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Passenger (a CofE priest, if it matters) receives message at 8pmish that "your 21:04 train is on time and is on platform 3 at Leicester" (pictured below).
His train was in fact NOT on platform 3 - all the London trains depart from platform 3, so he in fact boards an earlier train, which was then on Platform 3, and is required by EMT to buy a new ticket for £78.50.
He's gone a whole hour early! It is quite astonishing how someone can make that error having solely trusted a push notification and not checking a single other piece of information, not even the actual time.
I would be shifting a major (not all, sending a 1h early notification is a problem) part of the blame to a passenger that relies on a notification sent 1h early, doesn't read the main station departure board, and doesn't read the platform departure board
21:04 "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away"
It's a fairly well known piece of text from Revelation!
People panic, lose track of time, and they have been advised by an offial Agent of the railway that their ticket is on the platform.
And that word "Agent" is so important.
Has anyone been successfully prosecuted yet for using a ticket on a service that they've been advised to do so by an official Ticketing Agent?
It's worthwhile having a nose around the law of Agency. As a general guide the Principal (the TOC) is responsible for the actions of the Agent (Trainline), when they sell the ticket to the Third Party (Mr Priest).
In his defence, the wording is a bit off - from memory the LNER app (which gives similar notifications) says something like "is confirmed for Platform X" or "is due to be at Platform X" (I can't recall exact wording but it's more precise than "is on Platform X").
It is still pretty lackadaisical to rely solely on a push notification mind!
In his defence, the wording is a bit off - from memory the LNER app (which gives similar notifications) says something like "is confirmed for Platform X" or "is due to be at Platform X" (I can't recall exact wording but it's more precise than "is on Platform X").
It is still pretty lackadaisical to rely solely on a push notification mind!
Surely most people would see that notification, look at the time and think "oh good, I have an hour left". Why would anyone make a mad dash to catch a train thinking it's running a whole hour early?
I don’t see it as getting a train an hour early, I see as he is at the station in good time. Looks at his phone and sees that notification, goes to platform 3 and gets on the train there.
he might well have had his phone off or with no signal or many other reasons why he did not see the notification till much later than it was sent.
I don’t see it as getting a train an hour early, I see as he is at the station in good time. Looks at his phone and sees that notification, goes to platform 3 and gets on the train there.
he might well have had his phone off or with no signal or many other reasons why he did not see the notification till much later than it was sent.
I think the link implied he was sitting in a restaurant, saw notice, didn’t appreciate time and thought he had to run for the train. Which he did and boarded without any further check as he’d just got it in his mind he was going to miss it.
I couldn’t read the whole X thread tho as I’m not a user so I may be wrong.
I don’t see it as getting a train an hour early, I see as he is at the station in good time. Looks at his phone and sees that notification, goes to platform 3 and gets on the train there.
he might well have had his phone off or with no signal or many other reasons why he did not see the notification till much later than it was sent.
He wasn't at the station in good time, he made a dash to it after seeing the notification.
He also didn't see the notification late, so I don't see how that's relevant at all. He got the notification an hour before his train and then assumed that he was going to miss it.
I don’t see it as getting a train an hour early, I see as he is at the station in good time. Looks at his phone and sees that notification, goes to platform 3 and gets on the train there.
he might well have had his phone off or with no signal or many other reasons why he did not see the notification till much later than it was sent.
Wouldn’t have been until after leaving Leicester I’d suggest. It’s only a short calling point typically. By which time it would be too late. Even if he was listening.
And what can you do once the doors have closed if you are on the wrong train with an Advance ticket. You can’t get off and you’re likely to get charged a walk up new ticket. You could pro actively seek out the Train Manager and some might let you off but others might not. But i suspect relatively few passengers know it can be worth trying to have a word with the TM proactively, offer to get off at next stop etc.
My hunch is the message just convinced him of something that was just incorrect. When you are convinced you may not double check. Especially if your concern is not to miss a booked train.
My hunch is the message just convinced him of something that was just incorrect. When you are convinced you may not double check. Especially if your concern is not to miss a booked train.
I agree. He'd probably lost track of time. The message suddenly pops up saying "your 21.04 train is on time and is on platform 3 at Leicester". (See post #1) He rushes to pay up and dashes to the station, probably not even checking the actual time, despite it being indicated somewhere else on his phone!
Remember that the "1h ago" note on the screenshot in post #1 relates to the timing of the screenshot, not to when he originally saw the message.
Full marks to Trainline for costing its customers more money!
Bottom line is the message was factually incorrect. He was told his train "is" on platform 3. That is misinformation. Trainline should cover the £78.50
Bottom line is the message was factually incorrect. He was told his train "is" on platform 3. That is misinformation. Trainline should cover the £78.50
I agree. Hard as it may be for us seasoned rail travellers to understand, for someone who barely uses the railway, seeing that message might make them think that somehow their booked train had been rescheduled to leave early, and they should board the train at P3 immediately.
I agree. He'd probably lost track of time. The message suddenly pops up saying "your 21.04 train is on time and is on platform 3 at Leicester". (See post #1) He rushes to pay up and dashes to the station, probably not even checking the actual time, despite it being indicated somewhere else on his phone!
There are plenty of people whose familiarity with the 24 hour clock would require stopping and thinking (that can apply at time of booking as well as on the day). Combine that with a message which says “your train is at platform 3” and the story as related is hardly surprising. Don’t think it would happen to me an hour out, but 10 or 15 minutes if I wasn’t familiar with the service pattern, quite possibly.
I wonder what his original fare was? Presumably an Advance ticket. Potentially might not even have been much cheaper than something off peak that was more flexible.
I think a great many of us in the industry have strong negative feelings about Trainline, and not without reason. However it is not going to go away. They've won the battle to become "the" railway ticket site or even "the railway" in the minds of the general public and National Rail has been completely eclipsed.
Bottom line is the message was factually incorrect. He was told his train "is" on platform 3. That is misinformation. Trainline should cover the £78.50
I agree. Hard as it may be for us seasoned rail travellers to understand, for someone who barely uses the railway, seeing that message might make them think that somehow their booked train had been rescheduled to leave early, and they should board the train at P3 immediately.
I would go further and say that regardless of experience using the railway, if Trainline is authorised to give those sorts of messages* then I would take that message at least to be giving conflicting information versus the station departure boards (the notification was sent to the phone at x time i.e. it is up to date as of that time, versus the departure boards where one does not know when they were last updated; there could be a fault with either Trainline notifications or the departure boards or both; the train could have terminated a previous service on that platform an hour before the scheduled departure in which case the notification is technically correct), and at most as authorisation to board that train [as it either is the booked train or can be taken instead of the booked train; to the customer I would say the reason doesn't matter, just that the authorisation is there].
*As Trainline brands itself as an "official partner" or "official retailer" or whichever term it uses, I would assume that this means it is authorised to give those sorts of messages and I don't think I ought to be up to the passenger to question that in the circumstances.
Given the passenger has, to the best of their knowledge and in good faith, been authorised to take that earlier train and by extension been told that their ticket is valid on that train, what options does the guard have to dispute that authorisation? And what can the passenger do if they cannot afford the cost of a new ticket/a penalty fare if the guard attempts to charge one?
Finally (I should have thought of this earlier), is there anything in the Trainline Terms & Conditions about Trainline being able to authorise travel in situations as described above?
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
I think a great many of us in the industry have strong negative feelings about Trainline, and not without reason. However it is not going to go away. They've won the battle to become "the" railway ticket site or even "the railway" in the minds of the general public and National Rail has been completely eclipsed.
Some official TOC websites are now using Trainline to process ticket sales, for example ScotRail:
Terms and Conditions relating to the online purchase of tickets
Our Booking Service is operated by our service provider Trainline.com Limited (with company number 03846791). When processing booking transactions, Trainline.com Limited accepts the booking as the agent for ScotRail
Terms and Conditions governing the use of this website.Please read the following in relation to www.scotrail.co.uk pages, buy.scotrail.co.uk pages, www.buytickets.scotrail.co.uk pages, and the ScotRail mobile app.
I think a great many of us in the industry have strong negative feelings about Trainline, and not without reason. However it is not going to go away. They've won the battle to become "the" railway ticket site or even "the railway" in the minds of the general public and National Rail has been completely eclipsed.
Anyone who complies with the rules and is willing to pay the necessary costs must be allowed to retail if they wish, not prejudiced by personal subjective opinions.
I also don't Trainline is the worst retailer out there, there are worse third party and worse TOC retailers in terms of misinformation and customer experience. Trainline has got its problems, I have had a good few complaints about it over the years (and the retailer I work for aims to do better than many of their mistakes!), and I include this notification in its mistakes, but it also gets an unfair amount of flack because of its massive market share it naturally gets a disproportionate amount of complaints, and also like all retailers often gets blamed for TOC data errors.
I agree this would be best practice. I can also understand why they don't rely on this, because (and you don't need me to tell you this!) the industry data is sh*t.
So many trains (see C23409, C23572, C23569, G02075 today) simply do not get confirmed platforms in Darwin at stations like Wolverhampton, Leamington, Birmingham International, Banbury. It's really poor.
Yeah the passenger should do some more due diligence than that, but it is also misleading wording.
Your train is on platform 3 suggests your train is, well, on platform 3. Not that it will be on platform 3, nor that it is scheduled to leave from platform 3.
There are character limits for push notifications, but that's no excuse to mislead passengers. If you can't fit all the information into the notification title, put the less important information into the notification body, or leave it out, or send it as two separate notifications.
His actions might be understandable if the difference between the train times was short, but it was a whole hour! There has to be some responsibility on the part of the passenger here.
Third party retail has very little to do with the complexity of the fares defined by the operators.
I don't see third party retail being binned by GBR personally (and I pity us passengers if they do), and if you keep it you can't arbitrary bin or block new retailers based on subjective vibes, that's not how a competitive market works.
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