If we ever move to an integrated national smartcard-based ticketing system, then I suppose at that point the majority splits would be eliminated, as you'd only be charged for what you'd used. I imagine that it would only leave splits available to people with season tickets loaded onto their cards, if such a thing persisted, if their journey incorporated part of their season ticket validity.
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Passenger Revenue if everyone would split their ticket
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A split model (as has happened recently with mobile phone contracts) might work.
I.e. a kilometric distance fee, plus a kilometric operator fee, (plus a HS1 premium if applicable
) equals a consistent ticket price. Journeys on the WCML would be more transparently competitive between VT/LM!It would have to have route-restriction regulations that don't currently exist, paired with diversionary acceptance agreements during disruption.
Where it would shine is on multi-segment journeys, where your base distance fee is flat across the changes, but operator fees step up and down automatically.
It could even be smart enough to price the distance portion variably if your journey crosses a peak boundary -- although that could also be implemented with the current fare model.
For journeys with multiple interchangable routes (e.g. East Croydon - London Terminals // Liverpool Lime Street - Manchester Airport), a compromise distance could be arbitrarily set in the database.
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That's as I thought. In this computer age what's stopping a seller offering tickets based on price rather than other criteria? If I want to see an exhibition that runs for three months, date of travel is not my priority, price may be. Is it a technological issue or a commercial barrier?
Hartington
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Back in the late 1960s my first job was as a travel agent. We sold everything and anything including rail tickets. Rail was then priced according to distance. There were some books containing precalculated fares but otherwise you looked at the mileage table by the timetable and worked out how far the passenger was travelling. Then you looked in a book that told how much to charge for that mileage. I don't remember all the details but there were ways of calculating things like day and period returns - all fixed.
Then BR introduced "market pricing". Nothing to do with TOCs and very little, if anything, to do with government departments. Immediately, fares for some journeys became more than shorter journeys, an anomaly that has been retained by keeping regulated fares. When I first came to Somerset a season ticket from Castle Cary to London was cheaper than Westbury to London (now? don't know).
Then Network Southeast came into being and more anomalies crept in. I discovered that Maidenhead to Didcot plus Didcot to Swindon could be cheaper than Maidenhead to Swindon although it depended on quite what times you wanted to travel.
Today there are station pairs where I've seen the NationalRail website say you HAVE to buy more than one ticket because it can't compute the through fare.
If we assume that split tickets are cheaper the question that then arises is one of how you compute those fares. When I stopped being a travel agent I stayed in the travel industry and went to work for one of the GDS that sit behind most agency website. If you think UK train fares are complex and anomalous try and learn fare calculation the airline way. I once went on a course where the final exam had an itinerary we had to price and none of us got the same answer and all of us were judged to have a correct answer! Today the pricing of air fares remains complex and you regularly hear complaints from agencies that the GDS used by a competitor agency got a cheaper fare yet, like my exam, each GDS gets some fares cheaper than others because of the rule complexity and interpretation. Trying to get everyone on split rail tickets would be a recipe for disputes with different websites finding different splits and passengers failing to understand the rule complexities and getting on the wrong train as a result.
As far as I can see the only way to get rid of split ticketing would be distance pricing and that would eliminate the opportunity for TOCs to generate cash flow by offering cheap fares on empty trains.
Then BR introduced "market pricing". Nothing to do with TOCs and very little, if anything, to do with government departments. Immediately, fares for some journeys became more than shorter journeys, an anomaly that has been retained by keeping regulated fares. When I first came to Somerset a season ticket from Castle Cary to London was cheaper than Westbury to London (now? don't know).
Then Network Southeast came into being and more anomalies crept in. I discovered that Maidenhead to Didcot plus Didcot to Swindon could be cheaper than Maidenhead to Swindon although it depended on quite what times you wanted to travel.
Today there are station pairs where I've seen the NationalRail website say you HAVE to buy more than one ticket because it can't compute the through fare.
If we assume that split tickets are cheaper the question that then arises is one of how you compute those fares. When I stopped being a travel agent I stayed in the travel industry and went to work for one of the GDS that sit behind most agency website. If you think UK train fares are complex and anomalous try and learn fare calculation the airline way. I once went on a course where the final exam had an itinerary we had to price and none of us got the same answer and all of us were judged to have a correct answer! Today the pricing of air fares remains complex and you regularly hear complaints from agencies that the GDS used by a competitor agency got a cheaper fare yet, like my exam, each GDS gets some fares cheaper than others because of the rule complexity and interpretation. Trying to get everyone on split rail tickets would be a recipe for disputes with different websites finding different splits and passengers failing to understand the rule complexities and getting on the wrong train as a result.
As far as I can see the only way to get rid of split ticketing would be distance pricing and that would eliminate the opportunity for TOCs to generate cash flow by offering cheap fares on empty trains.
RJ
Established Member
I sell whatever the government/powers that be want me to sell. That's the simplest and cheapest ticket for the journey prescribed by retail management, in that order. I don't volunteer any remotely imaginative ticketing arrangements. Won't even offer a Groupsave Travelcard from a different station if I'm working within the zones. It confuses people, who tend not to look at the ticket they've been given because they assume they've been sold precisely what they've asked for. Cue problems when they try to get the same price from another member of staff who doesn't do the whole tickets from another station thing.
The onus is on the passenger to do the research and know what to ask for if they want to save on the "market rate." Duty doesn't oblige any member of staff to hold knowledge on split tickets. And those who do like to be "helpful", might not necessarily be very good at determining whether that's the right option for the nature of journey being made. I've witnessed staff selling people tickets for journeys which aren't valid under split ticketing rules.
The information is made available for anyone who wishes to find out for themselves in the Routeing Guide, Conditions of Travel and various other complicated, wordy documents.
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Nothing. Many websites already offer the ability to find cheaper fares at different times of day or on different dates, and some (e.g. TrainSplit.com) even find split fares for you.
The reluctance to do this at the ticket office is, I suspect, largely down to what happens when things go wrong and a passenger ends up on a train without a valid ticket. There's little valid comeback to "It was on the screen, sir. You must have clicked past it." Whereas you'll get lots of "They didn't tell me that." if the tickets were bought from the ticket office.
Apologies if my questions are simplistic, I tend to stick to shortish routes, Rovers or let my other half book the tricky stuff. She travels by train daily and does a long distance route about once a week, so knows the ropes. Plus her secretary buys her tickets for her.
I understand I'd need to catch a specific service to make the ticket valid, but would delays and cancellations on, say, my first split ticket of three mean the rest were invalid? Or is there some accommodation from subsequent TOCs?
I understand I'd need to catch a specific service to make the ticket valid, but would delays and cancellations on, say, my first split ticket of three mean the rest were invalid? Or is there some accommodation from subsequent TOCs?
Only if they are Advance type tickets.
No, it would not. The National Rail Conditions of Travel specifically allow you to use multiple tickets to complete a journey, and place an obligation on TOCs to get you to your destination.
If your ticket is an Advance type or has a TOC restriction then they can insist that you only travel on one of their trains (so you have no automatic right to travel on another TOC's train), if it isn't restricted then you should be allowed to travel on any train that will allow you to continue your journey.
I trust you are only talking about staff who sell them.
Staff who are checking tickets should have knowledge on what is valid and what isn't - unfortunately, some of them quite clearly do not have that knowledge and prefer to make up their own rules which, strangely, usually involve trying to extract a supplementary payment which is not due.
I've looked into that a few times. It never seems to save money because of the third discount you get with a gold card if buying a season combined with a travelcard.
More broadly, is there data on the breakdown of income by e.g. ticket type (season, advance, same day) and other categories?
You can link a gold card to Oyster to give you 1/3 discount on off-peak single fares and the off-peak (after 0930) cap.
But not in peak...which tends to be a key feature in a lot of commutes?
Thanks for your reply. Although I'd much rather pay £40 than £70 to travel by train, I've always found the split ticketing system an obstacle course, and one beyond my knowledge set. If challenged (rightly or wrongly) on the validity of my ticket, I certainly wouldn't have the knowledge to assert my rights and would probably have my day (and possibly month) ruined by waiting to discover whether I'd behaved prudently or illegally. I don't want to run a legal gauntlet just to get somewhere.
It's probably easier for me to book ahead to find normal reductions, or stick to more encompassing tickets. When I was a regular traveller a cheap day return (no peak hours travel on weekdays) was about as complicated as it got.
In that case use TrainSplit.com - they work out the split for you and ensure that it is valid. The only fee they charge is 10% of any saving over the cheapest through ticket available.
You can't use a gold card to get discounts before 0930 either.
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/ne...kets-from-splitting-site---but-he-did-save-60
CrossCountry want £112.60 for Advance tickets, and £143.30 for a walk-up ticket:
Trainsplit will charge a grand total of £58.69 for Advance fares:
In fact, a passenger requiring a walk-up ticket using Trainsplit will pay an overall total of £75.43 which is significantly less than someone who booked directly with XC who is tied to specific trains and yet gets more flexibility.
At present some passengers are paying significantly higher for the 'convenience' of having a single piece of paper per leg (or two pieces of paper for each leg, in the case of Advance fares printed in the old format).
Who wants to pay a premium of about £60 on a return journey, just for the privilege of having to carry less paper? Only someone who has more money than sense! It's a no-brainer to use "split ticketing" for many medium or long distance journeys on companies like XC.
I did a search for the same journey in 4 weeks time, Saturday 25 February.
CrossCountry want £112.60 for Advance tickets, and £143.30 for a walk-up ticket:
Trainsplit will charge a grand total of £58.69 for Advance fares:
In fact, a passenger requiring a walk-up ticket using Trainsplit will pay an overall total of £75.43 which is significantly less than someone who booked directly with XC who is tied to specific trains and yet gets more flexibility.
At present some passengers are paying significantly higher for the 'convenience' of having a single piece of paper per leg (or two pieces of paper for each leg, in the case of Advance fares printed in the old format).
Who wants to pay a premium of about £60 on a return journey, just for the privilege of having to carry less paper? Only someone who has more money than sense! It's a no-brainer to use "split ticketing" for many medium or long distance journeys on companies like XC.
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I have to say that I wouldn't recommend TrainSplit to novice users from South of the Thames. You need to have a good knowledge of both the routing and the limitations of the network card to get the cheapest fares in the south east and train split just doesn't do that.
Are you saying that TrainSplit doesn't find any savings, or doesn't find the greatest possible savings?
If the former, then please let SickyNicky or any member of the TrainSplit team know as I'm sure they would love to get that fixed. If the latter, could you expand on how a 'novice user' will be able to use the routeing guide and details of the network card to improve on the savings?
The problem is that if you are using a site like trainsplit you are presumably looking for the cheapest fares. Where there are multiple routes trainsplit offers the fastest one and you have to know the details of the route on which the cheaper tickets exist. For instance Ashford to London Main Line Stations only offers you a full price ticket to St Pancras. If you want to take the kids for a day out to the London Eye or trafalgar Square you need a much cheaper ticket to Charing Cross. I ve never got it to find a southeastern advance ticket. It doesn't stop there either if you ask for a ticket to a Midland Mainline station the cheapest way is generally to split at Bedford especially if you have a network card but trainsplit doesn't seem to know that. Want to go to Birmingham it seems to know about splits at Milton Keynes and Rugby but not offer the Chiltern or London Midland alternatives. In some cases it offers very marginal splits that don't include the cross London transfer, by the time you've paid the contribution and tube fare its really not worth the bother.
I'm pretty sure that SickyNicky is aware of the limitations.
I'm pretty sure that SickyNicky is aware of the limitations.
This is true, however the 'novice user' you referred to is going to be better off using TrainSplit than they are with the Routeing guide.
Im afraid I think the novice user would be much better off using Southeasterns own web site than Trainsplit and would probably save money.
I can't see how they would save money given that TrainSplit only charges a percentage of any savings over the lowest publicly available through fare.
Does Southeastern provide a web discount on tickets booked through their website?
SickyNicky
Verified Rep - FastJP
Yes he is! We have a new version in the pipeline (sorry it's taking so long to get it out there) which will offer a comprehensive range of routes to deal with this. It's also much quicker. Bear with us, please.
SickyNicky
Verified Rep - FastJP
Do you have an example of where someone would save money using Southeastern's web site, please?
Random example of Ashford International to Birmingham New Street, Moor Street or Snow Hill Out 10.45 return 18.30 tomorrow
SouthEastern (no route specified) offers cheapest choice of AP £47.50 (via Virgin), Walk up £50.50 (super off peak return rte high wycombe)
Train Split offers the same AP fares and for walk up offers split super off peak returns via Virgin "saving me £11" but actually costing £17 more than the via High Wycombe fare.
If I tick the use slower trains box which is under advance options it will find the £50.50 fare but then doesn't find the cheapest AP options.
Its also unable to find Southeastern Advance tickets trying to charge £30.70 Super Off Peak single for a journey Canterbury stns to London Mainline stations 10.30 on Tues 14 Feb.
Southeastern offers advances at £12.50 plus HS or £10.20 to Charing Cross or Victoria
SickyNicky
Verified Rep - FastJP
Ah OK - so it's a matter of routeing rather than identical itineraries.
Sorry about that - that's a limitation of the journey planner we're using. But the new version will find the High Wycombe route automatically, I'm pleased to say.
Sorry about that - that's a limitation of the journey planner we're using. But the new version will find the High Wycombe route automatically, I'm pleased to say.
Paul Kelly
Verified Rep - BR Fares
That is not TrainSplit's fault; Southeastern doesn't allow other TOCs or 3rd party retailers to sell its advances. Some booking engines chose to break the rules and ignore this constraint (e.g. Trainline), but they have the muscle to do so and to get away with it!
Joe Paxton
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- 12 Jan 2017
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What's the deal with this? Why is this still ongoing? SE Advances aren't somehow classified as a 'temporary trial' are they? Regardless, not cool. And surely not legit?
Paul Kelly
Verified Rep - BR Fares
It's in the "Retail Control Service" data, which augments the fares database to impose additional controls on which tickets can be sold through which channels and which station-to-station flows are enabled for smart card ticketing etc.
I just checked and now other Govia-owned TOCs are permitted to sell the Southeastern advances, but still no other TOCs nor 3rd parties. I don't know how they get away with it. Perhaps only because not all booking engines honour the Retail Control Service restrictions.
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