EU Parliament votes for significant improvements in passengers' rights

Is this meant to be a good thing?
It looks like more interference from an undemocratic body that is out of touch with real life and is likely to cause large fare rises in order to compensate for the additional revenues lost through fare evasion and it'll become much harder to obtain reasonably priced advances as people purchase them for multiple trains and then get a refund all except one. It also gives a minority of users (cyclists) rights that are not suitable considering the limited capacity on many trains.

 

Well I’d rather have delay repay than that proposed compensation system. Especially since delay repay now starts at 15 minutes.

Most of these already seem to exist in the UK. Compensation, break of journey, split ticket journey rules.

 

You need to think of the proposals as a minimum requirement. Delay Repay is of course part of franchise agreements so has to be agreed with DfT if it is to be changed.

 

I just love it when elected bodies (in this case the European Parliament) are described as "undemocratic".

 

A minimum of eight bicycles to be carried on all trains!

 

Yes and no - good (staffed, secure) storage facilities at the home station and hire at the destination are also viable models.

 

IMO these also need to be free, or very low price. By contrast, a supplement for the carriage of the bike on the train could be introduced sensibly, to reduce no-show reservations and to help pay for the additional cycling accommodation.

 

This is just an enhancement over the current minium standards as set by the EP. It doesn't affect extra schemes like Delay Repay. It's worthy of note that very few companies in the UK have yet switched to Delay Repay after 15 minutes. There are still companies that don't offer Delay Repay either (including big ones, Grand Central, Chiltern Railways and Merseyrail) so it shouldn't be taken as read.

Of course, in my view, it would make far more sense for all companies to be required to sign up for the same Delay Repay scheme as part of their track access rights. Not likely though!

 

That would have a significant upside of a possible mandatory single national clearing house for Delay Repay, meaning you only ever had to apply to one place. TOCs would just be billed their share.

 

I can't see how it is possible to reconcile EU parliament voting with any other unless it is accepted that only an unrepresentative minority of people turn up for EU elections which makes it rather undemocratic. It also needs to be noted that the EU parliament only plays an advisory role to the unelected EU commission which actually makes the regulations.

 

Yes.
Forcing tickets to be available on board is incompatible which current revenue protection methods so will lead to increased fare evasion, it is quite clearly not sensible for 8 bikes to be allowed on a one coach train that is full and standing and you just need to look at the Next sale to see what happens when people are entitled to a full refund.
Unfortunately the EU likes to imagine a utopia where all citizens fully comply with all laws and resources are not scarce which is far from the case in reality meaning that theoretical ideals are not suitable for implementation in practice.
The points on split ticketing are of course welcome but don't really go any further than what is already the case in this country.

 

That sounds like a massive loophole, and you could quite easily say in the UK, "we cannot do this because it circumvents our platform barrier-based ticket checking strategy". In which case, there's no problem.

I just love your loopy reasoning. Anything that goes further than the current arrangements in the UK will cause disastrous problems, anything that doesn't go as far as the current arrangements in the UK is pointless. I.E Everything in the law is bad by default.

 

I mean what a complete load of rubbish hahahahaha

 

GWR don't operate Delay Repay either!

 

Leaving aside the actual subject, the final sentence here shows a misunderstanding of EU law-making.

The role of the Commission is to propose and draft legislation (and, if legislation is adopted, to enforce it). It is not the legislator in any meaningful way. Legislation is adopted/created/passed jointly between the European Parliament and the Council of the EU. Both the Parliament and the Council can amend proposals - as is happening in the linked document - and have to agree to adopt the final text. The Parliament is democratic, in that it is elected by the population of the EU. The UK could have chosen a more democratic (and more proportional) system, but went for the party list system because it suited the large political parties. The Council of the EU is indirectly elected, in that each EU government sends one minister who brings a number of votes equivalent to their country's population. So if this (or any) EU legislation is adopted it has been approved by a directly elected Parliament and by at least 55% of the EU's governments which have to represent at least 65% of the EU population. Otherwise the proposal fails.

https://www.eumonitor.eu/9353000/1/j4nviihcu0lesxp_j9vvik7m1c3gyxp/vj89lqzrtlx0

 

The British people voted to dump EC Regulation 1371/2007 so that's the end of it. The view that Qwerty 133 expresses that the entire EC has no democratic accountability is the majority view hence taking back control, the belief is that once out of the EC and out of restrictive regulation our railways will dramatically improve.

 

Sorry but I have very little understanding of EU law - even ignoring the whole brexit thing. Through what is left of the EU how likely is this to happen/has happened? Has this been voted on yet - will it be? I see some sections make statements like within 2 years from the date the regulations start, do we know what this date is/was yet?

 

But the “representative majority” have exercised their democratic right to not vote at all. If you don’t vote (when you are able/permitted to) you lose your right to complain about the results.
Unless you go down the Australian route of compulsory democracy, any elected body, or referendum result, is going to be likely to only have the support of a minority of eligible voters.

 

Here's a press release from the Parliament after its vote: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/...eps-vote-for-upgrade-to-rail-passenger-rights

It looks as if it's for the Council to review now. It appears that transport ministers "assessed progress" on the legislation last week, and a future meeting of transport ministers will consider the budgetary and policy elements. It is currently still a legislative proposal (the EU equivalent of a bill before the British Parliament) and not yet an adopted law, so it will be some time before it comes into force. If it is in force by the time we leave the EU, its provisions will continue to apply in the UK. If it isn't, what effect it has will depend on whether the withdrawal agreement is approved and adopted or not, I think.

 

That makes sense - thank you.

 

Yes, it's that easy, as evidenced by the last 2 1/2 years.

You display impressive levels of mind reading ability to be able to divine the reasons people voted to leave. It's true that many people, perhaps a majority of those voting leave (but not a majority of the UK electorate), did so for reasons of sovereignty, but this is surely to do with wanting decisions affecting the UK to be made in the UK, irrespective of democratic accountability within the EU.

The reality will be somewhat different, I guarantee it.

 

The fact people cant not be bothered to vote in the EU elections is not the fault of the EU

 

Just because ... "EC has no democratic accountability is the majority view" does not make it true. A lot of people think Vaccines cause autism - that's false as thinking the world is flat or Australia does not exist.

People can believe whatever they want but belief does not make it a fact.

 

Lots of mentioning of ensuring staff are properly trained to deal with passengers with disabilities - typical EU red tape. :roll:

 

But it could quite easily be solved by allowing individual countries to set polling days and terms of office for the EU parliament in line with general elections rather than a EU wide voting window as people who turn up to vote in one election generally also vote in other elections being held on the same day.

 

But you are clamming that because people cant be bothered to vote in EU elections therefore its "rather undemocratic" that is demonstrably false people choosing not to vote when they have the opportunity does not suddenly make something undemocratic. Correlation is not causation.

Its like saying "Im choosing to run a red light and am immune from the law when I run someone over as I didn't choose that law"

 

I really don't see forcing ticket sales to be allowed on board going down very well in a lot of Europe. In some countries conductors don't sell tickets at all due to rulings from the countries health and safety bodies about lone working with large amounts of cash or purely revenue enforcement reasons. They only check and issue (very hefty) penalty fares if not shown or valid.