Forthcoming changes to National Rail Conditions of Travel

[sheff1]

This has probably been covered in earlier posts, but if someone purchases an any permitted ticket from a non-journey planner TVM at no point will they presented with any routiing information at all.
In such circumstances, as the railway has failed to provide the info they promise in the NRCoT, I can only agree that gives the passenger the power to travel by any route they deem reasonable.

 

[redreni]

This has probably been covered in earlier posts, but if someone purchases an any permitted ticket from a non-journey planner TVM at no point will they presented with any routiing information at all.
In such circumstances, as the railway has failed to provide the info they promise in the NRCoT, I can only agree that gives the passenger the power to travel by any route they deem reasonable.

I expect the reference to the NRE journey planner is supposed to cover that scenario: if in doubt, check.

The removal of the principles of 'direct train always permitted' and 'shortest route always permitted' does mean you have to check every single time, though.

And I do mean every time: even for journeys you make regularly. Only in the last year, the permitted routes between where I live and where my parents live were reduced by a routeing guide amendment. When I pointed out I had bought the ticket at Dartford ticket office and they had neglected to tell me, the pricing manager at Southeastern confirmed the ticket office staff hadn't been told about a major routeing guide change affecting their station, as this would have been "impractical". My protestations that I can hardly be expected to check what tickets are offered online for a journey I make regularly if I am buying the ticket at the ticket office, fell on deaf ears.

The attitude seems to be "we say what's valid, we can change our minds without telling our own staff, never mind you, and if you make a mistake, you are a criminal."

 

[sot]

Is there any ways that we can lobby for change?

For any public to give their comments on it has to be done retrospectively? It was not shared wholesale with public prior to implementation. Let alone TfLs incessant lies and hiding the info from @redreni through several FOIs. Admittedly this was added later but I recall @redreni chasing this up. Commercial interests concerns are rubbish for his routes!

As has been said many of time it seems to want to push more and more to a closed system where everyone either taps in and out or has booked train (or 70min) tickets.

As soon as any interruptions occur or anything out of the ordinary then, boom, a total mess, whilst forcing Jo Bloggs to buy more and more expensive tickets to cover their journey.

Awful.

 

[Oscar M]

And I do mean every time: even for journeys you make regularly. Only in the last year, the permitted routes between where I live and where my parents live were reduced by a routeing guide amendment. When I pointed out I had bought the ticket at Dartford ticket office and they had neglected to tell me, the pricing manager at Southeastern confirmed the ticket office staff hadn't been told about a major routeing guide change affecting their station, as this would have been "impractical".

It doesn't help that the Routeing Guide page lets you know when it was last updated, but doesn't actually tell you what's changed since you last checked it.

 

[Haywain]

The removal of the principles of 'direct train always permitted' and 'shortest route always permitted' does mean you have to check every single time, though.

It doesn't mean every single time. Huge numbers of journeys are made which have no possibility of alternative routes or diversion onto anything other than a rail replacement bus and, for those, there is nothing to be checked.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I researched a route earlier and NRE offered something which requires two extra tickets that actually passes through (and the service actually stops at) the required station and then uses another ticket to get back.

The only time I have ever experienced that was when I had left a via point in by mistake. Might be worth you checking.

 

[MrJeeves]

The removal of the principles of 'direct train always permitted' and 'shortest route always permitted' does mean you have to check every single time, though.

The former is very much still in the NRCoT.

 

[redreni]

The former is very much still in the NRCoT.

Good point, sorry, I didn't see it where I expected to and wrongly assumed it had gone, but it's still there.

On the removal of shortest route, I know the stated reason was there's no public-facing data to allow the customer to work out shortest routes, but that's not strictly true, as the Routeing Guide pages on the NRE site take you to the "Instructions" document which, in turn, takes you to the electronic timetable and the mileages chart therein.

I'm wondering if the insistence on only allowing shortest routes, or routes within 3 miles, if a journey planner validates them, might actually have been a response to people pointing out that lots of routes using the Elizabeth Line (e.g. Dartford to London Terminals) are within 3 miles of shortest and therefore valid, even though journey planners can't validate them because the mileages have been omitted EDIT: from the timetable and the industry data feed, and the route itself wasn't added to the maps when it opened?

Dartford to Cannon St takes 56 minutes direct. Dartford to Liverpool St takes 38 minutes via a change at Abbey Wood (though if you're quick you may beat the MCT at Abbey Wood and get there in even less time).

I suspect this is the sort of case where they would try to use the November 2025 NRCoT update to say, look:

• it doesn't matter that this is an obvious route and the fastest route,
• it doesn't matter that there's nothing telling passengers they can't take it,
• it doesn't matter if the passenger bought their ticket from the ticket office, wasn't given any advice about routeing and never interacted with an online journey planner;
• it doesn't matter that we don't follow our own routeing guide;

the online journey planners don't offer it with a London Terminals ticket, ergo it isn't valid.

 

[sot]

The only time I have ever experienced that was when I had left a via point in by mistake. Might be worth you checking.

I don't think I did, it is for a weekend where there are numerous RRBs though so may be an issue with zero distance RRBs.

 

[Angmering1974]

I suspect this is the sort of case where they would try to use the November 2025 NRCoT update to say, look:

• it doesn't matter that this is an obvious route and the fastest route,
• it doesn't matter that there's nothing telling passengers they can't take it,
• it doesn't matter if the passenger bought their ticket from the ticket office, wasn't given any advice about routeing and never interacted with an online journey planner;
• it doesn't matter that we don't follow our own routeing guide;

the online journey planners don't offer it with a London Terminals ticket, ergo it isn't valid.

I just don't see how contract/consumer law would favour them in the case of so many ambiguities. They aren't immune from those laws

If you buy a yearly season, they expect you to use the journey planner every day to check your route is still valid? Seems unreasonable to me.

And even then, journey planners don't return season tickets in the fares list, so you could claim that they're not meant for that purpose, to a degree.

I think we'll need to wait and see what they actually instruct their staff to do with these new changes.

 

[blimmo]

I think we'll need to wait and see what they actually instruct their staff to do with these new changes.

Frontline staff won't be instructed at all, they probably won't even be aware of them. Already some staff decide on ticket validity via their own feelings and these rules will only matter once someone gets reported or penalty fared.

 

[ainsworth74]

Frontline staff won't be instructed at all, they probably won't even be aware of them. Already some staff decide on ticket validity via their own feelings and these rules will only matter once someone gets reported or penalty fared.

Indeed, we've already had a report on this very thread that a ticket office didn't know what the changes were (though they were aware of them at least!):

I went in to Ryde Esplanade yesterday and they have now heard about the update, but they didn’t seem to know what changes there have been and just tell you to go online to find out.

Reality is that the industry, on the whole, is dreadful at ensuring initial competency, ongoing refresher training and dissemination of updates/changes for the various different types of retail staff that exist (ticket office staff, conductors, RPIs, etc). Obviously staff who take an interest can access the information and I have no doubt that some TOCs do prepare and issue retail briefings. RDG do issue various retail briefs for all TOCs highlighting big things (often arrangements for industrial action, if an airline goes bust and the industry are helping out, arrangments during big storms, etc etc). The NRCoT change indeed got a staff brief issued by the RDG.

But I suspect that for the majority of staff unless they take an interest in keeping themselves up to date there is very little that their line management and TOC do to actually make sure their staff are equipped with the knowledge that you might expect them to have and that that knowledge is kept up to date. I assume because management have no interest in taking staff off the frontline for few hours every so often to deliver training or to give them time to read over a briefing package. It's often hard enough it seems to find time to take staff off trains to get them trained on new stock, let alone make sure they know about changes to the NRCoT!

Sadly I reckon that this is a deeply embedded cultural issue that is unlikely to ever be resolved.

 

[blimmo]

Sadly I reckon that this is a deeply embedded cultural issue that is unlikely to ever be resolved.

I am inclined to agree and I think this makes a strong argument against having strict liability ticketing offences.

 

[Angmering1974]

Frontline staff won't be instructed at all, they probably won't even be aware of them.

I didn't specify frontline staff

 

[redreni]

The point @ainsworth74 makes about there being little appetite to take staff off frontline duty so they can have training is a good one.

At the same time, I have very little sympathy with the idea that ticket office staff can't be expected to read staff briefings, particularly at less busy stations. Surely this is one of the things they should be doing when they are not selling tickets (which, we're constantly told, is most of the time).

 

[73128]

As others have said, and is recorded in this forum by posts by me & others, staff regularly get this wrong. Note that there was an FOIA request, which makes it clear that it *is* allowed (on National Rail tickets), so I have that bookmarked now. However, the point stands, how would I, or anyone else, know that these conditions have changed?

FOI request detail

FOI request detail

tfl.gov.uk

with PAYG no break of journey is allowed anywhere (in TfL land anyway).

 

[Bletchleyite]

with PAYG no break of journey is allowed anywhere (in TfL land anyway).

The separate GTR KeyGo system does support it. I'm fairly sure I read that the Merseyrail one might too.

 

[yorksrob]

I expect the reference to the NRE journey planner is supposed to cover that scenario: if in doubt, check.

The removal of the principles of 'direct train always permitted' and 'shortest route always permitted' does mean you have to check every single time, though.

And I do mean every time: even for journeys you make regularly. Only in the last year, the permitted routes between where I live and where my parents live were reduced by a routeing guide amendment. When I pointed out I had bought the ticket at Dartford ticket office and they had neglected to tell me, the pricing manager at Southeastern confirmed the ticket office staff hadn't been told about a major routeing guide change affecting their station, as this would have been "impractical". My protestations that I can hardly be expected to check what tickets are offered online for a journey I make regularly if I am buying the ticket at the ticket office, fell on deaf ears.

The attitude seems to be "we say what's valid, we can change our minds without telling our own staff, never mind you, and if you make a mistake, you are a criminal."

Proof that the railway industry can't be trusted to run ticketing affairs without scrutiny.

Who is giving train companies carte blanch to change routings willy nilly in the first place.

 

[35B]

Proof that the railway industry can't be trusted to run ticketing affairs without scrutiny.

Who is giving train companies carte blanch to change routings willy nilly in the first place.

The government. More specifically, the Department for Transport.

It is demonstrating very clearly how political accountability undermines accountability to customers.

 

[AdamWW]

The separate GTR KeyGo system does support it. I'm fairly sure I read that the Merseyrail one might too.

The TfW PAYG fares don't allow break of journey.

But if a regular ticket would be cheaper then this is what's charged.

So the PAYG scheme does support break of journey.

 

[sot]

I was under the impression that keygo will compile a days travel to give the cheapest fare. They say this at least

E.G. Brighton to three bridges to Redhill to East Croydon to Victoria with stopping, entry and exit at each station, then the return journey in the same manner, they state they will charge a Brighton to victoria return.

I haven't used it that extremely but it did do this for a single intermediate stop for me in the past.

 

[Benjwri]

The TfW PAYG fares don't allow break of journey.

But if a regular ticket would be cheaper then this is what's charged.

So the PAYG scheme does support break of journey.

TfW PAYG is an entirely different system run by an entirely different company to TfLs.

 

[TheSel]

As I understand it, the latest version of the NRCoT requires that:

5. Transfer of Tickets

5.1 A Ticket may be transferred by the person who bought that Ticket to another person, but only if:

5.1.1 the Ticket has not been made out in the passenger's name (which includes where the passenger is identified by a designated Railcard, photocard or other identifying means); and
5.1.2 the journey has not begun, for example, you have not passed through an automatic Ticket gate, boarded a train, or started to use the Ticket (e.g., used the outward portion of a return Ticket,); and
5.1.3 the transfer is not a resale for more than the price paid for the Ticket by the person who first purchased it from a Train Company or a Licensed Retailer.

(Extract from NRCoT dated 23 November 2025, pdf version. My emboldening of the word 'and' between sub-paragraphs).

This would imply that a breach of any individual sub-para is a breach of the whole of condition 5.1, and therefore similarly of Condition 5, making the ticket invalid. Yes?

How does this affect tickets bought through the forum? I frequently use it to purchase tickets for two people to travel together, but my name appears towards the top right hand corner of both tickets. Am I technically breaching the conditions when I give (or "sell" as face value) the ticket to my companion who travels with me?

 

[Adam Williams]

my name appears towards the top right hand corner of both tickets

Are you referring to the name printed on tickets when collected via Ticket on Departure for some ticket formats at some ticket vending machines?

My view is that this doesn't constitute a ticket being made out in a passenger's name. Indeed, it's entirely optional for ticket issuers to print the ToD customer name and should only be done "if local operational processes require it".

 

[AdamWW]

As I understand it, the latest version of the NRCoT requires that:

5. Transfer of Tickets

5.1 A Ticket may be transferred by the person who bought that Ticket to another person, but only if:

5.1.1 the Ticket has not been made out in the passenger's name (which includes where the passenger is identified by a designated Railcard, photocard or other identifying means); and
5.1.2 the journey has not begun, for example, you have not passed through an automatic Ticket gate, boarded a train, or started to use the Ticket (e.g., used the outward portion of a return Ticket,); and
5.1.3 the transfer is not a resale for more than the price paid for the Ticket by the person who first purchased it from a Train Company or a Licensed Retailer.

(Extract from NRCoT dated 23 November 2025, pdf version. My emboldening of the word 'and' between sub-paragraphs).

This would imply that a breach of any individual sub-para is a breach of the whole of condition 5.1, and therefore similarly of Condition 5, making the ticket invalid. Yes?

How does this affect tickets bought through the forum? I frequently use it to purchase tickets for two people to travel together, but my name appears towards the top right hand corner of both tickets. Am I technically breaching the conditions when I give (or "sell" as face value) the ticket to my companion who travels with me?

I think you could reasonably argue that in such circumstances that for at least one of the tickets it might carry a name but it wasn't made out in the passenger's name.

I don't think I've seen my name appear on tickets from trainsplit.

But how do you come to the conclusion that the ticket itself is invalid, rather than that transferring it is a breach of the NRCoT (and in the absence of a defined penalty presumably entitling the railway to take action for their losses caused by the breach of conract)?

 

[Adam Williams]

I don't think I've seen my name appear on tickets from trainsplit.

For some bizarre reason it's patently featured on e.g. the Advance Single format, but not the Anytime or Off-Peak ticket formats. It's also only implemented by some ticket issuers.. so e.g. Avanti/IBM/Trenitalia's will print it on a ticket but I have a feeling Wayfarer/Flowbird/Parkeon/"Arrive"/{whatever else you want to call them today} machines don't.

 

[AdamWW]

For some bizarre reason it's patently featured on e.g. the Advance Single format, but not the Anytime or Off-Peak ticket formats. It's also only implemented by some ticket issuers.. so e.g. Avanti/IBM/Trenitalia's will print it on a ticket but I have a feeling Wayfarer/Flowbird/Parkeon/"Arrive"/{whatever else you want to call them today} machines don't.

Interesting.

I don't suppose they intended to ban people from buying a ticket for other people in such cases, though I don't know what tickets made out in the passenger's name they had in mind, or indeed what tickets would have the passenger identified by a designated "railcard" as opposed to photocard.

If a TOC were to attempt to enforce this clause relating to a ticket with a name printed on it, I'm not sure what the defence would be, though it's not obvious to me that they would have grounds for considering the ticket itself to be invalid.

 

[Adam Williams]

what tickets would have the passenger identified by a designated "railcard"

A Travel Agents Discount Authority would count. No name on the ticket, but the name is written on a sheet of carbon paper along with the ticket number (yes, in 2026 ).

I don't know what tickets made out in the passenger's name they had in mind

Things like BritRail passes? They'd have the passenger's name and passport number on.

 

[fandroid]

It's going to look really bizarre if someone is questioned about two tickets for identical itineraries for two people travelling together but with the same name on both tickets. I think I've only ever seen my surname on such a ticket, so would the ticket checker ask if both travellers were related in some way?

 

[ainsworth74]

Things like BritRail passes? They'd have the passenger's name and passport number on.

Possible Rovers and Rangers as well? I've had those issued with my name on them (usually in the form Mr [Initial] [Surname]) with the ticket clerk actually taking my name so it prints on the ticket. Season tickets as well? Don't they come with the name on them?