Why is Delay Repay so complicated (and slow)?

[stuart]

I recently had to submit a Delay Repay claim for a journey delayed by 67 minutes (this was on 19 April and the claim was entered into the system the same day).

My first question is why does the system require me to tell the Company the information they already know? The ticket was an advance purchase, limited to a specific train, and purchased through their own website, so they already had all the details. However, I still had to send them the exact same pdf ticket they had originally sent me (print-at-home) and tell them how late the train was (details of which are on publicly available databases and - hopefully! - their own too). I can understand that in the case of an open ticket this information would be needed, as well as a copy of the ticket showing some evidence that it had actually been used, but not in the case of an advance.

To be fair, it did take them only 5 days to agree the claim, but the question is really why this could not have happened instantly and fully automatically. Cynically, I can only conclude that this is to discourage and avoid as many claims as possible.

The email agreeing the claim said it could take up to 14 (working) days to process the payment. Why? These are the days of "faster payments". When I pay a bill online, the money leaves my account and reaches the payee's account immediately - or at least within a few minutes. Again, the Company did make the payment within the timescale they set: it arrived in my bank on 8 May, which I think was the 9th working day. But why the delay in the first place? Is it (he said, cynically once again) merely a tactic to hold on to funds for as long as they can get away with?

In summary, the technology exists to process Delay Repay claims automatically (at least in the case of tickets limited to a specific service) and (almost) instantly. It took me 20 minutes to drive home from the station after my delayed train arrived, and from a technical point of view, there is absolutely no reason I can see why the refund should not already have been waiting for me in my bank account by the time I got there.

 

[AlterEgo]

In summary, the technology exists to process Delay Repay claims automatically (at least in the case of tickets limited to a specific service) and (almost) instantly. It took me 20 minutes to drive home from the station after my delayed train arrived, and from a technical point of view, there is absolutely no reason I can see why the refund should not already have been waiting for me in my bank account by the time I got there.

It's a good question and in principle, yes, you're right. More does need to be done to ensure the claim process is very simple and easy, to the point of not having to claim at all in some cases.

However, automatic Delay Repay, while a very good idea, isn't without its faults. There was a thread on here recently where Virgin were criticised for implementing it poorly (appears to be a tech issue).

Furthermore, automatic Delay Repay does not always ensure the correct compensation is paid. For example, where your journey involves split tickets. If you travel from London to Birmingham International (BHI) on VTWC and arrive 30 minutes late you are due half the single fare back. But you might have missed the two-hourly train to Wales at BHI meaning the true liability is double that. Also, consider the reverse: A passenger coming from Pwllheli on ATW arriving at BHI too late to make their connection. The scheduled VTWC train on your ticket, departs without you and happens to be 30 minutes late into London, so you get Delay Repay from them. yet the actual liability for that journey does not lie with Virgin at all - under Delay Repay Rules ATW should foot the whole bill!

tl;dr: Automatic Delay Repay is good but not a panacea.

 

[bb21]

It can work well if Delay Repay worked on a "per ticket" rather than "per journey" basis, not that many people would support that move.

As things stand, many flaws with automatic Delay Repay. Incorrect calculations then result in increased costs in handling escalations and follow-ups. Far better to improve the claim process and make it as painless as possible rather than fully automate everything.

 

[Quaver]

The ticket was an advance purchase, limited to a specific train, and purchased through their own website, so they already had all the details. However, I still had to send them the exact same pdf ticket they had originally sent me (print-at-home)

From my experience of working the delay claims for a TOC, the team that processes them are usually unable to directly access your Ticket information and would have to request this information from another department which can delay your claim even further, therefore it speeds up the process if the customer can provide us with the Ticket information themselves in the form of a Physical Ticket.

When I pay a bill online, the money leaves my account and reaches the payee's account immediately - or at least within a few minutes. Again, the Company did make the payment within the timescale they set: it arrived in my bank on 8 May, which I think was the 9th working day. But why the delay in the first place? Is it (he said, cynically once again) merely a tactic to hold on to funds for as long as they can get away with?

When you pay a bill online, while it may leave your account immediately, it does not go into the receiving account immediately, it is held in the banks clearing house for up to 7 working days (correct me if I am wrong anyone) to confirm that it is a valid transaction and while most are, sometimes they are bounced back.

The same thing happens in reverse, a company will process funds to go back into your account, and it will leave there account immediately, however it is held in your banks clearing house to then process and go into your bank account, this is the reason refunds from a retailer can take up to 7 working days (again correct me if I am wrong)

As with the above comments, automatic delay repay can result in errors when it comes to split ticketing. When an advisor processes it, there is room for human error but providing the advisor looks at all the information provided, the advisor should process your claim successfully for the correct amount, though i am not naive enough to believe that mistakes don't happen.

 

[stuart]

Thank you both: good points about "per journey" vs. "per ticket". I've recently bought tickets for a journey from the ECML to Dorset using VTEC tickets from the VTEC site and SWRail tickets from the Scotrail site (because it's easier to use than either of the others). It will be interesting to work out who to claim what from if there's a delay on that journey!

Still not sure about 14 working days to process a bank transfer.

 

[BluePenguin]

The whole system is awful. I am still waiting for my delay repay claims form December and January to be paid out. Southeastern I think of the worst of all followed by GWR. There should be an automated system which quickly looks up delayed services and then someone could manually either click yes or no to approve each one. Claims should take no longer than a week to be dealt with.

 

[BluePenguin]

But why the delay in the first place? Is it (he said, cynically once again) merely a tactic to hold on to funds for as long as they can get away with?

In summary, the technology exists to process Delay Repay claims automatically (at least in the case of tickets limited to a specific service) and (almost) instantly. It took me 20 minutes to drive home from the station after my delayed train arrived, and from a technical point of view, there is absolutely no reason I can see why the refund should not already have been waiting for me in my bank account by the time I got there.

I think you might be right, it is in their interest to hold on to the money for as long as possible. Because (if you pardon the pardon the pun) they earn interest on it. The same way they earn interest on money they paid in advance for journeys not due for the next three months.

Most of it is pure laziness, everybody knows that it should take no longer than an hour maximum for the money to reach your account from theres.

 

[Quaver]

The whole system is awful. I am still waiting for my delay repay claims form December and January to be paid out. Southeastern I think of the worst of all followed by GWR. There should be an automated system which quickly looks up delayed services and then someone could manually either click yes or no to approve each one. Claims should take no longer than a week to be dealt with.

From the moment that I was assigned a delay claim, it would be processed and a response sent to the customer usually within 20 minutes, however this is dependant on the complexity of the journey.

What delays a claim being processed is the number of claims that are received by the company, this could range from 300 to 3000 in one day in some cases.

For me to process it, it is literally a case of put the customers journey information into the system, check it against the running log of the train, confirm the delay time, process the case as a sucessful or a non succcesful claim, respond to customer, case closed.

 

[Quaver]

I think you might be right, it is in their interest to hold on to the money for as long as possible. Because (if you pardon the pardon the pun) they earn interest on it. The same way they earn interest on money they paid in advance for journeys not due for the next three months.

Most of it is pure laziness, everybody knows that it should take no longer than an hour maximum for the money to reach your account from theres.

If it is possible see my post #3

 

[Bletchleyite]

For those who say “not feasible” VTWC do do automatic Delay Repay on Advances.

 

[AM9]

I've always felt that the delay repay process should be operated by a single independant organisation rather than the TOCs who have an interest in discouraging claims by obfuscation and creating artificial delay. Most events that attract delay repay probably involve National Rail anyway, either as a primary cause of the delay or in the extraction of compensation from the TOC at fault to compensate other parties who may have consequential losses. So something attached to them would seem to be the fairest and most efficient operator of the service.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Many TOCs outsource it anyway. All the Abellio ones do.

 

[AM9]

Many TOCs outsource it anyway. All the Abellio ones do.

True, but those outsourced providers still effectively have to keep the hiring TOC's interest in mind when doing the job.

 

[snail]

For those who say “not feasible” VTWC do do automatic Delay Repay on Advances.

But it's not perfect. I was travelling from Manchester to Glasgow on a VWC + Connections First Advance, scheduled on Northern to Preston then Virgin the rest of the way. This was the day of the Preston signal failure. Nothing was getting to Preston so I got the first train west - to Wigan Wallgate, hoping things would be clearing by the time I got there. It was and I caught the first available Virgin train to Glasgow, which was an hour behind the one I should have been on. My scheduled train was delayed by around an hour but my journey involved an hour hanging around in Manchester plus a delayed train to Wigan, well over 2 hours delay in the end. I've not heard from Virgin yet but if their automatic process kicks in I won't get the full compensation I am entitled to.

 

[Quaver]

But it's not perfect. I was travelling from Manchester to Glasgow on a VWC + Connections First Advance, scheduled on Northern to Preston then Virgin the rest of the way. This was the day of the Preston signal failure. Nothing was getting to Preston so I got the first train west - to Wigan Wallgate, hoping things would be clearing by the time I got there. It was and I caught the first available Virgin train to Glasgow, which was an hour behind the one I should have been on. My scheduled train was delayed by around an hour but my journey involved an hour hanging around in Manchester plus a delayed train to Wigan, well over 2 hours delay in the end. I've not heard from Virgin yet but if their automatic process kicks in I won't get the full compensation I am entitled to.

Automatic delay repay would only really be feasible on Direct Trains only where you aren't likely to be having to make a connection, but then this could be problematic if you had to divert and go a round about way I suppose.

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

I have found WMT's Delay Repay system very good. They can look up train times and the like very easily, and deal with multi-change and multi-journey journeys without any issue. I would certainly recommend that other TOCs embrace whichever system they are using (as it seems to be outsourced and so presumably available to any TOC willing to pay for it).

 

[Bletchleyite]

But it's not perfect. I was travelling from Manchester to Glasgow on a VWC + Connections First Advance, scheduled on Northern to Preston then Virgin the rest of the way. This was the day of the Preston signal failure. Nothing was getting to Preston so I got the first train west - to Wigan Wallgate, hoping things would be clearing by the time I got there. It was and I caught the first available Virgin train to Glasgow, which was an hour behind the one I should have been on. My scheduled train was delayed by around an hour but my journey involved an hour hanging around in Manchester plus a delayed train to Wigan, well over 2 hours delay in the end. I've not heard from Virgin yet but if their automatic process kicks in I won't get the full compensation I am entitled to.

You may well do if their process is clever enough to work out what the first valid connection you could have taken was. (If you deliberately delay your journey further you're not entitled to more - not saying you did, and you have got outliers like that one being full and standing, but this will work in most cases).

TBH, and I know many on here disagree, I think it should be by ticket which would make it easier. By all means save money by splitting, but then why should the railway not also save money[1] by only paying out on one part of the split? (This is different to accommodating you on the next train in the event you miss a connection on a split which would be unreasonable for them to refuse because it costs them nowt).

[1] Mostly. There are of course cases where they'd pay out *more* on a split because a relatively long connection can eat up some of the delay mid-journey. But I'm sure anyone who splits does claim in that manner and can't really be prevented from doing so, so there's a bit of having and eating cake going on...

 

[stuart]

I have some sympathy with the suggestion of the system being changed to be on a "per ticket" basis. In fact it's only recently that I've come to understand that that *isn't* how it works and that responsibility for connections applies across the whole journey (provided minimum connection times are respected) irrespective of the ticketing or operator arrangements used.

To take the example of my own booking mentioned above, I have allowed myself a couple of hours in London for the transfer from KGX to WAT so that I don't have to rush and so that there will be time to buy a meal. Is this one journey or two? Good question. Anyway it's entirely possible that the VTEC train could be delayed by an hour and yet I still make the planned connection. I would arrive at the final destination on time, but would feel morally entitled to claim from VTEC for the inconvenience of arriving un-fed. (Appropriately enough, since the previous post was talking about having and eating cake!) Conversely, if the VTEC train is on time and the SW train runs an hour late, is it morally right of me to expect SWT to cough up the VTEC portion of the fare? I don't think so, and yet I'm not sure why I feel there's a difference between that situation and the situation of a through train (via Crossrail 2, perhaps!) which drops an hour in the last stages of its journey. I suppose the answer is that no single/simple rule will be 100% reliable in all circumstances, and there's a bit of swings-and-roundabouts involved.

 

[snail]

TBH, and I know many on here disagree, I think it should be by ticket which would make it easier. By all means save money by splitting, but then why should the railway not also save money[1] by only paying out on one part of the split?

That would be simpler. The current system is also a little unfair for long delays on shorter journeys. If I get delayed by 60 minutes between London and Preston I get 50% of the return fare for a +50% time delay. For the same delay on a journey from Manchester the compensation is considerably lower in monetary terms but the time delay is over 100%. A minimum payment for long delays (say £10) would be fairer IMO.

 

[Samuel88]

I've said this on here before, and I'll say it again, there needs to be a way of claiming delay repay straightaway at the ticket office instead of faffing around sending in tickets etc

 

[AlterEgo]

I've said this on here before, and I'll say it again, there needs to be a way of claiming delay repay straightaway at the ticket office instead of faffing around sending in tickets etc

How will a ticket office deal with 500 people making claims at once?

 

[Samuel88]

How will a ticket office deal with 500 people making claims at once?

Give a reasonable timeframe, say you can claim at any national rail station up to 14 days after the delay.

 

[Hadders]

Give a reasonable timeframe, say you can claim at any national rail station up to 14 days after the delay.

That really isn't realistic.

 

[robbeech]

Give a reasonable timeframe, say you can claim at any national rail station up to 14 days after the delay.

In theory it would be useful and helpful.
In practise however I have had to abandon ticket purchase at ticket offices and purchase on board and be prepared to stand my ground because queues at ticket offices are in excess of 15 minutes.
Adding groups of people coming from trains during disruptions are not going to help this unfortunately.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Give a reasonable timeframe, say you can claim at any national rail station up to 14 days after the delay.

What you'll actually get is a queue of 1000 people at the ticket office at that station and loads of complaints. After the event is fine, it's fairly easy now you can do it all from a camera phone. It'd be made even easier if they invested in some Concur-style OCR software to read details from the ticket (e.g. the number) rather than keying them in.

 

[Bletchleyite]

That would be simpler. The current system is also a little unfair for long delays on shorter journeys. If I get delayed by 60 minutes between London and Preston I get 50% of the return fare for a +50% time delay. For the same delay on a journey from Manchester the compensation is considerably lower in monetary terms but the time delay is over 100%. A minimum payment for long delays (say £10) would be fairer IMO.

TBH I think the percentage thing is fairer as it's in proportion to what you paid - the same as you'd get if you complained of bad service in most other establishments - a full or partial refund/reduced bill. I do feel for airlines with the EUR250 thing, to be honest. I'm happy with them being whacked for deliberately overselling (which is what it was mainly intended to do), but for other things I would be happy with a percentage of the fare paid (including taxes etc) and I think it's overkill to have to cough up EUR250 to someone who's paid about EUR30 for their fare.

 

[sheff1]

How will a ticket office deal with 500 people making claims at once?

Give a reasonable timeframe, say you can claim at any national rail station up to 14 days after the delay.

That really isn't realistic.

In Spain you can claim at a ticket office* if your AVE, Alvia, AV City, Euromed, Altaria, Intercity (LD), Talgo or Trenhotel train is late. The time limit for doing so used to be 3 months. Of course, the likelihood of a delay is much greater on GB railways.

* Not sure if it is all offices or just those served by the above categories of train.

 

[mmh]

You may well do if their process is clever enough to work out what the first valid connection you could have taken was. (If you deliberately delay your journey further you're not entitled to more - not saying you did, and you have got outliers like that one being full and standing, but this will work in most cases).

TBH, and I know many on here disagree, I think it should be by ticket which would make it easier. By all means save money by splitting, but then why should the railway not also save money[1] by only paying out on one part of the split? (This is different to accommodating you on the next train in the event you miss a connection on a split which would be unreasonable for them to refuse because it costs them nowt).

[1] Mostly. There are of course cases where they'd pay out *more* on a split because a relatively long connection can eat up some of the delay mid-journey. But I'm sure anyone who splits does claim in that manner and can't really be prevented from doing so, so there's a bit of having and eating cake going on...

Why are you talking about split tickets? The person you replied to had one ticket: "But it's not perfect. I was travelling from Manchester to Glasgow on a VWC + Connections First Advance, scheduled on Northern to Preston then Virgin the rest of the way."

 

[Hadders]

How much extra cash would need

Of course, the likelihood of a delay is much greater on GB railways.

Is it? Genuine question - I'd be interested to see the stats that back this up.

 

[PaxVobiscum]

I’ve been very impressed with how Delay Repay was handled on the Caledonian Sleeper routes on a couple of occasions recently. Perhaps it’s because I always buy Advances on their website - and perhaps the frequency with which they have been having to compensate delayed passengers in the last year or so has enabled them to fine tune it - but the refund arranged online was almost instant. No posting of tickets and no ‘Delay’ to the ‘Repay’.