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Arrangement for claiming expenses from employers are not something that should be governing how the railways conduct their business so long as proper VAT receipts are always offered.
Do retailers get charged different amounts for the supply of their tickets depending in the format sold? i.e. are e-tickets charged to the retailer at a different rate to CCST?
Effectively, yes. The retailer is charged by the issuer of the ticket when it is issued at TOD. Or if it's posted, there'll be the cost of printing, postage, paying the staff member who stuffs the ticket in the envelope, etc.
Who is charging who this money for using TOD? If I buy a ticket from Greater Anglia's website, and collect from a Greater Anglia branded ticket machine, at a station run by Greater Anglia, then who are Greater Anglia paying, and why?
Nobody in this scenario, but as Greater Anglia cannot know at the time of purchase whose ticket machine you will be using to collect the ticket, they have evidently chosen to take the choice of ticket collection away in these circumstances.
There is no VAT on railway tickets, so railways should not be giving VAT receipts.
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Effectively, yes. The retailer is charged by the issuer of the ticket when it is issued at TOD. Or if it's posted, there'll be the cost of printing, postage, paying the staff member who stuffs the ticket in the envelope, etc.
Nobody in this scenario, but as Greater Anglia cannot know at the time of purchase whose ticket machine you will be using to collect the ticket, they have evidently chosen to take the choice of ticket collection away in these circumstances.
For people who worry about the demise of cash catching out the vulnerable, how do you square this with London's buses not taking cash for seven years now?
My thoughts are that many of the most vulnerable- elderly disabled - have freedom passes
Others can top up oyster with cash at the newsagent next door or the tube station. Someone does this for them if they can’t do it themselves.
Users are charged a cheap and simple flat fare when they use it.
They don’t need to book specific journeys in advance, there is only one fare, they are not charged any premium for using cash to top up a payment card.
As I said elsewhere, this is exactly what should happen with rail fares. There's no compelling reason to retain ticket offices when you could sell tickets using an online TIS in a shop. There's also no compelling reason e-tickets *have* to be a displayable QR code; in Italy, you can travel with an eight digit booking reference.
I'm very unconvinced the eradication of either ticket offices or cash would lead to less patronage on the railway.
Presumably if you were to insist they would issue one that shows no VAT has been paid, because they're zero rated not exempt. They must be able to issue them in case they occasionally sell something that does attract VAT, such as a catering sundry, or a car parking ticket.
Presumably if you were to insist they would issue one that shows no VAT has been paid, because they're zero rated not exempt. They must be able to issue them in case they occasionally sell something that does attract VAT, such as a catering sundry, or a car parking ticket.
Nail on head. Many people have no realisation of the zero rated status of tickets and would insist on a VAT receipt anyway but occasionally products are sold which do include an element of VAT. And why would you have different styles if receipt according to what is sold?
Nail on head. Many people have no realisation of the zero rated status of tickets and would insist on a VAT receipt anyway but occasionally products are sold which do include an element of VAT. And why would you have different styles if receipt according to what is sold?
There are of course rail products that include both travel to an attraction (zero-rated) and entry to said attraction (not zero-rated), making VAT things delightfully complex.
If I want to collect my ticket from the TVM but the TVM printer has run out of ticket stock, there is no penalty for boarding the train without the ticket.
If I have an e-ticket but my printer has run out of paper, I am likely to be hit with a huge penalty, or have to pay to get it printed elsewhere, or inconvenience others by borrowing their printer.
e-tickets transfer responsibility for the maintainence of much of the ticketing equipment from the railway to the passenger. Of course, in return the passenger gets increased convenience, but it's understandable why some passengers without smartphones are uncomfortable using them.
They may well not be obliged to but it's difficult to see why they might not just do so rather than having the conversation? If your sales system doesn't have that capability, you can never sell anything that attracts VAT. Can't imagine many businesses are in that position.
If you go to Lidl and only purchase items zero rated for VAT you get a summary specifically stating that on your receipt.
I would have though that there'll still be the facility to purchase a ticket from a station in future and also to print one purchased online (potentially costing a small fee) but the tickets will actually be issued as etickets.
I purchased a ticket at a station ticket office yesterday and it was issued on 'bog roll stock'. It was an eticket and I had to scan the Aztec code when I went through the gate rather than insert the ticket into the barrier. No problem at all, I really don't know what the fuss is about.
To support TOD there is the station infrastructure as well, you need a CCST printer (Credit Card Size Ticket) You need gatelines that accept CCST. you need to support the 70s technology for the encoding of the magstripe on the CCST the cost is an awful lot more than 50p. We're examining ever point that we currently use CCST and looking at alternatives. Why do CCST need to be posted to the customer ? We could post an eTicket without the need for a specialist printer.The powers that be have decided there is a better way to do things and the industry is moving towards this. As mentioned above Alton Towers don't offer you the choice of how you want your ticket, Ticketmaster most times don't offer you the choice, neither do Airlines. Why should Rail be any different. The ticket isn't the product you're buying after all.
It's interesting you mention Ticketmaster as most of the time I find they do offer a printed paper ticket if you want one.
It is however an e-ticket - it looks like a conventional gig/theatre ticket with the tear-off bit, but they don't tear it off any more, they just scan it. That'll just be because Ticketmaster already have the printers and a big stock of blanks so are just using them up - it would be cheaper no doubt to switch to just printing it on A4 and posting that if people want.
ToD is a right nuisance and causes all manner of issues when it doesn't work properly* close to the time of departure, so getting rid of it is probably the best plan. I often raise the issue of niches on here, e.g. the competition of just how many protected characteristics we can envisage in one person.
For this situation we are talking about people who are:-
1. Technically minded enough to have a computer to book the ticket on;
2. Do not have access to a printer;
3. Do not have a smartphone or somehow fear using one for a PDF ticket despite owning one;
4. Are buying a ticket online for a journey in the very near future;
5. Aren't willing to pay a small fee for it to be sent by post;
6. Can't visit a booking office or TVM to buy instead.
It really is very, very niche indeed.
* Not only when stuff gets lost, but misprints. I've now see 2 totally different misprints of a Bletchley-R1256 Super Off Peak Day Travelcard (one of them was a Chiltern TVM that issued it as a two part return, the other less consequential one issued it as a one day season with a box for photocard number etc). I'm not convinced they'll ever get it right!
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I would have though that there'll still be the facility to purchase a ticket from a station in future and also to print one purchased online (potentially costing a small fee) but the tickets will actually be issued as etickets.
I purchased a ticket at a station ticket office yesterday and it was issued on 'bog roll stock'. It was an eticket and I had to scan the Aztec code when I went through the gate rather than insert the ticket into the barrier. No problem at all, I really don't know what the fuss is about.
What I would like to see is the ability to reprint e-tickets at the station in some form, e.g. if you know your phone is failing, or say you've dropped it and broken the screen so it won't scan, or if you've lost it but can provide something else e.g. proof of identity of the booker. But that is fairly niche.
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They may well not be obliged to but it's difficult to see why they might not just do so rather than having the conversation? If your sales system doesn't have that capability, you can never sell anything that attracts VAT. Can't imagine many businesses are in that position.
If you go to Lidl and only purchase items zero rated for VAT you get a summary specifically stating that on your receipt.
A very large number of businesses don't issue VAT invoices by default even on VAT rated supplies - you have to specifically ask for one. Some even go as far as printing "this is not a VAT invoice" on them. The mind boggles as to why, as doing that takes as much ink as printing the VAT breakdown and number, but it's very common.
However, with regard to train tickets, this is a non-issue. I've claimed expenses from many different businesses and organisations in my lifetime, and when claiming for a train fare what they always want is the ticket itself, not a VAT invoice. So I think it's very well known that train travel is zero rated here.
But a large portion of vulnerable bus users don't. How do you think most food bank users get to the food bank?
As I said elsewhere, this is exactly what should happen with rail fares. There's no compelling reason to retain ticket offices when you could sell tickets using an online TIS in a shop.
Disagree. Rail ticketing is terrifically complicated and even some TOC staff don't understand that an off-peak ticket from Cuffley via Liverpool Street has different validity to an off-Peak ticket from Liverpool Street, to pick a completely random example.
Or another random example, an off-peak return from Peterborough to Sleaford via Spalding is valid only after 9am, except for an easement allowing travel on the 0833 ex Peterborough.
Sorry but there's no way the casual staff in the local Londis are ever going to be able to work all this out, with a queue of impatient people building up. Neither are the going to care particularly either.
What happens when pass ever given duff info turns out not to have a valid ticket and gets stiffed for anothe ticket? "But the guy in the Londis said it would be ok".
Disagree. Rail ticketing is terrifically complicated and even some TOC staff don't understand that an off-peak ticket from Cuffley via Liverpool Street has different validity to an off-Peak ticket from Liverpool Street, to pick a completely random example.
Or another random example, an off-peak return from Peterborough to Sleaford via Spalding is valid only after 9am, except for an easement allowing travel on the 0833 ex Peterborough.
Sorry but there's no way the casual staff in the local Londis are ever going to be able to work all this out, with a queue of impatient people building up. Neither are the going to care particularly either.
What happens when pass ever given duff info turns out not to have a valid ticket and gets stiffed for anothe ticket? "But the guy in the Londis said it would be ok".
Tickets sold in a hypothetical Londis would be sold against an itinerary. If a ticket is sold for a given itinerary it is contractually valid via that itinerary whether it should have been sold or not.
In effect what you're doing is getting the member of staff in Londis to use a journey planner based sales site for you and print it out for you, either because you're not technologically good enough to use the Internet or you don't own a printer or smartphone.
Tickets sold in a hypothetical Londis would be sold against an itinerary. If a ticket is sold for a given itinerary it is contractually valid via that itinerary whether it should have been sold or not.
I purchased a ticket at a station ticket office yesterday and it was issued on 'bog roll stock'. It was an eticket and I had to scan the Aztec code when I went through the gate rather than insert the ticket into the barrier. No problem at all, I really don't know what the fuss is about.
That wouldn't be a problem. I wouldn't mind getting a bog roll ticket from a machine with a TOD reference.
Back in the day Trainline and the other site they took over used to post tickets printed on those huge Eurostar style card tickets.
I don't really care what format it is, I just want a physical ticket.
Tickets sold in a hypothetical Londis would be sold against an itinerary. If a ticket is sold for a given itinerary it is contractually valid via that itinerary whether it should have been sold or not.
The same as it would be online, indeed. It's basically people without internet or smartphone going to the Londis and having them sell the ticket from the site on their behalf. It's not complicated to do and would serve a relatively niche market anyway.
Any arguments that rest on "there must be a specially trained person behind a screen whose only job is to sell railway tickets" is an argument for massive reform of the fares system.
There is always going to be complexity where there are 2,500+ stations on the network.
Fundamentally I don't actually think the majority of ticketing issues are that complext, it's just that many people who should know better are too lazy or incompetent to read what's in front of them.
You can't get much more simple that an Off Peak ticket that says 'see restriction on nre.co.uk/xx' which take you to a specific page saying when the ticket is valid.
Tickets sold in a hypothetical Londis would be sold against an itinerary. If a ticket is sold for a given itinerary it is contractually valid via that itinerary whether it should have been sold or not.
In effect what you're doing is getting the member of staff in Londis to use a journey planner based sales site for you and print it out for you, either because you're not technologically good enough to use the Internet or you don't own a printer or smartphone.
What if I don't know the exact times I'm going to be travelling? I know I want to be in London, say, for a particular time. But I'm not sure when I'll be returning. If I get a later train than the one "booked" is that OK?
Very common scenario which is why GA do a business return which is essentially a single advance in, and return on any train within a month. But you can only buy them if there are advances left to book on the inbound. If they are sold out there are various flexible tickets but it's not always straightforward to fathom which one is best or will be valid on the trains you might travel on.
More generally, the move trend towards forcng people to pick specific trains even for flexible tickets is not helpful. Particularly on those TOCs which remove trains from the journey planner once they are "full".
which booking engine is the Londis going to use? One like LNER which pretends trains don't exist, even for fully flexible tickets? Or one which ignores the fact that there are no advances left if you aren't actually trying to book and advance?
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