My ideas to limit Split Ticketing

[Mike395]

If I'm working a peak(ish) train from London that doesn't stop at Didcot and DON'T have somebody on a split ticket, I'm surprised. I will expect to find three or four, season-tickets usually. This is despite 1. announcing before leaving London splits at Didcot are not valid, 2. announcing after leaving London splits at Didcot are not valid, 3. announcing before arriving at Reading the train will not call at Didcot, split tickets are not valid, and if I get the chance, 4. announcing before locking the doors at Reading the train does not stop at Didcot, split tickets are not valid.

So, after three (or even four) announcements that the combination is not valid, I will still see three or four people, usually season-ticket holders, so they do it every day. The invariably say either I'm a jobsworth, that nobody has ever charged them before, or they catch this train every night and it always stopped at Didcot.

Just to add, this will be in two / three carriages of the 5/6 cars in STD class. It doesn't seem to be a First Class thing, and it is difficult to get through more than two carriages between Reading and Swindon, as the arguments are usually time consuming.

Just out of interest, have you ever attempted to prosecute anyone seen doing it on a semi-regular basis? Reason I ask is that in my experience, season ticket holders think they are above the law! (I've overheard someone arguing with an EMT guard that a Bedford - Luton season is valid to Kettering )

 

[Flamingo]

Never been done as far as I'm aware. That might not be seen as "customer friendly". Indeed, even charging them up is seen as "confrontational" by some within the company.

 

[tannedfrog]

How do you view the following combination from the point of view of needing to stop at Didcot?

Travelcard Season z1-6
Hayes & H to Didcot
Didcot to Swindon

I also don't really understand why there are no day return fares London to Swindon - I can see why so many people try to split!

 

[blacknight]

So limiting information on split ticketing could be seen as conflict avoidence little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing, how many of the general public understand need for train to stop at station where split occurs all they hear from media is headline 2 tickets cheaper than 1.

 

[Flamingo]

Naw, as I have maintained, the only problem with splitting (as with Advance tickets, railcard discounted, group tickets or even off-peak) is when people use them outside their validity. I fully understand why people do it, on occasions I have advised passengers to do it, As with everything, it's the people who abuse it that make life difficult.

 

[blacknight]

Not so much abuse system as they fail to fully understand the restrictions that apply, TOC specific tickets are proberly the worst for that.

 

[Flamingo]

How do you view the following combination from the point of view of needing to stop at Didcot?

Travelcard Season z1-6
Hayes & H to Didcot
Didcot to Swindon

I also don't really understand why there are no day return fares London to Swindon - I can see why so many people try to split!

I don't do trick questions. I mean, I don't follow you around at work telling you how to use your sweeping brush!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Not so much abuse system as they fail to fully understand the restrictions that apply.

Read my earlier post - they know. In a lot of cases, my greeting is "Hello again", and the response is "Oh, it's you!".

 

[blacknight]

Read my earlier post - they know. In a lot of cases, my greeting is "Hello again", and the response is "Oh, it's you!".

Some are just hard of learning maybe treating them repeat offenders as deliberatly avoiding paying correct fare for journey being made & put them before the courts.

 

[yorkie]

How do you view the following combination from the point of view of needing to stop at Didcot?

Travelcard Season z1-6
Hayes & H to Didcot
Didcot to Swindon

I also don't really understand why there are no day return fares London to Swindon - I can see why so many people try to split!

That's quite straightforward, the rule can be found here:-

www.nationalrail.co.uk/system/galleries/download/misc/NRCOC.pdf

19(c) applies:

one of the tickets is a Season Ticket (which for this purpose does not includeSeason Tickets or travel passes issued on behalf of a passenger transport executive or local authority) or a leisure travel pass, and the other ticket(s) is/are not.

So yes that's perfectly valid.

 

[tannedfrog]

That's quite straightforward, the rule can be found here:-

www.nationalrail.co.uk/system/galleries/download/misc/NRCOC.pdf

19(c) applies:
So yes that's perfectly valid.

Thank you. I guess some guards would accept the train not needing to stop at H&H, but some might still say it should stop at didcot. I'm still unclear what Flamingo would say!

 

[D6975]

I recently had a day out in Birmingham.
From Bristol, as many of you will be aware, tickets to/via Brum are ridiculously overpriced.
The on the day fare is £48.40 return.
I used two day returns and paid just £17.30, booking via the FGW website on the previous evening and picking the tickets up in the morning at TM.

It restricted my choices of trains quite severely and extended journey times by about 20 mins to 30 mins each way, changing at Cheltenham and Worcester FS on the way up and Cheltenham on the way back.
Did I avoid paying the correct fare??
I don't think so.
And if there had been no other option than to pay the over-inflated one ticket price, then I wouldn't even have made the journey by rail, I'd have gone by coach.

 

[gordonthemoron]

surely Bristol is nicer than Brum?

 

[JamesRowden]

If I'm working a peak(ish) train from London that doesn't stop at Didcot and DON'T have somebody on a split ticket, I'm surprised. I will expect to find three or four, season-tickets usually. This is despite 1. announcing before leaving London splits at Didcot are not valid, 2. announcing after leaving London splits at Didcot are not valid, 3. announcing before arriving at Reading the train will not call at Didcot, split tickets are not valid, and if I get the chance, 4. announcing before locking the doors at Reading the train does not stop at Didcot, split tickets are not valid.

So, after three (or even four) announcements that the combination is not valid, I will still see three or four people, usually season-ticket holders, so they do it every day. The invariably say either I'm a jobsworth, that nobody has ever charged them before, or they catch this train every night and it always stopped at Didcot.

Just to add, this will be in two / three carriages of the 5/6 cars in STD class. It doesn't seem to be a First Class thing, and it is difficult to get through more than two carriages between Reading and Swindon, as the arguments are usually time consuming.

If someone is caught with invalid split tickets would they have to buy an exrta ticket (e.g. Reading-Swindon)?

 

[Flamingo]

Yep, last stop to next stop. In the case of our morning one that goes non-stop Swi -Pad, it would be a new anytime Swi-Pad single.

 

[yorkie]

Thank you. I guess some guards would accept the train not needing to stop at H&H, but some might still say it should stop at didcot.

It is not immediately obvious it would be valid, but when you read the rules, it is then clear that it is.

I must admit I did not expect it to be valid until a few years ago when the exact wording was pointed out to me. I have since made myself more familiar with the NRCoC.

I agree some would say it must call at Didcot. This would normally be down to poor training however in some cases it has become apparent to me that some rail staff have no interest in understanding the Conditions that they are supposed to enforce and instead just make up their own rules.

The likelihood of experiencing problems varies by many factors including the TOC, area and down to individual staff.

If you use a ticket from Edinburgh to Dalgety Bay, utilising the through trains rule and taking a train clearly defined as a through train, some staff will be fully aware it is valid and others will be unaware of the rules, make up their own rule and threaten you with BTP. There is no way to know if you will be treated correctly in advance, but it is important to know your rights and your responsibilities so that you are prepared for any eventuality. Be prepared to be polite, but assertive. And, where possible, ask questions rather than make statements.

I'm still unclear what Flamingo would say!

I am sure Flamingo is aware of this rule.

 

[Flamingo]

Thank you. I guess some guards would accept the train not needing to stop at H&H, but some might still say it should stop at didcot. I'm still unclear what Flamingo would say!

I'd say "Thank you very much, that's legal, have a nice day"

 

[Wolfie]

You may be sitting next to someone making the same journey on one ticket at a higher price than you've paid, would they think if fair and honourable? They may use words such as fraud or theft and demand that it's stopped at once. The correct fare for the journey is the through ticket, either pay it or don't travel, if TOCs then find their trains are empty they can reduce the fare as First say they will do on WCML.

I remember when the conditions said something like "it is not permitted to use a combination of tickets to avoid paying the correct throughout fare". I wonder how long it'll be before it's changed back?

I must say I utterly and completely disagree with you. The inexorable logic of where you wish to go is a single fare per journey - no Advance or Offpeak fares because, after all, someone with an Anytime ticket sat next to you will have paid more. The fact is that the railways have adopted airline-style yield management (eg multiple Advance fare bands) and shouldn't be too surprised if passengers seek to exploit any legal measures they can to minimise the fare paid.

Of course, if you do get your way and only leave the dearest tickets avaiable, once you have priced the public off the railways don't expect any subsidies.....
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

I know splitting is legal currently but it does involve deliberately misrepresenting the journey really being made to get a lower price than someone who honestly states their journey, that is not fair. It reduces TOC revenue and sooner or later as it keeps growing action will have to be taken to stop it, even the DfT will have to agree it can't be allowed to grow unchecked.

This is the basis of your arguemant and again I fundamentally disagree.

You are saying that someone going A to C MUST state that they are going A to C. How exactly is doing a journey A to B then following it immediately by a journey B to C not making two valid jouneys which just happen to be back-to-back.

The ATOC police state looms - the media and general public have little sympathy with TOCs anyway - your proposals, were any politician daft enough to accept them, would take that level down to zero.

Perhaps if the TOCs genuinely got together and sorted out ticketing soem of your measures MIGHT be justified but allowing a bunch of money grabbing shysters like XC free reign and removing Joe Public's ways of fighting back will just kill the railway stone dead. Put it this way, if your proposals were implemented I would vote for any party committed to making the railways wholly self-funding. Oh, and also making ALL consumer protection legislation apply to them (no more 19th century laws).....

 

[Flamingo]

I am sure Flamingo is aware of this rule.

To be fair, it was you who explained it to me

 

[sequenci]

surely Bristol is nicer than Brum?

When was the last time you visited Brum?

 

[northwichcat]

If we want to get rid of fare anomalies we need to iron out any differences and then see each operator put their fares up by the same amount each year. I don't see this happening so anomalies are here to stay. If anomalies are here to stay then so should be split ticketing.

Some people do seem to forget that if someone chooses to split tickets then they may be limiting their options as not all trains may stop at the station where the split is made. More restrictive tickets are usually cheaper anyway so a split ticket option may finish up as an unadvertised more restrictive ticket.

 

[craigwilson]

Can we agree that it's plain unfair for some customers, through no fault of theirs, to be paying more than others?

No. One of the best things I ever heard someone say to me was "calling something unfair is basically admitting that you're not prepared to do anything about it".

If your neighbour has a completely legal and valid ticket/set of tickets for the same itinerary that you're on, and is paying much less than you, don't whinge and moan, educate yourself as to why that is! What they have may suit your needs, it may not.

If they can carry out the journey they want, and are happy with whatever ticket restrictions they're accepting - they might not need loads of flexibility - in exchange for a better price, then good on them.

It's the people who want the split price, but the same validity that are the problem in my experience...

And are often the same people who abuse Advance tickets...

 

[yorkie]

To be fair, it was you who explained it to me

I wasn't going to mention that

The ATOC police state looms - the media and general public have little sympathy with TOCs anyway - your proposals, were any politician daft enough to accept them, would take that level down to zero.

To be fair there are some very helpful people at various departments at ATOC who I genuinely believe are pro-customer, though some departments do appear to be anti-customer on certain issues! Also I don't think ATOC tried to completely ban 'split ticketing', I was under the impression they wanted the train to always call (as per kwvr45's wish) but this was rejected by the DfT.

It would be hugely inconvenient for many Season ticket holders and holders of Zonal combinations for the train to have to call. For example someone from Hatfield may not want to constantly have to replace a paper Travelcard so may want to have a Travelcard held on Oyster, so they'd buy a Zones 1-4 Travelcard on Oyster, and a Hatfield to Zones 5&6 on paper. If you then said their train had to call, you make the combination unviable and effectively prohibits anyone who commutes from outside the Travelcard Zones from holding a Travelcard on Oyster.

It would also be unfair on people such as Season holders from places like Barnt Green who then get invited to an event at somewhere like Bromsgrove after work. To say they should pay for University-Barnt Green again is completely unfair and totally unreasonable. It is only right that they should only pay the fare for Barnt Green-Bromsgrove.

 

[Flamingo]

So is everybody agreed that regardless of who may or may not like it, split tickets are here for the forseeable future, and once people treat them like any other ticket with restrictions that everybody who choses to use them will be happy?

Good, if that's settled, lock the thread, and I'm off to bed. :-P

 

[tony_mac]

I'm happy, as long as they amend condition 19...

(b) the train you are in passes through Didcot Parkway or calls at a station where you change from one ticket to another;

 

[MK Tom]

As I previously pointed out even if there were a moral issue with split ticketing, it could never be made illegal. The simple issue is there's no difference between doing it and just doing two unrelated journeys on the same day. It would be impossible to ban that. You have paid for every single inch of your journey. You've paid for what you've got and nothing less.

I don't want to feed a debate that's only really being had for its own sake too much, especially when nobody's taking the whole argument very seriously, but the 'some paying less than others is immoral' argument is just wrong. If one person buys four kitkat bars for 60p each and somebody else buys a pack of four for £2:00, is there an issue there because one person knew of the cheaper method and the other didn't? Of course not. Yet you wouldn't expect the shop to put signs up telling people.

 

[yorkie]

If one person buys four kitkat bars for 60p each and somebody else buys a pack of four for £2:00, is there an issue there because one person knew of the cheaper method and the other didn't? Of course not. Yet you wouldn't expect the shop to put signs up telling people.

I went into a Fish & Chip shop in Thornton le Dale (near Pickering) in June 2009 and while waiting someone was given their change and pointed out that they thought they had 10p less than they had expected. The response surprised me: it was because it had been put through as a meal, and they got 10p back as the cost of the individual items was cheaper and the transaction was cancelled and the items put through the till individually.

On another occasion, we went to an Italian restaurant in Liverpool a few years ago (2009 or 2010) and some of us ordered garlic bread followed by pizza. This then went through as a 2 courses for whatever amount it was, which was cheaper in most cases but not if you got those items, it was a few pence more. We did not ask to pay for the items separately though! (but we may have reduced the tip by that amount )

And finally, it can often be cheaper to get a shandy by "splitting". I once tried to specify the individual items and requested them to be "in the same glass" however that attempt failed and I was charged the premium price. The only way to guarantee getting the cheaper price is to literally buy the items separately and requesting a pint glass for one of them! The railways are better in this respect.

However I am sure other real examples exist.

Edit: I've thought of another real example. At a Morrisons supermarket I once mistakenly thought that 10-packs of drinks were included in their half-price offer. However it was only the 6-packs. I then was charged more for the 10-pack than for 2 x 6-packs! Unfortunately I did not realise straight away. But that was my fault and I did not go taking it back to complain. Some people go on about how it should never be cheaper to pay for a ticket to go further, but if supermarkets can do similar, why should it never be the case on the railway? I don't get the fuss some people have with trying to ban or remove anomalies. There will always be anomalies in many aspects of life.

 

[Robsignals]

I must say I utterly and completely disagree with you. The inexorable logic of where you wish to go is a single fare per journey - no Advance or Offpeak fares because, after all, someone with an Anytime ticket sat next to you will have paid more. The fact is that the railways have adopted airline-style yield management (eg multiple Advance fare bands) and shouldn't be too surprised if passengers seek to exploit any legal measures they can to minimise the fare paid.

Way back I said having a range of fares for any one journey is fine as the passenger is given the full choice which will never be possible with splitting. The problem with a long thread is no one can keep track of everything and I'm being accused of suggesting things I never intended and have already said so. I've also accepted that I was wrong to suggest trying to restrict splitting though I've never posted my main idea incase ATOC haven't thought of it, anyway it's not my problem and it's unlikely anything said here will influence whatever might be done so I wish everyone happy splitting.

 

[neilmc]

And finally, it can often be cheaper to get a shandy by "splitting". I once tried to specify the individual items and requested them to be "in the same glass" however that attempt failed and I was charged the premium price. The only way to guarantee getting the cheaper price is to literally buy the items separately and requesting a pint glass for one of them! The railways are better in this respect.

.

Visions of folk on the Trans-Pennine Real Ale Trail all splitting their pints of shandy in the Stalybridge buffet!

On the subject of supermarkets, many's the time I've seen special offers on, say, 500g bags of rice which makes it cheaper to buy two than a kilo bag.

 

[Wolfie]

And finally, it can often be cheaper to get a shandy by "splitting". I once tried to specify the individual items and requested them to be "in the same glass" however that attempt failed and I was charged the premium price. The only way to guarantee getting the cheaper price is to literally buy the items separately and requesting a pint glass for one of them! The railways are better in this respect.

I know of pubs in London where a shandy is dearer than a pint because they charge more for the lemonade than the beer.....

 

[LexyBoy]

And finally, it can often be cheaper to get a shandy by "splitting". I once tried to specify the individual items and requested them to be "in the same glass" however that attempt failed and I was charged the premium price. The only way to guarantee getting the cheaper price is to literally buy the items separately and requesting a pint glass for one of them! The railways are better in this respect.

You're misrepresenting the drink you want when you do this though, and raising the cost for genuine shandy drinkers. It would be easy for the pub to spot such "split drinking" and turf you out. It would only be allowed if you bought one drink, drank it and bought the other at least an hour later.

Likewise, I've seen offers for a burger and a pint for £4.99, where the burger alone would be £4.29 and a pint £2.50. Someone taking advantage of this but only drinking half their drink should also be heavily penalised since buying the half pint and a burger would cost more than the combination.

Slightly more on-topic, I can get the 800 bus direct to Henley from my house for £5 return. Or, I can get the same bus but in the other direction, go to Reading station and get a train to Henley for a total of £4.80 return. Is Arriva going to stop me if the driver spots me in Henley, obviously having used the train?

My point: lots of people buy tickets to travel from a station other than their local station, often because Advances are not available from their local station but are from others. Some of these people drive to the alternative station, some take the bus, some get a train. Why should we selectively ban people from using the train but not any other form of connexion?

Smartcards will of course be a fantastic tool for the industry to crack down on pesky passengers using split tickets, breaking their journey, travelling on indirect routes or using interavailable tickets. After all, these things cost the industry money so they've got to put a stop to them sooner or later.

Ah, I do like a good entertaining troll thread