Ahead of tonight’s Channel 4 Dispatches programme Train Journeys from Hell, a spokesperson for the Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC) said:
“The railways are attracting record numbers of passengers. With 1.32billion journeys made by train in 2010, the railways carried more passengers in a peacetime year than at any time since the late 1920s.
“According to Passenger Focus, the independent watchdog, more passengers than ever are happy with their journey. Punctuality is at historically high levels, and we now have one of the safest railways in Europe. These improvements show how train operators are committed to providing the high quality services that passengers expect and deserve.
“But we are not complacent and are always working to make services better for passengers which is why we are investing millions in improving information for passengers, and to provide better stations, more trains and faster services.
“Giving train companies greater freedom from central prescription would allow them to respond even better and quicker to passengers’ concerns. That is why we are making proposals to Government on how the industry can continue to improve services for passengers and deliver better value for money for taxpayers.”
ATOC went on to state:
Fares
“From the daily commute to visiting family on a long distance journey, passengers use the railway in very different ways and understandably expect a range of fares to suit their needs. To meet these expectations, train companies have to get the balance right between periods of high and low demand in every part of the country while ensuring there are always cheap fares available.
The vast majority of passengers buy and travel on the right tickets. Most travel on some kind of discounted fare, for example, on Off-Peak, Season or Advance fare tickets. Every week, passengers purchase around 800,000 cheap Advance tickets.
Buying the correct ticket is pretty straightforward. Wherever they can, people should book early and avoid busy times of the day. Young people, those over 60 and many families can get a third off most fares with a Railcard. Or you can go to the National Rail Enquiries website, paid for and run by train companies, which has up to date information on the best deals.
Which?
The Which? survey was seriously misleading and misrepresentative. Asking 150 questions mostly based on unrealistic and obscure scenarios cannot come close to giving a representative view of the 1.3 billion journeys that are made every year by train.
The magazine also claimed that they asked “about the cheapest fares” but what they failed to tell their readers was that they explicitly excluded the cheapest fares in almost every question they asked.
Tens of thousands of passengers have no problem buying and travelling on the cheapest fares every day but we understand the frustration of those who feel they have not been able to buy the right ticket which is why we are working to continue improving services for passengers.
Monitoring and enforcement policies
There are safeguards in place to ensure that people who have been unable to buy the right ticket are not given a penalty fare. Train company staff use their discretion where people have genuinely had problems getting a ticket. Staff on trains and at stations are also kept fully up to date about ticket machines which may not be working and ticket offices that are closed.
However, train companies have to take a firm but fair approach on ticket enforcement to stop a small minority costing the railways millions of pounds every year because they choose to travel without a valid ticket. We estimate the railways lose up to £190m a year, money which could pay for the lease of up to 1,500 extra carriages or the upkeep of around 380 stations for around the next five years.
Unregulated fares
Half the cost of running the railways comes from the taxpayer, the other half from passengers. The level of fares is determined largely as a result of Government policy which aims to reduce the contribution from taxpayers and increase what passengers pay.
About half of fares are directly regulated according to a formula linked to the rate of inflation. The rest are set by train companies as part of the financial commitments they have to meet and which are set out in the contracts they sign with the Government to run services. So in effect although these fares are known as unregulated fares, the level at which they are set is actually driven by Government policy on rail funding, which currently is that passengers should pay more.
Overcrowding
Overcrowding is a big concern for train companies. More and more people are travelling by train – a sign of the success of the railways. But when customers are unhappy, then that’s bad news for us. Train companies, wherever possible, seek to ease overcrowding and we welcome the Government’s recent announcements on new trains.
But to a large extent the prescriptive nature of franchise agreements set out by civil servants restrict what train companies can do. We want to run even more services and address overcrowding, allowing train companies to use more of their commercial nous to tackle these kinds of issues. Train companies need to be freed up from interference from civil servants and be allowed to tackle overcrowding quickly and effectively themselves.
National Rail Enquiries – TrainTracker
TrainTracker received almost 3 million calls in the last year. Almost two out of three were repeat callers and the vast majority of people experienced no problems in getting the information they wanted. The service can plan journeys to and from any of 3,000 locations and recognise 9,000 speech variations, which are different names for the same station.
But we always want to improve our service which is why we regularly test TrainTracker to ensure passengers are able to find out what they need. We have invested millions of pounds in TrainTracker, our call centres and the National Rail Enquiries website, which we relaunched at the end of 2009 and is now the most visited travel and transport website in the UK, with well over 15 million visits every month.
Punctuality
Austria, Belgium and Spain are among the many other countries that use similar measures to record rail punctuality, and not all include cancelled trains which we do. Significant improvements have been made over the last few years and figures from the independent watchdog, Passenger Focus, show that 82% of people are now satisfied with the punctuality and reliability of trains.
But train companies are not complacent. We are acutely aware of how important punctuality and reliability are to passengers, which is why train companies devote a great deal of energy and resources to ensuring more services arrive on time. Compensation arrangements vary between train companies according to the exact agreement they have with the Government. The terms are made available by individual companies.”
