Complaint over ScotRail ticket machine in Nairn passed to Transport Secretary

Labour MSP David Stewart is angry that a problem with the self-service kiosk at Nairn Station flagged up in the summer took three months to fix.

Mr Stewart has now written to the transport secretary Michael Matheson saying it is shocking that ScotRail dragged its feet over such an important issue.

“Rail bosses should have been falling over themselves to fix this machine,” he said.

“I wrote to ScotRail’s chief executive months ago telling him that machine was burying a cheaper ticket. I shouldn’t have had to have asked twice for this to be sorted out. I promised my constituents this was being seen to ages ago. I want the Scottish Government to acknowledge this happened. I think it would be only right if rail passengers in Nairn could receive an apology.”

The glitch came to light when Mr Stewart received complaints that the ticket machine’s main display screen was prompting people to pay £9 to travel on the off peak 09.18 service to Inverness. The correct fare is £6.50 but only a manual search of the machine was showing this fare.

Concerns were raised that some people may have been choosing the £9 fare, not realising the £6.50 was available. So, Mr Stewart wrote to ScotRail asking for it to be rectified immediately.

Rail director Bill Reeve replied saying he was sorry to hear about it and he accepted it was “not the level I, nor Scottish ministers, expect”.

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