Proposals to remove 15-minute Delay Repay

[The exile]

The rail community here is unserious and not very activist and it shows.

It's crap becuase nobody fights for anything.

Or in other words, not everyone on here shares your opinions and/or is following the sound advice to “choose your battles”.

 

[JamesT]

One of the big changes that has happened since privatisation is that train companies no longer hold trains to make connections, as they get penalised for doing so. The standard response now to a missed connection is "claim the delay repay".

Delay Repay was a way of ensuring that passengers got some sort of recompense, that at least some of the delay attribution money ended up in passengers' pockets and it wasn't all seen as ending up in TOC shareholders' pockets. The 15 minute DR was subsequently introduced because there was widespread discontent that not enough DR was being paid, that there were far too many delays where passengers got nothing. I suspect that if the DR15 is removed, that discontent will return.

If the government want to start chipping away at DR, they need to do something else to make it look like the railway is actually being run for the passengers, like incentivising TOCs to hold connections, rather than disincentivising them.

Though as pointed out every time someone raises holding connections, you're now delaying one train of people who may well have their own time-critical things to do, in order to help some people (fewer?) who are already late. Why isn't running as many trains as possible to time for the benefit of passengers?

 

[furnessvale]

Except it didn't, that was one of the big fictions of 'privatisation'. Franchisees bid against a service specification - enhanced Delay Repay (DR) was in the specification and the track access agreements with associated delay attribution offset the cost. It was all always underwritten by the taxpayer but could be concealed within the smoke and mirrors of a faux 'privatisation' that left the taxpayer as guarantor of last resort.

What we are seeing now is Government having nothing to hide behind when funding the railway, so there is a lot more pressure to control costs. DR in is its current form is really not good value for money - it doesn't incentivise better performance and pays out indiscriminately whatever the cause of the problem, is rife for fraud and the money could be better spent elsewhere on passenger benefits. Of course any scaling back will be unpopular but that doesn't mean it's the wrong thing to do.

Let me rephrase my comment.

When the railway was private, the passenger received DR. Now the railway is state run he won't. That is what the passenger will see. The source of the money is immaterial to him. Good luck in convincing him otherwise.

 

[Falcon1200]

One of the big changes that has happened since privatisation is that train companies no longer hold trains to make connections,

Not holding trains for connections is not in any way unique to the privatised railway - I missed plenty of connections in BR days! Birmingham New Street being a particular culprit. But as mentioned in Post #153, holding connections delays more passengers, it also often spreads disruption across the network.

 

[AlterEgo]

I must admit, I don't recognise that characterisation of this forum. In particular many of us were quick to see through the LNER fares trial for what it is, very early on, far more so than Transport for the North and the Railway Press, which seem to be uncharacteristically supine on the issue.

Well, to take that apart - posting on a forum isn't really activism is it?

And latterly you correctly point out the railway press is supine on the issue. That's because it - and a lot of softer influence like podcasts, youtubers and bloggers - are mostly captured by the industry and/or have audiences which simply aren't interested in hearing how the industry is doing some bad stuff.

Try getting access and writing articles if you try and sink a TOC MD with a plum question or slag off policy wholesale. People aren't rude enough in general.

DR15 was a political sop and is very generous compared to many comparable networks in Europe. Let's just admit it straight up. But the idea that taking it away so you can invest £10m or so in the railway doesn't grasp the scale of what that means. That's about what a single footbridge at Theale cost - after ten years. That's the trade. It's a really stinky and stupid idea and it's bad politics for the railway.

 

[redreni]

Let me rephrase my comment.

When the railway was private, the passenger received DR. Now the railway is state run he won't. That is what the passenger will see. The source of the money is immaterial to him. Good luck in convincing him otherwise.

Yes, there's a real danger of that. Subsidy was much lower under BR than in the current privatisation era, and in my view part of the reason for that was ideological. Whatever is nationalised has to be underfunded as a matter of principle, it seems. And we're seeing it again now: a scheme that has always been government-funded, which a bipartisan consensus pushed for and which wasn't a problem under privatisation, is now seen as unaffordable all of a sudden. Sorry, no. I'm not buying that.

 

[thedbdiboy]

By reducing delay compensation entitlements?

I think it's a legitimate debate around the margins of the scheme. Any change to DR15 of course gets challenged but to declare any aspect off-limits under any circumstances is not constructive and you yourself acknowledge some of the issues with the current scheme.

I think they've been really clumsy in how they've handled all this, though.

I completely agree - but behind the ridiculous press statements and Tik-Tok videos there are signs of a shift from 'cut everything to the bone' to 'spend money where it can clearly be shown to be a benefit of GBR'. That is a very rare opportunity and creates the opportunity to keep money inside the industry rather than having it clawed back by the Treasury.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I think it's a legitimate debate around the margins of the scheme. Any change to DR15 of course gets challenged but to declare any aspect off-limits under any circumstances is not constructive and you yourself acknowledge some of the issues with the current scheme.

This is something you often get when debating stuff like fares reform, though. If we start from the principle of "nobody can be disadvantaged, ever", nothing will ever change. It is necessary to look at overall benefit, and much as I like getting a few quid back off an expensive fare when a 5 minute connection misses (and pretty much every journey with any sort of connection will trigger DR15 if one misses), despite the network not operating to levels of punctuality where 5 minute connections are even vaguely reliable a fair bit of the time, if it's costing the industry a fortune I'd rather they looked at other more passenger friendly options in disruption instead.

 

[AlterEgo]

This is something you often get when debating stuff like fares reform, though. If we start from the principle of "nobody can be disadvantaged, ever", nothing will ever change. It is necessary to look at overall benefit, and much as I like getting a few quid back off an expensive fare when a 5 minute connection misses (and pretty much every journey with any sort of connection will trigger DR15 if one misses), despite the network not operating to levels of punctuality where 5 minute connections are even vaguely reliable a fair bit of the time, if it's costing the industry a fortune I'd rather they looked at other more passenger friendly options in disruption instead.

What does, let's say, £10-15m (not a fortune btw) buy you in that respect?

 

[thedbdiboy]

Let me rephrase my comment.

When the railway was private, the passenger received DR. Now the railway is state run he won't. That is what the passenger will see. The source of the money is immaterial to him. Good luck in convincing him otherwise.

That's what - in the Political sphere - they call the 'optics', and you're dead right. But that is also why, although there may be attempts to trim the current scheme, the Government is powerfully incentivised to make GBR appear a success and that is currently the biggest protection against wholesale cutbacks.

 

[Bletchleyite]

What does, let's say, £10-15m (not a fortune btw) buy you in that respect?

Started a speculative thread to go with this one about what might be better options:

Proposal to remove 15 Minute Delay Repay - what could be done instead?

Separating this off from the main thread as that isn't speculative. What does, let's say, £10-15m (not a fortune btw) buy you in that respect? Small but beneficial things like cross TOC acceptance by default in the event of a cancellation or longer delay? (Once it's all GBR that costs a...

www.railforums.co.uk

 

[Belperpete]

Not holding trains for connections is not in any way unique to the privatised railway - I missed plenty of connections in BR days! Birmingham New Street being a particular culprit. But as mentioned in Post #153, holding connections delays more passengers, it also often spreads disruption across the network.

But often holding a connection for say 5:minutes wouldn't significantly delay other passengers, and wouldn't spread disruption across the network.

To take an example, in BR days it was common to hold the Matlock train at Derby for 5 - 10 minutes for a late running train from London. It didn't significantly delay other passengers, and didn't spread disruption. With the advent of delay attribution and delay repay, the Matlock train is now routinely let go on time, and those passengers off the London train who now have an hour or two to wait for the next Matlock train are just told to claim DR. And worse still, letting the Matlock train out ahead of the London train then further delays the London train. In cases where the delay was likely to be more than 5-10 minutes, then the Matlock train would be let go, and taxis arranged for the passengers who had missed the connection. Again, the standard response now is that they won't arrange taxis, you claim DR.

The advent of DR has meant that the railway now uses it as the standard response to missed connections and other disruption, rather than doing anything useful to help passengers. As such, the watering down of DR, without any attempt to bring back the element of genuine customer service that it has superceded, is a very bad move.

 

[35B]

Perhaps I am influenced from the Scottish perspective, but I fundamentally see no reason why what is in reality a fairly minor delay to one's journey should result in compensation, even if such compensation is a pittance.

The chances are, for most reasons of travel, you have about 15-30 mins of flexibility at the end regardless. It shouldn't be considered worthy of compensation that said flexibility has been lost. If you are planning to meet a friend in a coffee shop in the centre of Glasgow at 1pm, and you get the train arriving at 12:47, you shouldn't be particularly surprised, let alone compensated if you arrive 10 minutes late to the meet-up because the train broke down and you had to wait for the one behind.

Principally, you have paid the railway for the service of getting you from station A to station B, a service which has been fulfilled in a reasonable amount of time.

I disagree. The purpose for which I am travelling is irrelevant. The railway offers me a contract - I pay them a sum of money, and in return they commit to transport me from A to B in accordance with the timetable. If they fail in that purpose, there is a degree of recompense.

If you instead say that the purpose of the journey defines the value of recompense, you introduce a whole different can of worms in terms of consequential loss. That means each case needs to be assessed, and the value derived. If my £20 fare on a delayed train results in my missing a £1000 flight, and having to bear other costs, the implication is that this needs to be borne. Or the delay results in my missing a meeting and my employer (who has paid for my ticket) failing to win a £1m contract. Other examples are available.

I'm ambivalent about (but have previously claimed) specifically 15 minute delay repay - there is a threshold question. But the savings will be trivial, especially as the staff and tools to process delay repay will be needed to cater for whatever the threshold is. If the industry wishes to save money, I'd rather it focused on delivering on time running - which would save a lot more money elsewhere.

We need to get away from the idea that a fare is a form of tax, and therefore that the industry is somehow entitled to our cash. It is, and will still be under GBR, a commercial service selling passengers journeys according to timetables. That perspective needs protecting, not dismantling.

I do remember the days before Delay Repay. Delays occurred then, as did harsh enforcement. And the railway's attitude to delays that they had caused was generally "tough luck". That is not something we should wish on ourselves.

 

[JamesT]

But often holding a connection for say 5:minutes wouldn't significantly delay other passengers, and wouldn't spread disruption across the network.

To take an example, in BR days it was common to hold the Matlock train at Derby for 5 - 10 minutes for a late running train from London. It didn't significantly delay other passengers, and didn't spread disruption. With the advent of delay attribution and delay repay, the Matlock train is now routinely let go on time, and those passengers off the London train who now have an hour or two to wait for the next Matlock train are just told to claim DR. And worse still, letting the Matlock train out ahead of the London train then further delays the London train. In cases where the delay was likely to be more than 5-10 minutes, then the Matlock train would be let go, and taxis arranged for the passengers who had missed the connection. Again, the standard response now is that they won't arrange taxis, you claim DR.

The advent of DR has meant that the railway now uses it as the standard response to missed connections and other disruption, rather than doing anything useful to help passengers. As such, the watering down of DR, without any attempt to bring back the element of genuine customer service that it has superceded, is a very bad move.

There may be the odd instance where it doesn't affect anything else, but given how intensively used our railways are it seems unlikely you can make a general rule from it.
I very much doubt whether removing DR would have any bearing on whether trains are held. More important would be the setup of the franchise system where payments to TOCs were related to punctuality. The nationalised operator(s) don't have the same contractual incentive, but I bet if the rail minister sees the stats falling because trains are being held then that course would be reversed very quickly.

 

[The Pelican]

It's interesting to imagine a booking engine which looks at the delay of particular trains at particular times of the week, adds delays together when considering connections, and then gives an arrival time with a most probable expected time, a 75 percent confidence expected time, and a 90 percent confidence expected time. It might make it easier for people to think about how much reliability they really wish to pay for, as well as making any reliability-maximising tricks for journeys more obvious.

On the other hand, fairly finely graded delay repay allows people to get at least something for at least some delay.

 

[TUC]

The DR scheme represents a transfer of value to the well-organised and sharp-elbowed – a sub-set of the older middle classes, mostly – from the less well informed, the young, and those with busier or chaotic lifestyles who don’t have time/ability to deal with form-filling.

i hear that argument in multiple places, such as complaining that better informed people are more likely to change their energy syupplier and save money, so it is unfair. Why should the rest of us lose out and pay more, just to help the unmotivated?

 

[Bletchleyite]

i hear that argument in multiple places, such as complaining that better informed people are more likely to change their energy syupplier and save money, so it is unfair. Why should the rest of us lose out and pay more, just to help the unmotivated?

This is the MoneySavingExpert argument, see also it justifying having a horrendously complicated fares system which largely benefits those who know it and can eke out the best prices from it.

The answer to that is really that public services should be simple to use. Not everyone has the intelligence or time to play a system to work well for them, and nor should they have to.

I think the Government is proposing here that they will drop DR 15 but in return make DR much easier to claim without trying to navigate pointless complexity like whether it's a refund or DR that is due and entering lists of trains and the likes. It's hard to argue against that probably being best for the greater good, even if it isn't best for the railway enthusiast. (Very rarely, possibly nearly never, do the interests of railway enthusiasts align with those of the general public).

 

[Mag_seven]

Just a reminder that discussion should be confined to the actual proposal itself. If anyone wants to discuss anything else then they are welcome to start a new thread elsewhere.

We already have a speculative thread which can be found here:

Proposal to remove 15 Minute Delay Repay - what could be done instead?

Separating this off from the main thread as that isn't speculative. What does, let's say, £10-15m (not a fortune btw) buy you in that respect? Small but beneficial things like cross TOC acceptance by default in the event of a cancellation or longer delay? (Once it's all GBR that costs a...

www.railforums.co.uk

 

[35B]

This is the MoneySavingExpert argument, see also it justifying having a horrendously complicated fares system which largely benefits those who know it and can eke out the best prices from it.

The answer to that is really that public services should be simple to use. Not everyone has the intelligence or time to play a system to work well for them, and nor should they have to.

I think the Government is proposing here that they will drop DR 15 but in return make DR much easier to claim without trying to navigate pointless complexity like whether it's a refund or DR that is due and entering lists of trains and the likes. It's hard to argue against that probably being best for the greater good, even if it isn't best for the railway enthusiast. (Very rarely, possibly nearly never, do the interests of railway enthusiasts align with those of the general public).

I think that is a very benign view of what the government is proposing, and that the track record of DfT in recent years is deeply customer hostile. While 15 minute DR may not be the hill to die on, the absence of any clear proposal for how this better world will be delivered makes me deeply suspicious of their true motives. In the context of a the Treasury's abusive treatment of "plan 1" student loans, no credit for good faith should be given or assumed.

The rights that should accrue to customers are an entirely separate matter to the question of how simple ticketing should be, and no trade-off should be assumed.

 

[Llandudno]

But often holding a connection for say 5:minutes wouldn't significantly delay other passengers, and wouldn't spread disruption across the network.

To take an example, in BR days it was common to hold the Matlock train at Derby for 5 - 10 minutes for a late running train from London. It didn't significantly delay other passengers, and didn't spread disruption. With the advent of delay attribution and delay repay, the Matlock train is now routinely let go on time, and those passengers off the London train who now have an hour or two to wait for the next Matlock train are just told to claim DR. And worse still, letting the Matlock train out ahead of the London train then further delays the London train. In cases where the delay was likely to be more than 5-10 minutes, then the Matlock train would be let go, and taxis arranged for the passengers who had missed the connection. Again, the standard response now is that they won't arrange taxis, you claim DR.

The advent of DR has meant that the railway now uses it as the standard response to missed connections and other disruption, rather than doing anything useful to help passengers. As such, the watering down of DR, without any attempt to bring back the element of genuine customer service that it has superceded, is a very bad move.

and quite often the same Matlock train that has left Derby on time, now gets held outside Duffield station to let the very same London - Sheffield train pass!

With the new December 2025 timetable in place there is nearly 20 minutes recovery time built in at Matlock, so surely the Matlock branch line trains could be held by up to 10 minutes at Derby for any late running London connecting trains?

 

[yorksrob]

Well, to take that apart - posting on a forum isn't really activism is it?

And latterly you correctly point out the railway press is supine on the issue. That's because it - and a lot of softer influence like podcasts, youtubers and bloggers - are mostly captured by the industry and/or have audiences which simply aren't interested in hearing how the industry is doing some bad stuff.

Try getting access and writing articles if you try and sink a TOC MD with a plum question or slag off policy wholesale. People aren't rude enough in general.

I wouldn't characterise it as "rude" to decry a bad policy, however if those who should be holding the railway to account won't do it, what chance the lowly passenger ?

DR15 was a political sop and is very generous compared to many comparable networks in Europe. Let's just admit it straight up. But the idea that taking it away so you can invest £10m or so in the railway doesn't grasp the scale of what that means. That's about what a single footbridge at Theale cost - after ten years. That's the trade. It's a really stinky and stupid idea and it's bad politics for the railway.

Or alternatively, you could bolster delay repay elsewhere more meaningfully - then you get a meaningful trade-off for passengers.

 

[MikeWh]

I would be in favour of losing DR15 if the scheme becomes 25/55/115 and processing is handled by a central office. A lot of the 29 minute delays caused by a cancellation would then be paid and the admin savings when the cause of the delay isn't clear would make the whole process a lot simpler to run.

 

[800Travel]

I would be in favour of losing DR15 if the scheme becomes 25/55/115 and processing is handled by a central office. A lot of the 29 minute delays caused by a cancellation would then be paid and the admin savings when the cause of the delay isn't clear would make the whole process a lot simpler to run.

Then we would end up with a bunch of 24 minute claims that nearly qualify . A central office would probably be a good shout though. All for lowering the current thresholds, but I don't think removing DR15 is the way forward. It would be one thing to never offer it, but taking away flexibility from flexible tickets, removing delay repay for currently qualifying delays - these policies really don't/wouldn't help GBR

 

[VT 390]

Then we would end up with a bunch of 24 minute claims that nearly qualify .

Whatever delay threshold is used there will always be delays a minute under the minimum level but moving the current bands down by a few minutes would be very beneficial as many service frequencies are often half hourly or hourly meaning if a service is cancelled or connection missed you often arrive 1 minute before the next delay repay level.
Of course I do not see them lowering delay repay levels if 15 minute delay repay remains but it could be a good compromise if 15 minute delay repay were removed.

 

[AlterEgo]

Then we would end up with a bunch of 24 minute claims that nearly qualify

No, you wouldn't. 24 minute delays are much rarer than 29/28 minute ones on routes with half hourly frequencies.

 

[Bletchleyite]

No, you wouldn't. 24 minute delays are much rarer than 29/28 minute ones on routes with half hourly frequencies.

Indeed. This is removing something that just makes the railway look really, really petty.

If a train is cancelled on a half hourly service and you intended to catch it, and every other train was on time that day, you have been delayed precisely 30 minutes.

If a train is cancelled on an hourly service and you intended to catch it, and every other train was on time that day, you have been delayed precisely 60 minutes.

Claiming that it was a minute early when every train that day that operated was also a minute early (due to recovery time) makes the whole thing sound like a scam and seriously damages its credibility. If it's timetabled as a 29/31 split then fair enough (frustrating though that might be, but there need to be cut-offs), but if it's every 30 minutes then it's clear the delay is 30 minutes and arguing that it's 29 is just bad faith.

 

[35B]

Indeed. This is removing something that just makes the railway look really, really petty.

If a train is cancelled on a half hourly service and you intended to catch it, and every other train was on time that day, you have been delayed precisely 30 minutes.

If a train is cancelled on an hourly service and you intended to catch it, and every other train was on time that day, you have been delayed precisely 60 minutes.

Claiming that it was a minute early when every train that day that operated was also a minute early (due to recovery time) makes the whole thing sound like a scam and seriously damages its credibility. If it's timetabled as a 29/31 split then fair enough (frustrating though that might be, but there need to be cut-offs), but if it's every 30 minutes then it's clear the delay is 30 minutes and arguing that it's 29 is just bad faith.

I dislike the language of "scam", but get the point about both regular interval services and the impact of recovery time. Having lost a 32 minute late DR to 5 minutes of recovery time not used at King Edward Bridge, I get the frustration - but think the real issue is not the interval but the operation of recovery time. I would also welcome a rule of thumb that, if you've caught the +30 or +60 train on a regular interval service, you would qualify.

 

[redreni]

I dislike the language of "scam", but get the point about both regular interval services and the impact of recovery time. Having lost a 32 minute late DR to 5 minutes of recovery time not used at King Edward Bridge, I get the frustration - but think the real issue is not the interval but the operation of recovery time. I would also welcome a rule of thumb that, if you've caught the +30 or +60 train on a regular interval service, you would qualify.

I moved to SE London in 2011 and over the period between then and the Elizabeth Line opening, I documented the games SouthEastern played to try to goose the performance statistics. The timetabled journey into Cannon Street kept getting longer, simply because they were pretending the trains were due into Cannon Street later than they really were. We're not even talking about a few minutes of recovery time, it got to the point where necessary turnaround time was being used to pad the timetable, so the only way a train was going to leave CST on time is if it arrived early and therefore had sufficient time to be turned around.

This practice of having one timetable for the signallers and drivers to adhere to and a different one for journey planning, performance stats and delay repay also contributes to people thinking, not unreasonably in my view, that the TOCs aren't treating them fairly and reasonably when they are delayed. Regular travellers know when their train is due to arrive: it's due to arrive when it normally arrives. It's not due to arrive at some later time specified in the timetable: that's just a fiction to avoid the first few delay minutes being recorded.

It's bad on a number of different levels: journey planners can't assume trains will arrive when they usually arrive but have to assume they will arrive at the published time, so they can't give passengers connections that are perfectly sensible. This makes the railway a slower option than it needs to be.

It's bad because, while perfect performance isn't likely or possible, measuring all the delays is important if you want to analyse all the causes of all the delays. Making the yardstick shorter in order to hide shortcomings mean the causes of small delays aren't identified or learnt from.

And it means when things go wrong and a regular traveller who normally gets to work at 9am finds themselves arriving at 9:20am, the rail industry ends up explaining to that passenger that they imagined the first 7 minutes of that delay and in fact they were only 13 minutes late.

I, too, would accept raising the thresholds if the gamesmanship would stop. Stop padding the arrival times at the terminus. Stop pretending delays didn't happen because the passenger made an unofficial connection before the delay happened. Reduce the padding on the MCTs. Use some common sense if a passenger is claiming for a sub-MCT connection but the tapping data on their season ticket shows it is a connection they always make when trains are on time. Basically, stop rejecting perfectly reasonable claims for genuine delays based on technicalities.

And stop ignoring what claimants say and overpaying for delays you think should have been longer than they were because an MCT was fouled, but the passenger has told you they made the connection.

Once all that is done, then I'd be prepared to concede that standardising at a higher number (maybe DR25) would be reasonable.

 

[Bletchleyite]

And stop ignoring what claimants say and overpaying for delays you think should have been longer than they were because an MCT was fouled, but the passenger has told you they made the connection.

This one is beyond bizarre. I think I've been paid 2 hour claims instead of the 30 minute one I asked for 3 or 4 times now. You'd think it was pretty simple and obvious software logic to pay the lower of what the railway thinks is due and what the passenger actually claimed!

That means I've had a good two hundred quid or so off the railway that I didn't ask for, wasn't owed and have no means to pay back. I donated a fair whack of it to charity but it should never have been paid.

 

[SuspectUsual]

As an aside, why are the public timetable and the working timetable different? Not talking about short notice amendments, just the base timetable.

What are all the good reasons for telling the public a different timetable to the one you intend to run?

I can think of a few bad reasons