Delay repay. How long is a delay ?

[Jamiescott1]

On my daily journey.i connect from main line to a branch line.
The branch line journey is timetabled for 7 minutes but actually takes 6 minutes.

On Friday I was delayed on the main line. My planned journey had me timetabled to arrive at 1736, but according to realtraintimes the train I was due to take arrived at 1735 (as per usual 1 minutes earlier than timetabled).
The train i ended up taking i arrived at 1835 (arriving 1 minutes earlier than the timetabled 1836).

I put in a 60 minute delay request which was declined as it was a 59 minute delay from my timetabled arrival.
My thinking is that it was a 60 minute delay from when I would of arrived if the main line train wasn't delayed.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

On my daily journey.i connect from main line to a branch line.
The branch line journey is timetabled for 7 minutes but actually takes 6 minutes.

On Friday I was delayed on the main line. My planned journey had me timetabled to arrive at 1736, but according to realtraintimes the train I was due to take arrived at 1735 (as per usual 1 minutes earlier than timetabled).
The train i ended up taking i arrived at 1835 (arriving 1 minutes earlier than the timetabled 1836).

I put in a 60 minute delay request which was declined as it was a 59 minute delay from my timetabled arrival.
My thinking is that it was a 60 minute delay from when I would of arrived if the main line train wasn't delayed.

This is a regular grumble on this forum. Without getting into which position should be taken by the railways, the position that they do take is that delays are calculated against the timetable, rather than against what actually happens.

So my suggestion would be that you have a choice between living with the (not particularly satisfactory) result that you have, or fighting it in the knowledge that you will almost certainly lose and be no better off than if you had let the point go.

 

[ainsworth74]

You had a 59 minute delay as the calculation is based on the public timetable. You were timetabled to arrive at 1736 but actually arrived at 1835 hence a 59 minute delay, what the 1736 arrival actually did or normal does is, sadly, not relevant to calculating your delay.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I have appealed one like this and got paid the higher amount. An appeal can't do any harm. I did it on the basis that every train that day had arrived one minute early aside from the cancelled one, therefore clearly I was one full hour late.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

I have appealed one like this and got paid the higher amount. An appeal can't do any harm. I did it on the basis that every train that day had arrived one minute early aside from the cancelled one, therefore clearly I was one full hour late.

If every train that day had arrived 5 minutes late, would you have been happy if delay repay was downgraded from the 60+ minutes rate to the 30 - 59 minutes one?

 

[Bletchleyite]

If every train that day had arrived 5 minutes late, would you have been happy if delay repay was downgraded from the 60+ minutes rate to the 30 - 59 minutes one?

No, because any ambiguity should always be resolved in the customer's favour, as per the principles of consumer law.

As I said, there is no harm in appealing.

 

[AlterEgo]

Very petty for the company to decline claims on a single minute, as it merely generates more correspondence and wastes more staff time. Cheaper to pay out the first time in most cases.

 

[Watershed]

Unfortunately Delay Repay is contractually speaking calculated against the timetabled arrival time, not the actual time you would likely have arrived.

Many TOCs have taken to the practice of adding "public differentials" before the last/major stop on a train, so that it is advertised as arriving later than its working timetable schedule. This helps to improve the TOCs' punctuality statistics without taking any effort to improve things on the ground.

At the same time, most TOCs strictly apply the Delay Repay thresholds rather than allowing one or two minutes' leeway. Allowing such a leeway would not only seem reasonable from a customer service viewpoint, but would also account for trains sometimes taking longer to stop and open their doors than assumed by the fixed offsets applied to data from the signalling system, thus reducing the number of "actually, the train was 30/60/120 minutes late" appeals.

Customer service isn't really a priority for TOCs so I can't say it's surprising that these approaches are taken.