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Published: 31/05/2010 - Filed under: Archive » 2010 » June 2010 » Special Reports » Features » Archive » 2010 » June 2010 » Features » Special Reports »

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Alex McWhirter examines topical business travel issues

is Online rail booking finally adapting to the modern age? Slow, clunky and confusing best sums up today’s experience when booking UK rail tickets online. But thankfully, moves are afoot to improve matters.

New consumer website mytrainticket.co.uk is the first to offer customers a different and simpler type of display. There are plans to take matters further by offering the convenience of “print at home” and mobile phone ticketing. It is the first rail website to offer Airmiles and will make corporate rail booking facilities available later this year.

One might say online rail ticketing has been slow to take off because all UK booking sites depend on a single database operated by ATOC (the Association of Train Operating Companies). Compared with airline systems, this database appears to be less smart, and this has led to a low level of online bookings. At the moment, according to mytrainticket.co.uk, only 15 to 17 per cent of rail passengers book their trips online, as against 50 to 90 per cent (depending on the individual carrier) of air passengers. Yet online rail booking is something the industry cannot neglect.

Robin Wells is executive chairman of Assertis, the web design firm behind mytrainticket.co.uk. He says: “Train operating companies (TOCs) want to move passengers online because their ticket desks can’t handle queues at busy times and the cost to deliver [issue the ticket] is lower. But the reason why more passengers are not booking online is because the systems are hard to understand. The difficult part for many customers is trying to discover whether it’s cheaper to book a single or a return.”

New websites such as mytrainticket.co.uk still use the same database and, as Wells admits, “a rail booking engine can only be as good as [the information] that is inputted”. He adds: “But what you see on our site is a better presentation of the data. We are trying to make the process more user-friendly. When you hover your cursor over the fare you can see which rates are available and which prices apply to which trains.”

Nevertheless, the user experience with mytrainticket.co.uk is still not as smooth and informative as some rail sites in mainland Europe – most notably Swiss Rail (rail.ch). Click on this website and you’ll see the amount of detail is breathtaking in comparison. Not only can passengers access the full schedules of every service but there is more information on the trains themselves, along with platform numbers and even the weather.

Wells agrees: “The Swiss system is considered the Rolls-Royce of the rail industry. But it handles fewer trains and passengers, and being a single system [ie, one TOC] means there are not so many fares and options to display. That is why it can deliver a better service.”

It seems the UK rail system with its 20 TOCs is simply too fragmented and in a way we have become victims of it. When asked why its database could not supply more details about train services, an ATOC spokesman said: “In the end it comes down to striking the right balance. We want to provide the right level of information. We don’t want to get into the situation where we overload the customer.”

In which case, do UK rail passengers not appreciate more information? Or is it simply because Swiss passengers are fussier? What will change is the method in which UK passengers obtain their ticket. Currently, those booking online receive their tickets by post or collect them from a station machine. Now some TOCs have started to trial systems where passengers can print their own tickets, or elect to receive them via their mobile phone, which would be scanned at station barriers or on board the train.

Wells says: “Wrexham and Shropshire [which operates out of London Marylebone] has adopted mobile phone ticketing because it’s a small TOC with few staff so the cost is relatively low. Larger TOCs have held off because the costs are higher. But it can only be a matter of time, and I would say that mobile phone ticketing will take off in 12 to 18 months’ time. Likewise, we expect print-at-home ticketing, offered by a couple of TOCs, to eventually be rolled out on a line-by-line basis.”

Mytrainticket.co.uk believes that more competition will drive up standards for all rail users. This seems to be happening. Established site thetrainline.com has been brushing up its consumer website since January and is rolling out the improved display to its corporate customers. Adrian Watts, sales and distribution director for the company, says: “Pages have been reduced by 30 per cent [in size], speeding up the booking process, and improved visibility of fare options enables users to make a more informed purchase decision.” So rail booking is getting there.

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COMMENTS » 

BusinessTraveller - 10/06/2010 15:32

This piece has sparked a debate on our forum at:

http://www.businesstraveller.com/discussion/topic/mytrainticket.co.uk-just-another-train-ticket-website

Below is a response to the forum posts and queries:

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I am glad that you all found my recent Focus piece to be of interest.

There wasn’t space to publish the entire interview with Robin Wells so here are answers to some of the points you raised.

As regards ticketing fees, Robin Wells told me “Ideally we would like not to charge a fee but thin margins and the economics of the operation mean we have to.”

On the matter of why rail firms’ own sites do not levy a fee, Wells replied. “It’s a frustration for us. It’s not a level playing field.”

I also asked why rail booking sites did not, unlike their airline counterparts, display seating plans which would enable passengers to select their favourite seats. According to Wells, “We are asking the TOCs [train operating companies] to make seating plans available. The technology is there to make it happen. The downside is that trains and carriages can change at the last minute and that electronic systems may fail.”

I may not have made this sufficiently clear but, to my mind, one advantage of using mytrainticket.co.uk is when passengers take a busy route served by “open access” operators. That is because open access operators tend to charge less for flexible fares than do the franchised holders

I am specifically referring to services between London Kings Cross and Yorkshire where franchise holder East Coast competes with Hull Trains and Grand Central with the latter just having added several new destinations.

If I were to book with a rail firm’s own site, as several of you suggest, the display may not have been as comprehensive and the display not as clear.

Check a departure leaving at 1100 from Kings Cross to Doncaster. The sites of East Midlands or First Great Western show four trains leaving between 1110 and 1210. It is not immediately clear who the operator is. Mytrainticket will display six departures between 1050 and 1230 along with the operators’ codes.

Yes, the mytrainticket’s display could be clearer but by offering a departure just before 1100 means I am alerted to Grand Central’s 1050 departure.

Two final things:

1) Thetrainline says it too is looking at offering both mobile and “print at home” ticketing. An announcement is expected “very soon.”

2) It seems some of you need the flexibility that comes with full fare tickets. So what do you think of the policy of Germany’s Deutsche Bahn to make Bahncards (rail cards) more widely available. Unlike the UK (where rail cards are offered only to specific age groups or may be limited to specific regions or off-peak times) those sold by DB provide nationwide discounts within Germany of 25 or 50 per cent at all times and can be purchased by anyone. It means the cost of a one-way flexible standard class ticket between Cologne and Frankfurt (a similar trip to London-Birmingham) on the high-speed ICE is cut from Euros 64 to Euros 32. Bahncards are more expensive than UK railcards but regular passengers can soon recoup the cost. Are they a good idea for the UK, I wonder ?

Alex McWhirter

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