Overcharging by TVM

In March of last year, I was travelling from Burton-on-Trent to London, and wanted to purchase a Super Off Peak return (valid on XC and WMT only). The ticket machine did not make this option available, despite the fact that it was at a time when the ticket was valid. The cheapest available ticket was an Off Peak Return. I bought the ticket at the ticket office without issue, so no problem there, but decided it was worth raising the issue with the TOC that manages the station (EMT), so that other customers wouldn't be overcharged.

After a long wait, eventually, in July last year, EMT got back to me to thank me for raising the issue, and stated that they were arranging for the machine in question to be "updated".

Last Sunday I made the same journey, and again tried to use the ticket machine--and once again, it only offered the Off Peak return. Again, I was able to buy the right ticket at the ticket office. I am though disappointed that EMT appears not to have updated the machine after all, and seems therefore to be (at risk of) overcharging customers systematically, nearly a year since the issue was brough to their attention. I have followed up with EMT by e-mail, but I wonder what my next steps should be if they do not respond speedily or satisfactorily. Would it be appropriate to go to Transport Focus next?

TVMs sadly dont always or need too(?), sell the full range of tickets available and unless the need for them to do so I dont think much will ever happen.

In the general case (weekdays) it may be an issue with the time they’ve set for the fare to display, have you checked if it is shown later?

I remember many cases on SWT where the “right fare” only became visible too late to be used on the first relevant train. This applied to both offpeak and super offpeak, and also to railcard discounts eg network card at 1000. This was eventually altered in most cases to become available just after the previous train was booked to leave.

I emailed them on a couple of occasions, and it seemed amazingly difficult to get them to understand the basic point...

gpmartin said:

In March of last year, I was travelling from Burton-on-Trent to London, and wanted to purchase a Super Off Peak return (valid on XC and WMT only). The ticket machine did not make this option available, despite the fact that it was at a time when the ticket was valid. The cheapest available ticket was an Off Peak Return. I bought the ticket at the ticket office without issue, so no problem there, but decided it was worth raising the issue with the TOC that manages the station (EMT), so that other customers wouldn't be overcharged.

After a long wait, eventually, in July last year, EMT got back to me to thank me for raising the issue, and stated that they were arranging for the machine in question to be "updated".

Last Sunday I made the same journey, and again tried to use the ticket machine--and once again, it only offered the Off Peak return. Again, I was able to buy the right ticket at the ticket office. I am though disappointed that EMT appears not to have updated the machine after all, and seems therefore to be (at risk of) overcharging customers systematically, nearly a year since the issue was brough to their attention. I have followed up with EMT by e-mail, but I wonder what my next steps should be if they do not respond speedily or satisfactorily. Would it be appropriate to go to Transport Focus next?

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Systematic failures to display the cheapest valid fare such as this are likely to place EMT in breach of The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008, in particular Regulation 6.

The ORR are the designated enforcement authority for the Regulations in relation to the rail industry, but they don't seem to think that the duty to enforce which is contained within the Regulations applies to them. Unfortunately, I don't think anyone's ready to stump up the £10k+ required to have a judicial review of this decision, and thus passengers continue to be overcharged.

Anyone who is indeed overcharged might well have recourse against EMT, but as it stands, nothing much can be done about it and if they will not budge, I doubt that they will do anything because of a complaint. You could take the matter to the Rail Ombudsman once you have a deadlock letter from EMT (provided the matter was first raised on or after the 26th November 2018), but I'm not sure what they would do about it either. We don't have any case history to use to inform ourselves.

Sadly there are only a limited number of companies willing to bid on rail franchises any more. The government isn't prepared to do anything that could risk this already low number to decrease further, potentially completely undermining the franchising system. Thus they don't enforce the laws against the TOCs as vigorously as is necessary to stop the frequent 'minor' breaches of the law that the TOCs engage in (such as here).

I had a similar issue with GTR in that a TOC only ticket I wish to use is not available from their ticket machine. I have raised this with them and they have said they would update it but never have. They also told me to buy from the ticket office if open and if closed to buy the ticket on the train. The gateline is manned by a security guard and the difference here is that the ticket office is only open limited hours. I simply tell the security guard the ticket I want isn't offered by the train and I have been told by staff to buy from the OBS. Now this ticket isn't able to be sold by the OBS for some reason (I assume its because it includes a cross London + LU journey?). So when I get to London Victoria I just say at the gateline the ticket office was closed and the OBS machine couldn't sell the ticket I wanted. I've always been able to buy it at London Victoria. The only thing I would add is now I tend to buy online if I can and collect at the station to save myself possible bother. I certainly would not buy a more expensive ticket and "claim back" (or should I really say, try to claim it back) and, as I am happy to pay cash, I make sure I have the exact amount on offer only.

I have had this a couple of times recently - and I don't think it is just me not having enough patience with the TVM.

1) At Wilmslow couldn't see the Transport for Wales only tickets to Manchester. Only the any TOC tickets - sum is small but principal holds (esp as it was a Northern strike day so your choice is limited)

2) More egregious is at Manchester Airport where the default is to sell an anytime ticket and only Off-Peak returns are displayed. If there is a flow where single tickets are more likely it may well be from an airport to the city.

In both cases the Ticket Office was open and sold the required fares but in the past had a case of arriving late at the airport (11pm Sunday night) and having to pay more than I should have.

Don't mind if I need to press a few more buttons but these are not "novel" or complex tickets.

Again I would take the view that if the booking office is closed and the TVM will not sell the required ticket get on the train and buy at the first opportunity.

Smidster said:

I have had this a couple of times recently - and I don't think it is just me not having enough patience with the TVM.

1) At Wilmslow couldn't see the Transport for Wales only tickets to Manchester. Only the any TOC tickets - sum is small but principal holds (esp as it was a Northern strike day so your choice is limited)

2) More egregious is at Manchester Airport where the default is to sell an anytime ticket and only Off-Peak returns are displayed. If there is a flow where single tickets are more likely it may well be from an airport to the city.

In both cases the Ticket Office was open and sold the required fares but in the past had a case of arriving late at the airport (11pm Sunday night) and having to pay more than I should have.

Don't mind if I need to press a few more buttons but these are not "novel" or complex tickets.

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I've been saying for years that the ticket machines interface should be standardised across the industry rather than different franchises have different configurations to "match corporate branding". The benefits of a privitised railway eh? Pfft...

js1000 said:

I've been saying for years that the ticket machines interface should be standardised across the industry rather than different franchises have different configurations to "match corporate branding". The benefits of a privitised railway eh? Pfft...

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I mean you could even make them all essentially the same interface just with different branding at the sides. But no, we have a myriad of different TOCs buying TVMs from a myriad of different companies and each pair of TOC/TVM provider seems to have a different configuration...

If Sky could have a uniform UI over different suppliers of hardware, it would surely be possible to do it with TVM suppliers. Even if the cabinets are different and with different printers and card readers etc, they're still PC based and the same software with a few different drivers on the I/O side wouldn't be insurmountable.

jon0844 said:

If Sky could have a uniform UI over different suppliers of hardware, it would surely be possible to do it with TVM suppliers. Even if the cabinets are different and with different printers and card readers etc, they're still PC based and the same software with a few different drivers on the I/O side wouldn't be insurmountable.

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Imagine having a non TOC branded machine. Maybe 3rd party retailers could rent /lease/buy a tvm at a station.

It would still be branded I'm sure. Easy enough to do a white label design and allow (hopefully limited) customisation that doesn't change the core UI.

I also wish we'd work towards having a wizard based menu system for those that don't know how to use the various menus/options but do know when they wish to travel etc.

And a quick select option for those who know what they want. In an ideal world, the machines with barcode readers could scan a code on an app to enter all the necessary settings based on a ticket someone has already chosen in advance (but without the need to actually buy the ticket online and then enter a code to collect). A rail app could then store saved favourites for easy repeat custom.

Less chance of overcharging then, as the app has a lot more time to convey the necessary information to the customer and in a variety of ways - as there are loads of apps out there with different designs. It's fine to have UI choices there, but not on the platform.

We have non TOC branded machines. None of our machines have LNER branding on as we find it reduces the number of transactions. For some reason people think you can only use them to purchase tickets for that company.

js1000 said:

I've been saying for years that the ticket machines interface should be standardised across the industry rather than different franchises have different configurations to "match corporate branding". The benefits of a privitised railway eh? Pfft...

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Northern don't have a standard interface across their own network. The machine at one station can be different to the one at the next station along the same line, so getting standard across all stations is a pipe dream.

Wallsendmag said:

We have non TOC branded machines. None of our machines have LNER branding on as we find it reduces the number of transactions. For some reason people think you can only use them to purchase tickets for that company.

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At Stevenage there are 7 TVMs - 6 GTR and one LNER. There are often long queues at the GTR TVMs but you can usually just breeze up to the LNER one as there's seldom a queue at it.

I'm surprised the rules on impartiality allow for the branding of ticket machines. Are ticket offices allowed to be branded? At the time of privatisation I seem to remember it being a big no-no. But back then, it was all Quickfare machines at every station before each TOC started going its separate way.

Ticket offices at some stations are sort of branded, if you think back to how it was with St Pancras. The main signs are UK Rail Tickets but inside they used to be quite obvious as to who ran them.

Joe Public must have been confused why there were two ticket offices next to each other, just as I'm sure they might be at Stevenage where the LNER office looks like a travel centre that isn't likely to sell tickets OR only Intercity train tickets. For everything else, you use the 'obvious looking' windows and machines.

RDG could easily require all machines look the same with the National Rail/BR logo so they stand out anywhere in the country. On my travels I've seen some odd things that even confuse me initially, so I feel for those who don't use trains a lot.

The software would then follow a standard interface, with the allowance of a certain level of branding. Perhaps as far as a theme for colours, or maybe just logos at the bottom/side. The offering of tickets in the 'top ten' list or however things would be set up would also offer SOME customisation options.

To update, I heard back from EMT last week, who say they are going to update the machine "as soon as possible." As of yesterday, the machine is still not offering the Super Off Peak ticket at times when it is valid.

@gpmartin Can you resize that image please? It's about 5 Megabytes!

A couple of years or so a go I had some spare time before my train from King's Cross, I was at St Pancras so I told people going to places like Bedford that they would be overcharged if they used the EMT machines, so to use the Thameslink machines instead.

EMT got angry and demanded I cease doing this as they wanted people to buy the more expensive Off Peak fares from their own machines. BTP were called and I showed them what I was showing people. BTP sided with me and I was told I could continue to inform people. To say EMT were not happy was an understatement.

The difference in fares was quite large; well over a third off.

It took many months for EMT to offer the Super Off Peak fares from those machines.

Clip said:

TVMs sadly dont always or need too(?), sell the full range of tickets available and unless the need for them to do so I dont think much will ever happen.

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http://orr.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf...l-code-of-practice-consultation-sept-2014.pdf

If certain points of sale, such as TVMs, offer a restricted range of tickets for sale, or do enable the purchaser to access certain types of reduction, then this should be made clear to passengers, along with where they might be able to access a fuller range of tickets

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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...ld-win-compensation-complaints-new-ombudsman/

...the Department for Transport admitted that rail ticket machines were still ripping off customers in seven out of ten cases, despite operators promising to treat customers fairly.

The admission came a year after a joint action was launched by the Government, rail industry and consumer groups to prevent ticket machines overcharging passengers.

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We are still waiting.

yorkie said:

@gpmartin Can you resize that image please? It's about 5 Megabytes!

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Whoops, sorry. I've tried to delete it, but I'm not sure if it's worked. Let me know if it's still causing trouble, and I'll delete the post.