Northern Rail chiefs take on the big questions for Leeds travellers

What happens to passengers who are unable to buy a ticket before boarding a train and there is nobody available to purchase a ticket from on the train?

With our smartphone app, website developments, and ongoing investment into automatic ticket vending machines at stations, it’s never been easier to buy a ticket, at any time, in advance to travel with Northern. If customers don’t have a ticket when they board the train they must have a ‘promise to pay’ voucher which is available from a station ticket vending machine if they are travelling on the Airedale or Wharfedale lines. On other lines customers can continue to purchase their tickets from booking offices or at their destination.

How many people have been fined at Leeds City Station for not having the correct ticket in 2017?

No customers have been fined at Leeds station, or anywhere else. Customers are only fined if they fail to pay a Failure to Purchase notice and ignore repeated requests for payment which leads to court action.

A number of strikes have already been held on the network and now another is planned for March. What’s your position as a company to help break the deadlock to reassure passengers?

We have made it clear to the RMT union that we are still prepared to guarantee jobs and hold pay reviews for our 1,300 conductors under the end of our franchise in 2025. The Government has also taken that a step further by guaranteeing jobs beyond 2025 if RMT ends its strike action. RMT has also recently rejected our request to hold a fresh ballot of Northern conductors after 14 days of strike action since March last year. Sadly, we cannot say how long RMT will continue with its dispute and co-ordinated campaign, but we’re continuing to deliver our modernisation plans. This includes almost £500m of new trains which are under construction, over 70 refurbished trains already out on the network, constant improvements to our stations, and better technology.

Why is it cheaper to purchase tickets in advance on some services?

The earlier customers buy their ticket, the cheaper it will be. Train operators, including ourselves, release their cheapest fixed-time advance tickets, which are limited in number, around 12 weeks before departure. Open tickets, for use on any train service on a specific route, tend to be more expensive. It is always a good idea to book in advance and be specific on the train service you want to travel on.

How do passengers numbers influence decisions on frequency of services and how late they run?

The frequency of most of our services is determined by our franchise and for the majority of our routes there is a minimum, hourly service. On some routes, particularly in West Yorkshire, most stations receive two trains every hour with some stations served by four trains every hour in each direction. Where there is significant passenger demand a more frequent service is operated in the morning and evening peaks. In and around Leeds is a good example of where there is significant demand at those times. Evening services are normally determined by demand, but we have to balance that by giving Network Rail time to maintain the track – and for us to ensure trains are cleaned and maintained.

How do you identify which services should have their timetables revised or additional stations added?

We regularly review our timetables and by 2020, we will be operating an additional 2,000 services per week when compared to 2016. Many extra services have already been added on Sundays with more Sunday services coming in May. We are committed to introducing new services across the whole region. For example, by December 2019, new through services will operate from Bradford to Nottingham, Chester and Liverpool. Not every train can call at every station and we have to balance a variety of needs – including those of other train operators.

What can Northern do to try and improve the punctuality and reliability of a service which is subject to complaints?

We always want to be on time, every time, and get people to where they need to be. We monitor all 2,600 trains services every day and we constantly analyse our service punctuality by route – looking at the causes of any delay and taking feedback from our customers. The majority of our trains are fitted with GPS so that we can quickly investigate where regular delays occur. Our £500m fleet of new trains, currently under construction in Spain, will replace older trains and the refurbishment programme for the rest of the fleet is well underway. Both our new and refurbished trains will play a significant role in improving our performance, quality and passenger comfort – with the outdated Pacer trains going by the end of 2019.

Are there plans to add additional carriages to services at peak times to avoid overcrowding or people not being able to board services because they are full?

It has been well publicised in recent weeks on the progress we are making with our new trains which will have more carriages, capacity and comfort. Our new trains will start to come in from December this year. By 2019, an additional 37 per cent more peak capacity will be added, while longer trains will be operating on most routes into the region’s big cities. Electronic passenger counting systems installed on some of our trains provide crowding data to the train planners who regularly review the most crowded trains and attempt to re-deploy carriages to accommodate demand. We are always focused on improving and never stop trying.

What is a customer’s legal rights when a service is delayed and how many claims for compensation does Northern receive each week? 
How many of those are successful?

We want every journey to run as smoothly as possible but if things do go wrong, customers can claim Delay Repay if one of our trains is late by 30 minutes or more, or is cancelled. Compensation can be in the form of a cheque, National Rail vouchers, or free tickets for use across our network.

Our team work hard to clear compensation claims as quickly as possible.