Great Western Coffee Shop

I have a super off peak return ticket from Chippenham on Sunday evening, but now intend to travel from Melksham instead (via Chippenham).

Question for BignoseMac / Brucey types  ;D ... when I get on the train, do I ask the conductor to upgrade / replace my ticket with an zero cost excess (as the fares to my final destination happen to be the same from Melksham and Chippenham) , or would I need to have that done before I join the train?  So do I simply buy an extra Melksham to Chippenham ticket? 

Ask for a zero excess on the train since Melksham doesn't have the facilities to do it !

Sounds like a straightforward zero over-distance excess. 

Some guards will say 'not to worry' if the excess is zero. But it's worth politely insisting to ensure that your journey is recorded as having started at Melksham.

Every little helps when it comes to station passenger figures!

There are three types of guard that you could run into:
1. those who will tap away at the Avantix for at least two minutes, then look at you with a puzzled face and a comment like "it's zero".  You will then need to prompt them to print the zero excess,
2. just say "doesn't matter", or
3. try and sell you a single ticket.

The third option is probably the most likely, in my experience, if you don't specifically ask for an excess fare.

I came across a very friendly chap when asking to excess a Bath Spa to London ticket to Frome - London. He said that as it was a Zero Excess, they don't normally do it as it flags up in the fares department. Apparently if you get so many Zero Excesses, FGW think the Guard is on the fiddle.

Source - Guard who I regularly see on W-o-E services!

Could any staff comment on this perhaps? :-X

I'm not staff but I can understand where your guard is coming from re: zero excesses.

That said, I think they should always be processed 'officially', so that they accurately record where passengers are travelling from/to. In your example statistics will show +1 from Bath, even though you didn't travel from there.

I don't know how accurate the LENNON data is when it comes to correctly allocating passenger figures from a specific station, but, as far as I know, excesses do, whether sorted out at a station or onboard via Avantix, eventually feed into the LENNON data.

LENNON is used to correctly allocate fares revenue to all TOCS and I believe it is also used in calculating footfall at stations.

Too many zero excess fares would probably get noticed.  As a result every time you issue one you have give a reason on paying in shift sheet at the end of the shift.  Hence they are not very popular to issue.

Do you have official guidance on 'zero excesses' from management, super tm?

Is it merely a case of more 'end of shift' paper work or does each one require an explanation to management?

I perfectly understand the reasoning for not issuing 'zero excesses', after all the correct fare has already been paid. However each one that goes unrecorded will skew the passenger count data.

Also, to take thetrout's example, correct fare allocation to TOCs may be affected. If he travels from Frome instead of Bath Spa, then whilst the fare may be the same, the ORCATS revenue to be divvied up by LENNON may be different. eg. If he'd travelled from Bath then SWT would've got a share of his fare from Bath to Westbury (as well as their share onward to London on his inter-available ticket), but travelling from Frome, SWT are not entiltled to a share of the revenue from Frome to Westbury.

There is no official guidance as such.  Its probably more todo with the extra paperwork involved.

Going to your second point about correct fare allocation.  ORCATS can only allocate actual revenue.  If you issue a zero excess no revenue will be allocated because the fare is zero.

The system does not know what ticket you originally had so how can it know what revenue to allocate.  It is a common misconception that by issueing an excess somehow the system reallocates the money about.  It doesnt.  The TOC's simple have to let that small portion of revenue go (and it is a great benefit to the customer)

For example I have a ticket routed Taunton from Pad to Exeter.  If I change the route to Honiton the excess will be zero.  No revenue will be reallocated from the original ticket.  the majority will still go to FGW.  The only way you could reallocate money would be to refund the original ticket and issue a new ticket with the new routeing.

You have to explain every single zero fare for your shift in writing! I know the RP team issue a lot of zero fares as they act as a reciept when invalid tickets are withdrawn etc.

But is the original ticket and excess subsequently "married" up when you put the ticket number in the excess box, or is that just for when the ticket is later checked?

This is only a guess, but I'd suspect not... The original ticket number won't be unique, it's just the five-digit serial number that was printed on it by the issuing machine. Certainly useful for preventing fraud because it's effectively a five-digit 'PIN' that identifies the original ticket. But I'm pretty sure it's not unique enough to allow the revenue clearing systems to keep track of the original ticket and reallocate the money. I have no idea how many tickets are issued across the network every day, but I would guess it's more than 100,000 in which case there's a strong chance that multiple tickets will be issued every day with the same five-digit serial number.

what information needs to be submitted by staff issuing a zero excess? i know where i work if we do something for no charge we have about 2-3 a4 sheets to fill in explaining why to cover ourselves.

Yes.  The RPI will keep a note book where they will write down the details of any tickets withdrawn so that will act as a record for them.

I normally just work the excess out to 5 or 10p, doesn't flag up on the system and the money I take out of my own pocket is more than compensated for by the time saved from writing out all the details. Happy me and happy punter.

I must admit that if there is a zero fare excess I normally do not bother. I have to write a written explanation as to why I have done one of these for each occasion. Zero fares are logged and watched very carefully