Delay Repay - two advances as a return?

[orpine]

But in another thread, you want to increase that figure. The money has to come from somewhere. So... where?

How about their profits? I'm sure from the £10's of millions they're making net they can afford to pay out on their obligations. I'm sure they're milking Network Rail for every compensation payment they can get; they're probably just keeping the difference and treating it as another profit centre.

 

[island]

How about their profits? I'm sure from the £10's of millions they're making net they can afford to pay out on their obligations. I'm sure they're milking Network Rail for every compensation payment they can get; they're probably just keeping the difference and treating it as another profit centre.

Do you have any evidence of that?

 

[orpine]

Do you have any evidence of that?

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/compensation_payments_from_netwo

and

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/9570700/Train-operators-cash-in-on-delays.html
(sorry about the torygraph)
would be starting points.

Train operating companies could have boosted their profits by as much as £150 million last year because of payouts from Network Rail. Yet, the train companies paid just an average of £400,000 in compensation to passengers for delays.

Actually reading further on, it's worse than I thought, assuming it's correct about what NR pays out for and what the TOC's pay out for. But that's a separate thread.

 

[bb21]

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/compensation_payments_from_netwo

and

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/9570700/Train-operators-cash-in-on-delays.html
(sorry about the torygraph)
would be starting points.



Actually reading further on, it's worse than I thought, assuming it's correct about what NR pays out for and what the TOC's pay out for. But that's a separate thread.

I'm not sure what the FoI request is supposed to show in relation to your claim because the net amount from the request shows a cost of £16 million to East Coast over the years, not the "£10's of millions they're making net" that you claimed.

And as for the discrepancy between the threshold at which NR pays compensation and the one at which the TOCs pay out, it doesn't surprise me at all. The TOCs incur large additional costs in times of disruption, so that will have to be accounted for somehow.

I don't doubt that the TOCs do well out of these payments, largely because some people either don't bother to claim or are simply unaware, but the situation is probably nowhere near as bad as you claimed. As I have said before, if the situation really is that bad, why not lobby your MP and the government to launch an awareness campaign rather than trying to get the TOCs to do something, which is likely to take twice the effort to be half as effective.

 

[orpine]

I'm not sure what the FoI request is supposed to show in relation to your claim because the net amount from the request shows a cost of £16 million to East Coast over the years, not the "£10's of millions they're making net" that you claimed.

Hmm, maybe I mis-read it, but I'm not seeing your 16million either.

And as for the discrepancy between the threshold at which NR pays compensation and the one at which the TOCs pay out, it doesn't surprise me at all. The TOCs incur large additional costs in times of disruption, so that will have to be accounted for somehow.

I disagree. It shows that payments of just £400,000 are made to customers (not even half a million!). We don't know how high the costs are to the TOC's. We do know that payments of almost 3 million aren't being made (only 12% of people claim remember). And that number (~£3.3million) seems suspiciously low - annual ticket sales are 3.5 Billion - I don't believe for a second that only 0.1% of revenues are eligible for a refund, not when train performance averages 90% for 10 minute delays.
They're only compensating 0.011% of ticket revenues - that's not even a rounding error and they still try and diddle me if I put in a split ticket some of the time!

why not lobby your MP

Because talking to my MP is like talking to a answering machine - you get the same response and no matter what you say irrespective of how carefully argued it won't change its tune. Also, I don't have several ten's of thousands of pounds with which to "persuade" him and his party through contributions.

 

[poshfan]

What would happen if you made a return trip as effectively a single journey and got delayed? For example, say you live in Leeds and fancy a trip over the Settle & Carlisle one summer's day, so you buy 2 advance singles that take you up to Carlisle and back again, but with the required connecting time at Carlisle. If you get delayed either on the way out or on the way back, such that you arrive back in Leeds more than an hour later than planned, could you argue that the whole trip was a single journey and claim for the whole trip? Would it make a difference if you went out and back by different routes?

 

[bb21]

Hmm, maybe I mis-read it, but I'm not seeing your 16million either.

I got that by adding up their net costs each year, 6.0 + 2.9 + 11.3 - 4.4 comes to roughly 16.

I don't think there is much more I can add in this subject. I made a comment regarding possible reasons why there needs to be a discrepancy. Whether it is an appropriate one is really a separate matter.