RAIL FARES

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A new investigation has found that train passengers are being ripped off when buying tickets because of poor advice from rail staff. A team from Which? magazine, who carried out the study, asked station ticket office staff and National Rail Enquiries Service (NRES) staff about the cheapest way to take specific turn-up-and-go journeys by train. Despite the UK rail system being the most expensive in Europe, two in three station clerks and two in five NRES staff failed to quote the cheapest fare. In some cases, the fare quoted was more than double the cheapest available option.

Where there was a choice of train company, Which? was quoted the more expensive fare 27 out of 50 times, with 80% of station ticket offices ignoring the cheaper option. Staff on the railways are failing to inform passengers about the cheapest options available to them, resulting in them paying more than double the lowest rates. A team from Which? magazine, who carried out the study, asked station ticket office staff and National Rail Enquiries Service (NRES) staff about the cheapest way to take specific turn-up-and-go journeys by train.

Asking about the the cheapest way to get from London to Grantham in Lincolnshire, Which? was quoted a £57 fare on National Express East Coast when the best option was a £22 journey on First Hull Trains for a journey departing around the same time. When asked about making the same journey twice in one week, two thirds of staff gave the price of two returns, although a rover or season ticket would have been better value. More than half the questions about breaking a journey en route were answered incorrectly.

When asked about journeys close to the end of a peak period, staff tended not to mention that delaying the time of departure, sometimes by just a few minutes, could result in savings. Which? also checked how efficient lost property offices were, and found that five out of 16 train stations failed to contact owners when a coat and wallet clearly labelled with a name and phone number was handed in. At one station, at Luton in Bedfordshire, the coat was returned to the owner, but not the wallet or the cash it contained, with staff unable to explain what had happened

Which? magazine editor Martyn Hocking said, “If you just want to know the cheapest way to get from A to B, you’d expect staff at the station ticket office or on the end of the rail helpline to be able to tell you. It’s not acceptable that passengers could be paying well over the odds because of poor advice. Rail firms must ensure that staff are properly trained and that fare information is clear.” When Which? checked the quality of rail fare advice in 2007, station staff answered 60 per cent of questions correctly and call centre staff answered 40% correctly.

Michael Roberts, chief executive of the Association of Train Operating Companies, said, “This report is seriously misleading. Independent research last year, using a sample of passengers 50 times the size used by Which? and based on the kind of questions most commonly asked by passengers, found that the correct information on rail fares was given 99% of the time. To help us improve how we handle queries, we have asked Which? to provide us with the actual questions it posed but, for the second time, the magazine has declined to do so.” (Source: Daily Express, Aug/09)

Rail fares in the UK are set for an above-inflation rise of 4% on average in 2005. It has also emerged some passengers trying to plan ahead for Christmas cannot yet book cheaper advance tickets because of uncertainty over track work. Season tickets and saver fares are to go up 4%, while rail firms' cheap day returns and advance bookings will rise by between 2% and 7.2%. The rail industry says the rises are necessary to help pay for investment to improve services, but one rail union has dismissed those claims as "disingenuous".

Regulated fares, set by the Strategic Rail Authority and including season and saver tickets, will rise on average by 4%. Unregulated fares, determined by individual rail companies, such as cheap day returns, long distance open tickets and advance purchases will increase by varying amounts, also averaging around 4%. Passengers will be asked to pay 7.2% more on tickets for some Silverlink services into London Euston station. The lowest increase, at 2%, is on Hull Trains. Passengers are being promised they will notice the benefits, and some season ticket holders will get discounts because of poor punctuality.

Rail companies retained millions in compensation paid to them by Network Rail for delays attributable to the infrastructure, said the union. General secretary Gerry Doherty said, "It is disingenuous of ATOC to suggest that they will use fare increases to improve services when the funds raised will not help Network Rail to make the trains run on time or reduce future compensation payments."

He added, "Large investments such as £7bn spent on the West coast main line were funded by the taxpayer not by the train companies from their fare revenue. If Britain's trains are to get moving, it is infrastructure which needs to be improved and this is the responsibility of Network Rail. Raising fare prices will only place a greater burden on an already disgruntled travelling public."

Passengers trying to book cheap rail tickets for Easter will encounter yet another fiasco as rail chiefs blamed one another for delays to the publication of timetables. Rail companies were hoping to tell passengers which services would be running, but that information will not be available on many routes because no one knows when engineering work will begin or end, it is alleged. This means that those wanting to travel on specific trains where discounted fares are valid, will not be able to buy the tickets. It could also mean the state-backed infrastructure organisation, Network Rail, will have to pay passengers compensation for services that fail to materialise.

The news emerged as the Rail Passengers' Council (RPC) revealed that more than seven out of 10 calls received by its new national hotline were from passengers complaining they could not book ahead. Network Rail was hoping to give travellers six weeks' notice of the Easter timetable, following the situation before Christmas when passengers could only book two weeks ahead on most long-distance routes. On some lines there were only days to spare. On other routes passengers had booked on non-existent services and were entitled to taxis to get them to their destination.

Industry sources say that on Boxing Day hundreds of cabs were provided for passengers turning up at Euston, one of which had to go to Aberdeen, reputedly at a cost of more than £600. Train operators intend to give Network Rail a roasting over its alleged inability to plan ahead at a summit organised by the Office of the Rail Regulation today. Passengers had been promised that by now they would be able to book six weeks in advance. The notice period was meant to increase to eight weeks in the summer and 12 weeks by September - the industry target imposed by the Conservative government ahead of privatisation in 1996.

Virgin Trains said yesterday it was only able to give two weeks' notice of weekend services, three weeks' on Saturdays on the west coast main line. A spokesman for Network Rail said that it had set engineering works for Easter in the first week in January and it had not "changed a jot". He said train operators kept making "late bids" to change the timetable. "There is no reason why the cheapest fares should not be on sale," he said. One industry source argued that there was an incentive for train operators to say that discounted tickets were not available. While an Apex return fare to Manchester cost £20, a Saver ticket, available on a "turn up and go" basis on off-peak trains, cost £50.

A senior source at a train operator said that on most long-distance routes the notice period was around three weeks. "We put in our final requests to amend the timetable 12 weeks ahead. We find there is a delay in Network Rail coming back to us and that is why there is no accurate final timetable. "There is no incentive for us to fail to give a reasonable notice period. We tend to lose passengers who can't get Apex fares. They either go by coach or don't make the journey." First Great Western told its passengers that it could not even guarantee the timetable for this weekend because of engineering work. (Source: The Independent)

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