Season tickets and online purchases

[whole diary]

[TaplowGreen]

And that's why you won't see payouts being automatically given, and you have to claim - so you commit fraud if you claim for a service you weren't on (deliberate act) rather than nominating your out/return services & the operator assuming your on them for payout purposes.

I detest that things have to be done this way, but Brits will always rip the system off.....

If someone has purchased Advance tickets for a specific train using a GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) account and that train is cancelled or heavily delayed, explain to me why monies cannot be refunded directly to the customer's payment card without the customer having to faff around filling in forms?

The answer for season tickets (aside from running a more reliable service) would be to retain the monthly/annual discount, but fix it at a less derisory amount, reflecting the inconvenience suffered- 15% monthly/20% annual would be acceptable - the excess could perhaps be partly funded out of the vast amounts of compensation paid by NR^» (Network Rail - home page) to GWR (which we're not allowed to know about in any detail despite the fact that it's funded by us).

[JayMac]

If someone has purchased Advance tickets for a specific train using a GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) account and that train is cancelled or heavily delayed, explain to me why monies cannot be refunded directly to the customer's payment card without the customer having to faff around filling in forms?

Virgin West Coast already do this. Perhaps other train companies will (or should be compelled to) follow suit.
https://www.virgintrains.co.uk/delayrepay/automatic

[TaplowGreen]

If someone has purchased Advance tickets for a specific train using a GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) account and that train is cancelled or heavily delayed, explain to me why monies cannot be refunded directly to the customer's payment card without the customer having to faff around filling in forms?

Virgin West Coast already do this. Perhaps other train companies will (or should be compelled to) follow suit.
https://www.virgintrains.co.uk/delayrepay/automatic

I suspect only if they are dragged kicking and screaming  - far easier to hide behind processes and keep the money in the Corporate coffers.

[eightf48544]

I detest that things have to be done this way, but Brits will always rip the system off.....

Chicken and Egg it's a crap system so we try and rip it off.

[IndustryInsider]

The answer for season tickets (aside from running a more reliable service) would be to retain the monthly/annual discount, but fix it at a less derisory amount, reflecting the inconvenience suffered- 15% monthly/20% annual would be acceptable - the excess could perhaps be partly funded out of the vast amounts of compensation paid by NR^» (Network Rail - home page) to GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) (which we're not allowed to know about in any detail despite the fact that it's funded by us).

I don't see how that is a better answer than delay/repay which actually reflects on the delays experienced by each passenger.  Granted, the passenger has to keep a log and claim rather than it being done automatically, but surely that's better than getting a 20% discount if punctuality falls 0.1% below some figure or possibly getting no discount at all (despite no doubt being delayed many times over the year) if that figure happens to be 0.1% above the trigger?

[NickB]

I've often thought that a good approach would be to abolish thresholds and link compensation to a 1-X calculation. For example if punctuality is 93% then a 7% discount applies, and if it is 85% then a 15% discount applies. As it stands there is no incentive for the TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) to try and improve services once they cross the 5% discount level (which is every year and must surely be an expected level of compensation).

[ChrisB]

One quick way for the TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) simply to add further delay minutes to its timetable

[IndustryInsider]

I've often thought that a good approach would be to abolish thresholds and link compensation to a 1-X calculation. For example if punctuality is 93% then a 7% discount applies, and if it is 85% then a 15% discount applies. As it stands there is no incentive for the TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) to try and improve services once they cross the 5% discount level (which is every year and must surely be an expected level of compensation).

That's an interesting idea.  The reliability issue would need to be factored in as well somehow (otherwise there would be too much of an incentive to simply cancel trains rather than run them late), but I've certainly heard of worse suggestions. 

Worth pointing out that although the London & Thames Valley region is bumping along at almost 5% below the trigger rate for punctuality, all other areas of the business are currently above the trigger rate so are not paying out any form of renewal discounts - something that delay/repay will make much fairer.

[NickB]

I would view a cancelled train to be a late train - if a train doesn't run, or doesn't stop to pick up its passengers (which is the sole purpose of trains), then that contributes towards the statistics in my opinion.
Re. The concentration of poor service in the Thames Valley it is an interesting point. My journey takes 20mins each way so under delay repay I will have to wait for a delay of 150% of my entire journey before I can claim(?!). That would seem to penalise commuters who tend to have the shorter journey times and who represent 100% of annual season ticket holders. This seems perverse given that the switch from 5% discount to delay repay is claimed to be targeted at improving our lot in life.

[IndustryInsider]

My journey takes 20mins each way so under delay repay I will have to wait for a delay of 150% of my entire journey before I can claim(?!). That would seem to penalise commuters who tend to have the shorter journey times and who represent 100% of annual season ticket holders. This seems perverse given that the switch from 5% discount to delay repay is claimed to be targeted at improving our lot in life.

I guess it depends how often you are delayed over 30 minutes each year - from what's been said on here from various commuters who post (including yourself) regarding the recent signalling issues then surely you'd be massively 'quids-in' compared with the current 5% annual renewal discount for poor punctuality.  That is unlikely to go to the maximum it can of 10% as reliability hardly ever falls below the trigger rate, indeed once the current massive upgrade programme is finished in a few years I would expect it to probably disappear all together.

I'll repeat again, if you are a GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) season ticket holder outside of the LTV^▸ (London [and] Thames Valley) area (inlcuding lots of similar length commutes into Bristol/Exeter etc.) then you currently get no discount, but under delay/repay you will be eligible for one every time you're 30 minutes late on either leg of the journey throughout the year.  That might only be a dozen or so times on the better performing routes, but it still reflects better on the customer experience than no discount al all!

Another point is that you are very fortunate that your commute is only 20 or so minutes for a journey of over 24 miles.  That compares very favourably with virtually every other commute into London of a similar distance by any operator.  As an example our forum member TaplowGreen pays slightly less for his slightly less 22.5 mile commute but he is faced with an average journey time of twice the one you have.  In other words, you win some, you lose some!

[JayMac]

One quick way for the TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) simply to add further delay minutes to its timetable

Except of course they can't. Service Level Commitments specify journey times.

[ChrisB]

Not all of them by any means

[JayMac]

Not all of them by any means

Sorry, I don't quite follow. Could you expand further to back the assertion that TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) could just add time to services to prevent compensation payouts or rig performance statistics?

[ChrisB]

Not sure what's to add. Not every point to point or point to PAD^» (Paddington (London) - next trains) has a specified max journey time in the SLC^▸ (Service Level Commitment). So there's nothing to prevent a TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) from massaging (extending) journey times to avoid/reduce Delay/Repay compensation.

The 5% charter discounts are ages-old agreed charters covered completely (& maybe more) by NR^» (Network Rail - home page)/other op comp payments. Can you really see TOCs agreeing to any increase if not covered by comp income?

[IndustryInsider]

I would suggest that moving to delay/repay will actually encourage less padding as with the delay threshold set at 30 minutes rather than 5 or 10 minutes it's less likely that adding a couple of minutes here or there would make so much of a difference in terms of the total number of trains delayed based on that threshold.  However, all TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) still produce performance figures based on the old passengers charter 5/10 minute threshold, regardless of whether they have adopted delay/repay, so perhaps nothing much would change.