I don't see how it can be abused, because at the end of the day, you'll be paying the same as if you'd just bought the Any Permitted fare.

It can be abused if you bought a toc restricted ticket and used it on another toc. If you were allowed to excess on board it would be like a pay when challenged concept but with no issues at the barriers.
So it needs careful thinking about.

Wallsendmag · 8 Dec 2018

So TPE (other TOCs are available) introduce a single Newcastle to Durham for 5p less than the Any Permitted fare. because it's the cheapest it comes up first in all results and Joe Public buys them in large numbers. TPE get all the revenue from this ticket. Your idea is that Cross Country or LNER should accept the ticket if they get a third (simplified for illustration) of the 5p X/S. May just be my view but that seems bonkers to me.

yorkie · 8 Dec 2018

Wallsendmag said:
So TPE (other TOCs are available) introduce a single Newcastle to Durham for 5p less than the Any Permitted fare. because it's the cheapest it comes up first in all results and Joe Public buys them in large numbers. TPE get all the revenue from this ticket. Your idea is that Cross Country or LNER should accept the ticket if they get a third (simplified for illustration) of the 5p X/S. May just be my view but that seems bonkers to me.

It's bonkers that TPE are allowed to introduce such a fare. The customers should not be victims in a battle between rival train operators.

There are currently cases where there are two geographically routed fares of the same (or very similar) price, and a zero fare excess is available, yet that doesn't get redistributed either, so the logic of penalising customers for one scenario but not another is absurd.

Deafdoggie · 8 Dec 2018

Wallsendmag said:
So TPE (other TOCs are available) introduce a single Newcastle to Durham for 5p less than the Any Permitted fare. because it's the cheapest it comes up first in all results and Joe Public buys them in large numbers. TPE get all the revenue from this ticket. Your idea is that Cross Country or LNER should accept the ticket if they get a third (simplified for illustration) of the 5p X/S. May just be my view but that seems bonkers to me.

Sounds good to me. Will stop that kind of undercutting nonsense.

cactustwirly · 8 Dec 2018

Wallsendmag said:
So TPE (other TOCs are available) introduce a single Newcastle to Durham for 5p less than the Any Permitted fare. because it's the cheapest it comes up first in all results and Joe Public buys them in large numbers. TPE get all the revenue from this ticket. Your idea is that Cross Country or LNER should accept the ticket if they get a third (simplified for illustration) of the 5p X/S. May just be my view but that seems bonkers to me.

No the revenue should get redistributed then!
Anyway that's not the passengers problem, something the industry needs to sort out for itself.

Will act as a deterrent for such stupid fares in the future, however I do support TOC only tickets that offer a meaningful discount!

robbeech · 8 Dec 2018

Wallsendmag said:
So TPE (other TOCs are available) introduce a single Newcastle to Durham for 5p less than the Any Permitted fare. because it's the cheapest it comes up first in all results and Joe Public buys them in large numbers. TPE get all the revenue from this ticket. Your idea is that Cross Country or LNER should accept the ticket if they get a third (simplified for illustration) of the 5p X/S. May just be my view but that seems bonkers to me.

No. The entire fare should be distributed.

furlong · 8 Dec 2018

An excess converts one ticket into another - and that may involve changes to the operator(s) the purchaser of the fare may use if it's a side-effect of another change, such as allowing travel at a different time. What would be bonkers would be if the industry, after all these years, hadn't developed a system to reapportion the revenue from converted tickets.

It'll be interesting to see what view the new Rail Ombudsman takes when people start asking for decisions on cases involving TOC-specific tickets ("dedicated fares").

Wallsendmag · 8 Dec 2018

How do you know what the original ticket was ? Currently our TIS doesn’t need to know .

robbeech · 8 Dec 2018

How does it calculate the price ?

Wallsendmag · 8 Dec 2018

You simply enter the cost of the original ticket.

bakerstreet · 8 Dec 2018

Wallsendmag said:
You simply enter the cost of the original ticket.

Do you also have to type in the ticket number?

Edit - just thought even if you did, if it’s only the 5 digit number this probably isn’t enough information

Wallsendmag · 8 Dec 2018

We have just under a hundred desktop TIS all cycling through the same 5 digit number range.

alistairlees · 8 Dec 2018

bakerstreet said:
Do you also have to type in the ticket number?

Edit - just thought even if you did, if it’s only the 5 digit number this probably isn’t enough information

The only way to make this work would be to have to enter the original ticket type, route code and origin and destination NLCs. Also the status (adult, child, railcard). The TIS that is being used to sell the excess would need to send a new record type (for the ticket that was being excessed, not the excess itself) to Lennon (the industry settlement system).

This would not be a quick process for a guard to do, unless all ticket formats contained this information on them, so the guard could retype it. Of course, where a ticket has a barcode, this could be scanned to get the info, which would make it much easier. But you would still have to do the work to send the info to Lennon, in addition to the excess itself.

Deerfold · 8 Dec 2018

It would solve some problems.

I bought a ticket this week from Keighley - York. When I did, the ticket machine alerted me to the fact there was a 20p cheaper ticket than the one I was buying. It does not alert you to the fact that ticket can only be use on Northern (fortunately I'd looked the tickets up on brfares.com). I suspect few people would deliberately choose to save less than 1% of the ticket cost to reduce their options between Leeds and York by more than 80%, leaving only the slowest trains. But anyone using one on a XC or TPE service may have to buy a new ticket.

kieron · 9 Dec 2018

Wallsendmag said:
You simply enter the cost of the original ticket.

Does this mean that the revenue for an excess is allocated in the same way buying the new ticket from the start would be allocated?

For example, I assume most of the revenue from a "via Carlisle" Warrington-Edinburgh ticket is split between TPE and Virgin (with more to Virgin, as their trains go from Warrington). If you bought one of those, and then bought an excess to an "any permitted" ticket, would most of the additional revenue also go to them?

alistairlees said:
The only way to make this work would be to have to enter the original ticket type, route code and origin and destination NLCs. Also the status (adult, child, railcard). The TIS that is being used to sell the excess would need to send a new record type (for the ticket that was being excessed, not the excess itself) to Lennon (the industry settlement system).

Luckily, most of the these parameters need to be entered for the new version of the ticket anyway. If the operator only needs to tell the system what is different about the old ticket, it shouldn't take too long to do.

Really, though, we're starting from a situation where (as far as I know) no online retailer will sell a change of route excess fare, even when it is being sold at the same time as the underlying ticket. Instead, when someone wishes to to travel from Wakefield to Huddersfield via Leeds and back on a direct train, they only offer two expensive single tickets.

To me, this suggests a lack of desire within the industry and within government to make excess fares work better. If that doesn't change, nothing will improve.

furlong · 9 Dec 2018

kieron said:
Really, though, we're starting from a situation where (as far as I know) no online retailer will sell a change of route excess fare, even when it is being sold at the same time as the underlying ticket. Instead, when someone wishes to to travel from Wakefield to Huddersfield via Leeds and back on a direct train, they only offer two expensive single tickets.
.

Something else the new Rail Ombudsman might be asked to look into (if the ORR won't), if websites are overcharging people compared to what they would pay at a ticket office for the same journey.

alistairlees · 9 Dec 2018

furlong said:
Something else the new Rail Ombudsman might be asked to look into (if the ORR won't), if websites are overcharging people compared to what they would pay at a ticket office for the same journey.

Websites aren't allowed to sell excesses.

alistairlees · 9 Dec 2018

thw6 said:
Websites are overcharging I’m being quoted a £50 plus fare for a journey that I paid £31 for at the ticket office

You might have to provide some clues.

alistairlees · 9 Dec 2018

Deerfold said:
It would solve some problems.

I bought a ticket this week from Keighley - York. When I did, the ticket machine alerted me to the fact there was a 20p cheaper ticket than the one I was buying. It does not alert you to the fact that ticket can only be use on Northern (fortunately I'd looked the tickets up on brfares.com). I suspect few people would deliberately choose to save less than 1% of the ticket cost to reduce their options between Leeds and York by more than 80%, leaving only the slowest trains. But anyone using one on a XC or TPE service may have to buy a new ticket.

Yes, this is a terrible situation that can only result in customer dissatisfaction. There are many flows around Manchester where this is also the case. Although in the short term it might improve a TOCs' finances, I would bet that in the long term it will reduce overall rail industry income though, as customer satisfaction declines.

furlong · 9 Dec 2018

alistairlees said:
Websites aren't allowed to sell excesses.

But why not? Whether they are allowed to sell them or not, under the consumer regulations I think they could already be required to be displaying the price if it's cheaper (e.g. customer has selected to travel out by one route, return by another) and telling the passenger how to obtain the correct ticket at the correct price (e.g. "we're selling you the cheaper return and you need to approach a ticket office or guard before or during your journey to pay an excess which will cost you Y - show this message to the member of staff to make this process easy" - or even issue a prepaid voucher, in effect an RTV, to exchange for the excess).

londiscape · 9 Dec 2018

Is it a universal rule to not allow excesses from a TOC only ticket?

I was able to excess the return portion of a Hull Trains only ticket from Kings X to Hull about a year ago, done onboard. Got the HT train from Hull to find catering was unavailable, so asked the absolutely excellent young HT guard if I could excess to Any Permitted so as to bail at Doncaster to get refreshments then use VTEC (as then was) to continue to London. Wasn't a straightforward process at all to find the mechanism to do it on the ticket machine, but to her eternal credit and my gratitude she persisted until she found it (and was clearly pleased that once done, she now knew how to do it in future).

I wish more guards were as helpful and had such an ethic of good customer service.

ForTheLoveOf · 9 Dec 2018

alistairlees said:
Websites aren't allowed to sell excesses.

furlong said:
But why not? Whether they are allowed to sell them or not, under the consumer regulations I think they could already be required to be displaying the price if it's cheaper (e.g. customer has selected to travel out by one route, return by another) and telling the passenger how to obtain the correct ticket at the correct price (e.g. "we're selling you the cheaper return and you need to approach a ticket office or guard before or during your journey to pay an excess which will cost you Y - show this message to the member of staff to make this process easy" - or even issue a prepaid voucher, in effect an RTV, to exchange for the excess).

Indeed - the fact that the rail industry's internal processes and procedures don't let websites retail excesses does not affect the retailer's potential liability for being in breach of the relevant Consumer Regulations. Quoting a higher than necessary price and then claiming it is the cheapest price (as a number of TOCs do in relation to their website's ticket sales), could well stand them in breach of the Regulations even if it would be hard for them to do it any differently (other than, as @furlong suggests, giving a warning message).

Unfortunately, this is all rather trivial, seeing as the Office of Rail and Road plainly doesn't give a flying f*** about enforcing the Regulations.

ForTheLoveOf · 9 Dec 2018

londiscape said:
Is it a universal rule to not allow excesses from a TOC only ticket?

I was able to excess the return portion of a Hull Trains only ticket from Kings X to Hull about a year ago, done onboard. Got the HT train from Hull to find catering was unavailable, so asked the absolutely excellent young HT guard if I could excess to Any Permitted so as to bail at Doncaster to get refreshments then use VTEC (as then was) to continue to London. Wasn't a straightforward process at all to find the mechanism to do it on the ticket machine, but to her eternal credit and my gratitude she persisted until she found it (and was clearly pleased that once done, she now knew how to do it in future).

I wish more guards were as helpful and had such an ethic of good customer service.

Some ticket issuing softwares will allow it; others (generally the newer ones) won't - and it's also a question of policy and willingness from the individual member of staff.

There is no right to excess away a company restriction (unlike a route restriction), and you could be charged for an undiscounted Anytime Single, or be liable to a Penalty Fare or even prosecution, for being on the wrong TOC's train with a company restricted ticket. Whereas with a route restricted ticket you only pay the relevant difference/excess, which is even done on a per-leg basis (i.e. if travelling via the more expensive route on one leg of a return only, you only pay half the difference). That's a world of difference.

With a company restricted ticket, you could be liable for any of the above consequences if you "fail the attitude test". With a route restricted ticket you must be allowed to pay the excess rather than a new ticket, regardless of what your attitude is.

furlong · 10 Dec 2018

alistairlees said:
Yes, this is a terrible situation that can only result in customer dissatisfaction.

And this is why the industry needs to be pushed into selling excesses in these situations. Alternatively, I doubt there'd be many complaints if the regulations were updated to impose a minimum percentage difference-based formula between a dedicated or advance fare and the equivalent unrestricted one to cut out some of the greedier examples. A starting point such as "must be at least 10% cheaper" - none of this "save £1 with our on-the-day long-distance advance"!

Who makes the excess rules?

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