Gatwick Express told to stop 30 mins ad - unless it can actually do it - MSE News 1 August 2018 at 11:25AM in Public transport & cycling 6 replies 1.8K views

Former_MSE_Megan_F

Gatwick Express has been told to stop claiming its trains get to Victoria "in just 30 minutes" in adverts - unless it can actually achieve that journey time in most cases...

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'Gatwick Express told to stop 30 mins ad - unless it can actually do it'

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VT82

Am I misreading the statistic? Surely 79% being on time is 'most' (i.e. above 50% AKA the majority AKA most), and therefore the advert is OK?

redux

I agree with the previous reply.

Some advertisers, apparently including MSE itself in its home energy supply comparisons (despite MSE's "cheaper than the cheapest" never having happened in my supply area) seem to be allowed to make a claim if true only just more than half the time.

prowla

I think a 21%, or 1 in 5, failure rate is too much to be able to make the 30 minute claim.

VT82

prowla wrote: »

I think a 21%, or 1 in 5, failure rate is too much to be able to make the 30 minute claim.

And yet there is no mention of what the on-time proportion would actually need to be before the claim could be made. What is acceptable? 90%? 95%?


For me, if the timetable says it takes 30 minutes, and 80% of the time this is achieved, they're not being deliberately misleading in saying it takes 30 minutes.

redux

VT82 wrote: »

For me, if the timetable says it takes 30 minutes, and 80% of the time this is achieved, they're not being deliberately misleading in saying it takes 30 minutes.

The timetable I just looked at had 29 or 27 or 26 minutes.

The article doesn't elaborate on what claims or considerations are being made about trains which are slightly late but arrive in 30 minutes or less.

chattychappy

I just read the original ruling. On the one hand it says they can't make the claim unless they can demonstrate it is true on most cases. But elsewhere they seem to suggest that 79% isn't good enough as often in the case of late running, it was within the control of Gatwick Express.

This muddle has carried through to the media which should have sought clarification IMHO.

It always used to be the case that the railways considered a train "on time" if it arrived within 5mins of its scheduled time. This might be fine in the railway bubble, but not in real life IMHO.

I would feel it wrong if, say, everyday the train took 32mins, was scheduled to take 30mins, and the claim was the journey took "just 30mins".