Rail fares advice 'inadequate', says Which? (BBC News 24/02/2011)

[whole diary]

[JayMac]

From the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page):

Rail users are paying higher fares than they need to because of poor training for station and National Rail Inquiries staff, says Which? magazine.

Undercover researchers from the consumer watchdog asked staff for advice on fares for 150 train journeys.

Which? claimed 59% of station clerks and 43% of operators on the National Rail Inquiries line failed to advise passengers of the cheapest options.

Train operators said its research was based on "unrealistic scenarios".

In nine out of 10 cases, a "passenger" hoping to make two round trips from Oxford to Cardiff in a week was advised to buy two return tickets costing ^200 each, Which? said.

Only one clerk pointed out that buying a weekly season ticket would save the passenger ^112.

Which? also criticised the nationalrail.co.uk website for failing to give cheaper fare options.

Which? also surveyed 1,515 people who had travelled by train in the last year and found half were confident they knew how to get the best available fare.

Which? chief executive Peter Vicary-Smith said: "Train operators seem blind to the fact that their ticketing systems are too complicated.

"If people who do this for a living can't find the cheapest fare, what hope do passengers have?"

He said clearer signposting was needed to help passengers find the best fares.

Alexandra Woodsworth, the Campaign for Better Transport's public transport campaigner, said: "Train passengers shouldn't have to work so hard to find a decent-value fare.

"There is little point in having cheap fares on offer if the system is so complicated that even ticket office staff can't help you find them."
'Misrepresentative'

But a spokesman for the Association of Train Operating Companies (Atoc) described the Which? report as "seriously misleading and misrepresentative".

He added: "Asking 150 questions on unrealistic and obscure scenarios cannot come close to giving a representative view of the 1.3 billion journeys that are made every year by train.

"The researchers haven't actually asked for the cheapest ticket in all the scenarios and even where they have done, they have explicitly excluded the cheapest fares."

He added: "Even though the magazine only surveyed 1,500 people, it claims its research is more accurate than that of the independent watchdog Passenger Focus, which twice a year samples more than 27,000 passengers and whose latest survey found that 84% were satisfied with train services."

A Department for Transport spokesman said: "Train operators are obliged to sell the most appropriate through fares for their journey but it's clear more needs to be done to ensure their customers are offered the best deals available.

"That's why we have asked Atoc to put forward proposals to make ticket retailing easier for passengers and more efficient for the taxpayer."

[Boppy]

Not sure what the other journeys were but I'd say "two round trips from Oxford to Cardiff in a week" is not an "unrealistic scenario" as the Train operators claim.

From just these forums we always have people asking about journeys that are maybe not common and what the best fare is.  The point is these are the journeys where staff need to be providing the best help.  Journeys that are simple in nature is not where as much advice is required.

Boppy.

[ChrisB]

It isn't - but the NRE^‡(resolve) website couldn't handle it, as it is set up to handle only one journey at a time.

Something which the geeks at Which? know about, so to then make a big thing over it is just cheap journalism, in my view. They used to be better.

[Tim]

I think that the critcism of the website might not relate to the two journeys per week situation.

I tend to agree with Boppy, the staff need to be up to speed with all sinarios including those that are uncommon.  If staff are not up to it, they need to be retraine dor replaced or the system dummed down so that the staff can cope with it.

[vacman]

The survey appears to be missleading but lets face it, I work with tickets every day and I find it confusing, something does need to be done, even if it is just a standardisation of Peak, Off-Peak and Super Off-Peak times!

[readytostart]

From the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page):

Rail users are paying higher fares than they need to because of poor training for station and National Rail Inquiries staff, says Which? magazine.

Poor training of the BBC proofreaders too!

[ChrisB]

Unfortunately, that way of spelling even appears in dictionaries now - it's another Americanism.....

BUT - it does make sense to offer the cheapest fare - but where else in retailing is this the case? You look for fuel & it's up to you, you look for a laptop / PC, it's up to you to find the cheapest product that suits your requirements....

So why are the press all hung up on fares?......

[broadgage]

BUT - it does make sense to offer the cheapest fare - but where else in retailing is this the case? You look for fuel & it's up to you, you look for a laptop / PC, it's up to you to find the cheapest product that suits your requirements....

So why are the press all hung up on fares?......

Because rail fares are far more complex than most other purchases needlessly so in my view.
Petrol does not vary much in price, and this price is generally clearly advertised.
Imagine the confusion if petrol went up to ^6 a litre, BUT was still available at ^1, only at certain filling stations and only at certain times of day, these times being different each day, and also different according to whom operated the filling station.
In event that traffic congestion caused a later than expected arrival at the pump, then a fine of 4 times the expected price being payable .
Oh and you would have to pay in advance, and face a protracted battle to get a refund if no petrol appeared.
And the petrol would vary widely in qaulity, but you would not know if it was good or not until afterwards.
That would be a closer analogy !

And sometimes it would be cheaper to buy 12 litres and throw 6 away, if you only wanted 6.

[grahame]

Which's basket of journeys probably doesn't reflect the typical mix of ticket sales, though it may reflect the typical mixture of tickets available. And it possibly includes journeys that have given particular problems in past years.   So as an overall gauge of how good the product offered is, it's not terribly good.

ATOC^» (Association of Train Operating Companies See - here)'s conjecture that it's all OK because the journeys that test purchasers enquired about were unrealistic is also stretching the truth - I know very well (and I'm sure that ATOC do) that there is an incredibly wide range of journeys made and individual requirements, and to suggest that it's OK for the system to charge more than is necessary because a fare isn't a common one is rather missing the point.

I note the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) spokesman says "Train operators are obliged to sell the most appropriate through fares for their journey" (my emphasis), giving continued permission to the railway ticket sales folks to sell expensive long distance tickets when a split series would save the customer money, and the customer asks for "the cheapest way to Chippenham" or whatever it is.

Alas - little credit to any of the three at a management level.   Huge sympathy to the staff who have to translate customer requirements into best deals on obscureish requests (especially those who face customers who are just doing it to test them).  And a reminder that the current fare system is a bit of a farce at times.

[tramway]

BUT - it does make sense to offer the cheapest fare - but where else in retailing is this the case? You look for fuel & it's up to you, you look for a laptop / PC, it's up to you to find the cheapest product that suits your requirements....

So why are the press all hung up on fares?......

Imagine the confusion if petrol went up to ^6 a litre, BUT was still available at ^1, only at certain filling stations and only at certain times of day, these times being different each day, and also different according to whom operated the filling station.
In event that traffic congestion caused a later than expected arrival at the pump, then a fine of 4 times the expected price being payable .

And you can only fill up at a different time from the same filling station depending who you had purchased it from.

Or is that what you were stating above.  

Edited to contribute the following:

I've recently re-read a RAIL 612 from early 2009 and a Barry Doe article seemed relevant regarding OP^▸ (Original Poster / topic starter) return restictions and their complexity, I couldn't find it online but found this covering the same issues.

http://www.northamptonrug.org.uk/documents/pdf/R639FD.pdf

How on earth any normal punter could appreciate that these workarounds might be available is prehaps the root of the WHICH? issue. TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company)'s will sell what you ask for, in the case in the link I would suspect NO LM^▸ (London Midland - recent franchise) booking clerk would suggest a passenger not buy the restricted ticket and get a the lower unrestricted (throw away 6 litre) version.

[IndustryInsider]

I've recently re-read a RAIL 612 from early 2009 and a Barry Doe article seemed relevant regarding OP^▸ (Original Poster / topic starter) return restictions and their complexity, I couldn't find it online but found this covering the same issues.

The great fares guru himself felt obliged to apologise for two misleading statements in previous RAIL magazine's in the current issue.  By no means for the first time either!  Now, if even he can get confused with giving information that he has the opportunity to re-check as often as he wants before publication, then your average enquiry clerk (who only gets the one chance to get it right) is bound to make mistakes given the complexity of the system.

[ChrisB]

But we should rail (ha-ha) against the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) as they are allowing their franchisses to do this. One para in each franchise detailing the types of ticket they can sell cures this problem in one fell swoop....

Get to it.....