Ticket unavailable from TVM

[dan_atki]

Rather than drag the thread off topic, I'll make a reply to http://www.railforums.co.uk/showpost.php?p=386460&postcount=22 here instead.

Tom, you raise an interesting point with regards to TVMs not selling the full range of tickets. Indeed, there are many stations now that have PERTIS machines removed because Quickfare machines have been replaced by modern alternatives which offer a wider range of tickets.

The current view is that you should purchase a ticket to allow you to make part of your journey and then get the proper ticket on board, or at an interchange or destination.

However, this makes me wonder what happens if you pay more than you were meant to. Presumably the original ticket is non-issued (despite being used) and the new one is sold with any difference in fare being sorted out by the ticket office. Can the guard give a refund in these cases?

Then comes the question of a DOO service, alighting at another unmanned station. Do you then write to the TOC's customer service department asking for a refund? No doubt this will come in the form of travel vouchers...

I also wonder about this 2 hour limit that was applied to Permits to Travel. Say you were going Flitwick to Brighton on a direct train, with a journey time of above 2 hours. Are you expected to alight the train early to get the ticket? Or would the staff at Brighton understand?

This leads me to an interesting point that I notice on SWT's station information posters. It specifically says (and I'll try to get a photo of this soon) something along the lines of 'If the ticket office is closed and you cannot purchase your ticket from the self-service machine then you should buy it from the guard on the train, at an interchange station, or the destination'.

Presumably it means the full range of tickets will be available to you (I've often wondered, though, if four people boarded without tickets and asked for GroupSave because the TVM didn't sell it whether it'd be given to them*), and without any penalty.

What I'm yet to establish is whether this is a SWT only policy or whether other TOCs indeed explicitly allow this. Any word of question from the guard here and at least there is an official poster to quote!

*Although to save any possibility of them refusing, I've always gone to the ticket office at the next station to get such tickets. Although once, coming from Lymington Pier, there were three people travelling together and they asked for three tickets. The guard asked if they were all travelling together, and when they said yes he said 'I'll sell you a GroupSave then, but it's quite far down the list!'.

This is obviously a standard procedure followed when selling such tickets to automatically offer GroupSave if it fits the needs, but I wouldn't have thought selling GroupSave on Avantix Mobile would be any different to any other discount (unless indeed you can't type in a discount and have to select it from a long list?).

If the latter is true, is there any order to the list (presumably most common/alphabetical)? And is there any facility to reorder things (like the top 24 destinations on modern ticket office TIS can be set by operator if desired)? It would be a useful feature for guards on routes with a lot of unmanned stations.

 

[glynn80]

Condition 3 of the NRCoC states the following:

3. Where the full range of tickets is not available

If you cannot buy an appropriate ticket for the journey you want to make because the range of tickets that is available at the station from which you intend to start your journey is restricted, you must buy a ticket or Permit to Travel before you travel that entitles you to make at least part of the journey. Then you must, as soon as is reasonably practicable, buy an appropriate ticket to complete your journey. In these circumstances, you only need to pay the fare that you would have paid if you had bought a ticket immediately before your journey. The price you will have to pay will be reduced by the amount paid for the ticket or Permit to Travel.

Emphasis added personally

Now the NRCoC set out passengers’ rights and TOCs obligations. TOCs may add to passengers’ rights but must not detract from them. The NRCoC therefore set out the minimum level of service the passenger is entitled to expect. The above quote from the NRCoC states that the passenger must purchase a ticket as soon as is reasonably practicable for them to do so and thus if we take the Flitwick to Brighton example, a passenger would not be forced to disembark en-route as I very much doubt it would be practicable to do exchange the PTT (especially if they are on a direct train) until Brighton.

Saying this, the FRPP does state the following with regard to Permit to Travels:

Permit to Travel Machine (PerTIS)

These machines are installed at most stations where Penalty Fares are in operation. They provide a means of determining where the rail user started their journey when they have been unable to purchase a travel ticket.

They are available for use when the ticket office is closed, or in exceptional circumstances at the discretion of the ticket office.

These machines accept coins; they do not give change.

Customers should insert the maximum coins in their possession, from 5p, up to the value of the fare for the journey being made.

Customers must exchange the Permit to Travel at the first opportunity or within two hours for a travel ticket and pay any difference in fare due.

Passengers must exchange the PerTIS permit for a proper travel ticket within two hours of the permit being issued.

Passengers who are travelling with a valid permit are not liable to pay a Penalty Fare.

These permits must be accepted by any person authorised to sell tickets. Such tickets should be issued at the appropriate fare, and the Permit to Travel treated as cash and paid in accordingly.

The permit must be paid in as per local instructions.

The above states firstly that "Customers must exchange the Permit to Travel at the first opportunity or within two hours for a travel ticket" and then seconly "Passengers must exchange the PerTIS permit for a proper travel ticket within two hours of the permit being issued.". So it seems as if the PTT advice given to Revenue Protection staff conflicts with the NRCoC (which gives passengers the right to decide when is reasonably practicable for them and does not constrain a time period) and therefore it may be an issue to raise with the DfT.

 

[embers25]

This is now much more of an issue than ever given Southern have now removed FCC only tickets from their ticket machines claiming that FCC's "level of service" being so poor is sufficeint justfication. In this case there is no permit to travel and at 4am there is no ticket office. To use Three Bridges as an example the fares from Jan are as follows:

Super Off Peak Day Travelcard FCC only £9.50 (same as 2009)
Off Peak Day Travelcard FCC only £12.00 (same as 2009)
Off Peak Day Travelcard not GEx £17.00 (£16.40 in 2009)
Off Peak Day Travelcard Any Permitted £23.20 (£22.40 in 2009)

If I have to change to buy a different ticket I have a very long wait and I can't upgrade on train as FCC are DOO so what should I do. If I only buy a Three Bridges to Gatwick ticket then when I try to exit at London Bridge I will be penalty fared. If I pay the extortionate Southern fares I pay almost double the correct fare which surely I should not be expected to do. I know I could buy it in advance but what if I want to travel last minute?? It's one thing not selling all tickets but it's quite another to not sell tickets that are valid on most trains. Also it's like Southern saying oh crap FCC are stealing our revenue by undercutting us and so we'll stop selling their tickets and so now the average person won't be made aware of the much cheaper fare pocketting a fortune for Southern.

I have emailed FCC and Southern and pointed out to Southern that SWT should remove Southern tickets from Soton-Havant stations after they gave up at Horsham during the snow and just said screw the south coast. They did offer ticket acceptance on the 700 instead of running trains from Brighton to Pompey but at 4+ hours the 700 isn't much of a viable alternative. (I know it's not the same level as the FCC strike but it's the same logic)

Before everyone goes on about sympathising with Southern having to help out during the continuing (and definitely not resolved) FCC strike, I get they have every right to be mad and something should be done to FCC and much more than has been done to LM but ripping off passengers and blatantly trying to boost profits by refusing to show all available routings on probably one of the most common tickets purchased is surely illegal and definitely dishonest. Then again I guess they had to pay for the ridiculous Jack Black commercials some how.

 

[northwichcat]

Apparently the new ticket machine at Capenhurst only allows you to purchase a ticket to a destination on the Merseyrail network meaning if you want to do Capenhurst to Manchester, for example, then you must buy a Capenhurst to Chester ticket from the machine and purchase another ticket at Chester or risk being penalty fared.