[theoretical] sold wrong ticket by station office

[gsnedders]

This morning sees me travelling to Falkirk from Partick. I'm later travelling on to Edinburgh.

So, when I got to Partick this morning I asked for two tickets:

• Anytime single, Partick to Glasgow Queen Street,
• Off-peak return, Glasgow Queen Street to Edinburgh.

This suffices for the 0911 train from Partick (prior to 0915, and hence on peak), and for the 0923 Queen Street to Falkirk Grahamston. Notably, the former train is the last eastbound on peak service of the day.

Now where this goes wrong is that the Partick ticket office, when I asked for those two tickets, after paying, told me "here's a return, it's cheaper". I probably should have realised at the point he told me the price, but that's the first point I should've realised as someone who buys those tickets often enough to realise something was wrong, but my first thought was a simple fare change in the anytime ticket (that I rarely buy). I was then given a off peak return, Partick to Glasgow Queen Street.

Now, I realised I had the wrong ticket when I got to the platform and thus could avoid boarding the train without a valid ticket, but if a ticket examiner had taken exception to it without me noticing, would the above be any defence?

I presume in principle the passenger should notice they have the wrong ticket and hence the ticket office fowling up is no defence (albeit terrible customer service, if it leads to an offense being committed!), though if I were someone else I might just assume that the person in the ticket office knew the peak time cut off better than me and assumed it was actually 0900—which seems a totally reasonable assumption!

 

[yorkie]

Now, I realised I had the wrong ticket when I got to the platform and thus could avoid boarding the train without a valid ticket, but if a ticket examiner had taken exception to it without me noticing, would the above be any defence?

I think so. In theory they could charge an excess fare (£24 - £15.20 = £8.80) but your explanation, combined with the ticket being evidence that the ticket office issued the ticket at the time printed on it, would be likely - in my opinion - to see no charge being made.

I presume in principle the passenger should notice they have the wrong ticket and hence the ticket office fowling up is no defence (albeit terrible customer service, if it leads to an offense being committed!), though if I were someone else I might just assume that the person in the ticket office knew the peak time cut off better than me and assumed it was actually 0900—which seems a totally reasonable assumption!

I don't think so. How is a passenger meant to know they have the wrong ticket, if they ask for a ticket for travel on the 0911 (presumably this was made clear, or at least implied by your initial ticket being an Anytime ticket) and are issued with an Off Peak Day Return? As you say Off Peak Day tickets can be valid from 0900 (or even earlier!). There is no requirement for customers to interrogate the fare database before purchasing a ticket from a booking office, nor could there ever be.

 

[gsnedders]

I think so. In theory they could charge an excess fare (£24 - £15.20 = £8.80) but your explanation, combined with the ticket being evidence that the ticket office issued the ticket at the time printed on it, would be likely - in my opinion - to see no charge being made.

Well, presumably just the excess for the single (£2.10 - £1.90). I'd forgotten the time was printed on it, though!

I don't think so. How is a passenger meant to know they have the wrong ticket, if they ask for a ticket for travel on the 0911 (presumably this was made clear, or at least implied by your initial ticket being an Anytime ticket) and are issued with an Off Peak Day Return? As you say Off Peak Day tickets can be valid from 0900 (or even earlier!). There is no requirement for customers to interrogate the fare database before purchasing a ticket from a booking office, nor could there ever be.

I'm often surprised at what we expect passengers to know!

That said, in this case the passenger was wrong! Turns out that ticket is off peak from 0900 although Partick to Edinburgh is off peak from 0915; I'd never realised the difference in all the years I've lived here!

I'll admit now that I got on the train believing the ticket not valid, given by the time I would've done anything about it it would be off peak and I'd have missed the train to Falkirk. But hey, seemingly fine, and I'd believed myself to have done nothing wrong.

 

[yorkie]

Well, presumably just the excess for the single (£2.10 - £1.90). I'd forgotten the time was printed on it, though!

Sorry; can you clarify what ticket(s) were sold exactly?

I thought you were saying that a through CDR from Partick to Edinburgh was sold, but I realise now I must have misunderstood.

 

[Haywain]

Well, presumably just the excess for the single (£2.10 - £1.90). I'd forgotten the time was printed on it, though!

No, a return would always be excessed to a return if the time restriction is the reason for the excess. But on this occasion it seems the person selling the ticket was smarter than the person buying!!

 

[gsnedders]

Sorry; can you clarify what ticket(s) were sold exactly?

I thought you were saying that a through CDR from Partick to Edinburgh was sold, but I realise now I must have misunderstood.

I was sold two tickets:

A CDR, Partick to Queen Street and a CDR, Queen Street to Edinburgh. As it turns out, that covers my journey fine because the former is off peak from 0900 and the latter from 0915. I had believed (erroneously) that the former had the same off peak conditions outbound as the CDR from Partick to Edinburgh (as you linked, off peak from 0915).

It is, it must be noted, cheaper to split at GLQ regardless of the above. Valid on more trains and cheaper!

No, a return would always be excessed to a return if the time restriction is the reason for the excess. But on this occasion it seems the person selling the ticket was smarter than the person buying!!

Yeah, I was thinking that was the case, but wasn't sure. If they had been wrong it would've made it even more expensive than the single I had intended on buying, which would've been truly bad!

But yes, turns out I don't know the peak time restrictions from my local station as well as I thought! (Shows how often I travel into Glasgow at rush hour!)

 

[yorkie]

I was sold two tickets:

A CDR, Partick to Queen Street and a CDR, Queen Street to Edinburgh. As it turns out, that covers my journey fine because the former is off peak from 0900 and the latter from 0915. I had believed (erroneously) that the former had the same off peak conditions outbound as the CDR from Partick to Edinburgh (as you linked, off peak from 0915).

Yes, you were sold a valid combination of tickets.

The validity of any ticket under the category 'Off Peak' is determined by the restriction code, of which there are hundreds.

The restriction code varies depending on ticket type, origin, destination, and sometimes the routeing applicable to the ticket.

It is, it must be noted, cheaper to split at GLQ regardless of the above. Valid on more trains and cheaper!

Yes, it is often the case that purchasing a combination of fares (aka "splitting") is cheaper than a through fare.

You may be interested to learn there is a website that does a very good job of calculating the cheapest combination of fares, see the thread Trainsplit v2.

For your journey, it identifies:

• Partick to Glasgow Central / Queen St Off-Peak Day Return £1.90
• Glasgow Central / Queen St to Edinburgh Off-Peak Day Return £12.70

The through fare to depart at 0911 would be £24.

This huge saving when "splitting" is in line with the national policy whereby it is often the case that longer distance passengers are required to pay a disproportionately higher fare. This practice was announced as ending in Scotland four years ago...

In April 2013, Scottish transport minister Keith Brown announced to great fanfare that that the anomaly of split ticketing, where it can be cheaper to buy a combination of two or more train tickets for a journey instead of a conventional through ticket, would be ended in Scotland....

...however this promise was not kept, and the scheme appears to have been quietly abandoned. Passengers continue to be charged more money for using a train company booking site, than if they used a website such as Trainsplit.

In theory, the Scottish Government could require Scotrail to use Trainsplit's booking engine on their ticket vending machines, ticket offices and website, in order to keep their promise. However I suspect that won't happen as I think the Government would rather Scotrail retained the additional revenue generated by people paying more money than they need to.

Yeah, I was thinking that was the case, but wasn't sure. If they had been wrong it would've made it even more expensive than the single I had intended on buying, which would've been truly bad!

The excess from an Off Peak Day Return to an Anytime Return, for a Partick to Glasgow ticket, is 80p.

But yes, turns out I don't know the peak time restrictions from my local station as well as I thought! (Shows how often I travel into Glasgow at rush hour!)

Trainsplit will tell you which restriction applies. In the case of your tickets, they are, respectively:

• Restriction H9 applies - click for details
• Restriction H1 applies - click for details

Can I interest you in a free Fares Workshop? Feel free to add your forum username to the Doodle for a Glasgow/Edinburgh workshop if that's of interest.

 

[gsnedders]

Oh, I'm well aware of the complexities of all this; I just somehow hadn't realised that PTK-GLQ and PTK-EDB had different restriction codes (or, rather, I'd ended up with the belief they had the same one, hence not checking very closely this time!). I'm mostly just surprised I'd ended up erroneously believing that and that I didn't know PTK-EDB was cheaper split (given I'm well aware it's from PTK it's frequently cheaper to split at GLQ/GLC; it's almost more notable when it isn't!).

 

[grumblingalong]

I had a not too dissimilar situation on one of my services out of London recently. A ticket office in a rural location had issued the passenger with an off-peak single along with a reservation for a very much peak service. I explained to the customer the error the office had made and given there was clearly no fault on his part permitted him to travel.

Common sense innit.