On train ticket sales

[whole diary]

[Kernow Otter]

From an observation made on Saturday at Lostwithiel, somewhere in the region of 24 people boarded a westbound train, of which 15 or so alighted at Par minutes later.  Tickets were sold on board for any remaining boarders.

The are no ticket facilities at Lostwithiel, and with only 7 minutes until the TM^‡(resolve) crew change at Par little opportunity for ticket sales on the train.

Surely if tickets are not made available for sale, then the usage statistics for Lostwithiel do not truly reflect how many people are actually using the station, and hence the actual demand is not properly represented.

Any way round this ?

[JayMac]

Was the ticket office open at Par? If so, all those who hadn't paid on board should've paid there.

Onus is on the passenger to pay at the earliest opportunity. That can be at a destination station if facilities exist.

[Chris from Nailsea]

According to National Rail Enquiries:

Ticket office opening
Monday-Friday 07:20-14:10
Saturday 07:20-14:10
Sunday Closed

Self-service machines
Yes

[6 OF 2 redundant adjunct of unimatrix 01]

So what happens if you arrive in par at 1500

[JayMac]

You send a cheque or postal order to the TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company)! Or buy the reverse journey from the TVM^▸ (Ticket Vending Machine)!

Joking.

If no opportunity has arisen to buy a ticket for your journey then you have got a free ride. That's the rail industry's fault, not the passenger's.

One word of caution, never walk past an open booking office without having purchased a ticket for your journey. If there's a revenue block at the exit you could be liable for a Penalty Fare, or prosecution.

[bobm]

Interesting twist on an HST^▸ (High Speed Train) from Swindon to London Paddington.  Instead of coming through the carriages, the train manager announced he was in his office in Coach A if anyone wanted to come to buy a ticket!! 

[Kernow Otter]

We remained on the train as we were going further west, (and what good value that Devon and Cornwall Railcard is), but everyone detraining in Par, went straight out of the gate, past the TVM^▸ (Ticket Vending Machine), and away.  Of course it was a different thing when the entrance and ticket office were one and the same at Par but..... 

While the revenue is important, it is the lack of registration of station use that I find more concerning.  Presumably if only 70% of those people actually using Lostwithiel Station (for example) are recorded as doing so because they are sold a ticket, then the usage statistics that the new franchise document is based on is fundamentally flawed before it is launched ?

There is a consistent reporting of a lack of ticket checking across our network, so if we extrapolate that assumed 70% from Lostwithiel, then is the entire passenger demand assumption out by that same 70% (for example)

 

[grahame]

The ORR^» (Office of Rail and Road formerly Office of Rail Regulation - about) figures are based on ticket sales - long report on last year's at http://www.rail-reg.gov.uk/upload/pdf/stn_usage_report_0910.pdf - and they list tickets which are excluded and assumptions made.  As you would expect with a complex fare system, they have a longish list of tickets which don't actually get counted again stations, and on the flip side they mention return tickets only used one way, and split ticketing, which are counted as multiple journeys where only one journey is made.   

In some cases the "quirks" of the fare system lead to a dramatic difference between ticket sales and journeys made. In one particular case, a 64% drop in passenger numbers reported was due to a change in the fare structure;  people who had been in the habit of buying a cheaper ticket for a longer journey from a near-"parliamentary" station stopped buying those tickets ...

I couldn't see mention in the report about any allowance made for ticketless travel (but then the report states it's based on ticketed travel) either illegally or legally.

Most of the people on the ground and the incumbent operators know full well where the oddities lie, station by station.  The knowledge of these issues in London (DfT^» (Department for Transport - about), ORR and their various consultants) varies - as witnessed by the ORR report described above which states "Reason for decline not apparent" against that 64% drop I mention above.   And I fear it would be something of a miracle if bidders for the franchise who have not previously operated trains in this area were aware of where to add pinches of salt (or take pinches of salt away form) the data.

Questions I have:

1. When a list of bidders in announced, will there also be an announcement of how to feed local inputs on topics like this to them?

2. I know stats are hard to gather on ticketless travel, but are there any indicators / figures available at all for either the illegal or legal?

[John R]

For interest, the 10/11 figures are due out tomorrow.

[jester]

Lostwithiel has always proved to be a problem due to its close proximity to the next stop (in either direction) Another problem encountered a while back was with Advance fares. People from Lostwithiel unable to source them and therfore purchasing a ticket from say, Truro _Pad or St.Austell - Rdg, to enable them to get a cheap fare! Obviously not the correct thing to do, and 'bending' the figures again.

[vacman]

funny how most people who get on at Lostwithiel are always sat right at the fron, even though the ectrance to the station as at the back, if i were cynical i would assume that they did that on purpose.

[vacmanfan]

You have to reverse this and look at how many people say that they come from lostwithiel to avoid a PF^▸ (Penalty Fare) from revenue or at the gates at Truro.  The lack of facilities works in a lot of peoples favours too....

[grahame]

For interest, the 10/11 figures are due out tomorrow.

Published, at http://www.rail-reg.gov.uk/server/show/nav.1529