Travel Restrictions

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I am sat waiting 20 mins for the cheaper train. If I travel a little later than I want to it is half the price. The catch is I can only come back at a certain time and this time seems to keep changing.

It took me ages to buy my ticket at the counter. "What trains can I travel on? What time can I come back? Do i need to show all parts of the ticket to board the train? Is the ticket for today only? Do i need to know first aid? Is there a password? How about a seat? If I ran the trains I would ensure that if you bought a ticket between one place and another you could travel on any train at any time that was traveling between those places. One price for first class and one price for second between destinations. Simple.

If you are going to fork out for our over priced train travel here in the UK I would at least hope you could jump on a train and get where you are going.

I just saw a young girl overladen with bags looking forward to getting home to her family stopped at the ticket barrier and questioned because her ticket allowed her to travel part the way now and the rest of her journey after a very long wait.

She bought her ticket online and must have missed the small print. Tired and frustrated she bought another ticket.

How are we ever to free up our congested roads and choose the 'Eco' option of public transport if when we try to buy a ticket we are faced with ridiculous travel restrictions on trains that probably don't have any spare seats anyway?

A simplification of the price structure would surely attract people to the trains.

I'm @Documentally on Twitter
Posted July 2, 2010
Jul 02, 2010
dahowlett said...
Hmmm...my experience of online booking is that the ticketing system is pretty straightforward. BUT - if it is incomplete than yon lass will have a problem.
Jul 02, 2010
Will Hawkins said...
I agree. The train system is unnecessarily complicated when you buy a ticket. When I buy online, I am often given options of which train I take out and on which train I return. More often than not, though, nobody checks the return ticket. So, if they are not going to check it, why are they so fastidious when you buy it about the timings? I also now motorbike into London and Cambridge. It's simpler and cheaper all round.
Jul 02, 2010
Phil Sorrell said...
Had a nightmare train journey to and from Middlesbrough late May (http://bit.ly/cVzFdf). The whole system is just a privatised tangle of bits of railway network flung together in the hope it would stay together.. Next time I am driving!
Jul 02, 2010
Dan Thornton said...
I have the joy of commuting into London with East Coast every day. The wifi rarely works, during rush hour there's often no seats left without a reservation, and 3 times so far this week there have been major delays for various reasons, and everyone is left standing around hopelessly.
And for this I pay a premium over the cheaper option, and about the same amount as it'd cost to buy a motorcycle, pay for petrol and tyres, and probably a little towards the insurance.
All because in theory it made sense to spend about 2.5 hours a day working etc on the train...
Jul 04, 2010
Ross McCulloch said...
I travel by train pretty much everywhere but I understand why most of my friends still take the car.

There's a perverse culture where public transport providers, especially rail companies, see 'customers' as pests. All be it pests who give them money. Customer service really doesn't exist.

You'e right, the ticket classification system is still a mess, despite a significant redesign recently. For me the bigger problem is inconsistency. Why can I get from Glasgow to London cheaper than I can get from Glasgow to Montrose (NE Scotland)?

Jul 04, 2010
Documentally said...
@ThirdSectorLab Agree. I will always choose my bike over the train if the weather is good or the distance is less than 100miles
Jul 04, 2010
Mike Garner said...
Privatise your train system and get Europe's most expensive railways. Seems like a good deal to me