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Railwatch 070 - December 1996

Rail Regulator to meet campaigners

The Rail Regulator has agreed to meet campaigners from RDS and the user groups to thrash out the differences between us.

The offer was made by the Regulator's delegation at the conference who took a lot of flak' on his behalf.

The Regulator's passenger services group, represented by Iryna Terlecky, Chris Collins and Teresa Perchard, was challenged on several issues, including whether the Regulator adequately represents the public interest in his dealing with rail companies.

The regulator's team explained how it had tried to preserve network benefits and through ticketing and had been trying to improve the quality of travel and fares information from the rail industry.

Other complaints centred on the Routeing Guide which was being implemented on the weekend of the conference. "Today is the last day we can travel by any reasonable route," said general secretary Trevor Garrod. "Tomorrow we will have to travel by any permitted route. By restricting our freedom to choose different routes for the comvenience of the accountants, rail will be less flexible in competing with road."

But RDS president Michael Caton said the officials were hoping the new Routeing Guide would offer the same flexibility as the old system. He urged rail passengers that if challenged over the route they had taken, they should request a special slip from the booking office, conductor, guard or ticket inspector and report their problem which is supposed to be fed back to a steering group.

Rail Regulator John Swift has agreed that passengers' rights to use the network flexibly could be eroded, either by accident or design.

It is important that problems should be reported before May 1997 - during the Routeing Guide's experimental period. Trevor also reminded campaigners that the unacceptable idea of core stations was dropped - but only until May 1997.

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