Consumer Rights Act 2015

[whole diary]

[didcotdean]

There would be a fairly straightforward case maybe if you had a journey within the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) Airline Partnership as it is one booking. People buying the Flyaway to Gatwick don't have to declare any information to GWR.

Sail Rail is interesting because it appears they have disclaimers against each other's disruptions.

[ChrisB]

Assuming they'd left long enough for the connection, yes. So that's at least two hours before their flight

[John R]

But where do you draw the line? If A family of 4 is travelling to Australia first class and miss their flight because the train is cancelled and the next hourly one gets them to the airport just too late? So they've lost maybe 25k worth of flights.  Is it reasonable for the railway to compensate them for the full amount because their original train would have arrived 5 mins before the recommended check in time?

[JayMac]

But where do you draw the line?

In a court of law.

[grahame]

Post for discussion ...

1. Money for repayments and compensation has to come from somewhere - and that's probably going to be from passengers through higher fares if there's a significant rise in the number / amount of payments.

2. Some journeys are time critical. Others aren't quite so important. And at the other end of the scale an occasional late arrival really doesn't make much difference.

3. There's such a thing as travel insurance you can buy.

Taking the "extreme" example of 25k of flights, I don't think I'ld be terribly happy to have my standard class ticket price go up by x% to allow for the payments out in such cases.  Nor am I really happy at the admin cost of all the blame and repay costs that we have / are getting at the moment.  For sure, they encourage the TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) to keep to reasonable time at threat of penalty, but at what overhead and higher price? 

Not ideal, but add bronze, silver and gold insurance options to train ticket purchase? However, in the event of taxi substitution (for example) do we want to add the nightmare of arranging it for insured passengers first?

[John R]

I think that's a very pragmatic commentary grahame.

In respect of travellers making flights they should have insurance, and let the insurers be the judge as to whether the delay and original allowance made for delays in the planning of the journey warranted a successful claim.

The compensation culture is one of the more depressing aspects of today's society in my opinion. At the risk of digression, I notice that the man who lost the Supreme Court case for taking his children to Florida in term time is (very openly) a highly successful businessman who owns a PPI Claims company. So he could certainly well afford to travel outside term time, and I do question his motives for bringing the case in the first instance. "Been unfairly fined for taking your children out of school, we could get you compensation..." 

[TaplowGreen]

I think that's a very pragmatic commentary grahame.

In respect of travellers making flights they should have insurance, and let the insurers be the judge as to whether the delay and original allowance made for delays in the planning of the journey warranted a successful claim.

The compensation culture is one of the more depressing aspects of today's society in my opinion. At the risk of digression, I notice that the man who lost the Supreme Court case for taking his children to Florida in term time is (very openly) a highly successful businessman who owns a PPI Claims company. So he could certainly well afford to travel outside term time, and I do question his motives for bringing the case in the first instance. "Been unfairly fined for taking your children out of school, we could get you compensation..." 

Woahhhhh hold on! This is absolutely not a case of "compensation culture" - if I pay for a service from a supplier, and they fail to supply it in the way/to the standard advertised which consequently causes me financial loss or hardship then I am perfectly entitled to expect recompense - the railways are almost unique in trying to constantly wriggle out of this commitment - it is they who should be arranging financial contingency to cover their failure and its consequences, not the customer!

(I agree 100% re: the idiot who wanted to take his child out of school by the way!)

[LiskeardRich]

But where do you draw the line? If A family of 4 is travelling to Australia first class and miss their flight because the train is cancelled and the next hourly one gets them to the airport just too late? So they've lost maybe 25k worth of flights.  Is it reasonable for the railway to compensate them for the full amount because their original train would have arrived 5 mins before the recommended check in time?

I'd personally rather spend an extra 1-2 hours in the airport than risk a missed flight. I need a buffer, I can't deal with the stress of running close to time on something so critical.

[ChrisB]

TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) have an easy way out on this though...just qatch as the recommended 'change' time accelerates to three hours (at least) between train arrival & flight time. Don't allow this and they won't be liable

[didcotdean]

As I said earlier, I expect this will result in a test case in the end, possibly sponsored in some manner by Which?.

The NRCOT^▸ (National Rail Conditions of Travel) maybe should be updated in line with the CMA recommendations to use the more straightforward language just to remove the technicalities of being 'possibly' unfair through people not clearly understanding the distinction between direct and consequential loss, and not being unduly influenced not to make a claim which in reality would be an allowable direct loss.

[John R]

But where do you draw the line? If A family of 4 is travelling to Australia first class and miss their flight because the train is cancelled and the next hourly one gets them to the airport just too late? So they've lost maybe 25k worth of flights.  Is it reasonable for the railway to compensate them for the full amount because their original train would have arrived 5 mins before the recommended check in time?

I'd personally rather spend an extra 1-2 hours in the airport than risk a missed flight. I need a buffer, I can't deal with the stress of running close to time on something so critical.

Indeed, and I arrived at LHR at 1230 yesterday for a 1605 departure to the USA not wishing to see four non flexible business class seats go to waste. Compensation should be in proportion to the cost of the service provided, not the consequential loss.

[grahame]

Compensation should be in proportion to the cost of the service provided, not the consequential loss.

If I'm travelling from Edinburgh to Oban ... a problem during the journey on the 09:30 and instead of arriving in Oban at 13:43 I arrive on the next train at 15:28, I have paid £42.10 and been delayed by 105 minutes - so the journey took 141.5% of the time it should have done.

If I'm travelling on Saturday evening from Chippenham to Melksham and the 19:53 "sits down" resulting in an arrival at 21:34 rather than 20:02, I have paid £3.90 and been delayed by 92 minutes - so the journey took 1122.2% of the time it should have done.

Extreme case - but there's a fallacy on compensation in proportion to the cost of service.   If I arrive about 100 minutes late somewhere due to train failures, it's still 100 minutes of my time wasted.

Having made that point, the whole blanket compensation thing worries me for reasons given earlier in the thread, and I would much rather have "bronze" insurance by default, with "silver" and "gold" available as you press the "buy now" button. That way, you would be compensated peanuts / cost of fare / consequential loss and could choose which you wanted for your journey.   If most people selected bronze, you could even give the train conductors tokens to hand out for peanut dispensing machines at stations when passengers disembarked, saving an awful lot of admin.

[John R]

I'm more thinking of the situation whereby a £10 rail ticket results in compensation running into hundreds if not thousands of pounds.  And I entirely agree with your reservations as to the cost and complexity and who would end up paying.

You could end up with a situation whereby every time a city corporate lawyer (whose time is typically charged out at over £500 ph) is delayed on his way into work, claims for the lost time.  It would rapidly make the railway unaffordable.

[Fourbee]

It's nearly been a year since the CRA applied to rail travel. I am not aware of any public cases where it has been invoked (AFAIK^▸ (as far as I know) the "Brighton Commuter" who claimed back £2,400 from Southern used the American Express chargeback process citing various reasons).

I stumbled across this FAQ^▸ (Frequently Asked Questions) regarding the CRA from National Rail (via google, couldn't find a link off the National Rail main site):
http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/CRACustomerFAQs.pdf

[Tim]

Post for discussion ...

1. Money for repayments and compensation has to come from somewhere - and that's probably going to be from passengers through higher fares if there's a significant rise in the number / amount of payments.

I'm not especially bothered by this line of argument.  Compensation is paid for by passengers and is paid to passengers.  Maybe not always the same passengers but you get my point.  Passengers as a whole are neither winners or loosers.  The real advantage of a compensation scheme is that it provides an incentive to operators to minimise delays.