Delay Repay rejection due to "reaching the maximum pro-rata full days travel"

Belperpete · 25 Nov 2019

gray1404 said:
I think the most fair way to treat a season ticket delay repay claim is to base it as if an Anytime Day Return or Anytime Return was held and base it on this value.

But someone travelling with a season hasn't paid anything like the Anytime fare: the season has a significant discount, and so it is only right that the compensation is similarly discounted. Otherwise, to take your argument a step further, why shouldn't anyone with an off-peak ticket or advance ticket also have their compensation calculated on the same basis?

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Hadders · 25 Nov 2019

Not all season tickets offer massive discounts over the Anytime fare (check out Stevenage to London).

In Central London practically everyone from the chief exec to the security guard or cleaner gets the train to work.

AM9 · 25 Nov 2019

Belperpete said:
And they get that consideration in the massive discount they get, compared to what they would have paid if they paid daily.

Correct, season tickets are a deal; you buy travel for a period broadly based on the off-peak return fare and you get unlimited anytime travel over that route. With interest rates at an all-time low for the last 10 years (and not much chance of them rising much soon) the savings far outweigh the cost of a loan.

SteveM70 · 25 Nov 2019

Coming back to the original question, it does seem perverse that the TOC is seeking to impose an arbitrary cap on delay repay.

A customer suffering successive 2+ hour delays will get two full payouts if one is on the evening of day one and the other on the morning of day two, but he won’t if suffering both on the same day.

If there were a cap that compensation related to a transaction couldn’t exceed the sum paid, I’d totally understand, but I guess the complexities of maintaining running totals per annual season are greater than doing “per day” sums. Not that it should be beyond the wit of the TOC mind

PeterC · 25 Nov 2019

SteveM70 said:
Coming back to the original question, it does seem perverse that the TOC is seeking to impose an arbitrary cap on delay repay.

A customer suffering successive 2+ hour delays will get two full payouts if one is on the evening of day one and the other on the morning of day two, but he won’t if suffering both on the same day.

If there were a cap that compensation related to a transaction couldn’t exceed the sum paid, I’d totally understand, but I guess the complexities of maintaining running totals per annual season are greater than doing “per day” sums. Not that it should be beyond the wit of the TOC mind

I haven't seen anything saying exactly what journeys were being claimed for.

Belperpete · 25 Nov 2019

SteveM70 said:
Coming back to the original question, it does seem perverse that the TOC is seeking to impose an arbitrary cap on delay repay. A customer suffering successive 2+ hour delays will get two full payouts if one is on the evening of day one and the other on the morning of day two, but he won’t if suffering both on the same day.

This is not dissimilar to the cap that some TOCs apply to non-season return journeys: they will only pay out ticket value, so if you are delayed 2+ hours on the outward journey and 2+ hours on the return journey, then you will only get compensated once.

Belperpete · 25 Nov 2019

SteveM70 said:
If there were a cap that compensation related to a transaction couldn’t exceed the sum paid, I’d totally understand, but I guess the complexities of maintaining running totals per annual season are greater than doing “per day” sums. Not that it should be beyond the wit of the TOC mind

Are the claims all going to be made against the same TOC?

If you claim delay repay on an ordinary ticket, you claim from the TOC that delayed you, regardless of who you bought the ticket from. It is awhile now since I last had a season, but does the same not apply with season tickets? Or in the case of seasons, do you claim from the company that sold you it, regardless of which TOC delayed you?

SteveM70 · 25 Nov 2019

Belperpete said:
Are the claims all going to be made against the same TOC?

If you claim delay repay on an ordinary ticket, you claim from the TOC that delayed you, regardless of who you bought the ticket from. It is awhile now since I last had a season, but does the same not apply with season tickets? Or in the case of seasons, do you claim from the company that sold you it, regardless of which TOC delayed you?

Ah, good point. I was thinking of it purely from my perspective commuting on a route where only Northern operate, so any delay repays go to them

thedbdiboy · 26 Nov 2019

Many of the replies here focus on perceptions of SWR's motivations, e.g. that they are trying to reduce their payouts etc. Please recognise that Delay Repay is specified by DfT and the Ts and Cs including limits on payouts etc are sanctioned by DfT - because ultimately anything that costs money falls back on the taxpayer by limiting the value of the franchise. The other thing to bear in mind is that as it is currently constructed, Delay Repay is one of the most generous transport rebate processes in existence. Try claiming for a delay that wasn't the operators' direct fault on any other transport mode, or from a train operator anywhere else in the world.

sheff1 · 26 Nov 2019

thedbdiboy said:
Try claiming for a delay that wasn't the operators' direct fault on any other transport mode, or from a train operator anywhere else in the world.

RENFE in Spain commits to paying compensation for all delays, including those due to force majeure. For tickets paid for with cash, compensation can be collected in cash at any staffed ticket office within 3 months of the delay.

I have never needed to test how this works in practice as I have never been delayed longer than the threshold which starts at 15 minutes, depending on category of train.

AM9 · 26 Nov 2019

thedbdiboy said:
Many of the replies here focus on perceptions of SWR's motivations, e.g. that they are trying to reduce their payouts etc. Please recognise that Delay Repay is specified by DfT and the Ts and Cs including limits on payouts etc are sanctioned by DfT - because ultimately anything that costs money falls back on the taxpayer by limiting the value of the franchise. The other thing to bear in mind is that as it is currently constructed, Delay Repay is one of the most generous transport rebate processes in existence. Try claiming for a delay that wasn't the operators' direct fault on any other transport mode, or from a train operator anywhere else in the world.

That's because the passenger's only way to claim is against the railway, and not necessarily the TOC whose train delayed them. Then the process of blaming and penalising the TOC(s) or NR for the blame kick in behind the scenes away from public eyes. So passenger go around telling everybody that xyz TOC caused their delay and had to give them a refund or rebate when in fact it can be another TOC or (via the DfT) the public purse that dishes out the cash in the final analysis.
That is one of the reasons that the scheme should be administered centrally so that the 'railway' is seen address delays. As I've mentioned elsewhere though, such an arrangement would make it easier to determine how much was claimed between parts of the railway vs. how much was actually paid out to the delayed passengers. It is the chosen way to run the scheme because of the pseudo- privatisation of the railway and it's multi-tiered structures.
If each TOC was a fully independant commercial company, there would be no through ticketing and there would be much more buck-passing of claims.

Belperpete · 27 Nov 2019

Getting back to the original question: the cost of a season is based on the holder making one return journey a day for a set number of days a year. It is therefore not unreasonable that delay-repay should use the same calculation to determine the daily fare paid. If the holder makes a second journey in one day, then that second journey is effectively free. The delay-repay calculation is based on a percentage of the fare paid. And a percentage of nothing, is nothing. So I would argue that allowing you to make any claim at all on the second journey is being generous.

However, it would be very hard to administer such a cap. Suppose you were delayed on the outward leg of the first journey, and the return leg of the second journey, how would they know you had made two returns. So setting a cap based on the daily fare seems a reasonable compromise, and is more generous in that you can claim for delays on the second journey if not delayed on the first.

lvlarky_130y · 29 Nov 2019

My experience of another operator is exactly the same. One morning I was delayed by 2hrs+ travelling from Tring to Euston about a month ago. On the same day I had a further 1hr+ delay coming back the other way in the evening. I claimed twice. The lesser of the 2 claims was rejected due to me already being compensated for the maximum amount on that day, however I still received 2 lots of bollockings, one from colleagues at work on the morning I was late in and one from the wife in the evening when I was late back home :rolleyes:

kristiang85 · 30 Nov 2019

Well this is it; under delay repay basically your time is valued at what you paid for the ticket. You could have a young person on their way to a job interview on an advance ticket, and the train is late making them miss the interview and not get a job. Yet sat next to them on the train will be a leisure traveller in no hurry who bought a walk up ticket, and that person's time will be effectively valued at 4x as much by the DR scheme.

farleigh · 1 Dec 2019

lvlarky_130y said:
My experience of another operator is exactly the same. One morning I was delayed by 2hrs+ travelling from Tring to Euston about a month ago. On the same day I had a further 1hr+ delay coming back the other way in the evening. I claimed twice. The lesser of the 2 claims was rejected due to me already being compensated for the maximum amount on that day, however I still received 2 lots of bollockings, one from colleagues at work on the morning I was late in and one from the wife in the evening when I was late back home

You should have told your wife you had already received the maximum pro-rata full days bollockings.

mmh · 1 Dec 2019

kristiang85 said:
Well this is it; under delay repay basically your time is valued at what you paid for the ticket. You could have a young person on their way to a job interview on an advance ticket, and the train is late making them miss the interview and not get a job. Yet sat next to them on the train will be a leisure traveller in no hurry who bought a walk up ticket, and that person's time will be effectively valued at 4x as much by the DR scheme.

It's not helpful to think of it in that way. Delay repay is making no judgment of the value of your time - how could it? It is simply compensation worked out from set rates dependent on your ticket type and the delay incurred. Any judgments would make it very complicated, expensive and arbitrarily "unfair."

lvlarky_130y · 2 Dec 2019

farleigh said:
You should have told your wife you had already received the maximum pro-rata full days bollockings.

Genuinely gave me a good laugh on a Monday morning. Thank you! Will remember this methodology for next time.

AM9 · 2 Dec 2019

mmh said:
It's not helpful to think of it in that way. Delay repay is making no judgment of the value of your time - how could it? It is simply compensation worked out from set rates dependent on your ticket type and the delay incurred. Any judgments would make it very complicated, expensive and arbitrarily "unfair."

I agree, it is simply for reputational damage limitation attempt by rebating part or all of the fare collected.

Delay Repay rejection due to "reaching the maximum pro-rata full days travel"

Belperpete

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