Perfectly understandable and usable ticket system in the West Midlands?

[whole diary]

[grahame]

From Birmingham Live

A number of freeloading passengers have been caught and fined in Sutton Coldfield with more than one in 10 found not to have a valid ticket. Police officers from the Safer Travel Partnership, working alongside revenue inspectors from West Midlands Railway, were at Sutton station on Wednesday (October 25) in a police operation.

Passengers at one of Birmingham’s busiest stations were being given ‘reassurance’ while being checked to make sure they had the right ticket. But some 64 out of 500 that were spoken to were found to not have the right ticket and each was slapped with a £100 penalty fine.

The Safer Travel Police team tweeted: “We were in the Royal Town [on Wednesday] morning working with West Midlands Railway providing reassurance as commuters and students arrived for the day. Unfortunately, 64 people of the nearly 500 spoken to had chosen not to pay so have received £100 penalty fines.”

Those two highlighted statements together suggest that 436 people had purchased the correct ticket, 64 people had made a decision not to purchase the correct ticket, leaving zero who had done there best to have the correct ticket but been confused by the system and got the wrong product.   

Here in Wiltshire, I see considerable confusion between peak, off peak and super off peak, and where advance tickets are purchased and a train fails to run that you can go on the following train and not the previous one.  I know of places where you cannot buy a ticket at the station (or the ticket you need) and sometimes for short journeys where the train manager can't get round. The implication of the Sutton Coldfield story is that they have a perfect system that means that everyone can get the right ticket every time if they choose to do so.  Utopia - how do they achieve that?

[Ralph Ayres]

I suppose hypothetically and coincidentally it could be a different 64 but probably not.  It's odd given the police backup that the revenue staff apparently only issued penalty fares and didn't take any case forward for prosecution which can be done for deliberate avoidance, implicit in "chosen not to pay". Maybe they were so busy they didn't have time for the extra paperwork involved, but they often like to make an example of a few as a deterrent.  Some people bank on being checked so rarely that the occasional PF^▸ (Penalty Fare) (and it's £50 if you pay at the time, not £100 so the police Tweet - "X", surely? - was disingenuous) is cheaper than paying every day, and if you do pay on the spot I don't think you even get your details taken.

[Clan Line]

- how do they achieve that?

Difficult.................

..........but something that would help the "confused - but honest" traveller would be a common on-line ticket search/buy engine to be used by all who sell rail tickets.

I consider myself to be fairly savvy when it comes to getting the best rail fare when I want to go from A to B. The difficulty, as you rightly say, is for the unwary to not know when a particular ticket is, or is not, valid. Most of the websites are very poor when it comes to this particular point. All the websites seem to be "upgraded" regularly - but they never make it any clearer as to what the user may be buying. ALL the upgrades do little more than make the website look more "modern" and flashy - the act of just changing it does little more than confuse most users.

I still use the "old" GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) Mixing Deck site - yes, it looks agricultural (sorry to any forum members from the farming community !) .................but it tells me everything I want to know in a simple, straightforward fashion. I put in the date/time I want to travel and it tells me all the fares that are available, the name of the fare, and what trains these fares are available on. I don't want - or need - all the other junk that adorns the other websites: "Five get there first"  the current GWR ticket site tells me - no they don't, they are still trying to fathom out if the "Advance super off peak evening out half day return" - with a 49 to 72 year old rail card, is valid on the 15:20 from Temple Meads to Chippenham.

There is little point rationalising the tickets themselves if the would be customers still don't have a clue what they are buying.

[infoman]

Would not know where every one traveled from,but can I presume Birmingham new street.

return fare approx five pounds?

64 times five pounds 320 pounds loss per day

so how much is actually being lost each day multiplied by the amount of working days in a year.

240 working days in a year equates to approx 100,000

64 times 100 pounds is 6,400 pounds

take into account the staff being in position for a large part of just one day

[grahame]

From myLondon

A fare-dodging ferret has been rescued from a London Underground station. The pesky animal nicknamed 'Sparkle' was spotted at Victoria Tube station last weekend.

[snip]

"We don’t know how long she’d been there, but it was at least three days. We don’t pick up many abandoned ferrets, so this was unusual."

I'm not sure what ticket an unaccompanied ferret needs or where it would get the £100 from ...

[ChrisB]

Those two highlighted statements together suggest that 436 people had purchased the correct ticket, 64 people had made a decision not to purchase the correct ticket, leaving zero who had done there best to have the correct ticket but been confused by the system and got the wrong product.   

Two things, Graham - one you know & another is out of your area and probably don't. I'm pretty sure that the local tickets (and many not-so-local) don't include super off-peak - only off-peak & peak. So a lot easier to know which they need at certain times of day as the peak hours are the same across the WMT area.

You can't be given a penalty fare if you have the wrong ticket - only NO ticket at all, or over-riding or failing to carry a railcard.

[grahame]

Two things, Graham - one you know & another is out of your area and probably don't. I'm pretty sure that the local tickets (and many not-so-local) don't include super off-peak - only off-peak & peak. So a lot easier to know which they need at certain times of day as the peak hours are the same across the WMT area.

I decided to take a look at fares from Sutton Coldfield to Birmingham New Street to see if they were a beacon of simplicity.

True there are no super off peak tickets - just anytime and off peak - oh and there's an extra evening return. Unlike we're used to on local trips here into Bristol, there are late afternoon restrictions on departures from Birmingham.  BRFares also offers us three more return fares - an evening group, a flexiseason, and a friends and family add on only for someone who's travelling with a West Midlands season ticket holder.

[IndustryInsider]

The day pass ticket is quite popular I believe: https://www.westmidlandsrailway.co.uk/tickets-discounts/ticket-types/transport-west-midlands-tfwm-tickets

[grahame]

The day pass ticket is quite popular I believe: https://www.westmidlandsrailway.co.uk/tickets-discounts/ticket-types/transport-west-midlands-tfwm-tickets

Ah - thank you

Types of TfWM tickets for use on our trains

* nNetwork tickets gives you unlimited train, bus and tram travel within the specified rail zones

* nTrain season tickets gives you unlimited train travel on all participating train operators within the specified rail zones

* Daytripper is an off-peak day ticket for unlimited train, bus and tram travel within the specified rail zones

* Daytripper Plus is an extension to Daytripper for travel just beyond the rail zone areas as far as Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwick, Leamington Spa, Lichfield and Kenilworth (via Coventry only). Excludes journeys between Coventry and Leamington Spa

* Daytripper Add-on is an extension to Daytripper on the Chase Line for travel beyond rail zone 5: Landywood, Cannock, Hednesford, Rugeley Town, Rugeley Trent Valley

* Family nNetwork Day Tripper gives you unlimited train, bus and tram travel within the specified rail zones for up to 6 people - at least 1 adult, but no more than 2 must be adults (children 5-15 years inclusive). Each group must contain at least 1 adult and 1 child and travel together at all times. Can be purchased from any West Midlands Railway Station.

>> nTrain tickets are the only way to buy train season tickets for the West Midlands rail zones.

If "nTrain tickets are the only way to buy seasons" why is there a flexiSeason offered on the BRFares website - or is that a season which is not a season?

[Ralph Ayres]

I think they mean it's the only way to buy a Zonal season rather than a point-to-point.

[PhilWakely]

If "nTrain tickets are the only way to buy seasons" why is there a flexiSeason offered on the BRFares website - or is that a season which is not a season?

You are quite correct. A flexiSeason is just a Carnet of tickets under another name, but eight journeys instead of 10.  It can only be issued to a smartcard and the eight journeys must be completed in a 28 day period. You can use all 8 in one day if you were that way inclined.

[Mark A]

It's not quite straightforward* to discover the prices for West Midlands day tripper tickets, but here's a source:

http://www.railrover.org/pages/west-midlands-day-tripper.html

The GB^▸ (Great Britain) rail rover guide site has different (and more generous**) validity information for the 'Day tripper plus' product cf the West Midlands site - i.e. Kidderminster.

Mark

*Actually quite difficult.
**For certain values of 'Generous'.