Great Western Coffee Shop

Melksham to Reading ... up yesterday afternoon, back later today (Saturday) ticket from TVM.   Machine offers - on the front screen an off peak return at £63.90 and that sounds right to the uninitiated, right?

But - beware - can do better. 3 screens down (other tickets, period returns please, and super off peak) I find a ticket at £47.10 ... not very clear what the difference is; I happen to know that the only difference relates to which trains I can return on, and it's no different at all over the weekend.

I still think it's a shame on the rail industry for that they hide the best prices up front, and their apologists who tell us it would be too hard and expensive to change.

With a railcard, I reduced my ticket price to £31.05 - less than half of what I would have paid had I just used the "quick ticket" button without giving it more thought.

Based on experiences like this, I haven faith in the GWR / GBR promise that contactless payment for rail travel will - as they have promised - work out you cheapest fare and only charge that.  I hope my lack of faith is ill founded

I notice on the machines at Swindon there is a button marked "Ticket Wizard". 

With a queue behind me I didn't have a chance to try it - and indeed that in itself may be the problem.  If that button is a way to help you find the best ticket would you be prepared to work your way through it with someone behind huffing and puffing waiting to get their ticket?

All TVMs - whoever makes them and whichever TOC owns them - look up their fares from the same database. What differs is how they then show the available choice, and you might expect, all other things being equal, that the cheapest would be displayed first; certainly I am aware of TVM suppliers whose kit can do just that. Ultimately that is the sort of thing the Department for Transport should be looking at as a higher priority than coming up with a new logo for the rail system or complaining that modern seats are too hard when it was their own organisation that bought the trains with hard seats in the first place!  Do you though also show that cheaper ticket at the top of the list at times it's not valid (maybe all day, maybe half an hour before) in case someone who sees it then decides to wait until the fare is cheaper?

So far as contactless payment fares are concerned, at least they will all presumably be going through a single "back office" which if properly designed can check all the options without anyone standing behind it tutting (although ultimately it will have to process all the journeys it gets fed with in an acceptable time, so there is a virtual data processing pressure).  Where contactless can fall down is in the lack of visibility of what is being charged at the time you make the journey. Stroll through the gates to get a coffee before the last peak train leaves and you will logically be charged a peak fare as you can't tell the gate what you are doing. A "cheapest fare" promise also doesn't give the full story; contactless may well charge that Super Off Peak fare if you travel at a relevant time, but its existence is now even more buried than on screen 3 of a TVM, and you will only know to travel at the right time if you think to check beforehand for every new journey just in case.

I think it is, or at least it can be - I use contactless now on TfL from Taplow and it's noticeable how much cheaper travel seems to be........but perhaps GWR are happy taking the money, they certainly seem to be dragging their heels when it comes to implementation.

Before I travel on a train in London I check whether outward and return journeys will be cheaper as contactless compared to buying a ticket with my Network railcard. Sometimes they are, sometimes not. Although I guess that without a railcard it will usually be cheaper with contactless.

There is a lack of consistency as well. On the machine at Pershore the front screen shows tickets to Worcester and Evesham the most common local destinations. However the ticket for Worcester is a single and the one for Evesham is a return.

The arrangement for  time of change from peak to off-peak is a problem as well. There are trains to Worcester at 08:03 and 08:48 on a weekday. The off-peak ticket availability starts at 08:44. If you arrive at the station at 08:41 and try to buy a ticket you will only be offered an anytime ticket. In this case that means most railcards will be invalid as well because both stations are in the Network railcard area. Thus making the return fare £5.70 instead of £3.35.

Unless of course the passenger fails to notice that the front screen fare is a single and ends up paying £5.60 for an anytime single without railcard discount and then another £3.30 to get back home later.

Total £8.90 thats even slightly more than the bus fare ::)

At least at Pershore there's only a limited number of routes. At Worcester, five routes to London are offered by the machine - on GWR via Evesham, on GWR via Evesham or Stroud (via Stroud is slower and this route is more expensive), on Chiltern via Birmingham and Banbury, on West Midlands Trains via Birmingham and Northampton, and on Virgin via Birmingham. All have peak/off-peak/super off-peak variations.

I distrust my ability to read the small print under the choices to ensure that I get the 'right' ticket, so I always buy my ticket from the person behind the window (thank goodness both stations have a person). The machine's screen is (rightly) set at the appropriate height for a wheelchair user; alas, that means I need to kneel on the floor to be able to read it.

Because both stations are operated by West Midlands trains, the route via Northampton is given an unnecessary prominence. It's cheap, but surely no-one ever travels that way?

The layout of the screens is atrocious. The first screen offers a weird range of destinations AND tickets - why doesn't it start by asking where you're going? There's no attempt to use colour to flag up cheaper tickets that are not available at this moment. Most internet systems do at least auto-sort the offers into a most-popular order.

And a simple question about contactless : if I go through some as-yet non-existent gates here and out through the ones at Paddington, will I be charged the via-Evesham or via-Evesham-or-Stroud fare? And what would happen at Euston - the cheap via-Northampton or the expensive West Coast fare? And at Marylebone I could have travelled via Evesham on GWR, or via Birmingham with Chiltern? Perhaps I'm supposed to get off at Evesham (or Stroud or Northampton) and scan a barcode on the wall? Or does the contactless want to have access to my phone's GPS (now there's an interesting issue of privacy)?

I don't think contactless is available until either barriers or a tap-in facility is provided? So the barriers at Paddington would probably reject your contactless tap-out. (I would hope)

The front screen offering is just that - a set of tickets most often bought from that station. Not i9ntended to offer the cheapest possible fare to a particular destination, although the peak tickets are usually withdrawn after the peak time.

To see all the fares to a particular destination, search for that station. It will only show tickets valid for travel at the time they are requested, so you should be able to travel on any option via any route shown. It is then for you to choose the ticket you wish to buy by checking any return restrictions - just the same as that return time being asked of you at a ticket office window.

TVMs aren't (and can never be) mind readers. Chiltern new TVMs are interesting as they won't display fares until you put in your destination & time of outward & return travel. If only the touch-screens were properly set-up as the main problem is refusal to accept a finger touch sometimes....

Taking my example, then, Chris, I would challenge you and GWR as to why the front screen offers an off-peak return to Reading at £63.90 rather than a super off-peak at £47.10.

There are no trains and connections at all from Melksham on which the off peak is valid but the super off-peak is not, and just 2 trains a day on Mondays to Fridays only coming back where it makes a difference.

If the off peak Melksham to Reading return is sold more often than the super off peak Melksham to Reading, could it just be because of rail industry marketing which sells a high number of this product to people who don't realise that there's a lower cost alternative?

My emphasis in the quote - showing exactly why (at least on Monday - Friday) it offers the higher fare. To prevent one from buying the cheaper fare & not being aware of the 2 trains that you can't return on. By placing it in an area by which it is more obvious that the traveller has chosen that fare specifically (so has had the option to note the restriction), they can point to this when travelling on a restricted train.

Which fare is offered on the front screen at weekends when the lower fare is always valid - have you checked specifically at weekends? I suspect the lower fare may be there.

I checked it on 25th March, when the next train back that would have required an off peak rather than a super off peak was not until the 28th ... returns on that day:

Anytime require - 05:49, 08:13 and 18:13
Off Peak - 10:27, 16:58 and 17:02
Super Off Peak OK - 11:01, 12:43, 13:01, 14:27, 15:02, 19:01 and 20:13

By your argument, the front screen should always offer the anytime ticket (£123.80) so that people are safe if they happen to return a couple of days later in the early morning, or on the 18:13.  Great wheeze for promoting a premium fare where it's not needed, and the icing on the cake is that you can then justify it by saying "but it's the most popular ticket" ...

As I said, checking specifically on a weekend day is really required.

You wouldn't go into a shop and simply pick the first product of the shelf that you were looking for - you check the size, colour, type, etc. Ditto when shopping online. So why would you assume that the ticket offered on a front screen suyited your specfic travel arrangement?

Frankly, I think that the front screen should have NO fares on it - I'm warming to the Chiltern TVM if they can sort out the touch-screen, and make everyone take slightly longer but get the cheapest fare they need. Questions get asked at a ticket office & the same questions really need asking on a TVM.

I have just been to the station.  It's a Sunday

The TVM on the front screen is offering the off peak to Reading at £63.90 when full flexibility today is available on a super off peak at £47.10 ...


You shouldn't (and we don't here) but many people do, assuming the public transport is a service run by reputable companies who will wish to sell you an appropriate product, with a view to gaining your future business and good reviews.

I took a look at the screens when I was at the station a few minutes ago, and it clearly told me there were restriction on the trains I could use that off peak ticket on.  It didn't tell me what the restrictions were - suggested I look on a web site or speak to a member of the staff - however, the help point is nowhere near the TVM so that's none-trivial.   Only if I know to press "other ticket type" on that screen, then "returns", then "super off peak" do I find the fare that I wanted.   The "other ticket types" is just one button along with many others offering railcards, how you want to pay, how many tickets, etc and I contend that many people do not know it's there ... there's some interesting Transport Focus work on TVMs but it looks at the general sales not at specific enquiries and I suspect that the TVM does sell most people the right tickets for our local journeys.

)
I am very much in two, if not three, minds about this subject

If a passenger buys a ticket that is “too cheap” ie not valid for all or part of their journey due to the times of travel, they get penalised with a Penalty Fare

)If a passenger buys a ticket that is more expensive than necessary for the journey they are making, they are getting ripped off (whether they realise it or not) and the TOC pockets some ill-gotten gains

It sounds like a “heads I win, tails you lose” situation to me, and one where the passenger should not be held responsible for finding their own cheapest fare (hidden metaphorically in a locked filing cabinet in a flooded basement with a sign on the door saying Beware of the Leopard    ((c) Douglas Adams 1978)

Now we can tinker with TVM programming all we like, but this is being caused by two underlying factors, these being the hideously over-complicated fares structure and a lack of sufficient staff at stations.

I can understand that some complications and many options might arise for somebody wanting to go from Chetnole to Forsinard, but Melksham to Reading using the same TOC throughout should not fall into this category

So what are the railways going to do about it Chris?

That is incorrect - you can only be excessed if in possession of the wrong fare (but the correct destination, adult not child ticket, fare class you travelled in)


It has to be sorted out - Work is already underway with various papers being submitted to GBR from interested parties. GBR are developing one website to retail fares, so that new booking engine should (hopefully) be used to drive the TVMs at stations - and I'm very much hoping that Chiltern's new TVM & software is the direction that GBR are heading in, where you have to choose an open return or input your outward & return times, with a warning that if different timings are then used, you need to check your fare before starting your journey(ies)

It's likely to be valid....so yes, that's the answer.

Indeed - so why doesn't the machine charge £47.10 today rather that £63.90, and let anyone who wants to come back on tomorrow's 10:27, 16:58 or 17:02 pay the extra £16.80? 

It makes sense for anyone who just may want to take one of these trains back to buy super off peak and excess if they need to.  I've done it a number of times when working in London ...

It has to be sorted out
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It's "had to sorted out" for years ... but because it will cost the TOCs / DfT in lost revenue, it hasn't been their priority and with covid and climate warming around, there's been lots of convenient long grass to park such things in.