I used to look at the delay logs and see that the reason I had been delayed through Castlefield was that a Pacer had a door fault in Darlington.
I wonder if it's down to crewing. Provide the barest minimum time for a crew to get off of a train, walk to the messroom, have their break and walk back then you're going to regularly need a spare man to cover if you aren't going to delay the service.
The fact that only a minority of journeys are impacted doesn't negate the huge scale of the problem.I’m not suggesting mistakes never happen, or that some staff aren’t ever overzealous, but they’re only a tiny number of cases. The vast majority of ticketing issues are dealt with by discretion, or are simply not picked up. Even of those cases reported for prosecution, many are settled out of court.
Of course it’s also true that the vastmajority of passengers simply travel with the correct ticket and never encounter any issues. So I don’t really see how you can conclude that mistakes in relation to ticket enforcement, wrongful penalty fares etc. have a negative impact on the railway’s image overall, or one that makes a meaningful difference to people choosing to travel by train or not.
The subject is rarely-to-never mentioned in the newspapers, and comments on social media aren’t exactly evidence - can you point to any passenger surveys etc. that identify this as a problem?
Are wrongful prosecutions/penalty fares really happening “on an industrial scale!”? I’d suggest the opposite based on what I observe around the network. In any case, as I say, it’s clear that some people do want to see more enforcement - that was my view as a fare payer prior to joining the railway, and indeed it seems to be a view shared by the OP.
In relation to the last statement quoted above I’ve seen no evidence that anyone other than a small minority of individuals believe there is a problem with excessive/inappropriate railway ticketing enforcement, and certainly nothing to suggest they outnumber the former group.
In the end it’s probably just a subject we will (again) need to agree to disagree on.
There has been a huge move towards harsher treatment of customers since 2018.
There are plenty more in a similar vein, which demonstrates how even just one shocking case can have a disproportionate affect.
www.bbc.co.uk
As you can see, such poor treatment angers people to the extent that they feel that it is indicative of a wider problem; the actions of some rail staff/customers can actually have a negative effect on how people percieve the 'country' as a whole.
I don't disagree with you per se, but I think this is a separate issue to that which you raised earlier. You stated earlier that maltreatment of passengers was happening "on an industrial scale", but the post I have quoted deals with the fall-out from the instances that are reported, not with any further iceberg of instances that are not so widely reported.
What proportion of ticketing matters do you estimate may be posted on this forum?
I'm aware of a lot more of the disputes that occur than are posted on this forum.
)I haven't a clue, I'm afraid. Out of interest, how would you define "ticketing matters"? If you define it as passengers being maltreated, then I would imagine it would be a rather different proportion than if you defined it as any and all ticketing disputes, including those that ended amicably.
There are far too many, yes - if you take the view, as I do, that one instance is one too many.
What would be your estimate for the ratio of passengers maltreated
assengers who make "simple" errors, if such a figure is possible to roughly calculate? In other words, how many passengers are maltreated for every passenger who is dealt with leniently and professionally?I don't know, no. Would I be correct in assuming that the GTR branding claim is something to do with overcharging regarding TOC-specific tickets within the various GTR sub-brands, and that the Boundary Zone extension claim is something to do with overcharging customers when a simple extension would suffice? If by some miracle I am correct, would you say that these circumstances are due to poor staff training, poor culture, unnecessarily complex ticket rules, or a combination of the above?
The fact that only a minority of journeys are impacted doesn't negate the huge scale of the problem.
You only need to mistreat someone once for that person to never want to return; and for them to tell friends and family of their experience.
The rail industry has a terrible image problem when it comes to poor treatment of customers; I am not sure if anyone has conducted a study to gather results that are very specific towards this principle, but in a related piece of work from 2018 we have some hints:
Passenger views on rail fares and pricing in Great Britain
Views of rail passengers on rail fares and pricing from research conducted in 2018 and 2019.www.gov.uk
There has been a huge move towards harsher treatment of customers since 2018.
Here is a comment from a news article which gives an idea of what some people think:
What ARE your rights if you're caught with the wrong train ticket?
Those passengers who purchase the wrong ticket for use with their Railcard on a train can find themselves hit with a fine - or worse, a criminal conviction on their record.www.dailymail.co.uk
There are plenty more in a similar vein, which demonstrates how even just one shocking case can have a disproportionate affect.
Fines and convictions for minor mistakes - how rail tickets confuse passengers
Complex rules leave many customers feeling caught out and annoyed they aren't made clearer by rail companies.
As you can see, such poor treatment angers people to the extent that they feel that it is indicative of a wider problem; the actions of some rail staff/customers can actually have a negative effect on how people percieve the 'country' as a whole.
The problem with a lot of the research is that it focusses on the fares themselves being unfair, but that's a different debate, which has been done to death elsewhere and has no solution everyone can agree on; but a common theme is that if you ask people why they are concerned about fares being confusing, e.g. "off peak" etc, it is because of the perception of harsh concequences if they get it wrong.
Some people will choose to overpay if in doubt as they cannot face the risk of harsh treatment later; this is even the case where only the difference would be payable.
I've been on trains where people have been exasperated at the way they, or others around them, have been treated for having the wrong ticket.
Here are some more views from Facebook recently:
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I could go on, but you are not going to change your mind, no matter how much evidence is presented.
But it doesn't matter; I don't need to convince you that the rail industry has a huge perception problem as it really won't make any difference either way if you think that there isn't a problem.
It's going to be an absolutely miniscule proportion.
It's not really appropriate to measure it by these proportions; I addressed this in my earlier response to @43066.There are far too many, yes - if you take the view, as I do, that one instance is one too many.
What would be your estimate for the ratio of passengers maltreated
It's a mixture of things, but the point here is that there are claims for some very specific matters, which only affect specific TOCs, which run into multiple millions of pounds. Now consider the wider context of a multitude of all sorts of circumstances in which people are overcharged and/or mistreated, and you will soon see that this is, as I said earlier, the "tip of the iceberg".
Yes thanks for confirming that we continue to agree to disagree.
Of passengers who have been maltreated, I assume? In which case, I will bow to your superior knowledge!
I'm afraid we will have to agree to disagree on this particular aspect, then, as I still don't quite grasp your logic.
It does, thank you, apart from one small area. Would you say that these "very specific" matters have the same cost as each of the "multitude" of different matters, or is the multitude composed of a collection of circumstances each of which have a smaller monetary cost than the examples you have cited? Again, please excuse my ignorance!
I think this whole post, but the section I have bolded in particular, really do hit the nail on the head. Again, it's a classic example of the one negative experience out of a hundred committing itself to memory, but I suppose there isn't really an answer for that besides changing human nature, which is, to put it mildly, difficult!
(joking aside, it hasn’t. The demand speaks for itself.)
I was going to write a similar detailed post about everything that's wrong with the railways but you've summed it up for better than I could.
As a passenger, I'd take the delay over waiting for the next train, especially if heading out of Paddington on an hourly service. The overcrowding on the following train is grim. Like I said, there seems to have been a definite change in policy over the last year or two. Either that or performance in general has been so dire that it's been required far more often.
I appreciate what you say and agree with you that resolving the industrial dispute has been vital. But, the question posed is about perceptions. And I stand by my view that the perception of the industry is dire in wide strands of the public at large and that there is little indication that there is any attempt to rectify this.
Buying a new ticket is perhaps the least serious sanction such a passenger might face, a criminal prosecution with attendant criminal record might be more likely!
Some very good points here and the current saga of Northern allegedly breaking their own rules is yet more bad publicity for the railway industry and it's been compared to a 'mini version of the post office scandal' and a general perception amongst many people is that all train operators are at it, ripping passengers off at every opportunity. At many Southeastern stations there are notices about penalty fares etc for not having a ticket yet the ticket office is closed and there is no other means of buying a ticket other than online which many people will not be familiar with. The chances are that someone wouldn't get a penalty fare in that situation, most staff are perfectly reasonable, but why should passengers have to run that risk? As has been said many times, the fare structure is way too complicated and the onus is on the passenger to get it right or risk a penalty fare or prosecution. The thread about revenue checks at Brighton shows the contempt the public are treated with.
I think that a bad experience can be written off, but when it happens a second time the perception really sets in. We really need a boringly-reliable railway; with simple, good value fares and a decent amount of capacity.
That would be Greater Anglia then
Only child, only grandchild. I never share
Manual announcements, encouraging people to take the first available train to Reading. Sometimes the last train that will make it is 15 minutes earlier than the intended train. My kids and I emerged from Sainsburys to hear such an announcement. We ran across the concourse like Usain Bolt and then stood on the Bristol train to Reading.
talking of toilets, when I was last using the railway for long distance travel, years ago, the wonderful computerised doors didn't open.
Can't argue with the statistics but in reality, although too many people do die on the roads, the chances of death or serious injury on any given trip are low enough that most people don't think about it.
