Retail market review conclusions

ORR’s Retail Market Review focused on who sells tickets, what tickets are sold, where and how tickets are sold, and the ticket format. We considered this from the point of view of the industry rules and practices that govern how all retailers (train operating companies (TOCs) and third party retailers) sell tickets.

Our conclusions

Our conclusions document to the Retail Market Review discussed our recommendations and TOCs’ commitments to improve the way they make decisions that affect third party retailers; it sets out our findings regarding the merits of TOCs’ ability to discount fares and to restrict their distribution; and it explains the progress we, industry and governments have made regarding the other recommendations we made in June 2015 to facilitate competition and to improve collaboration among retailers.

What we have done:

The Retail Market Review involved three public consultations, two industry workshops and primary research about passengers’ views on ticketing. Further information on this work is available below:

• An initial call for evidence document in February 2014 that sought stakeholders' views on our initial thinking on the scope and approach of the review;
• An initial industry workshop on May 2014;
• A report by CEPA consultancy on the comparative analysis of the third party retail markets outside rail in August 2014;
• A consultation on the potential impacts of regulation and industry arrangements and practices for ticket selling in September 2014;
• A consultation on our Emerging Findings in June 2015;
• Market research undertaken by BDRC Continental to understand passengers' views on rail ticketing, including how well the integrated retail model works from their perspective and what value it brings; and
• A second industry workshop on 7 September 2015.