I don't disagree with some of this, but this is not relevant to claims in the thread that I challenged earlier that "it's not like there's any public authority that would be bothered." I know this claim to be wrong through my dealings with the department.
Fine, rephrase it as "it's not like there's any public authority that would be bothered and has the resources and powers to do anything effective about it". If such an authority existed, then things would be improving (that's what it means to be "effective"). I've seen no evidence of this. I've seen plenty of evidence over the last decade or so that the situation is getting worse.
The regulatory framework is a complex setup involving stakeholders from all areas.
"All areas" meaning everyone except passengers, of course.
parliament have the option to make these happen
As you already mentioned (and I agreed with), the government don't care. I've seen little evidence that the opposition care much about passengers either. Without getting too political, it seems that the Conservatives generally support the TOCs while Labour strongly supports the staff unions. Nobody has much regard for passengers, at least not beyond what it takes to get votes from commuter-heavy constituencies.
We are gradually seeing things such as the independent ombudsman happen, although many including me would have preferred this to have happened sooner.
As I mentioned, the establishment of an ombudsman is already well behind schedule and with the results of the latest "consultation" stating that TOCs will have up to 6 months after it's established to "sign up" and then another 2 months before they actually have to start mentioning it to their customers, in addition to the time it'll take for said ombudsman to start having an impact, I very much doubt we'll see anything much before 2020. Assuming the TOCs don't find a way to prevent it, of course. I agree that "many" (count me in that too) would have preferred to have this happen sooner. Around the time of privatisation in the mid-1990s would have been the "right" time IMHO. I suppose 25 years late is better than never...
the complexity of the system isn't helping and a genuine rethink of the system is required
Agreed. However, it's the DfT that allowed the system to become so absurdly complex, so they're not getting any sympathy from me for that. They created the monster, it's their responsibility to deal with it.
Not all aspects of any regulatory body's work would or should be made available for all and sundry to see.
That's a deliberate misrepresentation of my point. I've repeatedly stated (in different ways) that where a regulator has taken action in relation to a business's dealings with the public, the public has a right to be informed of that action taken in their name. I never said that "all aspects" should be available.
If you are going by many of the stories and complaints told on this forum then it is further complicated by the fact that some things simply aren't set out in black and white, so it is not always possible for the regulator to act, eg. Delay Repay on split tickets.
Not just on this forum, but other places too... Sure, a few cases aren't "black and white", but easily 95% are. A quick review of recent threads...
Refusal to sell the requested ticket,
refusal to allow travel with a valid ticket (
two different threads),
threats of penalties and overcharging due to TVMs not accepting all valid payment methods,
incompetence to the level of "indistinguishable from malice" in delay repay claims, etc. Most of these threads have commenters recounting similar experiences. I'd be more understanding of "weaknesses" in handling "difficult" cases if TOCs were consistently "strong" at handling the "easy" cases.
There is also then another layer of complexity that companies should be given the opportunity to put things right first, unless the problem is systematic.
It's pretty darned obvious (to me at least) that the problem
is systematic.
How may problems we see on this forum are not resolved following escalation, and what percentage does that represent of all cases?
Most of these problems should never have come up in the first place, let alone require "escalation". How many passengers face similar issues but aren't members of this forum and don't have access to "knowledgeable" people to advise them? How many passengers just accept the "advice" given by TOC staff without questioning and never realise that they've been scammed? I'd guess that that covers the vast majority.
I don't know where your claim [...] came from
It's simply an expansion of what "commercial concerns" means in practice.
As for your quoted example for Go-Ahead, they do not only operate rail services, and AFAIK Thameslink did lose a lot of money, and was a much downgraded financial performance than what was originally forecast.
According to their last annual report, some 75% of Go-Ahead Group's revenue comes from rail. In any other industry, if a division responsible for that much revenue performed as shambolically as they have, the group would be in severe financial difficulty. As it is, the "softly softly" approach to regulation means that they're laughing all the way to the bank. My recollection is that they were able to deflect blame for Thameslink's poor performance onto NR/the DfT (there is some sense in that; the "Thameslink 2000" project is nearly 20 years behind schedule), so were compensated.
Perhaps they should be tougher on incorrect refusals to pay out on full delay compensation amounts, but what percentage does it represent as a proportion of all claims?
The sensible thing would be to have delay compensation claims handled by an independent body. The fact that TOCs get to decide whether/how much to pay for their own failures to run a proper service is an obvious conflict of interest.
Even if the regulators don't want to fix that, DR should be enshrined in the NRCOT, not individual franchise agreements and there should be penalties for every instance where the TOC has failed to pay the correct compensation within a reasonable time period (e.g. 1 month, with possible extension around Christmas/Easter when larger numbers travel and fewer office staff are available). Something like £100 per additional week per claim. Enough to have bite (and to make hiring additional office staff make business sense), but not so much that a TOC would be bankrupted by a one-off unexpected influx of claims.
if they catch you on the fiddle systematically, or deliberately do things fraudulently, they would take it very seriously.
It shouldn't have to be proven "deliberate" to result in serious action. Passengers don't have to be shown to be "deliberately" breaking the rules to have serious action taken against them... The consequences of systematic, deliberate fraud should be even more severe; at least as severe as the action taken when National Express couldn't pay their premiums to the DfT.
the government have the power to amend and improve
We've both agreed that the government don't care. It's basically "open season" on screwing over passengers these days. Maybe eventually the TOCs "additional revenue extraction" strategies will target someone they shouldn't, such as an MP or someone they care about and a few questions will be raised in parliament... And go nowhere, of course.
Your post history is out there for all to see so I think we can safely let other readers make up their own mind.
I make no secret of the fact that I don't like TOCs and think the railways are extremely poorly regulated from the viewpoint of treating passengers fairly and respectfully. (However, I'm not particularly in favour of re-nationalisation either.) Just as you make no secret of trying to defend TOCs at virtually every opportunity.
