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Should ticket acceptance always be the norm during disruption

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Jamiescott1

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I understand that during disruption, ticket acceptance on other operators for alternative routes is the norm but should there be limits.

This evening there wcml is down so theres ticket acceptance on chiltern trains. Chiltern trains are already full during rush hour so now those paying Chiltern railways have to have an uncomfortable journey to accommodate those who pay Chiltern railways nothing.
It does not work in reverse as those in commuter towns south of Banbury cannot get another operator if disruption on chiltern line.
 
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ForTheLoveOf

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Jamiescott1 said:
I understand that during disruption, ticket acceptance on other operators for alternative routes is the norm but should there be limits.

This evening there wcml is down so theres ticket acceptance on chiltern trains. Chiltern trains are already full during rush hour so now those paying Chiltern railways have to have an uncomfortable journey to accommodate those who pay Chiltern railways nothing.
It does not work in reverse as those in commuter towns south of Banbury cannot get another operator if disruption on chiltern line.
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What do you propose as the alternative to arranging ticket acceptance? Trying to bustitute all WCML services and ban WCML passengers from Chiltern? Totally impracticable at rush hour in London!

It is also a completely false assumption that Chiltern receive nothing in exchange for this kind of ticket acceptance. There will be a lot of people whose tickets are already valid on Chiltern even without ticket acceptance (i.e. holders of Any Permitted tickets to the West Midlands), and for which Chiltern will, in most cases, already be receiving a fair cut. Not to mention that, depending on the circumstances, other operators may be paying Chiltern an amount per expected passenger.

The fact that there are no alternatives to Chiltern is perhaps frustrating but that is simply the nature of these kinds of things. There is no easy solution to it.
 
Darandio

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Jamiescott1 said:
I understand that during disruption, ticket acceptance on other operators for alternative routes is the norm but should there be limits.

This evening there wcml is down so theres ticket acceptance on chiltern trains. Chiltern trains are already full during rush hour so now those paying Chiltern railways have to have an uncomfortable journey to accommodate those who pay Chiltern railways nothing.
It does not work in reverse as those in commuter towns south of Banbury cannot get another operator if disruption on chiltern line.
Click to expand...

Why don't we just encourage operators to work together and get everyone home?
 
N

naverag

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Yes, and it's a disgrace that there are any situations in which it doesn't occur.
 
tsr

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When you think about it, ticket acceptance always works both ways. Eg. for all those Chiltern users who don't have many options south of Banbury (except for Princes Risborough/Aylesbury, Ruislip, Sudbury, Oxford... well, you get the idea), you have an equal number of people travelling to stations like Rugby and Northampton who might well have no option but to wait for VT or LNR. Whereas those people who can benefit from the ticket acceptance will be shared mutually, eg. Birmingham Moor Street users may wish to use New Street from time to time, and vice versa.

Ticket acceptance even works mutually for buses. I can recall quite a number of times that bus tickets in my local area have been accepted on trains.

The whole sorry state of ticket acceptance being necessary is something which winds me up, anyway. Each day, TOC controls around the country waste quite a volume of time agreeing which routes can be used amongst themselves, and on the rare occasion someone actually says "no", any disputes tend to be petty and stupid. (Similar to the Delay Attribution farce - if all the dozens of people paid to attribute delays instead just looked at them and thought about ways to fix the problems, we'd probably have half the delay minutes to start with.)

The time taken could be spent so much more wisely in actually getting the same controls to write better information about the alternative routes that passengers can use in any given scenario, rather than think about what they might like to ask the purple or blue or red company 40 miles away. It would be much better to oblige guards and revenue staff to simply look up the data about which services are running, and if (say) there are greater than 20 minute delays on the original line of route, or a service gap of an hour or more due to cancellations, passengers should be simply allowed to choose a quicker alternative (bar something daft like insisting on a Sleeper berth instead of a £6 advance for a train at 1400). In fact, most good customer-facing staff, of which the railways have a very great deal, do this sort of thing anyway - the industry is just catering for bad apples who are leftovers from an era where the customer was always wrong.
 
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superalbs

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Yes. After it looks likely that a delay of X amount of minutes will be occuring, then people should be able to use any reasonable train, obviously excepting Eurostar services.
 
furlong

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It is already the default in certain situations, without any need for specific communications:

(1) Obligation to carry
...
(b) If any event occurs which is capable of affecting two or more trains of an Operator and is likely to result in passengers who are using or wish to use those trains being delayed by more than an hour, every other Operator must use its reasonable endeavours to enable the passenger to complete his journey on its trains at no extra charge.
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with an important caveat

(2) Exception
The obligation in sub-Clause (1)(b) above only applies if the affected Operator could not reasonably have been expected to make alternative arrangements to prevent the passengers referred to in that sub-Clause being delayed by more than an hour, having regard to the length of any notice it had of the event which affected its train(s).
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and

(5) Compensation
(a) An Operator which carries passengers pursuant to sub-Clause (1) above will not receive any compensation for doing so unless the delay referred to in that sub-Clause continues for more than 48 hours.
Click to expand...
 
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yorkie

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It should be the default, unless there is food reason not to allow it (e.g. risk of serious overcrowding)

Sadly in practice it's currently not the default, and it can take a major incident and some time to pass for ticket acceptance to be invoked, which I find unacceptable.

When ticket acceptance is not in place, staff may still be pragmatic and allow alternative travel arrangements, but you can be relying on staff being reasonable. It should not have to be this way.
 
CaptainHaddock

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Doesn't it depend on how serious the disruption is? If, it's something serious like the wires being down for hours then of course other TOCs should help but what if, for example, Hull Trains cancel a service out of King's Cross, should their customers be able to take the next LNER service or must they wait for the next Hull Trains one?
 
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gazzaa2

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It depends what constitutions disruption. A delayed train, a cancelled train, multiple delays and cancellations.

There needs to be clear guidelines.
 
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Clip

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Jamiescott1 said:
I understand that during disruption, ticket acceptance on other operators for alternative routes is the norm but should there be limits.

This evening there wcml is down so theres ticket acceptance on chiltern trains. Chiltern trains are already full during rush hour so now those paying Chiltern railways have to have an uncomfortable journey to accommodate those who pay Chiltern railways nothing.
Click to expand...
People need to get home so I dont understand why you seem put out about people using Chiltern

It does not work in reverse as those in commuter towns south of Banbury cannot get another operator if disruption on chiltern line.
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Well that's pretty petty, because there isnt the option to do so for most of those stations and so Chiltern would put on buses if possible - also worth noting that they would try and run shuttles where possible too and can and do try and avoid the mainline via Aylesbury if disruption is bad so they do have options just not many
 
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gazzaa2 said:
It depends what constitutions disruption. A delayed train, a cancelled train, multiple delays and cancellations.

There needs to be clear guidelines.
Click to expand...

It also needs to be written that if ticket acceptance is invoked, it must be continued at least until the end of the current day, with official continuance for up to 30 days for passengers who made the outward journey on a period ticket or pair of Advances during the period of acceptance (I guess sensibly this would require tickets to be endorsed). The reason is that people may have driven to an alternative railhead, and it's no good if they can't get back there using their ticket to retrieve their car (or bicycle, or whatever) later on or the next day.
 
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The only time it should be declined is during major disruption IE we also have trains stood everywhere and an influx of passengers may cause issues.

By default I'll carry anyone whose train is cancelled because it's the right thing to do. I'm not really bothered about what control will tell me because I have discretion in revenue protection matters, I just unilaterally apply that to the whole train for a justifiable reason.

Some TOCs are pretty good at ticket acceptance. Some, I'm looking at you Northern, are awful at arranging it for their passengers and seem to be happy to leave them sitting around.

As I've mentioned before between Sheffield and Liverpool for example EMT and TPE will grant formal ticket acceptance for nearly any issue pretty much immediately.

I had the bizarre situation the other day where there were overhead wire problems at Earlestown. TPE arranged acceptance with my TOC and advised their passengers accordingly. Northern left it to their platform staff and traincrew to run around and beg. I carried the Northern passengers anyway but it's a similar story on a regular basis.
 
Metal_gee_man

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Things have to go massively tits up at Charing Cross/Victoria/Cannon St for SE to even consider opening up their precious High Speed services to us poorer passengers that haven't paid as much as they'd like, but as soon as there are issues at St Pancras they are very very quick to put LU acceptance in to place to ferry those passengers to the traditional termini
It's not just cross franchise agreements that take far too long
 
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Clip

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Metal_gee_man said:
Things have to go massively tits up at Charing Cross/Victoria/Cannon St for SE to even consider opening up their precious High Speed services to us poorer passengers that haven't paid as much as they'd like, but as soon as there are issues at St Pancras they are very very quick to put LU acceptance in to place to ferry those passengers to the traditional termini
It's not just cross franchise agreements that take far too long
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Im not sure the javelins could deal with 3, 12 coach trains heading to Ramsgate all converging at once if im honest - And with them dispersing those HS1 trains between 3 stations its easier to manage the crowds that way due to the time it would take pax to get across town.
 
kristiang85

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If the railway was one company, it would be the same situation - one line getting very crowded because others are down. As has been said, it all evens out, and surely when your line is down you'd want to be able to get home in reasonable time rather than be stuck in London for an extra 4 hours.
 
Starmill

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In my experience there has been an iron reluctance to organise ticket acceptance, time and again, when I have been using a ticket valid only on Northern services. Time and again my Northern train has been cancelled, and staff have been asked if acceptance with TransPennine Express, East Midlands Trains or Transport for Wales can be arranged to lessen the delay. Time and again I have been refused categorically, resulting in 2 hour or longer delays to my journey in many cases. Journeys include Manchester to Liverpool, Sheffield, Leeds, Crewe etc etc. This all changed last May, when the eyes of the industry turned to Northern, and automatic permanent ticket acceptance was put in place, ostensibly for any delay, so including even one of 10 minutes. This has now expired of course, and I don't know if attitudes have changed much.

On one memorable occasion I had a London to Stoke-on-Trent West Midlands Trains only ticket, and was told at London Euston that London Underground to London Marylebone, Chiltern Railways to Birmingham and then CrossCountry to Stoke-on-Trent would be permitted as there had been a fire and no trains could run from London Euston station. There was no ticket inspection on the way to Birmingham, but the train manager on CrossCountry's train said that the ticket was not valid because it was routed West Midlands Trains only. I explained that ticket acceptance was in place, but he said it had not been organised. I refused to pay for a new ticket from Birmingham to Stoke-on-Trent when this was demanded, so I was asked to leave the train at Wolverhampton. I refused to move, was therefore taken to Stoke-on-Trent, and nothing else ever came of it. I complained to CrossCountry, who replied that the Train Manager had been correct, and that it was my fault for buying the wrong ticket, as no ticket acceptance had been arranged. I also complained to West Midlands Trains, who did not comment on any of what I had told them, but did pay me compensation for the full value of the ticket.
 
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Bletchleyite

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These "Northern only" tickets just cause problems and confusion. There is really no case whatsoever for TOC specific tickets on local or regional journeys - there isn't even a case for separate bus, train and tram tickets in cities; it should be treated as a single system with one set of fares.

Without this nonsense, there would be no problem, as people would just board the first train, or take the bus instead if necessary.

People might shout "competition", but this isn't competition, this is just revenue abstraction. It isn't doing any of the things competition would normally do, be that reducing fares overall (because TPE can't set a TPE only fare other than Advances, and only a fool uses an Advance for a half hour journey and loses the flexibility for a quid or two) or be that driving improvements.

It makes no sense and needs to go.
 
Starmill

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Bletchleyite said:
These "Northern only" tickets just cause problems and confusion. There is really no case whatsoever for TOC specific tickets on local or regional journeys - there isn't even a case for separate bus, train and tram tickets in cities; it should be treated as a single system with one set of fares.
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Fares set by TransPennine Express and CrossCountry on routes shared with Northern are heinously overpriced, though. The same applies to a lesser extent to regional fares set by East Midlands Trains, Transport for Wales and Virgin Trains, on routes shared with Northern. Who is going to force these companies to bring their fares down to a more reasonable level? Until then the mess of Northern Only tickets will only grow. Indeed, it has grown significantly this week. Chester to Leeds now available in Northern Only.
 
Starmill

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Bletchleyite said:
People might shout "competition", but this isn't competition, this is just revenue abstraction.
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Absolutely. The discounts on offer are very poor indeed in some cases. It's obvious that the consumer benefits very little from this fabricated version of 'competition'.

Things like Birmingham to London on WMT or Doncaster to London on GC are a different matter.
 
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From my experience passengers will tend to get any available service regardless of if their ticket is valid or not. Case in point if a Victoria from Portsmouth is cancelled passengers with tickets marked southern only will get the following Waterloo fast and change at Woking then Clapham even though ‘technically’ they should change at Havant for the Southampton to Vic.

Another thing with price structure that is odd is the Netley road. SN only tickets are about £2 cheaper than SWR, Southern run 2 trains an hour that skip the majority of the smaller stations so the journey times are quicker and yet their tickets are not valid for a less attractive service. This is during normal workings too.
 
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londonbridge said:
https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/grand-central-chaos.95414/
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One can't help but see abstractive open access operations a bit differently (particularly as GC and HT don't have enough capacity to help LNER out if their service goes to pot so it'll only ever be quite one sided unlike say LNWR and VT), though I think acceptance should be arranged and the OAO cough up for it. The passenger should not lose out.

TBH, I'd rather the OAOs just went away. The overall benefit they provide is far lesser than the problems they cause.
 
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Yes, they should! To give an example, this weekend the Piccadilly Line is not running between Hammersmith and Heathrow and instead of sorting out ticket acceptance with Heathrow Express (which did used to happen) TfL are laying on coaches instead which will be packed.
 
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Some time last year when all WCML lines were blocked at Milton Keynes, my daughter and her partner found an alternative route to Manchester using Grand Central from Kings Cross to Doncaster then TPE to Manchester, arriving 2h01m later than scheduled. Tickets were accepted on both services and full Delay Repay paid by Virgin. I doubt whether Virgin had arranged anything with GC or TPE. These things do work out sometimes.
Their return journey on the same day went OK.
 
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