Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether guarantees are in place to ensure that self-service ticket machines provide the cheapest available tickets for the time of day and week on which a journey is to be made.

The Office of Rail and Road has asked all train companies to introduce a voluntary ‘TVM Price Guarantee’ whereby they commit to refund the additional costs where the passenger could have purchased a cheaper ticket. This year all 17 train companies that use TVMs now have a TVM Price Guarantee in place. Train companies bidding for new franchises are asked to provide information about any price guarantees in place, which is taken into account in the way bids are assessed, and are required to adopt the Rail Delivery Group’s TVM Design Guidelines for new and upgraded ticket machines.