Great Western Coffee Shop

Pretty shocking news, wonder how this was allowed to happen?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/road-and-rail-transport/11175688/Rail-ticket-rip-off-passengers-routinely-denied-cheapest-fares.html

I've seen some recent evidence of this occurring in FGW-land.

People quite obviously travelling Off Peak (ie. on a Saturday or Sunday) but purchasing an Anytime ticket. Although the method of purchase is not specified in the evidence I've seen, it can only be, in my opinion, from a TVM. No guard or ticket office staff member is going to sell Anytime Day on a Saturday or Sunday when the correct fare is the Off Peak Day.

In this case I don't believe this to be, 'minor technical errors' or 'inconsistencies', but something that is symptomatic of the complex nature of the fares system. It is a failing on the part of the rail industry to accurately communicate ticket validities through TVMs.

It's unfortunately all too common in FGW-land. Buy a ticket at the Hereford TVM for evening travel to (say) Moreton-in-Marsh, and you'll be sold a CDS for ^17.90; no signal that there's a cheaper ticket that gets you there for ^3.60. Or buy a ticket at the Charlbury TVM for an evening trip to Banbury, and you'll be offered an ^8.90 CDR but not the ^3 Oxford Evening Out. In both cases you have to not only know that the cheap tickets exist, but also know to buy them from the station/on-train staff.

From the article ...


I was looking for a "soundbite" from the article to quote, taking about ticket machines, but rather found it hopping from one topic to another in a way which frustrated me.

(Manned) Ticket offices are required to sell you the cheapest journey that's available that meets your requirement from your start point to your end point.  So they will not offer you splits, nor cheaper tickets to more distant stations.  I believe they will offer you season tickets, rangers and rovers where appropriate.  

(Automated) Ticket machines (TVMs) have no requirement placed on them to offer a full range of tickets.

The human being behind the counter usually has a very wide knowledge, and can ask questions and (in effect) jump to huge numbers of alternative submenus very quickly, and he's usually aware of what's available even if it doesn't initially come up for him.  TVMs, alas, lack this applied intelligence in anything more than a rudimentary form and on top of that there must be a certain amount of offering the most popular fares on early screens ... and if it's a Virgin TVM you've walked up to, you're probably looking for a Virgin trains ticket.

It must be very tempting to push the "any time" button - "I just want a ticket" -  rather than exploring terms and conditions behind off peak return, off peak day return (which may differ) and superoffpeak returns - if the machine even knows - at it's not always obvious that by jumping to the next screen less flexible, but better priced tickets may be on offer.    And if I want to catch that 19:00 to Melksham, changing at Chippenham, who do I as a stranger to the area know whether or not a "via Swindon" ticket is OK for me?   And am I going to stand at the machine for 5 to 10 minutes while I research this, with the bloke and blokes behind me getting impatient because they're going to miss their train?

Until interaction with a machine becomes as natural and advanced as interaction with a human being, or until the fare system is simplified out of all recognition of the current system, TVMs will continue to sell higher priced tickets than the cheapest that would be valid for the journey(s) being made.  And the folks who put the menus and screens and logic together will be tempted to optimise them for quick sales even if it might be more expensive sometimes, rather than slowing down the logic to try to ensure that it's always the cheapest valid ticket that's sold.

OK - so I'm not at all surprised at what the Daily Telegraph has found.   I don't think it's all down to the train companies being naughty; some of it, I suspect, is.  Much of it is down to the system they have to operate under and, barring huge leaps forward in the technology that will remain the case unless or until the fares system is truly simplified.

Following up on my own post here ... I've just taken an example of pricing a journey from Melksham to Paddington and back for a peak day's work. Out on the 07:20 from Melksham, changing to the "Capitals Ltd" non-stop to Paddington from Swindon, at 07:58 and arriving into London at 08:54.Return on the 17:45 from Paddington, stopping at Reading only on the way to Swindon at 18:44, where you connect into the 18:52 that gets you to Melksham at 19:18.

A standard return is ^157.00, and a weekly season is ^250.50 (an incredibly low differential).  However, if you know what to ask for I think it can be done for ^102.80 (for one day), ^181.40 (for 2 days) and then the season ticket becomes the best option. A machine will NOT sell you the tickets necessary for the latter; a member of staff will, if you know what to ask for.

Totally agree it's a mess. Just to note though that a guard can and indeed should sell an anytime ticket at the weekend to those who could have bought a ticket before boarding the train but neglected to do so.

That's the legally enforceable option indeed. But with TVMs as complex as they are, there should be, and quite often is, discretion shown.

What does a group of three adults do when they rock up at Westbury outside ticket office hours wanting to buy a GroupSave fare to Melksham? By the letter of the law, they should each buy a ticket that allows them to complete part of their journey, then excess this to the correct fare at the earliest opportunity. Thing is though, if they do that and buy 3x Singles to Trowbridge from Westbury's TVM, they will pay more than the fare they actually require. They won't be getting the difference back from the conductor, and it'll no doubt take a long time for FGW to refund them should they complain.
 

Other than the Telegraph's first example of not showing Off-Peak tickets and a requirement to grey-out fares that are superceded with the same route restrictions (or none) when lower fares are available (ie at weekends, when an anytime has at least an off-peak equivalent, and maybe a super-off-peak), I rather see no difference in buying anything else.

A pair of levis, for example, can vary in cost (the same type/colour etc) depending on where you buy them, as does anything else really. If that's too obtuse, what about airfares? You have to shop around....I don't understand why the fuss that you must always be presented with the lowest fare from any point of sale.

Petrol - it's different all over town....any transport example. Rail ticketsreally are the only item sold commercially that raises this 'problem'. Bus tickets...only available from each company etc etc....

You buy a pair of levies and you can find out what size they are - you can read it on the label, you can look at the quality of the material. You aren't asked to buy them unseen in an unmarked box are you?

Is it really so much to ask that a TVM gives you some information about the validity of a ticket. After all buying a ticket is entering into a contract to travel. Yet somehow you when you buy it from a TVM you are supposed to know the terms of the contract without being able to read them. 

There is an info button beside each fare, but I agree that the info contained within is really bare bones, and should be improved.

But all my points above stand

Except the one where you compare the purchase of jeans with that of rail tickets. Such analogies are deeply flawed.

ChrisB has something of a point - though I think it's a matter of degree.

We're all used to going into shops such as our local supermarket and seeing tempting up-market goods at eye level, and having to look down to the base of the gondola or up to the top shelf for a generic alternative at lower cost.  It's something we accept as a part of modern shopping - something that the stores do to increase their sales of higher profit products.  If we feel a particular store does it too much, there isn't typically a shortage of stores - for example even in our little town we have Aldi, Lidl, Sainsburys, Waitrose, Asda, Co-op Food (x2) and Tesco Express, as well as a number of corner shops.  If we don't like the practices of one, we can quite easily transfer our business to another, and there is no shortage of supplies or choices.

Train wise, it's a bit different. We have just a single station. We have a single train operating company providing passenger services there, so there is really no choice.  There is also something of a shortage of supplies - the service used to be truelly appalling, and with a great deal of effort and co-operation it has been brought up to be rather better, but it remains sparse, with gaps which our research tells us people would like filled, and with insufficient supply of seats and cycle acccommodation at the busiest of times.  Too add to that, if you want to transfer to the competitor's product, you have to buy some of the local monopoly's product to get there, and the pricing structure is hard for the layman (and sometimes the staff) to understand - a lack of clear labelling.

If Waitrose didn't put their generic "basics" product on the lower shelf, but rather put it on some remote and unexpected aisle, or kept it around the back so you had to ask an assistant for it every time, I suspect they would loose business.  And I suspect that they would come in for criticism, like the railways do for making the fares hard to buy.  And if Waitrose refused you said product because it was a busy day, or because it was before 09:30, you would soon get fed up. But the railway is a local monopoly, with a horrifically complex pricing scheme that makes "2 for ^3" or "buy 1, get 1 free" look trivial.

Provide us with two or three stations, each with frequent services and operated by truely independent and competing organisations - like our supermarkets operate.  Then it will be fare to make comparisons between the business practises; my guess is that some of the things we see on rail tickets and fares at present would be rather quickly shaken out as they would loose the company using / providing them an awful lot of custom.

No matter how much guff is spouted the very simple point is that there is something fundamentally wrong about the idea of a ticket office & two machines parked next to each other in the same station selling exactly the same product at wildly different prices without offering the same level playing field to all customers or attempting to offer the cheapest option -it is profiteering against the public interest pure and simple, and the TOCs should stop it immediately.

Comparisons with supermarkets and pairs of Jeans hold no water whatsoever - Ellen's point is particularly relevant here.....in these situations you can make a totally informed choice that the product being chosen is the right one for you, taking into account all options.

The obvious solution is for the ridiculously complex fare structure to be totally taken apart & simplified.

As I said, that point I do agree with. TVMs ought to offer all fares available from the ticket office

I think I have said before.  I once bought a ticket from Koln to Bonn from a TVM at Koln hbf.  The machine (which allowed me to switch into using English) asked me where I wanted to go then asked me to choose which train from a list before selling me the correct ticket.  I believe there is nothing fundamentally wrong with TVM's as a concept can we just have some software that helps people buy the right ticket.

_Cough ... purely in the interests of accuracy, they are the Waitrose 'essential' product range.  :P

Do TVMs really sell 25% of ALL railway tickets? I can only imagine that this figure contains those tickets sold online and collected from a TVM.

In an interview on the Radio 4 PM programme on 31st October, Francis Thomas, a spokesperson for ATOC, was quite open that TVMs as currently seen can only manage to issue the most commonly requested tickets and anything more complex/cheaper has to be purchased on-line or at a booking office.  He suggested that ATOC was not happy with this state of affairs, but the technology of linking TVMs to reservation systems (which many reduced fares need) was not ready.  He seemed to be agreeing that TVMs are not the best way to buy anything other than a basic (ie at many times of the day more expensive) fare.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04mpr60

Item starts at 41:32

These are the Scheidt & Bachmann ticket vending machines which apparently cost (last time I asked) ^20,000 each?  :P

So is the problem with

• the ^20,000 TVM; or
• the software in the TVM; or
• the software used to run the reservation systems?

Whatever it is is anyone trying to fix it?

That's how I remember the machines being presented when they first came in. They could only offer a limited range of on-the-day tickets, to take some load off the ticket offices. Of course that's not consistent with the idea of reducing ticket office hours, or closing them, and relying on TVMs.

The problem was explained in part as the difficulty of presenting all the necessary information on-screen for more complex tickets. So should they just show an on-line booking engine? The screen might need a few more pixels, but it sounds doable.

I'm sure it *is* do-able ... but I can spend an age in front of my online booking engine trying all sorts of combinations, and I suspect that it would be practical to allow the average transaction time on one of a relatively few machines to rocket.

I was in Paddington quite a while back, looking to buy split tickets for the following day's travel, and unaware (at that point) that Paddington is a station with special dispensation not to sell tickets for future dates after (I think it was) 8 p.m. .... anyway, I sat on the concourse, ordered my tickets on line and collected them 5 minutes later from the machine.   Yes, I know it says (or said) "allow 2 hours" but in reality ;) ...   Perhaps there's a lesson - if TVMs became pickup points (perhaps with just the 10 most common tickets) and people were encouraged to use cheaper, more familiar PCs and mobile devices to order and pay online ... perhaps even have a handful of public access PCs and at big places like Paddington some help ...


What an interesting question - I wonder if anyone's going to come in and answer that, or tell us priorities / timescales  ;D

Why not incorporate the interface to an online booking engine into the TVM. All you need is to reduce the 5 minutes weight time and it is done.

Because the elapsed time per transaction would be much longer so you would need a lot more TVMs.

You perhaps would also want to default (not force) the "from" station to where you are.

The obvious solution therefore is to simplify the fare structure rather than the ridiculous system we have now, and perhaps at the same time make the cost reflect the quality of the service.

Which would withdraw all the cheapest options....

But a train running costs are largely fixed, so presumably those on the 'cheapest options' are being subsidised by those who are not. If a balance was found to cover running costs and a 'reasonable' profit margin for the operator and everyone paid the same amount per mile, then we wouldn't need the cheapest options or the ridiculous range of ticketing variations we currently have. Just a nice simple single or return (which costs 2 x single ticket price) and a range of season tickets to suit those more regular travellers.

I works just about everywhere else in Europe, so why not here?!

Good to see some mature responses and answers to the article, which is less than you can say for one particular commenter on that article...

"The train service in the UK is such a rip off I feel it's every mans duty to fare dodge
when possible. I would rather give my money to terrorists and drug dealers than East Coast mainline trains......and I'm not joking."

As a guard you see this quite regularly, people buy tickets from the TVMs that are way too expensive all the time. It's the same with the internet sales side too. People don't know what they're buying and end up with tickets that cost much more than they should.

Not so, at least in theory. Another way of putting it is that the cost of carrying an extra passenger is almost zero. So if the train isn't full, and we can entice someone who would not otherwise travel with a ticket at only 1/10 of the usual fare, and adjust the operating margin to be the same, it will be cheaper for everyone else.

Once the train is full you need another way of looking at it altogether. And the nearest you can get to picking people who would not travel otherwise is a crude approximation. But a lot of that analysis still applies, hence the use of airline-style pricing on a lot of high-speed services (and airlines).

Of course simplicity also has a value, and may be preferred in any case.

I always buy an Anytime if I get from the machine - I have no idea what I actually need, and if it presents Anytime (even in off peak), it always seems the safest option than getting grief at the other end :(

From what I could gather, Off Peak isn't a set time (like 10am-3pm Mon-Fri) - it varies from service to service (or station to station) ? And if thats not the case, then it just reinforces my point - I have no idea what I need and when!

There are two concepts in this proposal: (a) the structure of the way fares are determined and (b) the level of the fares. They are not necessarily directly connected.

One keeps seeing demands for simplification of the fare structure but rarely any thought-through proposals. I don't claim to have a crystal ball but to define the requirements of a fares system applicable to the demographics of the UK is an interesting exercise in logic. Some of the constraints and factors to be considered are:

• the preponderance of travel to and within the London and South Eastern area
• the great variations in global passenger numbers at different times of the day on some routes
• differences in loadings between routes
• capacity of the infrastructure
• capacity of the trains
• demand at different stations and variation of this with time and direction
• global income requirements
• need to try to match demand to capacity
• availability of First Class or Pullman accommodation
• and so on and so forth

There are many demands which are placed on the fares structure and some of them pull in opposite directions. A simple mileage-based structure set at a level to generate enough income to support the infrastructure and rolling stock for peak hour services into and out of London would probably be horrendously overpriced for a ticket from Melksham to Taunton. To compete in such markets effectively would mean the introduction of special cheaper fares - and, boom, promptly the simplicity has gone out of the window.

Or the lower fare is taken as the standard which means that the trains serving London would be even more overcrowded and generate insufficient income for them to be sustainable (assuming the general taxpayer does not want to subsidise other people's journeys to London).

The railway business has to have the freedom to set prices at a level which at least makes an attempt at controlling peak demand and which generates sufficient income to cover the costs of each traffic flow. There are always arguments for a degree of cross-subsidisation between flows but generally the financially weaker flows should not drain money from those areas where the money could be used for the benefit of more people.

I contend that the simplest form of fare structures (flat rate, zonal or mileage-based) are not suitable for the wide range of traffic levels, distances travelled and demands seen in the UK. As soon as a structure is required which has to allow for huge temporal and regional variations in demand, then by definition it will not be simple. But people seem to be able to cope with curious structures in supermarkets, shops, airlines and hairdressers - Buy One, Get One Free; special offers of a block of chocolate with a newspaper; airline ticket pricing which varies by route, carrier, time of day and direction let alone Economy, Business, carry-on baggage only or an extra fee to check a bag; Diamond Club cards at B&Q giving 10% off on Wednesdays; half-price haircutting for pensioners on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

The issue is not so much simplicity in the fares structure - the issue is that the structure should be intuitive and make it easy to find the most appropriate fare for a particular journey without being an expert. And here the names for the various types of tickets and the usability of the IT tools available to locate the most appropriate fare leave a lot to be desired.


Setting prices to reflect service 'quality' is a subjective judgement which would lead to continual dispute. In my opinion the current system has a lot to be said for it - although it could be tweaked, by adding, for example, another parameter for short-formed trains - in that a reduction is given for season ticket renewals if various quantifiable parameters are not met. After all, it is the regular season ticket holder who suffers most from operational problems so they should be the ones who benefit from a reduction in the price of their ticket.

One thing you can be sure of...off-peak is always after 7pm weekday evenings and all weekends.

Not sure you can say that I think i read somewhere Aberdeen has a Peak of half an hour between 17:00 or 17:30 certainly it wasn't until 19:00.

As to how to set fares whilst Reading Abbey has listed some of the factors that have to be taken into account

    the preponderance of travel to and within the London and South Eastern area
    the great variations in global passenger numbers at different times of the day on some routes
    differences in loadings between routes
    capacity of the infrastructure
    capacity of the trains
    demand at different stations and variation of this with time and direction
    global income requirements
    need to try to match demand to capacity
    availability of First Class or Pullman accommodation
    and so on and so forth

If you try and take into acount every one of thoise factors you would end up with a fare structure where every train had it's own fare for every station served by that train including ones you can  reached by changing. Which is impossible.

I don't think that you can compare pricing in shops as you have the choice of of buying by price, by brand you probably also have a choice of places to buy and even not to buy at that time.

With most train journies you need to start at particular station and go to another probably at a certain time on a certain day. You may get a choice of trains in your time band, you may also on odd journies get a choice of route and maybe a choice of operator, but in most cases you are stuck with one train run by one TOC.

Also trains are not like planes most flights serve one destination maybe 2  with a fixed number of seats and only a few flights a day to each destination.. Therefore, it is relatively easy for the airline to adjust the price to either fill an empty flight or increase the fares when it's getting full to maximise the revenue.

But take a London to Bristol train stopping at Reading Didcot Swindon Chippenham Bath and Bristol, there are 21 journies that can be made on that train. 6 from Padd 5 from Reading etc. given there are at probably at least 10 trains a day just on one route and one stopping pattern alone.  That's 210 journies to price

That is only for single journies without the complication of returns. Again it's relatively easy for the airline they can see how flights are filling and adjust the fares accordingly. Plus sometimes it's difficult to get as cheap a return flight.

So do we go back to universal walk up fare with no restriction at so many pence per mile irrespective of the journey. With returns 120% of single?  Return within month
Off peak day returns say 30% of walk up. But as for their restrcitons, i can see the case for after 09:30 from local station or arrival at big town after 10:00. But I do wonder about the evening peak restriction it does seem to distort the passenger flow as the 16:55 trains are packed as are the 19:05 ones but the 17:05 and 18:55 trains are compartively empty. They didn't work in the sixties on the Southern suburban. They were a pain to sell as you had to ask "When are you coming back?" and then expalin they couldn't come back between I think in those days 16:30 to 18:30 and without barriers it require ticket checks at the barrier. Plus that was blanket ban to most Southern suburban stations.

Now it's even more confusing as I believe from reading posts on Coffee Shop that on some trains out of Padd Off Peak tickets are allowed to certain stations served by a peak hour train Pewsey?

Having universal fares takes pricing out of the hands of the TOCs.

Not worked a method of pric1ng advanced

Otherwise letting the TOCs try to "Smart Price" will just increase the complexity as they try to factor in all the variables outlined by Reading Abbey.

 

1916 or later for Off Peak Day if you want a fast service from Paddington.

I was stating a rule you could rely on...after 1900 I thought was a franchise requirement across all TOCs (who can choose to better it, but not worsen), so how FGW can push this to 1916, I don't know - unless the 1900 is for off-peak only, not off-peak Day tickets...

All the above comments assume that you can use the TVM at your station. The Hanborough machine is a dead loss for much of the time and for many people. You can only read the screen when it is not a sunny day with the sunlight falling on the screen from midday onwards the creen can be unreadable. The machine is termpermental as to whom it will sell tickets and what cards it will accept in payment. Personally I find the machine refuses to accept contact with my finger. Someone has said that it is something to do with the level of static electricity that varies from person to person as I have found that after refusing to accept my purchase attempt it will then go on to sell a ticket to the next user. The machine at Hanborough has now, at last, been modified to issue ticket bought over the internet. However if the machinbe will not recognise my credit card used to buy the ticket in the first place over the internet, how can I rely on using this facility? Ticket vending automation still has a long way to go to become reliable but fortunately our Worcester based conductors understand this well so do not penalise me when I ask to buy a ticicet from them on the train.
Having said that, many people on the early morning trains do use the machine because there are often long queues extending out into the car park waiting to buy a ticket but many then rush on to the train when it arrives rather than miss it whilst waiting to use the machine. Fortunately FGW management has recongnbised this problem and is trying to get permission to erect a portacabin type building so that a member of staff can sell tickets over the morning peak period.

Maybe my post was not so cleverly phrased as it could have been. I wasn^t imagining that the cases where there is a choice of TOCs is significant, although more people may in fact have a choice of route, or that individual legs have different prices. My point was that all the factors I listed affect demand and therefore indirectly affect the costs of operation; the fares structure and fare levels have to make sense of this and in doing so (a) ensure the operator receives an income which covers his costs, (b) be understandable to the customer and (c) be enforceable.

It matters not one whit whether the operator is under a management contract where he takes the income risk (^franchise^) or whether he^s operating under a management contract where the client takes the income risk (^concession^) or whether the operator is a unitary national organisation - the income has to be approximately equal to the cost of running the railway if the taxpayer is not to be excessively or unjustly asked to foot the bill.

So the question is simple - how does one arrange the fares structure and fare levels to ensure these requirements are met? The answers, however, may not be!

I tried to point out that the simplest fare structures - flat rate, zonal or distance-based - would inevitably lead to some journeys being over-priced and others under-priced. If demand across the network was uniform, both temporally and regionally, then such simple structures could work. But life is not like that and the fares structure has to accommodate life as it is and not how one would like it to be. So pricing variations are necessary to cope with loadings varying with time, route and direction, level of competition by other modes and so on.

The point to be born in mind about all purchase of travel - coach, plane, train, rickshaw or ship - is that the ticket price is designed to get ^bums on seats^ at a time and place which suits the operator and which helps increase his income. It is not designed to ensure that the individual traveller gets the lowest price for his journey. If he does, well and good, if not - then he has to pay the asking price. Pricing is to do with statistics - not individuals.

It^s not as if any of this is new - different pricing for different flows goes back to the dawn of railways - the Railway Regulation Act 1844 laid down a fare of 1d per mile for 3rd class passengers on one train a day. Although this was enacted for reasons other than maximisation of income the point remains that by this time there were already four price points for each possible journey - First, Second, Third and Parliamentary. Only a decade and a half after passenger travel began the system was already complex.

My comparison with shops was to show that people can cope with complexity in pricing, and make their purchasing decisions accordingly - although there is no excuse for shops to be deliberately obfuscating. Similarly there is no reason to assume that people should suddenly be unable to cope when they are purchasing rail tickets. However, one has to be careful about the type of ticket under discussion for this type of purchasing decision. From the context it would seem that this issue of ^complexity^ mainly concerns the purchase of tickets for one-off journeys, possibly for business, possibly for leisure. Somewhat surprisingly, these do not make up a majority of journeys.

Analysis of the ORR^s figures for 2012-13 give the following results for the number of journeys and the passenger-km these represent. The total number of journeys was 1,501.7 million which generated 59.7 billion passenger-km. The table gives the breakdown in percentages by ticket type.

Season tickets:         made up 42% of journeys and 28.5% of the passenger-km
Anytime/Peak fares: made up 21.2% of journeys and 16.8% of the passenger-km
Off-peak fares:         made up 30.9% of journeys and 36.1% of the passenger-km
Advance purchase (valid for one train only): made up 3.4% of journeys and 17.9% of the passenger-km
Others:                    made up 2.6% of journeys and 0.7% of the passenger-km.

What this means is that nearly half of all rail travellers know what they want and have made bulk travel purchases, i.e., they bought season tickets. Another fifth of all tickets are sold to people who are travelling in the peak periods or want the flexibility that a full price ticket gives. These two categories together make up, roundly, two thirds of all purchases.

This leaves about one third of all journeys which are made using some form of reduced rate tickets, but they make long journeys. It is these passengers that need a system which enables them to identify and purchase the most appropriate ticket easily - not only from the point of view of price but also from the point of view of validity. These people are probably not regular travellers, their grasp of railway geography may not be very good, they are probably not ^au fait^ with the ticket names - they need support the whole way through the process. The current names for the various types of ticket don^t help. For example, as most/all tickets can be bought in advance of the date of travel, why have a ticket type called ^Advance^ when what the name really means is that travel is limited to a particular train, or trains, on a particular day? It^s confusing.

The ^validity^ issues also seem to cause occasional passengers the most grief. It is clear that cheaper tickets need some restrictions on their validity to avoid cannibalisation of the full fare traffic, but these need to be explained in clear text and not simply referred to as ^Restriction J2^ or some such. As the restrictions are part of the contract they should be printed on the ticket so there is no doubt and be specific to that journey. Railways are not like airlines which check individual passengers onto each flight, so the onus has to be very clearly passed to the passenger.

Identifying the most suitable ticket is the sort of problem that computers are good at solving and designing a suitable web interface for a browser should not be impossible. The issue is that such searches can take time - which is not generally a problem at home, but becomes one if this search has to be carried out at the ticket machine on the station with a queue building up behind. So - a suggestion. Would it not be possible to install what are essentially web browsers with a card reader in the booking office so people can plan their journey, select and pay for their tickets without obstructing others wanting to use the TVM who know what they want? After purchasing the ticket at the web browser the tickets would be printed by the TVM in a sort of ^Ticket on Departure^ process. One should be able to buy two or three web browser kiosks for the price of one full blown ticket ticket machine.

So I repeat - the issue is not that the structure should be simple, it^s that the structure should be intuitive and the support systems, both IT and human, should be designed around the customer^s needs and abilities.

And there are some flows where you can't travel Super Off Peak until 1901 or later. Others at 1905, 1910... Others where Super Off Peak extends to 1930 and there's even flows where Super Off Peak doesn't allow travel until 2015 (including weekends!)

Wow, out of interest which one?

This one:

http://www.brfares.com/#faredetail?orig=BHM&dest=1072&grpo=0418&tkt=SSR
http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/times_fares/ticket_types/64300.aspx

Although I was slightly wrong about the weekend. There are still morning and evening restrictions in both directions but not as er, restrictive as weekdays.

Different times for Milton Keynes and Watford Junction.

Off topic, that's a very interesting pointer towards the very quietest times of day of rail travel - and it would seem to be very much in line with what we've seen with TransWilts counts - perhaps the very opposite line in most ways to the Birmingham - London flow that this restriction above applies to.

My bad - the regulated off-peak ticket on any flow is always valid after 1900.....

I have reported several inconsistencies to FGW with their TVMs and also to GreaterAnglia and Southern for the same. I have also had "disagreements" with Revenue Protection over tickets bought from TVMs where I could not buy the full ticket I wanted.

A couple of years ago I arrived at Taunton Station at 1AM and poked the TVM for a ticket to London Paddington. It would only sell me a First Anytime Single/Return or Standard Anytime Single/Return. Despite the Super Off Peak being available for the Sleeper Service due at 01:38.

Needless to say I didn't make the purchase and bought a ticket on board without issue.

---

Other issues I've had is where I have bought the wrong ticket because a cheaper fare was hidden on a second page of fares. This is where I ended up with an FDR (First Anytime Day Return) despite an FCR (First Off Peak Day Return) at just under half the price being available. Despite the nameless train company trying to claim Caveat Emptor. I cited that with threatening Yellow and Black posters explaining Penalty Fares for not having a ticket. To use that against a passenger and allow them to be sold an incorrect higher fare for the same journey was not reasonable.

FGW did not try a similar stance and refunded me the whole SDR ticket price when a CDR was valid on the train I used. So yes it is possible to claim back if you were mis-sold your ticket.

ATOC guidelines suggest you should be sold the cheapest ticket for your journey. If you're putting that burden on the customer to know what they're buying. That is in itself a contradiction. I believe this is just one of the reasons why Condition 12 in the NRCoC exists. I am more than comfortable buying a restrictive ticket such as Super Off Peak or Off Peak and paying excess onboard. I don't think such things are 'that' unreasonable.

I personally discredit the idea of Air Fares being used as a comparison to Rail Fares as it has significant flaws that make such a comparison deeply biased. Airlines have to stop selling tickets at a certain point when the plane + overbooking has been reached. They don't offer Season Tickets (That I am aware of). The railway does sell season tickets, has a quota of Advance Tickets. But also will sell a cheap day return if you turn up at the station for a 12PM service to go 6 stops up the line.

Aviation is the complete opposite. You could turn up at Bristol International and ask for a ticket to Berlin, but there is no guarantee that there would be space on the plane for you. If you decide the plane is too busy, you can't get off and get the one 2 hours later without significant cost or inconvenience or if at all.

---

Just for people who read this thread so they get a complete picture. This I believe for all UK rail operators does not apply to holders of a Disabled Railcard and is usually stated as such in the operators passenger charter or disabled passengers protection policy.

I have been told by some staff that this is down to Staff Discretion. This is completely wrong as the policies make absolutely no reference to discretion from staff whatsoever.

From Greater Anglia's Passenger Charter July 2014 (PDF Document): (http://www.abelliogreateranglia.co.uk/files/download/2045)

And FGWs (PDF Document): (https://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/~/media/PDF/AboutUs/Passenger%20charter/Passenger_Charter_2013.ashx)

In both of those, no mention of discretion whatsoever. From the above wording it's extremely clear to me that it states if you hold that railcard you will be allowed to buy the full range of tickets. Discretion doesn't come into the matter.

Hmmm.

It could be interpreted in the Greater Anglia quote that yes, you can obtain the Railcard discount, but you are still required to buy the Anytime, or full, single or return. Nowhere does it say cheaper tickets can ve bought if available with the railcard

Ditto with the FGW DOCUMENT i've just checked. Discount allowed, but nowhere does it state anything other than full fare with discount

I had a feeling someone would pick up on that. I am actually inclined to agree with you. The wording has changed. It used to be something like: "The exception being a Disabled Railcard where the full range of tickets will remain available" for most TOCs.

CrossCountry have a completely different wording altogether (PDF Document): (http://www.crosscountrytrains.co.uk/media/281963/making_rail_accessible_guide_to_policies_and_practices-june-2014.pdf)


As do Virgin Trains (PDF Document): (http://www.virgintrains.co.uk/assets/pdf/assisted-travel/dppp_may_2011.pdf)


That is slightly vague and quite insidious as it could be argued that it applies discretion. But with all due respect to all the great staff out there. I don't think it is appropriate or fair for a member of railway staff to pass judgment on someones disability for not using a ticket machine as in the case point. I'll expand on this a little to show reasoning.

Taking Schizophrenia and OCD as examples. Completely hidden but could be very real reasons for not using a ticket machine/station booking office. As could Panic Disorder and Autism. It could be something as simple as not liking the look of the person in the ticket office. Or someone stood nearby that those voices say is a spy.

Very relevant to the case point is if someone with such a disability had paid the incorrect fare in the past and/or got it wrong and fell foul of Revenue Teams... "That machine is working for the spies and is not to be trusted"

Whilst some of these things sound far-fetched. To someone with Psychosis it is a very real scenario.

If the member of staff in such situations has no understanding or awareness of the disability presented then discretion (or lack of) becomes biased and unfair to all involved.

EMT's policy is even more blunt (PDF Document): (http://www.eastmidlandstrains.co.uk/Global/EMT-Helping-Passengers.pdf)


Is that a Penalty Fare or "without penalty" meaning all tickets will be available?

All in all a very horrible grey area which doesn't have an easy solution for anyone.