Introducing LTfares.com (BR Fares for Oyster)

[Paul Kelly]

I've created a new website www.ltfares.com, to try and make the process of looking up Oyster/Contactless single fares a bit smoother and quicker than it currently is. It uses the public TfL API and the information contained on it is much the same as the TfL single fare finder or MikeWh's oyster-rail.org.uk site, with a few differences:

• accepts CRS codes
• shows the pricing mode (TfL/National Rail/mixed) for each fare
• automatically shows new/revised fares as soon as they're in the database

I hope people find it useful; feel free to post here or send me a PM if you find anything that seems broken or incorrect.

 

[greatkingrat]

I think you need separate entries for LU and NR at interchanges.

For example the TfL site gives 8.20/5.00 for Euston NR - Watford Junction, and 9.30/6.40 for Euston LU - Watford Junction. Your site is just showing the 9.30/6.40 fare.

 

[MikeWh]

feel free to post here or send me a PM if you find anything that seems broken or incorrect.

Gatwick to Victoria seems a little odd. No GatEx fares. Default route says it's mixed when surely it should be NR. Fare seems to be mixed too. Alternative route says NR when it talks about changing at Elephant & Castle. This is actually one of the special fares which is a mix of NR only to zone 2 then a zone 1 LU fare.

I think part of the confusion is that you are treating Victoria as one station when it isn't.

 

[Paul Kelly]

Both good examples - thanks. I've been trying to deduce from the stations data in the TfL API which stations are all one for Oyster purposes and which ones are different. E.g. King's Cross mainline and Kings Cross St Pancras Underground are already shown differently. Looks like my algorithm needs some more tweaking, but I don't want to go the way of the TfL fare finder where lots of stations have two entries (e.g., Queen's Park Overground and Queen's Park Underground) when really there is just one barrier line and all the fares are the same.

 

[MikeWh]

Looks like my algorithm needs some more tweaking, but I don't want to go the way of the TfL fare finder where lots of stations have two entries (e.g., Queen's Park Overground and Queen's Park Underground) when really there is just one barrier line and all the fares are the same.

I'll admit that I gave up on this and just created my own database of stations. Is there a reason why the fares are show as valid from tomorrow?

 

[Paul Kelly]

OK I've changed it so it won't attempt to merge the different stations together; it seems the best solution for now and I can work on something better for the longer term. Gatwick Express fares are now showing:
http://www.ltfares.com/#!fares?orig=NRGTW&dest=NRVIC

Is there a reason why the fares are show as valid from tomorrow?

I believe it's because of the new Swanley fares coming in from tomorrow - there has been a refresh of the whole database. You can tick the box for "Don't show future fares (when available)" if you want it to only show today's/current fares - otherwise it will show new fares if they are available. I thought showing them by default would be the best way to quickly become aware when they are released.

 

[trivran]

Do you plan to introduce details of those things singled out as not present on the front page? I think the daily cap would be a particularly useful feature.

 

[Paul Kelly]

Do you plan to introduce details of those things singled out as not present on the front page? I think the daily cap would be a particularly useful feature.

The problem with that is those things aren't available automatically from TfL the way the single fares now are, and if I had to update it manually it could very easily get out of date. So it's probably not a good idea, for now anyway. There is a good detailed page on the caps etc. here: http://www.oyster-rail.org.uk/fares-guide/daily-caps-and-travelcards-2016/

 

[maniacmartin]

In my opinion, the biggest shortcoming of the TfL Single Fare Finder is that if there are viable routes starting different stations within a group* then you have to do multiple searches (*by 'group' I mean different entries in the Oyster fares database that are geographically within a short walk of one another)

I'd prefer it if you merged all stations in each group, and then show the results of combining every combination in the starting group within every station in the destinartion group. Admittedly a journey between 2 of these groups* returning the cartesian product of results might overwhelm people though.

A contrived example is West Hampstead group* to Stratford group*. These all have fares in the database, and it'd take 6 lookups to work out the cheapest - a bit fiddly on a phone:
West Hampstead LU to Stratford (LU) (e.g. Jubilee)
West Hampstead LU to Stratford NR (e.g. change at Baker St, then mode change at Liverpool St)
West Hampstead NR (LO) to Stratford (LU) (seems pointless)
West Hampstead NR (LO) to Stratford NR (e.g. London Overground direct)
West Hampstead Thameslink to Stratford (LU) (e.g. change at Farringdon and Mile End)
West Hampstead Thameslink to Stratford NR (e.g. change at Farringdon and Liverpool St)

PS I know this would be a lot of code

 

[Busaholic]

In my opinion, the biggest shortcoming of the TfL Single Fare Finder is that if there are viable routes starting different stations within a group* then you have to do multiple searches (*by 'group' I mean different entries in the Oyster fares database that are geographically within a short walk of one another)

I'd prefer it if you merged all stations in each group, and then show the results of combining every combination in the starting group within every station in the destinartion group. Admittedly a journey between 2 of these groups* returning the cartesian product of results might overwhelm people though.

A contrived example is West Hampstead group* to Stratford group*. These all have fares in the database, and it'd take 6 lookups to work out the cheapest - a bit fiddly on a phone:
West Hampstead LU to Stratford (LU) (e.g. Jubilee)
West Hampstead LU to Stratford NR (e.g. change at Baker St, then mode change at Liverpool St)
West Hampstead NR (LO) to Stratford (LU) (seems pointless)
West Hampstead NR (LO) to Stratford NR (e.g. London Overground direct)
West Hampstead Thameslink to Stratford (LU) (e.g. change at Farringdon and Mile End)
West Hampstead Thameslink to Stratford NR (e.g. change at Farringdon and Liverpool St)

PS I know this would be a lot of code

As a matter of interest, to me anyway, which is the cheapest? Logic would suggest the 'pointless' route, but I bet it's not!

 

[greatkingrat]

Overground presumably as it is the only one that avoids zone 1.

 

[hassaanhc]

As a matter of interest, to me anyway, which is the cheapest? Logic would suggest the 'pointless' route, but I bet it's not!

My guesses:
Cheapest should be the direct LO service as it avoids Z1.
The "pointless" would probably be to change at Highbury & Islington, use the OSI at Shadwell, then DLR via Poplar (either direct via Bow Church or change at Canning Town)

 

[bicbasher]

No fares showing from Forest Hill to London Bridge NR.

 

[MikeWh]

My guesses:
Cheapest should be the direct LO service as it avoids Z1.
The "pointless" would probably be to change at Highbury & Islington, use the OSI at Shadwell, then DLR via Poplar (either direct via Bow Church or change at Canning Town)

Cheapest will definitely be the avoiding zone 1 LO fare. Pointless could be LO to Highbury, GN to Moorgate, H&C to Mile End then Central.

A contrived example is West Hampstead group* to Stratford group*. These all have fares in the database, and it'd take 6 lookups to work out the cheapest - a bit fiddly on a phone:
West Hampstead LU to Stratford (LU) (e.g. Jubilee)
West Hampstead LU to Stratford NR (e.g. change at Baker St, then mode change at Liverpool St)
West Hampstead NR (LO) to Stratford (LU) (seems pointless)
West Hampstead NR (LO) to Stratford NR (e.g. London Overground direct)
West Hampstead Thameslink to Stratford (LU) (e.g. change at Farringdon and Mile End)
West Hampstead Thameslink to Stratford NR (e.g. change at Farringdon and Liverpool St)

PS I know this would be a lot of code

So you include all three West Hampstead stations, which are all separate stations, but only choose one Stratford station, where everything is within the same gateline. Why not include Stratford High Street and Stratford International?

 

[maniacmartin]

Because I'm tired and didn't really think what I was typing. Specially I just looked at the Oyster Rail & Tube map and found 2 biggish TfL interchange blobs. As the TfL blobs don't extend to the other Stratfords they didnt really enter into my mind

 

[Paul Kelly]

No fares showing from Forest Hill to London Bridge NR.

This is fixed now: http://www.ltfares.com/#!fares?orig=NRFOH&dest=NRLBG

 

[island]

An awesome enhancement, though no idea how complex, would be to add an option for "I have a Zone X-Y Travelcard" and have this taken into account.

 

[Watershed]

Sorry to drag up an old thread - but it appears the LT Fares site is currently down. I get a "connection refused" error every time I try to connect. BR Fares, BR Times etc. all still work normally. @Paul Kelly it would be hugely appreciated if you could take a look at this - it's a very useful resource as the official TfL single fare finder is incredibly clunky and slow.

 

[Mike395]

Looks to be loading fine for me - perhaps just a brief connection issue?

 

[Paul Kelly]

Thanks for pointing that out - looks like it's been down since Monday. Disk was full. I must get some automatic log rotation working on there...

 

[MikeWh]

It's working for me.

 

[Paul Kelly]

It was definitely broken before; I just power-cycled the server and started freeing up some disk space

 

[Watershed]

Thanks for pointing that out - looks like it's been down since Monday. Disk was full. I must get some automatic log rotation working on there...

Working now, thank you for the super fast fix!

 

[MikeWh]

It was definitely broken before; I just power-cycled the server and started freeing up some disk space

You must have got to it just before me.

 

[Mike395]

You must have got to it just before me.

Paul was too quick for us! Thanks for sorting - agree it's a great resource!

 

[Nicholas43]

Is this, for Paddington to Farringdon, right?

 

[CyrusWuff]

Is this, for Paddington to Farringdon, right?

Looking at the TfL Single Fare Finder, Paddington has four entries in the LU database: Paddington H&C, Paddington LU (Bakerloo, Circle & District), Paddington NR and Paddington EL.

So it's technically correct not to show a fare between Paddington NR and Farringdon. Changing to origin to Paddington H&C or Paddington LU on LTFares shows the expected Zone 1 fares.

 

[etr221]

Looking at the TfL Single Fare Finder, Paddington has four entries in the LU database: Paddington H&C, Paddington LU (Bakerloo, Circle & District), Paddington NR and Paddington EL.

So it's technically correct not to show a fare between Paddington NR and Farringdon. Changing to origin to Paddington H&C or Paddington LU on LTFares shows the expected Zone 1 fares.

TfL recently produced - in response to FOI-0938-2425 and others - figures for journeys made using Oyster/Contactless (based on touches in and out) for 2023. While the great majority of passengers from Paddington to Farringdon started from Paddington EL or LU (which appears to cover both the H&C and BCD parts), 115 did start from Paddington NR, with 7 from 'Paddington NR contactless' (whichever that is) and 6 from Paddington Hex (there were also 4 from Marlebone NR...). While I boggle at these, the system still has to cope with such weird journeys, and charge the correct fare, whatever that may be (but it has to be what is stated).

 

[Hadders]

Isn’t the Out of Station Interchange between Marylebone and Paddington one of the least used of all of the OSIs?

I wonder if the four who started their Paddington to Farringdon journey at Marylebone were ‘enthusiasts’?

 

[MikeWh]

Isn’t the Out of Station Interchange between Marylebone and Paddington one of the least used of all of the OSIs?

It is indeed.

I wonder if the four who started their Paddington to Farringdon journey at Marylebone were ‘enthusiasts’?

Quite probably. Though to start a journey at Marylebone NR it would have to be via Harrow-on-the-Hill.