The Trainline Facing Competition?

[The Stationmaster]

A piece in todays 'Telegraph's business pages states that Trenitalia are looking to take on The Trainline online booking site with an English cversion of their 'net based system for ticket sales.  Reported to have been given the name 'Pico4UK' the system will be trialled on the Tilbury line.  According to Trenitalia it sounds like the answer to everybody's prayers being  able to handle everything ticketing wise from online bookings right through to  'tap-in/tap-out' ticketing systems.

 

From my experience of dealing with FS I sincerely hope it works a lot more effectively than their timetable planning staff and, more importantly, doesn't charge you an extra supplement for travelling on a train for which you've already paid the supplement.

 

In the meanwhile The Trainline's US private equity owners are reported to be considering a stock market float and are hoping to see a £1billion flotation for the company they bought for £500 miliion in 2015.  The Trainline is reportedly one of the most profitable companies involved in the UK rail business and sells ticketing services to some train operators as well as its business dealings direct with passengers.  Which makes me wonder why after what seem like umpteen inquiries into profits made by rolling stock companies nobody has bothered to refer this company for investigation?

[Hesperus]

We all know that you can buy tickets direct from the operators and National Rail Enquiries but the public tend to take the first hit on Google which I imagine TL pay a high price for.  I just put a random journey in (Ludlow to Paddington) and prices were mostly the same although NR offered a cheap ticket on the first train that Trainline missed.  From that I assume TL gets the tickets at a wholesale price?  I wonder if all ticket sellers get them at the same price?

 

I imagine people are less upset with TL as they didn't get BR assets at a knock down price then rent them back to government subsidised operators at a vast profit.  I realise that the ROSCO's have been shown to offer better value to the taxpayer than the DaFT procured farce of IEP but frankly what wouldn't look better value than IEP?

[MarkC]

Meh! is my response.

 

I usually buy my tickets via the TPE website. No fees, and I get Nectar points. What's not to like?

 

(Of course, I always check the operator I'm planning on travelling with first, just in case they have a deal on, but as yet haven't found one...)

[justin1985]

58 minutes ago, Hesperus said:

We all know that you can buy tickets direct from the operators and National Rail Enquiries but the public tend to take the first hit on Google which I imagine TL pay a high price for.  I just put a random journey in (Ludlow to Paddington) and prices were mostly the same although NR offered a cheap ticket on the first train that Trainline missed.  From that I assume TL gets the tickets at a wholesale price?  I wonder if all ticket sellers get them at the same price?

 

You can't buy direct from National Rail Enquiries, last time I checked. You can start the process of selecting a ticket, but when you click "Buy" it gives you a choice of retailers to buy from, usually beginning with the TOCs that run the services you're booking, but also including others.

 

The vast majority of TOCs now seem to use Trainline not only for an online booking system, but for all the customer service that goes with it. Certainly with Greater Anglia, under their current franchise, online/phone and ticket office bookings are treated entirely separately, because online tickets are entirely handled by Trainline. Any problem with a paper/collect at machine ticket bought through the Greater Anglia website gets turned away by Greater Anglia ticket offices - you have to phone an Indian call centre and then post tickets to a Trainline address in Edinburgh.

 

I can't remember the last time I used a TOC booking site that wasn't a customised version of the Trainline. You can always recognise it by the "grid" view of different ticket options and times that has "MixingDeck" as part of the URL in your browser bar.

 

The one advantage is that the TOC booking sites that are run by Trainline don't charge the booking fee that the Trainline put on their own website.

 

Certainly looks and quacks like a monopoly to me though.

 

Justin

Edited April 9, 2019 by justin1985

[Hesperus]

2 hours ago, justin1985 said:

 

You can't buy direct from National Rail Enquiries, last time I checked. You can start the process of selecting a ticket, but when you click "Buy" it gives you a choice of retailers to buy from, usually beginning with the TOCs that run the services you're booking, but also including others.

 

 

 

Sorry I'd forgotten about that,  I usually check the prices online then buy the ticket from the ticket office at Ludlow Station as they are really nice and deserve the business.

[black and decker boy]

We have to use TL Business at work.

we can book only 1 journey per transaction. Onto that a booking fee of just over £5 is added.

 

Thats a lot of money off our bottom line compared to me buying a ticket direct then claiming it back.

 

TL Business also seems wholly incapable of fulfilling your reserved seating requests and you have no option to adjust.

 

For personal use, I also use TPE for the same reasons as MarkC

[corneliuslundie]

I always use our local private Newtown Station Travel based at the station. Excellent service, friendly and knows all the ways of doing split tickets to get a cheaper price. Why go on line when you can get such good service? And pick up a copy of the local rail users' newsletter.

Jonathan

[justin1985]

15 minutes ago, corneliuslundie said:

I always use our local private Newtown Station Travel based at the station. Excellent service, friendly and knows all the ways of doing split tickets to get a cheaper price. Why go on line when you can get such good service? And pick up a copy of the local rail users' newsletter.

Jonathan

 

It must be nice to have that kind of option! 

[Gwiwer]

There are still TOC-specific web-only fares such as Southern’s bargain quota-controlled fares from London area stations to or from the Sussex coast. Last time I looked it was still possible to find Victoria - Chichester or Eastbourne fares for as little as £5 and down to £3.40 with a suitable railcard discount. Those are not available anywhere other than the Southern website which does not resemble any Trainline format so might be independent of it.  Those fares are also not offered by NR’s Cheapest Fare Finder either; typically the best there is a £17 Advance single. 

 

One area of increasing difficulty regards ticketing and which affects a sizeable minority of users is the privilege fares available to many staff. These cannot be bought online nor from a station machine; they are only available over the counter at staffed ticket offices which are rapidly dwindling in number. Or they can be bought on board if joining at a station where purchase is not possible. 

 

It should be possible for an outfit such as Trainline or any competitor to be programmed with staff travel pass details in the backend and both offer and issue these fares perhaps in return for a valid password on your personal account.  

 

There are many instances of a bargain public fare being cheaper than the priv rate but unless an enquiry is made via an open ticket office one is unable to obtain a full fair picture. 

 

 

 

[great central]

2 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

There are still TOC-specific web-only fares such as Southern’s bargain quota-controlled fares from London area stations to or from the Sussex coast. Last time I looked it was still possible to find Victoria - Chichester or Eastbourne fares for as little as £5 and down to £3.40 with a suitable railcard discount. Those are not available anywhere other than the Southern website which does not resemble any Trainline format so might be independent of it.  Those fares are also not offered by NR’s Cheapest Fare Finder either; typically the best there is a £17 Advance single. 

 

One area of increasing difficulty regards ticketing and which affects a sizeable minority of users is the privilege fares available to many staff. These cannot be bought online nor from a station machine; they are only available over the counter at staffed ticket offices which are rapidly dwindling in number. Or they can be bought on board if joining at a station where purchase is not possible. 

 

It should be possible for an outfit such as Trainline or any competitor to be programmed with staff travel pass details in the backend and both offer and issue these fares perhaps in return for a valid password on your personal account.  

 

There are many instances of a bargain public fare being cheaper than the priv rate but unless an enquiry is made via an open ticket office one is unable to obtain a full fair picture. 

 

 

 

 

There's enough problems caused by people booking tickets with non-existant railcards without adding Priv options into the mix. No thanks. Priv option is available, as you say, at ticket offices or on board staff where they're present. If not you should be able to buy at destination.

I'm guessing you know the Priv discount? I won't mention it here but if you do you should be able to do your own comparison between Priv discount on normal tickets and bargain public fares.

The Trainline often gives some rather obscure routings to get your bargain fare as well, from my experience involving 15 minute walks between stations giving no consideration to the ability of a passenger to make that walk, sometimes elderly or infirm passengers are quite upset that their bargain fare is going to cost a taxi ride between stations and one I know of doesn't have a taxi rank.

It also doesn't offer group tickets and rarely cheap day returns, all of which costs the passenger dearly.

[Reorte]

10 hours ago, great central said:

The Trainline often gives some rather obscure routings to get your bargain fare as well, from my experience involving 15 minute walks between stations giving no consideration to the ability of a passenger to make that walk, sometimes elderly or infirm passengers are quite upset that their bargain fare is going to cost a taxi ride between stations and one I know of doesn't have a taxi rank.

It also doesn't offer group tickets and rarely cheap day returns, all of which costs the passenger dearly.

IIRC when it does that it normally lists the walking bit of the journey as a separate leg with "walk".

[The Stationmaster]

12 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

There are still TOC-specific web-only fares such as Southern’s bargain quota-controlled fares from London area stations to or from the Sussex coast. Last time I looked it was still possible to find Victoria - Chichester or Eastbourne fares for as little as £5 and down to £3.40 with a suitable railcard discount. Those are not available anywhere other than the Southern website which does not resemble any Trainline format so might be independent of it.  Those fares are also not offered by NR’s Cheapest Fare Finder either; typically the best there is a £17 Advance single. 

 

One area of increasing difficulty regards ticketing and which affects a sizeable minority of users is the privilege fares available to many staff. These cannot be bought online nor from a station machine; they are only available over the counter at staffed ticket offices which are rapidly dwindling in number. Or they can be bought on board if joining at a station where purchase is not possible. 

 

It should be possible for an outfit such as Trainline or any competitor to be programmed with staff travel pass details in the backend and both offer and issue these fares perhaps in return for a valid password on your personal account.  

 

There are many instances of a bargain public fare being cheaper than the priv rate but unless an enquiry is made via an open ticket office one is unable to obtain a full fair picture. 

 

 

 

You might well find - as is the case with a number of franchises, that, in fact the system used by Southern is run by Trainline (I think Trainline might well run the booking systems for most franchisees and of course the formats vary but use the same basic software?).

 

The staff travel situation is now pretty complex because of the way it applies to people newly employed by the different franchises, other train operators, and other parts of the former BR totality plus of course it is also complicated by (now) having 12 different categories some of which go back a long way into BR days and at least one of which applies only to retired staff (unless there is still anybody working who has got in 52 years service).  If you then throw in all the various restrictions on the use of Privs and passes you would be adding a massive amount of complexity to a system which is basically there for 'normal' fare paying passengers and which is designed for Trainline to make money from both the passenger and the train operator. 

 

Somehow I can't see anybody - even Trenitalia - being prepared to include Priv fares in their system and of course as hinted by 'Great Central' it might potentially open up another avenue for fraud.  Just think how often you have been asked to show your Staff Travel Card or Photo ID card when using a Priv Ticket.