Delay-repay. Also repays if you miss your bus because the train was late?

[whole diary]

[grahame]

Written Parliamentary question, 23rd March on They work for you

David Crausby Labour, Bolton North East

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if his Department will work with (a) Northern and (b) other rail operators to simplify delay repay schemes for passengers using multimodal transport tickets.

Jo Johnson Minister of State (Department for Education) (Universities and Science) (Joint with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy), Minister of State (Department for Transport), Minister of State (London)

The Government introduced the Delay Repay scheme whereby rail passengers are entitled to compensation if a delay to their train journey means that they are late in reaching their destination by 30 minutes or more. This applies to all ticket types.

The practical arrangements for implementing this policy, including in relation to multi-modal products, are a matter for the train operating companies.

Delay Repay should be paid on the rail element of multi-modal tickets.

That reads to me that if a train is delayed such that a bus connection misses, so passengers have to drop back to a bus that's 2 hours later even if the train's only delayed by 10 minutes, they are entitled to repayment - though not of the bus section if it's a rail + bus all on the one ticket.

Written answer from a DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) minister - so no doubt written by civil servants who will have been accurate in their wording!

[plymothian]

To me it reads more that with through tickets that involve buses or ferries, that you currently only get refund on the train element of the journey, and they want the whole journey to be eligible.

However as buses and ferries aren't part of delay replay, what would happen if this was implemented and you were delayed on the bus/ferry part first and subsequently missed the train?  Would the TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) be the fall guy for the compensation?

I'm also wondering whether we'll get to the point where due to all the repay expansion, train travel will effectively become free.

[LiskeardRich]

Are there many rail-bus through tickets available? I’m assuming this is a low scale issue

[YouKnowNothing]

I recently wrote to the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) to ask when Delay Repay will be implemented on the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) network as I had read a press release stating it will be on all networks.... but got this response back... This reads to me that if the DfT determine that the cost of implementation of Delay Repay is not acceptable then it won’t be implemented and the previous promises will be lost, much like the electrification of the South Wales line... so my fellow passengers, does anyone have a timeline of all the announcements on Delay Repay? I’d be interested to see how long it’s been promised for.

[IndustryInsider]

With Delay Repay 15 now in operation, it would be useful to hear how quickly the claims are being processed, both postal and online, and how many times people have sought a refund and whether it was the 25%, 50% or 100% category?

I helped a friend with an application and found registering to the site and submitting a claim pretty straightforward - the only time I had to help was inputting the ticket number, as the modern tickets issued on APTIS^▸ (All Purpose Ticket Issuing System) style stock don't make it very clear which of the various information printed on the ticket is the actual ticket number like they used to.

[rogerw]

I submitted a claim on line on Sunday following Friday's problems at Didcot.  The acknowledgement promised a response within 20 working days - not good in my view.  I await to see what it is in reality.  I too had difficulty with the ticket number and guessed it to be the first 5 digits of the long number as I was told it was 5 digits when I entered something else.  However I can't see why you need to input the ticket number as you have to submit the ticket in any case.

[TaplowGreen]

I submitted a claim on line on Sunday following Friday's problems at Didcot.  The acknowledgement promised a response within 20 working days - not good in my view.  I await to see what it is in reality.  I too had difficulty with the ticket number and guessed it to be the first 5 digits of the long number as I was told it was 5 digits when I entered something else.  However I can't see why you need to input the ticket number as you have to submit the ticket in any case.

20 working days is to all intents and purposes a calendar month, and you're right, it's not good enough, but GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) "customer services" has been appallingly slow on all correspondence for a couple of years now......if you haven't heard by day 20, escalate to Hopwood, that generally gets a response.

[IndustryInsider]

However I can't see why you need to input the ticket number as you have to submit the ticket in any case.

Purely a guess, but perhaps it makes any attempts at multiple claims off of one ticket easier to spot?

[Surrey 455]

I submitted a claim on line on Sunday following Friday's problems at Didcot.  The acknowledgement promised a response within 20 working days - not good in my view.  I await to see what it is in reality. 

I presume it's the same centre that processes SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) claims. I submitted a claim for a journey on 2nd April where I was delayed by about 35 - 40 minutes, promised a response within 20 working days. Today I receive an email rejecting my claim as they think it was less than 15 minutes. Appeal submitted.

[rogerw]

I have also received a rejection from SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) concerning my claim for 7 April. Despite my stating that I travelled on the 1215 from Waterloo, and this is clearly marked on the ticket (as is my name) their system has changed it to an 1115 departure which they state, rightly, does not exist.  Needless to say I have submitted an appeal.  This pulls up the original details which were correct.

[rogerw]

I have just received acknowledgement of my SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) claim.  Despite my submitting the correct details they have once again changed the departure time. How much faith can you have in a system which seems to change the submitted details in order to avoid a claim.  If they reject the appeal for the same reason as before is there any way of escalating this or do I have to resort to the Ombudsman with the delays that entails.  Does anyone have a suitable contact at SWR?

[Surrey 455]

I have also received a rejection from SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) concerning my claim for 7 April. Despite my stating that I travelled on the 1215 from Waterloo, and this is clearly marked on the ticket (as is my name) their system has changed it to an 1115 departure which they state, rightly, does not exist.  Needless to say I have submitted an appeal.  This pulls up the original details which were correct.

My rejection also showed an hour earlier time. They must still be using GMT

[rogerw]

I think that this needs to be taken up at high level with SWR^» (South Western Railway - about).  Has anyone got any contact details e.g email addresses?

[Fourbee]

The SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) and GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) systems use the same back end as was launched at the end of last month (with the shambolic migration from the old system for SWR users).

I submitted a GWR claim yesterday all went well except the time on the email confirmation was 1 hour earlier. Again, as mentioned this seems like a GMT/BST issue internally.

I have not seen the confirmation email for the SWR varieties - is the time quoted incorrect (if indeed one is quoted)?

GWR/SWR should go back and systematically sort out all these claims which are being rejected due to their mistakes.

[stuving]

I think that this needs to be taken up at high level with SWR^» (South Western Railway - about).  Has anyone got any contact details e.g email addresses?

I think you are right - it does look like one of those "features" of new software, maybe added during an update a few months ago but only having an effect after the clock change. I know it sounds silly that BST would come into it, since trains only ever operate to London time, but I can see why a lot of Network Rail's trackside machinery would operate on permanent GMT. Even if the system (i.e. "the railway") can be split into two areas with different timebases, there will be a huge number of interfaces that need to make the switchable correction.

In the case of your journey on 7th April, I was wondering if the software might also have an issue with GPS week number roll-over. Did SWR by any chance also alter your date of travel to 22 August 1999?