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Jonnty posted:I don't think any transit system in the world has a 100% fare collection rate - metros like the London Underground manage something close to it but only by putting barriers up at almost every station. As a passenger, I personally much prefer open stations with collectors on board, but there's no way a guard is going to be able to check the tickets of every passenger on every train and one way of mitigating that is by adding extra risk to all forms of fare-dodging. I don't see how it's fare-dodging to board a train with a ticket I bought, say, 3 weeks ago at off-peak that I ended up not using and stepping up the difference to peak? When the collector comes to collect the ticket, I'm ending up paying the full price in the end. If the collector doesn't do their job and actually collect the ticket and the step-up, the issue is with them, not me (BTW, I've actually had occasions where I had free rides on 2-3 trains for non-collection and then used the ticket the third or fourth time; I don't see how I'm 'fare-dodging' if the train collectors aren't willing/able to do their job and actually taking the ticket). Horseshoe theory fucked around with this message at 16:50 on Jun 22, 2014 |
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Jun 22, 2014 16:46
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ThirdPartyView posted:I don't see how it's fare-dodging to board a train with a ticket I bought, say, 3 weeks ago at off-peak that I ended up not using and stepping up the difference to peak? When the collector comes to collect the ticket, I'm ending up paying the full price in the end. It's not fare dodging if you did it with every intention of upgrading it, and that's why most guards would usually let you off with just an excess if you pro-actively sought them out. If you're just sat in your seat waiting for them the guard has no idea whether you were just waiting for them or whether you were hoping they wouldn't spot you. A much better way of proving your intent would be to go to a ticket office before travel and get it upgraded there.
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Jun 22, 2014 16:50
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ThirdPartyView posted:I don't what it's a deterrent for...? The LIRR is run by a government agency that isn't out to grab all the money it can, unlike the privatized British rail system. That's why the LIRR conductor will happily take your cash for a step up fare when you're already halfway to Jamaica station (and the only penalty attached is that step-up fares are always rounded up to the next highest whole dollar, so if the real price difference between what you have and what you need was $3.10 you pay $4).
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Jun 22, 2014 16:54
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Here in New York, we have the LIRR and you're able to pay the step-up difference between off-peak and peak rather than being screwed by having the technically wrong ticket.
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Jonnty posted:It's not fare dodging if you did it with every intention of upgrading it, and that's why most guards would usually let you off with just an excess if you pro-actively sought them out. Alternatively, the collector can do their drat job and actually take my ticket and ask for the step-up rather than me being their bitch and having to chase them around the drat train. quote:If you're just sat in your seat waiting for them the guard has no idea whether you were just waiting for them or whether you were hoping they wouldn't spot you. Well, if I have a ticket on hand, I have clearly remitted some funds to the train service, so it should be clear that there is no 'fare-dodging' intention since I have already paid some level of fare. quote:A much better way of proving your intent would be to go to a ticket office before travel and get it upgraded there. Or how about the collectors just do their drat jobs like they do on the LIRR? Nintendo Kid posted:The LIRR is run by a government agency that isn't out to grab all the money it can, unlike the privatized British rail system. Which is the real point: the British rail system does it out of pure greed, not any form of equity/justice, despite the way Jonnty has worded it. Horseshoe theory fucked around with this message at 16:57 on Jun 22, 2014 |
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Jun 22, 2014 16:55
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ThirdPartyView posted:Alternatively, the collector can do their drat job and actually take my ticket and ask for the step-up rather than me being their bitch and having to chase them around the drat train. Why do you expect any transport company to do anything out of equity or justice? Plus you're the one at fault here for not making sure you got on the service your ticket allowed you to.
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Jun 22, 2014 17:17
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Malcolm XML posted:Why do you expect any transport company to do anything out of equity or justice? Plus you're the one at fault here for not making sure you got on the service your ticket allowed you to. Because that's how it works in socialist America.  (Incidentally the predecessor private services in America also tended to stick with demanding step-up charges rather than full price of a new ticket when they still ran their own passenger services)
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Jun 22, 2014 17:36
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ThirdPartyView posted:Alternatively, the collector can do their drat job and actually take my ticket and ask for the step-up rather than me being their bitch and having to chase them around the drat train. I'm not going to argue this one any more cos I don't really like defending the private TOCs, but I still think it's pretty obvious why they'd want to do it, even if I'd prefer a state system which errs on the side of the passenger when it comes to fare collection. However, I disagree with the idea of an uninspected ticket being conductors "not doing their jobs" when they regularly have to work on overcrowded trains where it's literally impossible to move down them at any speed, the stops are literally minutes apart and they're responsible for opening/closing the doors and dispatching the train as well.
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Jun 22, 2014 17:51
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Malcolm XML posted:Why do you expect any transport company to do anything out of equity or justice? Plus you're the one at fault here for not making sure you got on the service your ticket allowed you to.
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Jun 22, 2014 17:52
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Jonnty posted:I'm not going to argue this one any more cos I don't really like defending the private TOCs, but I still think it's pretty obvious why they'd want to do it, even if I'd prefer a state system which errs on the side of the passenger when it comes to fare collection. So we could say the company is fault, not the guard (why would you blame the guard? It's not his/her fault at all)
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Jun 22, 2014 18:17
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The fairness of collecting the difference vs. a new fare is irrelevant when it's so hard to figure out what is and isn't a valid (super)off-peak train. The version from pretty much every train company and national rail is "check every train" which is mental.
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Jun 22, 2014 18:33
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Nintendo Kid posted:Because that's how it works in socialist America. It's the railroad's prerogative, and if they want to charge full price they have very good reasons to: you get a perverse incentive that allows you to always attempt to board with a cheaper ticket assuming that you won't get caught, with the penalty just being the full fare. Some services allow you to board w/o a ticket and just charge you a premium (Heathrow express) because it makes better economic sense given their clientele, and just because a railroad is publicly owned doesn't mean it can't use revenue management techniques. Or you could start one of those indian ticket inspection insurance schemes, wherein you pool the risk of getting caught. Public ownership is not a magical panacea that removes all ticketing.
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Jun 22, 2014 18:48
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All Too Much For Me posted:The fairness of collecting the difference vs. a new fare is irrelevant when it's so hard to figure out what is and isn't a valid (super)off-peak train. The version from pretty much every train company and national rail is "check every train" which is mental. It is probably the single most opaque thing about our ticketing system. Even what you just said there is technically wrong, it doesn't ever depend on the train (ie there is never such a thing as a peak or off-peak train), it only ever depends on your specific ticket. And since there is such an array of different ticket restrictions (there used to be a 115 page PDF document with them all in but it doesn't seem to exist anymore) members of staff are unlikely to know every single ticket that could be valid on a given service if it is an even mildly abnormal journey. Malcolm XML posted:Public ownership is not a magical panacea that removes all ticketing. For example I'm fairly sure the current penalty fare arrangements originated under British Rail. nozz fucked around with this message at 19:15 on Jun 22, 2014 |
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Jun 22, 2014 18:55
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ThirdPartyView posted:I don't see how it's fare-dodging to board a train with a ticket I bought, say, 3 weeks ago at off-peak that I ended up not using and stepping up the difference to peak? Because it is illegal to board a train without a valid ticket, regardless of intent (the potential intent being to avoid paying a fare). quote:
The ticket you bought three weeks ago is going to have a date on it, and is only valid for a certain amount of time. I don't know about outside of London but off peak is from 9:30am to 4:30am the next day, I think peak is 4:30 to 4:30. Not to defend the rail companies (most of them are scum) but the law is very clear, even if users are poorly informed about it (and often the charges are ludicrous, £200 fines and criminal record for a £2 journey).
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Jun 22, 2014 19:06
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Malcolm XML posted:It's the railroad's prerogative, and if they want to charge full price they have very good reasons to: you get a perverse incentive that allows you to always attempt to board with a cheaper ticket assuming that you won't get caught, with the penalty just being the full fare. Wrong, needlessly penalizing people avoiding the roads disincentivizes taking public transit instead, so it's in the interest of our public operators to allow step-up tickets (sometimes with an additional "bought on train" fee) rather than putting someone out the price of a full ticket. Plus any form of multitrip ticket (whether a set number or monthly/yearly pass) is valid any time of day and the prices are generally set to be lower than the costs of buying an off-peak round trip for every workday. So really there's no structure here that incentives the horror stories you're trying to claim will happen. Not to mention that we don't gently caress around with fare structures that can only be represented with a tessearact; there's generally nothing more complicated for any passenger to deal with than peak/off peak (if you do something like try to use a senior citizen or child ticket you do of course get penalized by having to pay for a full matching ticket for your class, but that's different) on commuter lines; and on intercity lines fares only vary depending on when you purchase them (discounts for booking in advance or for trying to fill up a train) or if you want them to be refundable so there's no room for a step-up concept.
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Jun 22, 2014 19:26
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Nintendo Kid posted:Wrong, needlessly penalizing people avoiding the roads disincentivizes taking public transit instead, so it's in the interest of our public operators to allow step-up tickets (sometimes with an additional "bought on train" fee) rather than putting someone out the price of a full ticket. Plus any form of multitrip ticket (whether a set number or monthly/yearly pass) is valid any time of day and the prices are generally set to be lower than the costs of buying an off-peak round trip for every workday. So really there's no structure here that incentives the horror stories you're trying to claim will happen. Fishmech the reason why multitrips are cheaper is that (among other things) it allows capacity planning and revenue booking to be done immediately and some of the NPV increase is passed to the consumer as a sweetener. Plus you buy a number of trips at the same time, so your overall revenue is very high. Nothing new there. Peak times are set to generate the most revenue (usually, I actually doubt the british TOCs are smart enough to use realtime traffic monitoring) but the actual distinction is just impossible to find. Making people buy the correct ticket for the ride is totally 100% ok, but making it a goddamn pain in the rear end to figure out if your ticket is correct is shady as gently caress--something to be solved by better regulation of ticket validity notification. Somehow people think by making the companies publicly owned you would magically get transparency and disincentivize yield management , and if you believe that I have many a bridge to sell you.
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Jun 22, 2014 21:07
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Malcolm XML posted:Fishmech the reason why multitrips are cheaper is that (among other things) it allows capacity planning and revenue booking to be done immediately and some of the NPV increase is passed to the consumer as a sweetener. Plus you buy a number of trips at the same time, so your overall revenue is very high. Nothing new there. That is 100% irrelevant to why there's no incentive to try to sneak along buying off peak tickets all the time - our systems actually do check tickets and the costs incurred through the step up programs more than make up for the few times you'd succeed. In our system peak times are simply set when there's the most trains running and blatantly displayed, even though in most systems there's a few cases where just missing a non-peak train means you'll have to wait for a peak. We make it super easy to buy the correct ticket, if you show up without one on a commuter line you buy the upgrade. If you show up to an intercity train without a correct one you're not let on the train unless you go back and buy a correct one (because the ticket you have was for a different actual departure). No, it's just the fact that when the actual purpose of the system is to keep people off the roads at all costs, you get completely different incentives than a for profit system. States and regions happily (and not so happily) lose massive amounts on farebox revenue just so they can reduce road usage. We're not talking some penny-ante public ownership but it's still run as a business poo poo, we're talking an actual public transit system. poo poo, there's tons of systems that basically operate on the honor system these days, at least for light rail services.
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Jun 22, 2014 21:43
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Nintendo Kid posted:That is 100% irrelevant to why there's no incentive to try to sneak along buying off peak tickets all the time - our systems actually do check tickets and the costs incurred through the step up programs more than make up for the few times you'd succeed. This is not at all obvious and depends entirely on the service. If it does make sense to do so, then sure go ahead. But a priori there is no reason to believe it does. quote:No, it's just the fact that when the actual purpose of the system is to keep people off the roads at all costs, you get completely different incentives than a for profit system. States and regions happily (and not so happily) lose massive amounts on farebox revenue just so they can reduce road usage. We're not talking some penny-ante public ownership but it's still run as a business poo poo, we're talking an actual public transit system. poo poo, there's tons of systems that basically operate on the honor system these days, at least for light rail services. Well the UK is not the US, and there's a large group of people who simply cannot take private transport so they would have to take road-saving measures like going on a bus. Commuter rail is a different beast than long distance inter city rail as well. Nobodies claiming the UK peak/off-peak system is well designed, but allowing step up upgrades without penalty is dumb--offpeak discounts serve as capacity management as well.
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Jun 22, 2014 21:54
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Malcolm XML posted:This is not at all obvious and depends entirely on the service. If it does make sense to do so, then sure go ahead. But a priori there is no reason to believe it does. It is completely obvious, if your fare inspection is done correctly there are only minimal chances to get away with the wrong fare to start with, and on top of that the step-up fares always cost more than buying the correct ticket to start with would have. This can range from something as minimal as the round up-cost the LIRR applies to step-up fares, or to things like the up to $10 additional charges other rail agencies apply for buying tickets on the train in conjunction with the step-up cost. Yes, the UK is full of people who continue to support private ownership of transit services and that's why your road system is horrendously overcongested and your rail system is horrendously overpriced and anti-traveler. No, step ups make perfect sense for any sane rail system, that is, one that is focused on keeping people using transit. Half the capacity management involved in the UK right now is only required because of deliberate decisions to seek extra profit.
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Jun 22, 2014 22:13
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It's a similar argument to 'why isn't a single ticket half the price of a return?', and the answer is again to discourage fare evasion. Peak time in my area is before 9 in the morning (although 16-25 railcards are only valid after 10) or if you are travelling a certain distance it can depend on your arrival time. For instance you could get an off peak ticket from Lancaster to Clacton on Sea at 0730 because you wouldn't arrive until well after peak time. Regarding ticket collection, which is my job, unfortunately it's just not realistic in the mornings on some services. I work a route where I have 6 minutes to check 200 passengers tickets, including selling tickets which inevitably leads to someone using their card to pay, eating up the best part of a minute. I have never managed to get more than half of the first carriage of that service, especially since I have to operate the doors upon arrival and everyone stands up and traps you as soon as they know they are within 90 seconds of arrival.
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Jun 22, 2014 23:20
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Lofty132 posted:It's a similar argument to 'why isn't a single ticket half the price of a return?', and the answer is again to discourage fare evasion. Peak time in my area is before 9 in the morning (although 16-25 railcards are only valid after 10) or if you are travelling a certain distance it can depend on your arrival time. For instance you could get an off peak ticket from Lancaster to Clacton on Sea at 0730 because you wouldn't arrive until well after peak time. Quite, and this is subtlety being missed here in the differing duties of the guard and say, a revenue protection The guard has specific and detailed duties to undertake on board the train. You'd need to employ another guy just to work tickets and that's money the railway simply isn't gonna spend.
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Jun 22, 2014 23:28
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Lofty132 posted:It's a similar argument to 'why isn't a single ticket half the price of a return?', and the answer is again to discourage fare evasion. Peak time in my area is before 9 in the morning (although 16-25 railcards are only valid after 10) or if you are travelling a certain distance it can depend on your arrival time. For instance you could get an off peak ticket from Lancaster to Clacton on Sea at 0730 because you wouldn't arrive until well after peak time. In the states, return tickets for commuter services usually are the same price as two singles (and some systems simply only issue returns for off peak and only issue singles for on-peak). And for long distance services there again isn't a possibility of substituting tickets because they're specific departure bound And the train operator should be hiring more people to do your job so that it can be got through in time, they're just refusing to do it so they can try to cut costs in a way that's lovely for both employee and passenger. They'd probably actually make more money because the system currently seems to be set up in such a way that fare evasion is relatively easy to accomplish.
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Jun 22, 2014 23:33
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I should probably reiterate that what really pissed me off is that there was plenty of room on half the train and I was paying for standing room (super saver or not). Re the ticket, I wasn't trying to gouge the company, I was a poor student at the time trying to travel cheap (on Super Saver) and didn't pay full-enough attentions to arrival times etc. Yes, I get the need to incentivise ticket-payment though it's hardly ideal for the hangover consumer.
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Jun 23, 2014 00:27
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Interestingly the management contract that Govia has been awarded for the Thameslink/Southern/Great Northern superfranchise means that:quote:ticket revenues are passed directly to the Government rather than retained by Govia, due to the complexity and scale of the planned changes to services and infrastructure We are committed to delivering these changes and minimising their impacts on customers. As far as I can tell it's basically the same as the London Overground model, there seems to be constraints placed on the branding as well. Govia has to retain the Southern and Gatwick express brands, and bring back the Thameslink brand. Not quite sure what this means for the future of the franchising system but it's a slightly less disastrous manifestation of it than previous efforts. If Labour suggest they are going to bring the railways back into public ownership and that policy is popular with the public I wouldn't be surprised if the Tories suggested this as an alternative on a permanent basis.
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Jun 26, 2014 13:02
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nozz posted:Its meant to be a deterrent. If you only ever had to pay the difference why would anyone buy a peak ticket? You'd just travel on the cheapest ticket possible and only pay the full price if challenged. I didn't get challenged, I walked up to someone capable of charging me and told them, before the train had left the station. This all came about because someone sold me the incorrect ticket in Dover anyway. I specifically asked him if this was good for the connecting train, and he assured me it was. So if it's the law, it would be a good idea if the people responsible for maintaining it would have a clue. Jonnty posted:It's not fare dodging if you did it with every intention of upgrading it, and that's why most guards would usually let you off with just an excess if you pro-actively sought them out. If you're just sat in your seat waiting for them the guard has no idea whether you were just waiting for them or whether you were hoping they wouldn't spot you. A much better way of proving your intent would be to go to a ticket office before travel and get it upgraded there. Virgin do not do this: their policy is to charge you for the entire ticket making your existing investment into your journey void. To reiterate, I was not asking to be let on for free, I was asking for a mistake to be rectified and the only way they could do it was to waive the entire excess. Betjeman fucked around with this message at 16:40 on Jun 26, 2014 |
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Jun 26, 2014 16:31
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Its completly hit and miss. You get some little hitlers and some who sort you out happily.
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Jun 26, 2014 19:11
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In Franchising news. National Express have been chosen to continue running Essex Thameside services under the C2C brand. There's a list of the promised changes they'll be implementing here. http://www.c2c-online.co.uk/Breaking-News Interesting points to note include: + Full station staffing from First train to Last train (at all stations) + Automatic refunds if your train is more than 2 minutes late. + A smart card system that'll also work in local buses as well as the London area. + Passengers given the right to the cheapest ticket available and compensation given if they aren't as well as a bunch more tickets. (Hopefully this will include regular returns as currently you can only get day returns!) + The normal "more trains and seats at peak times bollocks" Its certainly a big set of proposals although I'd argue that some of them should be put into force across the rail network as a whole (particularly the right to the lowest fare as there's quite a bit of fare bullshittery going on) I take the C2C to work every day and its certainly one of the better train services I've been on (and granted one of the smallest) but they're certainly taking a very customer focused view to their services.
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Jun 27, 2014 08:48
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Venmoch posted:+ Passengers given the right to the cheapest ticket available and compensation given if they aren't as well as a bunch more tickets. (Hopefully this will include regular returns as currently you can only get day returns!) Wait, so you buy a peak ticket and are compensated if you travel off-peak?? Outrageous, that's so dumb, it's really important customers are penalised wherever possible!
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Jun 27, 2014 08:57
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That franchise is for 15 years!
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Jun 27, 2014 11:58
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baby steps to nationalisation - http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jul/03/rail-network-franchises-labour-plan labour will allow state operators to bid for rail franchises against the private TOCs (currently they are banned). but will not go as far as automatically returning franchise to state control which the rail unions etc are campaigning for. or not quote:Labour said the planned announcement was "pure speculation", adding: "We will set our policy at the appropriate time."
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Jul 3, 2014 21:19
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Big cash money investment in the South West (£150m) announced today, including a £103m resignalling currently being specced by yours truly  Edit: the announcement also amused us at work as our paper to get the money authorised doesn't got for approval until tomorrow. Fairly sure the boss could turn up in a clown suit at this point and get it cleared. Bozza fucked around with this message at 21:37 on Jul 3, 2014 |
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Jul 3, 2014 21:32
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Bozza posted:
After reading this thread, I am fairly sure that will be in line with community expectations of the British rail system
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Jul 3, 2014 23:17
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Heard at my RMT branch meeting yesterday that the new signalling program has been pushed back until 2028 on the Cumbrian Coast (they planned to knock all the signal boxes down and have the area controlled by one powerbox) which is good news for signallers if true. Apparently the Cumbrian Coast is going 24 hour because 'heavily armed' freight bringing dirty nuclear material from Scotland to Barrow is going to commence soon. Sounds fun.
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Jul 7, 2014 14:03
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Network rail fined £53m for being very naughty boys and making all the trains late: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-28191430quote:Network Rail has been fined a record £53.1m by the rail regulator for "shortfalls in performance".
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Jul 7, 2014 14:41
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Lofty132 posted:Heard at my RMT branch meeting yesterday that the new signalling program has been pushed back until 2028 on the Cumbrian Coast (they planned to knock all the signal boxes down and have the area controlled by one powerbox) which is good news for signallers if true. Currently speccing a similar scheme in the South West as I said above, but having to list "operational headcount reduction" (aka redundancies) as a net positive always hurts me inside. I am the corporate machine.
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Jul 7, 2014 14:56
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LemonDrizzle posted:Network rail fined £53m for being very naughty boys and making all the trains late: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-28191430 quote:The regulator did, however, note "a number of significant successes" over the past five years. In relevant news, the signalling centres which are replacing all these hundreds of little signal boxes are now quite intimidating places. They control so much infrastructure from one place that 3m high electrified fences start to seem like a reasonable precaution. We're also having to rename all the railway tracks because when you ring up to take a possession on the, for example, "Down Main", instead of getting through to the quirky fellow in a glorified garden shed half a mile down the track, you get someone in a command bunker a hundred miles away who controls twenty "Down Main" lines.
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Jul 7, 2014 19:24
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Endjinneer posted:I think the ORR have been copying my CV. The loving goods loops are an absolute nightmare for this. Where are you based Endjinneer?
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Jul 7, 2014 19:27
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What is the best name you have come up with so far?
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Jul 7, 2014 19:33
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Fairly sure there's a "Reading Festival Line" on the final design...
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Jul 7, 2014 19:46
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If you don't get 'Full Communism Now Line' and 'Bob Crow Memorial Line' through then you have failed.
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Jul 7, 2014 20:18
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I'd quite like to see the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles junction
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Jul 7, 2014 20:20
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