Ah, here we go again! It'd be refreshing if you recognised that the law doesn't require TOCs to do the impossible
rather than flogging this dead horse. What penalty could there even be for failing to procure a taxi in the blink of an eye at Altnabreac? None, obviously - there are no damages because the passenger could no more incur expenses by procuring one than the train company could.
Here we go again indeed. The PRO in particular imposes onerous obligations that are essentially impossible to meet in situations where taxis cannot be procured, or where other operators deny ticket acceptance etc. That is the simply reality of the situation as thread after thread on this website shows.
What it doesn't allow, though, is the current parsimony and obduration - where TOCs tell passengers to get lost (as in the example that led to this thread), or just give up and declare "do not travel" at the slightest hint of trouble, even when entirely self-imposed and foreseeable (c.f. the west side of Northern most Sundays). In both of those cases there are plenty of things the TOCs could and should be doing, with the absolute minimum being to clearly state they'll reimburse people's expenses for alternative transport arrangements, or overnight accommodation where that's not feasible. But they can't even be bothered to do that, and that's the attitude that needs stamping out.
This is a strange and loaded way of describing what is perfectly sensible demand management. There’s nothing illegal about telling people not to travel when if they attempt to do so they will likely end up stranded somewhere, or contribute to dangerous crowding levels.
I have agreed with
@Bletchleyite above that if GC are misleading people then that is unacceptable of course - It’s not clear that’s happening though. TOCs should certainly be prepared to refund accommodation booked by passengers, but whenever that has happened it gets shot down in flames incase 0.01% of passengers can’t afford to pay for hotels on a credit card.
I suspect the vast majority of people don't know about their rights - as demonstrated by the number of people who just refund their tickets and buy a new one when they hear their train is cancelled.
Even for those who do know about their rights, it is a daunting prospect to take a train company to Court. Most companies generally settle claims prior to a hearing or sometimes even before they have to admit or defend them, but if they choose to see a case through to the bitter end there is a lot of legwork required.
Alternatively most people aren’t reflective of the prevailing views on here, and simply want to get from A to B and have no wish to engage in battles with train operators over “their rights”. Hence accepting a refund and booking a new ticket will be regarded as a perfectly adequate solution by many.
As for companies settling claims late and being awkward - that’s fairly standard business practice. We all know budget airlines, etc will often be as obstructive as possible and won’t make it easy to get anything out of them. It’s a way of doing business many people are happy with for reasonable prices.
This is precisely why the PRO obligation is enshrined as a licence requirement - it shouldn't be necessary to take companies to Court to get what you are entitled to. In turn, the ORR should be enforcing licences much more stringently to make sure that their conditions are actually observed. At the moment it's effectively a free-for-all and only the most outrageous practices, such as Eurostar effectively refusing refunds, will attract the regulator's attention
This would be the PRO that has been watered down in the EU, but we for some reason still have the 2007 version in UK law?
Perhaps the powers that be simply consider that the “breaches” are so de minimis, and affect so few people, that they’re simply not worthy of attention, and aren’t serious enough, or happening on a large enough scale, to constitute a breach of the operator’s access agreement.
Speaking of flogging dead horses, your position once again appears to be that the industry is wrong, that the regulator are wrong and that you are right. You’re entitled to that view, of course, but the discussion is somewhat moot!
GC have amongst the highest cancellation rates in the industry, so the fact they get perhaps 90% of their passengers to their destination, and the majority of those roughly on time, is nowhere near good enough.
Who’s to decide what is or isn’t good enough!? It’s evidently good enough for their customers. Ultimately people might well choose a cheap ticket with a 90% chance of arrival over a ticket with a 96% chance that costs twice as much.
Imagine an airline which complied with its safety obligations "the vast majority of the time" (and so by corollary, had safety lapses on a fairly frequent basis) - it would be utterly unacceptable! This is no different, but because it's "only" money at stake, nobody really cares.
This is a false comparison as we aren’t discussing safety.
The requirement to comply with the PRO is absolute. The PRO is not, however, absolute in the way you always claim it to be. It is, as with all laws, subject to the constraints of what is physically possible. What it's not subject to is whether a train company feels like spending the money to comply; cost is (and should be) no object to compliance.
So the PRO isn’t absolute, but requires spending unlimited amounts of money to comply with, regardless of practicality. That seems a rather contradictory argument to me. And, as noted, if it isn’t unreasonable why has the legislation been watered down by the EU?
The suggestions above along the lines of operators keeping buses on standby all over the country “just in case” I’m afraid show a level of naïveté as to how businesses actually operate, and what is commercially viable.
Very easy for you to say as you're not one of the people at whom the GC routes are aimed to serve, neither do you use them...those of us that are and do use them will doubtless feel the same as I do.
They would like more reliability but accept there is a price to pay which is occasionally things going a bit astray, and very occasionally going badly astray.
This is probably the most importantly post on here. An actual user of the service who accepts that everything isn’t perfect but evidently wants it to continue. It’s interesting that some of the “pro passenger” voices on this forum - including the OP who admits he never uses it himself - would like to see you denied that service!
I’m not going to continue the usual back and forth, and I will agree to disagree with
@Watershed as usual
. However I for one hope GC continue operating and serving their customers long into the future.
www.networkrail.co.uk
