Do you need your ticket for "delay repay" (Northern)?

Howardh · 8 May 2019

Firstly I'm not bothering to get 12.5% off my Bolton/Manchester ticket last night (20' late) - it comes to pennies (nearly 50p actually!)
However, just out of interest I looked at the delay repay form -
https://delay.northernrailway.co.uk
Can't work this out - I bought my ticket with cash from the counter, so there's no proof of purchace on my statement - and there's no indication that I have to send/scan the ticket for proof of travel; notwithstanding the time of journey wouldn't be on the ticket (standard day return); so how could someone be prevented from claiming for a journey they never went on?

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ForTheLoveOf · 8 May 2019

Howardh said:
Firstly I'm not bothering to get 12.5% off my Bolton/Manchester ticket last night (20' late) - it comes to pennies (nearly 50p actually!)
However, just out of interest I looked at the delay repay form -
https://delay.northernrailway.co.uk
Can't work this out - I bought my ticket with cash from the counter, so there's no proof of purchace on my statement - and there's no indication that I have to send/scan the ticket for proof of travel; notwithstanding the time of journey wouldn't be on the ticket (standard day return); so how could someone be prevented from claiming for a journey they never went on?

You do need to show your ticket or other valid pass or permit to claim delay compensation.

There is nothing directly stopping fraudulent claims, but a surprising percentage of fraudulent claimants are too stupid to avoid 'ratting' themselves (e.g. claiming for the same journey from multiple TOCs, claiming for trains that were actually on time and so on). Serial fraudsters will eventually be caught.

Howardh · 8 May 2019

ForTheLoveOf said:
You do need to show your ticket or other valid pass or permit to claim delay compensation.

Thanks for that, so the second point is "how" and the third point - even if I showed the ticket it wouldn't show that I was on the late-running train?

To avoid fraud I would suggest the guard goes round the train and gives out a separate "running late" ticket which proves you are on that train and were, indeed, delayed. However that's more work for the staff which could further delay the train....

ForTheLoveOf · 8 May 2019

Howardh said:
Thanks for that, so the second point is "how" and the third point - even if I showed the ticket it wouldn't show that I was on the late-running train?

To avoid fraud I would suggest the guard goes round the train and gives out a separate "running late" ticket which proves you are on that train and were, indeed, delayed. However that's more work for the staff which could further delay the train....

Well, some TOCs (primarily the intercity ones) give staff what are known as "Zifa" stampers. These contain the date and headcode of the service the guard is operating, so that fraudulent claims are stymied by the headcode of a specific service being printed on the ticket. And some staff write the headcode on in pen. But at the end of the day this happens only for a minority of passengers overall - for the vast majority there is nothing that really stops them from making a fraudulent claim. The proliferation of easy access to open rail data has made it considerably simpler to do so, too.

A surprising percentage of staff either aren't aware of delay compensation arrangements at all, or simply don't care for them, or (quite understandably) have other priorities - such as keeping passengers informed, ensuring the safety of the train and so on. But it's true that it's harder to justify not marking tickets in some way if the guard is simply sat in the back cab, doing nothing.

The other issue is that for a fair number of claims, no train need necessarily have been delayed by more than the delay compensation threshold (which is now 'just' 15 minutes for Northern) for a passenger to have a valid claim. It could be, for example, that they miss a 5 minute connection onto an hourly service. There, a mere 2 or 3 minute delay in the arrival of the first service could cause an overall hour's delay. How would one deal with those kinds of claims?

gordonthemoron · 8 May 2019

ForTheLoveOf said:
Well, some TOCs (primarily the intercity ones) give staff what are known as "Zifa" stampers. These contain the date and headcode of the service the guard is operating, so that fraudulent claims are stymied by the headcode of a specific service being printed on the ticket. And some staff write the headcode on in pen. But at the end of the day this happens only for a minority of passengers overall - for the vast majority there is nothing that really stops them from making a fraudulent claim. The proliferation of easy access to open rail data has made it considerably simpler to do so, too.

A surprising percentage of staff either aren't aware of delay compensation arrangements at all, or simply don't care for them, or (quite understandably) have other priorities - such as keeping passengers informed, ensuring the safety of the train and so on. But it's true that it's harder to justify not marking tickets in some way if the guard is simply sat in the back cab, doing nothing.

The other issue is that for a fair number of claims, no train need necessarily have been delayed by more than the delay compensation threshold (which is now 'just' 15 minutes for Northern) for a passenger to have a valid claim. It could be, for example, that they miss a 5 minute connection onto an hourly service. There, a mere 2 or 3 minute delay in the arrival of the first service could cause an overall hour's delay. How would one deal with those kinds of claims?

That's all very well, but I usually photograph my tickets for expenses claim purposes before they're stamped

ForTheLoveOf · 8 May 2019

gordonthemoron said:
That's all very well, but I usually photograph my tickets for expenses claim purposes before they're stamped

Most fraudulent claimants aren't even smart enough to do that!

BlueFox · 8 May 2019

Howardh said:
there's no indication that I have to send/scan the ticket for proof of travel;

You have to upload a photo or scan of your ticket as part of the application process. Maybe you missed it because it's under the "how would you like to receive compensation" heading.

Howardh · 8 May 2019

BlueFox said:
You have to upload a photo or scan of your ticket as part of the application process. Maybe you missed it because it's under the "how would you like to receive compensation" heading.

Gotcha. It does mention "day travelcards" under "tickets" but how would they work out the compensation - especially if bus travel was involved in your day ticket?

yorkie · 8 May 2019

Delay Repay applies to all ticket types, but calculating it on a multi-journey fare can be problematic.
https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...-to-compensate-on-multi-modal-tickets.173787/

The Government introduced the Delay Repay scheme whereby rail passengers are entitled to compensation if a delay to their train journey means that they are late in reaching their destination by 30 minutes or more. This applies to all ticket types.

_toommm_ · 8 May 2019

yorkie said:
Delay Repay applies to all ticket types, but calculating it on a multi-journey fare can be problematic.
https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...-to-compensate-on-multi-modal-tickets.173787/

It's just a shame Northern regularly refuse them for CountyCards/WY bus and train/TravelMaster tickets.

Transpennine, as much as I dont like them, have regularly paid out when they've messed up when using a multimodal ticket.

Howardh · 8 May 2019

yorkie said:
Delay Repay applies to all ticket types, but calculating it on a multi-journey fare can be problematic.
https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...-to-compensate-on-multi-modal-tickets.173787/

While delay repay appears a good solution; it's got more holes in it than Blackburn due to these day-tickets etc. Also - what happens if your train departs 16 minutes late (thus eligble) but catches up time and arrives just 14 minutes late (inelegable?)
Might be better if it were 15 mins late = half your single (quarter your return) or one-third of the inter-modal day ticket and then there's no confusion. Well, less. But how do we prove we had an on-line ticket? Presumably an e-mail comes with the ticket (as with Virgin) and/or you have a booking reference?
But reading the thread alluded to - have Northern changed their ways?

yorkie · 8 May 2019

Howardh said:
While delay repay appears a good solution; it's got more holes in it than Blackburn due to these day-tickets etc. Also - what happens if your train departs 16 minutes late (thus eligble) but catches up time and arrives just 14 minutes late (inelegable?)

If your journey is delayed by 14 minutes, you are not eligible for Delay Repay 15 compensation.

Howardh said:
Might be better if it were 15 mins late = half your single (quarter your return) or one-third of the inter-modal day ticket and then there's no confusion. Well, less. But how do we prove we had an on-line ticket? Presumably an e-mail comes with the ticket (as with Virgin) and/or you have a booking reference?

e-tickets include unique barcodes.

Howardh said:
But reading the thread alluded to - have Northern changed their ways?

Northern are regularly caught breaking their franchise obligations, consumer and contract laws in multiple areas and I doubt they will ever have sufficient safeguards in place to ensure their obligations are met.

I, and others I know, have had to wait for months for resolutions to issues, and I have to pester them and tell them they are wrong when they refuse to pay out under various circumstances.

They're unlikely to change their ways. We're used to it; we expect poor service, breaches of various laws, and incorrect information from Northern customer services. I'd be shocked to have it any other way.

Hadders · 8 May 2019

Howardh said:
To avoid fraud I would suggest the guard goes round the train and gives out a separate "running late" ticket which proves you are on that train and were, indeed, delayed. However that's more work for the staff which could further delay the train....

How's that going to work on a packed 12-car class 700 train? No guard and even if there was with up to 1,700 passengers on board it simply wouldn't be feasible.

xotGD · 8 May 2019

For every passenger making a dodgy claim there are dozens not bothering or unaware to make a legitimate claim.

An automated compensation system for passengers on Advances would be a good start.

yorkie · 8 May 2019

xotGD said:
An automated compensation system for passengers on Advances would be a good start.

That's surprisingly difficult, and any such system would have to make various assumptions (such as connections less than the minimum connection time not being caught) as well as denying people who had claims where the trains were too full to board, and taking into account ticketing validities (ticket validities could be ignored if ticket acceptance is in place but this information is not held in an electronic format).

Howardh · 8 May 2019

If paying out for a delay is accepting responsibility, does that allow anyone to sue for losses if, let's say, the last train home was late, meaning they missed the last bus home and had to get a taxi (so the TOC pays for the difference between the bus fare and taxi)? Has that ever been tried - for trips that wouldn't be covered by travel insurance?
Mssrs Grabbem & Suemm might be interested!
Personally I'd rather TOC's had cheaper fares than put some aside for repay; on the grounds that most travellers will add extra time anyway for delays if they know our railways well, and maybe replace the system with a full refund if the train's more than an hour late. But it's no compensation if a delayed train means you miss the big match, your flight to your dream holiday or a day out with the in-laws.
(Scrub that last one).

cf111 · 8 May 2019

xotGD said:
For every passenger making a dodgy claim there are dozens not bothering or unaware to make a legitimate claim.

An automated compensation system for passengers on Advances would be a good start.

Caledonian Sleeper do (or at least did) have this sort of system. I was once horribly late into Euston and the full refund was in my account that day.

ForTheLoveOf · 8 May 2019

Howardh said:
Personally I'd rather TOC's had cheaper fares than put some aside for repay; on the grounds that most travellers will add extra time anyway for delays if they know our railways well, and maybe replace the system with a full refund if the train's more than an hour late. But it's no compensation if a delayed train means you miss the big match, your flight to your dream holiday or a day out with the in-laws.

Cheaper fares are never going to happen - it's simply not the will of the Government of the day. But compensation is all the rage, hence it being improved (e.g. blameless 15 minute DR on GWR, and 15 vs 30 minute threshold for Northern and GA), by means of the DfT indirectly paying the additional costs.

td97 · 8 May 2019

Howardh said:
Firstly I'm not bothering to get 12.5% off my Bolton/Manchester ticket last night (20' late) - it comes to pennies (nearly 50p actually!)

Even if the delay repay amounts to pennies, if Northern have left me waiting on a freezing unstaffed platform for half an hour then the only satisfaction I can get out of the experience is sending in a delay repay for them to post out by cheque.

Howardh · 9 May 2019

Had an idea which may prevent fraud - every train has, at it's doors, a small machine which becomes operable once the train is delayed and the pax can insert his ticket which is then validated with a mark that he/she was on that particular train. M-tickets could be also validated by the pax presenting the readout. So if you have to post your ticket, it's stamped accordingly and if you had an m-ticket that also has been registered by the TOC. The M-ticket could be refunded almost immediately.

Initially there would be substantial costs in setting up, but once done the savings should come in as you are preventing fraud. It would be no different than pax presenting a ticket at the gate or touching oyster-style, however it would only be done on the train they were on as they leave. They could also be half-way down the carriage to process more pax quickly.

Kite159 · 9 May 2019

Howardh said:
Had an idea which may prevent fraud - every train has, at it's doors, a small machine which becomes operable once the train is delayed and the pax can insert his ticket which is then validated with a mark that he/she was on that particular train. M-tickets could be also validated by the pax presenting the readout. So if you have to post your ticket, it's stamped accordingly and if you had an m-ticket that also has been registered by the TOC. The M-ticket could be refunded almost immediately.

Initially there would be substantial costs in setting up, but once done the savings should come in as you are preventing fraud. It would be no different than pax presenting a ticket at the gate or touching oyster-style, however it would only be done on the train they were on as they leave. They could also be half-way down the carriage to process more pax quickly.

And a delayed train gets even later due to extended dwell times.

And how would it work if say the previous train was cancelled or had stops ripped out, will any potential options become valid?

Howardh · 9 May 2019

Kite159 said:
And a delayed train gets even later due to extended dwell times.

And how would it work if say the previous train was cancelled or had stops ripped out, will any potential options become valid?

(a) pax can activate their ticket in the machine at any time once it's classified as delayed; not just when they get off and a quick swipe or touch, even if 100 were attempting that, wouldn't hold the train up that long. On other forms of transport pax are touching in/out all the time; trams in NL for one if I remember correctly.
(b) That would be problematic but we have that issue today; how do you know if the pax was waiting for the cancelled train and not the one they ultimately got on which was on time?
Whilst my suggestion doesn't cover all eventualities, it at least covers some (if not most) and I think deserves consideration as a method of reducing fraud. If there are any other suggestions as the current system clearly isn't satisfactory?

Hadders · 9 May 2019

Howardh said:
Had an idea which may prevent fraud - every train has, at it's doors, a small machine which becomes operable once the train is delayed and the pax can insert his ticket which is then validated with a mark that he/she was on that particular train. M-tickets could be also validated by the pax presenting the readout. So if you have to post your ticket, it's stamped accordingly and if you had an m-ticket that also has been registered by the TOC. The M-ticket could be refunded almost immediately.

Initially there would be substantial costs in setting up, but once done the savings should come in as you are preventing fraud. It would be no different than pax presenting a ticket at the gate or touching oyster-style, however it would only be done on the train they were on as they leave. They could also be half-way down the carriage to process more pax quickly.

Sorry this is unworkable. How long will a delayed class 700 train have to wait at a station while upto 1,700 validate their tickets as they get off?

Also, what about connections. A four minute delay to a LNER train I once travelled on caused me to miss a connection that only operates hourly. The four minute delay therefore became a 60 minute delay repay claim. How will your proposed system deal with this scenario?

ForTheLoveOf · 9 May 2019

I am sure the TOCs consider some of these methods in their efforts to reduce fraud. But in the big picture, fraud on delay compensation claims is much less of a problem than fare evasion, and the latter is much easier to catch (by and large), and is easier to prosecute or penalise.

If any of these proposals were sufficiently cheap whilst also reducing fraud then I am sure the TOCs would already be doing them. That they do not, indicates that they are not so concerned about the level of fraud (and instead use other measures to prevent and detect it).

The move to electronic ticketing (not only in terms of e/m-tickets, but also tickets with barcodes and QR codes) means that it is also now a lot easier to track the usage of a ticket, especially in areas where at least one station has ticket barriers (which, I would imagine, is the majority of all rail journeys).

Deerfold · 9 May 2019

Howardh said:
Had an idea which may prevent fraud - every train has, at it's doors, a small machine which becomes operable once the train is delayed and the pax can insert his ticket which is then validated with a mark that he/she was on that particular train. M-tickets could be also validated by the pax presenting the readout. So if you have to post your ticket, it's stamped accordingly and if you had an m-ticket that also has been registered by the TOC. The M-ticket could be refunded almost immediately.

That's fine on quiet trains - but how long will it take for every passenger to do this?

At the moment on busy trains it can be hard to get to the door controls.

Howardh · 9 May 2019

Deerfold said:
That's fine on quiet trains - but how long will it take for every passenger to do this?
At the moment on busy trains it can be hard to get to the door controls.

How long does it take to get to the gate, put your ticket in and collect it after it's zipped through?
That long. Except there isn't a gate to open.

But if that's too slow for you I'll back down and suggest instead of physically putting your ticket through a machine - every door has two small machines which you press a button and out comes a "refund due" ticket with the train number, unique reference and date/time on; so you send that off with your ticket which proves you were on that train, and it also works for e-tickets as when you apply for the refund you can include the unique reference number on your refund due ticket?

sheff1 · 9 May 2019

Howardh said:
But if that's too slow for you I'll back down and suggest instead of physically putting your ticket through a machine - every door has two small machines which you press a button and out comes a "refund due" ticket with the train number, unique reference and date/time on; so you send that off with your ticket which proves you were on that train, and it also works for e-tickets as when you apply for the refund you can include the unique reference number on your refund due ticket?

So someone who is on a delayed train can get a "ticket" which entitles them to a "refund" even though the delay to that train will not cause a late arrival at their destination. Yet someone on a train which is less than 15 minutes late, but will miss an hourly connection, will not be able to get a "refund ticket" as these machines by the door will not be activated.

Yes, that will certainly make things better.

Silverdale · 9 May 2019

sheff1 said:
So someone who is on a delayed train can get a "ticket" which entitles them to a "refund" even though the delay to that train will not cause a late arrival at their destination. Yet someone on a train which is less than 15 minutes late, but will miss an hourly connection, will not be able to get a "refund ticket" as these machines by the door will not be activated.

Exactly.

And what about trains which are cancelled, as opposed to delayed. How is the customer expected to get a "refund ticket" from those?

Preventing Delay Repay fraud doesn't require verfying that a claimant actually travelled on a particular, delayed train. Rather it requires being able to verify which trains a claimant intended to travel on. The rest of their claim - that one of those trains was delayed or cancelled - does not need further input from the claimant in order to verify.

Perhaps too onerous to require all intended itineraries to be submitted prior to travel, but proof that the cliamant was actually at the origin point of their journey in time to commence the itinerary they are claiming against, would be simple enough, with devices at stations to write location/date/time onto the ticket.

Howardh · 10 May 2019

Silverdale said:
Exactly.

Perhaps too onerous to require all intended itineraries to be submitted prior to travel, but proof that the cliamant was actually at the origin point of their journey in time to commence the itinerary they are claiming against, would be simple enough, with devices at stations to write location/date/time onto the ticket.

What happens if the train departs on tile but arrives 20 minutes late, unless everyone has their ticket time-stamped at the origin station just in case?

Silverdale · 10 May 2019

Howardh said:
What happens if the train departs on tile but arrives 20 minutes late, unless everyone has their ticket time-stamped at the origin station just in case?

The potential for fraud arises because a dishonest ticket holder can find out which trains have actually been delayed and make a claim about their intended travel retrospectively, claiming for a delay they haven't suffered. The only way to verify what the customer's true intention was, is to make them state it before they depart. Time-stamping at the origin would be a proxy for the customer stating their intended departure time.

So, to answer your question, yes. It would have to be done, just in case of a delay repay claim being required.

Time-stamping at the origin wouldn't allow all fraudulent claims to be caught. e.g. a customer could travel without delay via one valid routing for their ticket, but claim they had been delayed by using another valid route. The time stamp wouldn't verify which route had been intended, but it would at least narrow down the time window within which that kind of fraud would be possible.

Maybe even time-stamping (or an electronic equivalent) of tickets prior to departure is too onerous?

Do you need your ticket for "delay repay" (Northern)?

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