Government planning its own Great British Railway’s train ticket sales website
The government is planning to launch its own railway ticketing website, replacing the current buffet selection of individual train company websites.
Although private companies will still be able to sell train tickets to the public, the current medley of English train operating company websites will be merged into a single Great British Railways ticketing service.
The Department for Transport (DfT) said in a statement that “exact plans for Great British Railways online retail and ensuring a fair and competitive market will now be developed over time in close partnership with industry and the private sector.”
The changes won’t take effect soon, as they will depend on when the legislation enabling the creation of Great British Railways takes effect. There’s also no formal decision yet on whether the unified ticket sales website would be built in-house, contracted out to a new supplier — or if the government would white label one of the existing ticket-selling platforms.
Billing systems used by the TOCs…
- On Track Retail: GTR & Southeastern
- PICO4UK: Avanti West Coast & C2C
- Silverrail: Chiltern Railway, Grand Central & Transport for Wales
- Trainline: CrossCountry, East Midlands Railway, Greater Anglia, Northern, Scotrail & West Midlands Trains
- Vix: LNER
- Worldline: Hull Trains, Great Western Railway, Lumo, South Western Railway & TransPennine Express
The government’s plan to create a Great British Railways ticketing sales website and app is not unexpected, as it was announced back in 2021 as part of the Williams-Shapps reforms. However, a change of government always throws up uncertainties, so the latest notice from the DfT clarifies the situation.
The DfT added that “Great British Railways will deliver on the government’s commitment to simplify the complex web of fares and tickets that currently exist across the network, including by allowing passengers to buy tickets both online and offline.”
Despite its name, Great British Railways will be mainly an English railway operator. The Welsh and Scottish governments have devolved control over their local services, and it will be up to them to decide whether to sell tickets through the government’s proposed website.
“Despite its name, Great British Railways will be mainly an English railway operator. The Welsh and Scottish governments have devolved control over their local services, and it will be up to them to decide whether to sell tickets through the government’s proposed website.”
Is this strictly true? Is it not likely that GBR would be in a position to sell these tickets in any case, in much the same way as the franchise operators didn’t pick and choose which third parties could sell their respective tickets? Presumably the underpinnings of the fares system overall aren’t going away.
Sorry, to be clear, I’m not quibbling with the first sentence, just asking if there’s any knowledge relating to the second that I’m missing.
This typical gov thinks. They don’t learn that putting computer systems together has been massively expensive when the Gov is involved viz NHS, GPO etc. Train line is first class the Gov should spend our money on things that are not duplicating what is already there
Neither position is absolutely correct — sometimes insourcing is better than outsourcing, and the other way — don’t forget the Gov.uk website is an award winning product that is widely used by other countries.
The UK government insourced the website, and other countries outsourced it. Both ended up with the same product.
A poster on Merseyrail says “Tickets bought via Trainline or other third party retailers must be printed at a station before travel. Merseyrail do not accept digital tickets”. I don’t know what a third party means here but we haven’t got national acceptance of tickets issued yet.
We would hope that DfT would demand that Merseyrail step in line with other operators. They aren’t the only ones, TfL are much the same. If nationalisation is to have any real meaning then nationally standardised ticket systems should be the obvious customer-focussed move to make.
I think that would mean TfL modifying every ticket barrier, which probably wouldn’t be that cheap.
TfL are trialling digital ticket scanners for stations where there has been issues, and are looking longer term to add them to stations at mainlines or where there is demand or validity, so it is possible.
PICO4UK as used by C2C and Avanti West Coast is the only on-line system to recognise Boundary Zone 6 as a station.
Presumably the government already own a railway ticket seller – for example the LNER ticket sales platform as they own LNER. Or is this not correct? Rebranding would not be hard if they do.
There’s a list of ticket platforms in the article – as you can see, LNER doesn’t own a ticket platform of its own.
I wonder if they will continue to allow 3rd parties to sell tickets, such as Virgin Trains Ticketing and TrainSplit?
One advantage of a joined-up ticketing system might be that claiming compensation for late or cancelled trains might become easier. My claims usually fail for days when there is a storm or other major disruption.
Trainline and National Rail tickets charge a booking fee whereas if you book direct with the train company theres no booking fee and is sometimes cheaper. Most train companies provide etickets which can be scanned at the barriers so the article saying this is new is not true.