Should rail passengers have more rights?

Haggisman

Haggisman

Haggisman

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Joined
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I've just seen an article stating that rail fares are going to be increasing by 5.9% next year - this seems like an absolute **** take to me considering the service provided (or lack thereof) during the last few months.

Normally if a company consistently fails to provide the service you are paying for, then you would cancel it, but obviously in this case for many, transport is a necessity, and there aren't any realistic alternatives, so should customers have more rights to compensation in the case of delayed & cancelled journeys?

At the moment, the most you can claim back is the cost of your ticket, and that's only in the case of a 2 hour or more delay. For monthly season ticket holders, this is limited to 1/20th the ticket cost.

I don't feel this adequately compensates for the costs of alternative travel (e.g. 1/20 of my partner's train ticket is £3.20, for a return bus ticket it costs her £4, so she's down at least 80p every time). I had to drive her to work the other day as the bus didn't turn up either, which cost £12, so almost £9 down.

As far as I'm aware, it's basically up to the rail company whether to offer additional compensation for alternative travel in these circumstances, but this doesn't seem right to me; even ignoring the time cost and inconvenience caused, there are tangible and provable financial costs caused by their breach of contract, so should there not be legislation in place to cover claims for reasonable alternative travel?

I'd be happy to pay a bit more for a reliable service, but it doesn't seem the current model is fit for purpose - how would one go about trying to change this?
 
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I'm not sure anything more than a proportionate refund of the ticket cost is justified - it's a service not a right... It really sucks that train travel is so unreliable and I can see why your partner is annoyed, but lack of additional compensation isn't the issue imo.

I'd start with:
- increased subsidies to network rail to fund more improvement work.
- changes to franchise specifications to more effectively incentivise TOCs to engage in long term planning for workforce etc, and increase penalties for delayed or cancelled services (as seen recently the current incentives / penalties for many TOCs haven't worked that well). This would probably also result in greater subsidies.

Longer term structural reform to nationalise the TOCs or split network rail up or whatever might help as well if carefully planned, but would need a government happy to plan long term and spend a bit of money to achieve long term goals.

Some kind of integrated public transport ticketing system would be nice too.
 
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GreatAuk said:
I'm not sure anything more than a proportionate refund of the ticket cost is justified - it's a service not a right...
Click to expand...

While true, it's not unheard of for contracts to include clauses where failure to maintain a reasonable level of service results in compensation payments. If it was the odd occasion it wouldn't be so bad, but in this case the costs of alternative travel can be many multiples of the original ticket cost, and like I said that's ignoring the time and inconvenience it causes. These aren't isolated incidents, since June it's been almost 20% of journeys which have been severely delayed/cancelled, you're talking hours and hours of waiting around for trains which are never going to arrive, the stress of being late for work constantly, late home constantly, having to pay for buses and taxis, dragging our 2 year old out of bed at 11pm because there's no other way for her to get to/from work etc.

Edit: flight delay compensation is a good example, in most cases the compensation not only covers the ticket cost, but also reflects the disruption caused by the delay/cancellation.

You mention increased penalties for delayed & cancelled services, so surely increasing the level of compensation to passengers (e.g. Those actually affected by it) would be the most appropriate way for those penalties to be implemented?

Sadly I think you're right about needing a government with long term plans (or in fact any plans would be an improvement), but I thought we were trying to get people out of cars and discourage people from driving into city centres - e.g. Birmingham has a clean air zone which means it costs me £8 to drive in. That's all very well, but when there aren't viable and reliable alternatives, then what exactly are people supposed to do?
 
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I sometimes find that a train is a couple of carriages too short because some people are standing in the aisles and around the toilets / exit doors. Yes there is 1st class, but standard class should still be treated as standard, not cattle class. Having to stand on a busy commuter bus or on a tube isn't so much an issue of as you're only on it for 5-15 minutes.

As for the recent strikes, I had to book a taxi to/from an event on one of the strike days that I couldn't back down from because I had tickets for it. The roads were notably busier because everyone had the same idea as me. Less people on public transport and more cars on the road is counter-productive.
 
Haggisman said:
I've just seen an article stating that rail fares are going to be increasing by 5.9% next year - this seems like an absolute **** take to me considering the service provided (or lack thereof) during the last few months.

Normally if a company consistently fails to provide the service you are paying for, then you would cancel it, but obviously in this case for many, transport is a necessity, and there aren't any realistic alternatives, so should customers have more rights to compensation in the case of delayed & cancelled journeys?

At the moment, the most you can claim back is the cost of your ticket, and that's only in the case of a 2 hour or more delay. For monthly season ticket holders, this is limited to 1/20th the ticket cost.

I don't feel this adequately compensates for the costs of alternative travel (e.g. 1/20 of my partner's train ticket is £3.20, for a return bus ticket it costs her £4, so she's down at least 80p every time). I had to drive her to work the other day as the bus didn't turn up either, which cost £12, so almost £9 down.

As far as I'm aware, it's basically up to the rail company whether to offer additional compensation for alternative travel in these circumstances, but this doesn't seem right to me; even ignoring the time cost and inconvenience caused, there are tangible and provable financial costs caused by their breach of contract, so should there not be legislation in place to cover claims for reasonable alternative travel?

I'd be happy to pay a bit more for a reliable service, but it doesn't seem the current model is fit for purpose - how would one go about trying to change this?
Click to expand...

Think you are on the wrong track there!
 
Haggisman said:
...snip... rail fares are going to be increasing by 5.9% next year - this seems like an absolute **** take to me considering the service provided (or lack thereof) during the last few months.

...snip...

I'd be happy to pay a bit more for a reliable service, but it doesn't seem the current model is fit for purpose - how would one go about trying to change this?
Click to expand...

The recent strikes based on pay won't have helped, however by charging more they will in turn then have more money to be able to pay their employees.
That may help a little if used in that fashion

Therefore the increase you've referred to "should" will improve the reliability as in theory should be less strikes :)

Blue skies yeah
 
~Divine~Wind~ said:
The recent strikes based on pay won't have helped, however by charging more they will in turn then have more money to be able to pay their employees.
That may help a little if used in that fashion

Therefore the increase you've referred to "should" will improve the reliability as in theory should be less strikes :)

Blue skies yeah
Click to expand...
You and I both know that's not how it works in reality though :(
 
I can't see ir getting better. If it were me I'd just think of the ways I can avoid having to use public transport & invest my time/money in them:
Car
CBT test & cheap moped
E bike
E scooter
Etc
 
Railway infrastructure and stock should be state owned.
Most countrys other than the UK can do it well.
 
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Efour said:
Railway infrastructure and stock should be state owned.
Most countrys other than the UK can do it well.
Click to expand...
Infrastructure already is effectively state owned in the UK... Agree it probably makes sense for stock to be state owned or at least managed differently too though, the ROSCOS have always seemed like the least sensible part of the system to me.
 
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