New data released today has revealed the colossal amount of time and money that Brits are throwing down the drain due to ticket restrictions. According to research from revolutionary rail ticket app, Seatfrog, £26.5 million is being wasted by people rebooking seats after missing their prebooked journeys, along with countless hours spent waiting on the station concourse to ensure they make their intended train.

Seatfrog’s research lifts the lid on how stressful, complicated and costly prebooked train travel is in the UK. Every year, two-thirds of the 1.8bn rail tickets sold in the UK are advance tickets requiring passengers to take the specific train they are booked on. For the 64% of people in Manchester forced to rebook their train tickets due to changed travel plans, these restrictions carry a hefty price, with 98% of passengers spending up to £100 to buy a new ticket. It’s a massive problem given that 45% of passengers admit they’ve missed a train before.

Consequently, a huge amount of time is being wasted due to people’s worries about missing the train. 85% of people show up more than 30 minutes in advance of their prebooked train, clogging up the concourse when they could be getting on with their lives.

Worse still, people are having to cut life moments short because ticket restrictions leave them unable to swap trains. More than a third (33%) have had to leave work events early, one fifth (19%) have cut their holidays short, and one in 10 (13%) have left festivals early just to make sure they don’t miss a prebooked train.

To address this problem, Seatfrog has launched its new TrainSwap feature to enable people to change their train, not their plans, from just £2.50 through the Seatfrog app, which is already used by more than one million rail passengers.

Iain Griffin, CEO and co-founder of Seatfrog comments, “It’s easy to buy a cheap, advance ticket, but it’s complicated, costly and stressful to change tickets if our plans change. We want rail to enable life, rather than getting in the way of it. So from today, we’re letting passengers swap trains and change tickets in just a couple of taps on the Seatfrog app.”

Seatfrog’s research also reveals that 53% of Manchester residents have failed to show up to important events as a result of missed trains, with one in five people missing work events, and one in 10 (9%) people missing out on valuable family time. And it’s taking its toll on our wellbeing, with half (49%) of people left feeling stressed after missing their train, and 40% feeling angry about the events they’ve missed as a consequence.

Griffin continues: “This lack of rail flexibility means people are leaving dates, missing gigs, cutting work events short or finding themselves stuck on the concourse when they could be putting the kids to bed. We’re making it much easier for people to change plans and swap to a different train, with zero stress or time wasted queuing in the station or ringing customer service to book new tickets.”

For years, train companies have been held back by legacy technology, struggling with clunky manual processes involved in helping people to change trains. It’s expensive for operators to manage, and these high costs usually get passed down to customers.

Seatfrog aims to make these costs a thing of the past with its game-changing new technology, TrainSwap, which it is initially rolling out across the Northern trains network, before it expands across the rest of UK rail. Northern is the second largest train operator in the UK, with more than 2,500 services a day to more than 500 stations across the North of England.

Mark Powles, commercial and customer director at Northern, said: “Our customers have been able to use the Seatfrog app for just over a month – and for those whose plans have changed, it’s proving popular. Advance Purchase tickets offer the best prices for those who can book before the day of travel, but circumstances can and do change and it’s great that we’re now able to offer customers the chance to switch trains via Seatfrog rather than have to purchase a new ticket.”

Since launching in 2018, Seatfrog has already saved consumers more than £43m across 3,400+ destinations. It is the only place where tickets can be bought for the best price, upgraded to 1st class from as little as £5 and change to a different train in a few taps from £2.50. Seatfrog can be