Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of automated ticket machines in ensuring that rail commuters are always offered the lowest fare.

Rail passengers should always be able to get the best deal and the industry must work harder to make this a reality. Train operators have made some improvements and passengers are benefiting from better on-screen information at some stations but there has got to be improvement right across the network. I have raised this with the Rail Delivery Group that represents all train operating companies as there is clearly more to be done.

The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) have plans to undertake customer focused research and analysis of ticket vending machines with findings and next steps to be published in Spring 2017. This follows their recent Annual Rail Consumer Report (June 2016), which identified issues with existing ticket vending machines. We support this work by the ORR in its role as consumer regulator and will continue to challenge the industry to address the issues and make improvements as soon as possible.