MSE News: Compensation to be made compulsory for train delays of over 15 minutes

Legacy_user

The DfT has unveiled its 'Delay Repay 15' scheme that'll pay compensation for delays of more than 15 minutes...

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'Compensation to be made compulsory for train delays of over 15 minutes'

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LadyDee

And who bears the cost? It won't be the train companies, it won't be the shareholders - it will be all the long-suffering members of the public who see increases in train fares year upon year, including those that do not think 15 mins waiting on a platform has a permanent traumatic effect on their lives!

muhandis

Most season tickets on commuter routes in England and Wales are regulated and price rises are linked to the RPI in July of the preceding year. For 2017, the price rise is already limited to 1.9%.

Unless legislation is passed that does away with this, train cos can't increase their fares beyond this.

The intention is for this to act an an incentive for the train cos to get their act together and sort out the issues that cause late running.

LadyDee wrote: »

And who bears the cost? It won't be the train companies, it won't be the shareholders - it will be all the long-suffering members of the public who see increases in train fares year upon year, including those that do not think 15 mins waiting on a platform has a permanent traumatic effect on their lives!

Mobeer

I can see an avalanche of claims coming - hope that GTR have got some automation in their claims handling.

One-Eye

...but does "late" apply to the station you leave the train or only the train's final destination?

If it only applies at the final destination expect even more "padding" of the schedules than applies now (eg. London - Peterborough 45mins but Peterborough-London 52mins) and more cases of running non-stop through stations where the train should call to ensure on-time arrival at the final destination. A train from Birmingham to Newcastle can be over 15 minutes late at Sheffield, Doncaster, York and Darlington etc. and "on-time" at Newcastle due to padding the schedule and missing out the scheduled stop at Durham.

A notorious example of this is East Midlands Trains policy of sending late-running Liverpool-Nottingham trains using a shortcut that cuts 10 miles from the journey and completely misses the scheduled stop in Sheffield, saving about 15-20 minutes on the journey.

WestonDave

Chances are that if this achieves anything at all it will be further slackening of timetables to build in more time to recover from delays so whilst trains might be more predictable we might actually end up with slower journeys because they can't run ahead of booked stops.

Mobeer

One-Eye wrote: »

...but does "late" apply to the station you leave the train or only the train's final destination?

Delay Repay applies to your journey, not the final destination of the train.

Kite2010

I can't wait until it launches for the new SWT franchise next year, even to get something for a 30 minute delay would be better than the current nothing for under an hour.