Great Western Coffee Shop

One of my collegues normally travels on an Off Peak Day Return ticket from Hungerford to Theale @^6.00. This morning because of a queue of 15 people she was forced to catch the train without a ticket (fearing being late for work). There was no opportunity to buy a ticket on the train. At Theale she was charged ^8.60 for a Anytime Day and told she was lucky to get off this lightly and that next time miss the train amongst other comments. She was also threatened with a ^20 fine.

Please could someone advise what the correct process is ???

Assuming it was not an RPI then the full anytime fare was the correct procedure.

Sounds to me like an Improving Public Customer Service training course might be useful to Theale staff, as well as a new alarm clock for your colleague. There's sadly no winners in a situation like this.

Many thanks for this info. I think most of us think we know how it works in these situations (ie all will be very reasonable when we explain). Sounds like a Anytime Return was not a bad option in the circumstances.

Indeed - your colleague needs to get up a tad earlier....if an RPI inspector had caught them, it may well have been ^20 penalty *plus* a ticket....

And possibly prosecution?

Probably not in this case, as they would need to prove intent in avoiding the fare....

15 people queueing ... 15 transactions at (say) 90 seconds each = over 20 minutes of a queue as reported to us.  I understood there to be a five or 10 minute rule for customers arriving at a station to allow themselves time to buy a ticket, and (again as reported) FGW failed to provide a ticket sales facility at Hungerford to provide tickets to people who arrived there in plenty of time.   On that basis, a ticket of the same price as the one that would have been bought from the machine should have been sold, and there should be no question of a penalty fare.  As describes, this comes across as FGW trying to penalise your colleague for their own failure to provide.

Would any of our FGW staff like to comment?

It's NOT a rule, but a target, a measure of success against target.

Legally, it is the customers responsibility to obtain a ticket *where facilities exist and are open*....

Ah - so if I arrive at Paddington station at 20:00 and find the ticket sales desks all closed, all except one of the TVMs broken, and the most enormous queue, legally I have to join the queue.  And if I'm still in the queue when my last train leaves at 23:30, I'm going to be penalty fared if I risk catching the train and happen to run into a RPI.

Not a very level playing field, is it?

And equally the Penalty Fares Policy as set out on the DfT's website (http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/rail/legislation/pf/penaltyfarespolicya?page=5#a1019) says a customer should not be charged a PF if queueing times are too long. Whilst only guidelines and not binding in law, it should allow discretion and the chance to buy the fare the passenger wanted on board or at the destination.

4.12 Where penalty fares apply, passengers must allow enough time to buy a ticket, including time to queue, if necessary. Under normal circumstances, passengers may still be charged a penalty fare if they join a train without a ticket, even if there was a queue at the ticket office or ticket machine. However, we expect operators to provide enough ticket windows, ticket machines and staff at staffed stations to meet the queuing standards set out in the Ticketing and Settlement Agreement and their Passenger's Charter under normal circumstances. This standard is normally five minutes at peak times and three minutes at other times. If queues at a particular station regularly fail to meet these standards at certain times or days of the week, the operator must either take action to sort out the problem before a penalty fares scheme is introduced or make sure that passengers are not charged penalty fares when these queuing standards are not met. This might include providing extra staff or ticket machines.

(My emphasis in bold)

Oh agreed - my point is that they have a right to levy a PF if there is a way of buying....reasonableness does come into it, but it isn't definied in law, so you could end up fighting a PF through the courts if the only reason you didn't buy is that *you* thought the queue was too long...

"If the excessive queues are a regular thing, then penalty fares should not be charged, but if they're just occasional it's OK for the TOC to charge a penalty fare to people caught on those occasions that they are excessive."

Another can of worms!

FGW should be more understanding if you cannot buy your ticket at the station due to long queues etc.

If you cannot buy your ticket at the station you should make every attempt to see the guard immediatly on the train and explain. He/she should be reasonable and charge you the fare you normally pay.

FGW should install more ticket machines, then there would be more chances to purchase your ticket before getting on the train. Why was there no chances of buying a ticket on the train? You just had the unfortunate chance of having a miserable guard as most of them can be really friendly. They should understand that queues for tickets in rush hour can be terrible. The guards on the Weymouth line are the best. I am sorry that your colleague was charged more. In my opinion that was wrong. But she should try to be at the station early enough so that she can purchase a ticket before joining the train.

If she makes the journey regularly then a season could save both money and hassle. It appears from the NRES website that Hungerford has ticket machines only (although given that the same website wrongly states that penalty fares do not apply from Hungerford, I wouldn't put too much faith in that information as I don't know the station myself) - if that's the case, and a season ticket isn't practical for whatever reason, she could buy her next day's ticket the night before ofter her return journey, as TVMs will sell "tickets for tomorrow".

But yes, unfortunately, the bottom line is that the playing field is not very level in this circumstance. The issue is not one specific to penalty fares either, even if you make a journey where penalty fares do not apply you still leave yourself liable for a full-fare anytime single being charged on board. I do think there's some comment in the DfT penalty fares rules about staff being supposed to use discretion when there are TVMs only at the passenger's originating station (sorry, don't have the time to sift through the rules and check up on the accuracy of that one right now) but what tham actually means in practice I have no idea.

James158, there would have been no chance to buy a ticket on the train at the Kennet Valley service operates Driver Only, so there is no guard and ticket examiners only work certain trains. On others there will be no staff on board except the driver, and so no on-board ticket checks/sales.

I fear you are not familiar with this route as most trains do not have a guard.

I did not know that the trains on that line didn't have guards. You are right, I have never travelled on the Kennet Valley line before. Perhaps FGW should think about putting guards on this line in the future.

Please explain why that would help?

It's not a guards job to let people off paying a full fare ticket, rules are rules.

Devon Metro, I fervently hope that you are never in the position of setting / administering revenue collection rules!

 ::)

It doesn't take a long queue to cause problems; experience at my local station is that a single problematic transaction can well exceed the DfT's guideline. When there's only one window open, and no ticket machine, anxious glances at the departure screen / watch become commonplace. The other day there was a cheer from the queue when the PA announced the train was running late!

The DfT's guidelines should be immaterial. In the midst of an economic crisis, can a ToC really afford to give passengers such a negative experience that they will think twice about any future discretionary travel?

Agreed, i'd be ruthless.  ;D

I do have to agree with your point though, perhaps my comment was more general than anything, and in this particular case discretion was required. Even so, there are lots of chancers out there who will try it on and if every RPI/guard let people off then the railway would lose quite a lot of revenue.

A difficult one really!

Lets take a realistic look at this, if it were a valid excuse to say "there was a queue" then everyone would say it and thus no-one would ever buy a ticket before travelling!