What is known about advance tickets?

[Splitix]

I'm trying to obtain a better understanding of how advance tickets work - sorry for all the questions!

How are they allocated?

• Is there an allocation per station or does it depend on destination too?
• Or are they allocation per station group?
• Or do they cover all associated stations too?

When are they released?
I've seen something saying that all TOCs except XC release them all ~3months in advance and when they're gone they're gone. XC stagger the release of the different bands of tickets? Can anyone confirm/deny this?

And finally, what is the minimum distance between two stations before they have advance tickets?

 

[hairyhandedfool]

Well, it is more a case that trains that have quotas, not stations, but how those quotas are used I don't exactly know.

They are generally released 8-12 weeks before the train departs, obviously this depends a little on company policy and when the timetables are finalised (sometimes timetables are altered later due to late notice works). Generally weekday trains have quotas released before weekend trains do, due to engineering works usually occuring at weekends. I doubt XC stagger the releases in any other way, but I can't say for definate.

As for the minimum distance, I couldn't give an official distance, but I'd imagine it would be somewhere around 40 miles, certainly that was always a good estimate for 'open' return tickets and I can't think of many journeys that have Advance tickets but not 'open' return tickets.

 

[yorkie]

Splitix - I recommend using Avantix Traveller to look at what flows Advance tickets are available for, you will discover that some TOCs only issue their own Advance products (e.g. Southern), some TOCs generally only issue their own but do some connections too for selected flows (e.g. TPE), and most TOCs allow connections. There are some long-standing flows that had the old "Apex" tickets back in the days of BR that have "AP <route>" tickets, notably on the Great Western route. But most are "TOC & Connections" tickets in my experience.

There is some very useful information to be found regarding the way advance tickets are allocated by reading some of the posts by Indigo2 (do an Advanced Search for posts containing the word quota, posted by Indigo2).

 

[John @ home]

I think this post assumes there are some rules about these matters. Advance fares are not regulated fares. They are not protected fares. TOCs choose whether, when and where to offer them, and they regard this information as commercially confidential. My understanding is that Network Rail are required to confirm timetable and route information to the TOCs 3 months in advance. Allowing a little while for the TOCs to process this, this leads to Advance fares becoming available about 11 - 12 weeks before travel.

I had not heard it suggested that XC stagger the release of different bands of tickets. They may do, but if they do they'll regard this information as commercially confidential. I've rather lost interest in XC's Advance fares because over the last 3 years they have increased the minimum fare for my most frequent cross-country journey from £30 to £57, then withdrawn the fare altogether in NFM 11. I now use other train companies.

There are no rules about when train companies offer Advance fares and when they don't, so not a lot of value in seeking the shortest Advance fare (or the longest journey without one).

Sorry this answer probably contains less information than you wished.

 

[dzug2]

And finally, what is the minimum distance between two stations before they have advance tickets?

Not sure you can generalise - for example Taunton to Tiverton (14 miles approx) has advance tickets. Worcester to London (via the Cotswold route) doesn't - about 120 miles

 

[Deerfold]

TOCs have been known to offer advance tickets approx 12 weeks in advance and then nearer the time have a sale with at least some cheaper tickets available. It's not usually easy to know when or if this will happen.

 

[Paul Kelly]

Yes this is the mother of all threads about how advance quotas work, I think.

In theory you can reduce the number of calculations needed to check if advance fares will be available along the route a train takes, by simply checking what tier of advance fares are available between every pair of stations the train calls at. You shouldn't need to check all possible combinations of calling points - if a cheap tier is available between all neighbouring pairs of calling points, then it should also be available for a longer through journey. Also watch out for different quotas on "TOC ONLY" and "TOC & CONNECTIONS" advances on the same train. That can sometimes lead to strangeness in the available advance fares.

Another interesting point I've noticed recently is that CrossCountry seem to have a blanket ban on advance quota availability for every journey segment that arrives or departs any station between 1600 and 1830 on a Friday afternoon. If travelling with XC on a Friday, you can sometimes get a better deal by stopping off in Birmingham for a while.

 

[Deerfold]

Another interesting point I've noticed recently is that CrossCountry seem to have a blanket ban on advance quota availability for every journey segment that arrives or departs any station between 1600 and 1830 on a Friday afternoon. If travelling with XC on a Friday, you can sometimes get a better deal by stopping off in Birmingham for a while.

It's just up to you if you think stopping in Birmingham is worth it

 

[Splitix]

Thanks for all the replies. Knowing that there aren't hard and fast rules for advance tickets is still very useful to know.

I'm currently working my way through the linked thread - seems to be lots of good stuff there.

 

[142094]

In relation to distance between stations - it can depend on TOCs. For example you can easily get an Advance between Darlington and York using XC or TPE services, but not East Coast.

 

[158801]

Under the old CRS (before 2000) it used to be like this (not sure about the current NRS system)

A train is split into segments :

Kings Cross to Peterboro / Peterboro to York / York to Newcastle / Newcastle to Edinburgh.

Seat 01 in coach D can be reserved upto 4 times - 1 journey per segment - so it could be reserved Kings Cross to Newark (across 2 segments) and Darlington to Edinburgh but not from Newark to York as reservations already exist for that segment.

A train would have a quote of a particular ticket type. Quota's were identified by two letters - so ST may be the cheapest Advance, SW may be the next lowest, SX the next and so on.

The train would be set a limit, for example ST=20. You could have a small group of 20 people travelling on ST quota between Kings Cross and York and then another small group of 20 travelling on the same quota between York and Edinburgh. Therefore you have 40 ST quota tickets - but only 20 at once. If 20 people purchased an ST quota between Kings Cross and Darlington - they wouldn't be available again until Newcastle.

It is also possible to have barred journeys. You could stop people with the ST quota from travelling to Newark (let's say that there is a special event taking place in Newark and you don't want to sell cheap tickets there) or you could prevent the ST quota from a particular station (let's assume Newark again)

It was also possible to limit the amount sold for a particular journey so you could say KGX-YRK (Kings Cross to York) ST=5. In effect this would mean that out of 20 only 5 could be sold for a journey to York - leaving the other 15 to be sold for other journeys.

As in the above scenario you could limit just 5 tickets to York or 5 tickets for York and stations south thereof.

If I also remember rightly you could limit coaches as well. You could put all the St quotas in Coach B - furthest away from the buffet. This was always used with Standard Plus which allowed holders of full fare anytime tickets access to the standard plus coach which was the one closest to the buffet.

YOu could specify the order that coaches were reserved in - for example B,D,F,C,E or be really clever and say full fare tickets are reserved in sequence but advance tickets may go D,F,E,B,C.

There was also a logic into what seats were offered. Some seats are classed as being together (for groups 3,-8 people). If you are the first person to reserve on that train it would always offer B03A (unless it was overidden by a speacial request such as an aisle seat). The next person would alwats get B05A.

Hope this helps.

 

[MikeWh]

Thanks, that's very interesting.

 

[Paul Kelly]

Very very interesting insights there; thanks a lot. I wonder is the fact that the journey segments didn't exactly correspond to the stopping points of the train just something to do with the limitations of the old computer reservations system. Perhaps the system in use these days allows finer grained journey segments.

It is also possible to have barred journeys. You could stop people with the ST quota from travelling to Newark (let's say that there is a special event taking place in Newark and you don't want to sell cheap tickets there) or you could prevent the ST quota from a particular station (let's assume Newark again)

I didn't know this. Really interesting and I think it may explain the problem we discussed recently in this thread, where the cheaper advance tiers weren't available for CrossCountry journeys from the south-west ending in Birmingham, but they were available if the journey continued north of Birmingham on the same train.

 

[158801]

The journey segments would always match the stopping pattern. You would not have a KGX-PBO and PBO-YRK if the train was non stop from KGX to YRK.

I can't remember if there was a maximum number of segments per train but they always coincided with the major stops. I suppose, in my example, Newark was a bad place to pick.

A good example of barring journeys is the Highland Chieftain between London and Inverness.

What's the point of offering a fantastic £15 single fare from London to Scotland if all the quota gets used up between London and York or London and Newcastle. From Kings Cross to York / Newcastle and Edinburgh there are trains every 30 minutes - but only 1 train that goes from London to stations north of Edinburgh. So, unless the train is predicted to be extremely quiet, or there are lots and lots of Advance tickets, you may find that Advance tickets are not sold on that train for journeys that start AND finish at points between Edinburgh and Kings Cross.

Likewise a summer Saturday train to the West Country may only have Advance tickets made available for journeys to Plymouth and beyond. Or, the opposite could be true where NO Advance tickets are available to Plymouth and beyond (but they may be from Manchester to Exeter)

Lots of permetations - all designed to maximise revenue and spread demand.

This is one of the reasons why Advance tickets are not valid for joining or alighting at intermediate stations - other than for a connecting service. Someone could "get around" the system by buying an Adavnce from London to Inverness and alighting at Peterboro - merely because it's cheaper.

 

[142094]

This is one of the reasons why Advance tickets are not valid for joining or alighting at intermediate stations - other than for a connecting service. Someone could "get around" the system by buying an Adavnce from London to Inverness and alighting at Peterboro - merely because it's cheaper.

You'll probably find that a lot of people will do this, where the station they leave at has no barrier or where they can change at a station from an invalid advance to another ticket without leaving the station. Of course they leave themselves open to whatever action necessary by RPIs but it isn't well enforced.

 

[Flamingo]

You'll probably find that a lot of people will do this, where the station they leave at has no barrier or where they can change at a station from an invalid advance to another ticket without leaving the station. Of course they leave themselves open to whatever action necessary by RPIs but it isn't well enforced.

And leads to Daily Mail headlines whenever it is :roll:

 

[142094]

And leads to Daily Mail headlines whenever it is :roll:

Yup, but if the railways actaully stuck by the decision (referring to EC at Darlington who let the Professor off early on an advance) instead of rolling over as soon as there is bad publicity, then at least there would be some consistency.

 

[neilmc]

Yup, but if the railways actaully stuck by the decision (referring to EC at Darlington who let the Professor off early on an advance) instead of rolling over as soon as there is bad publicity, then at least there would be some consistency.

That was a notorious case, and I suggest that any fair-minded person outside of the rail industry would consider that an attempt to charge an honest paying customer the full cost of an ADDITIONAL premium ticket when they have in fact travelled LESS than the journey for which they have paid is outrageous and tantamount to officially sanctioned fraud. Why the hell should you NOT be allowed to travel short on an advance other than to catch people out who aren't as all-knowing as the site members here, and thus line the TOC's pockets?

I'm not a great fan of the Daily Mail and its politics but this was surely too big a mad-rail-company bashing to ignore.

Of course, being a professor might have helped his case.

 

[Flamingo]

That was a notorious case, and I suggest that any fair-minded person outside of the rail industry would consider that an attempt to charge an honest paying customer the full cost of an ADDITIONAL premium ticket when they have in fact travelled LESS than the journey for which they have paid is outrageous and tantamount to officially sanctioned fraud. Why the hell should you NOT be allowed to travel short on an advance other than to catch people out who aren't as all-knowing as the site members here, and thus line the TOC's pockets?

I'm not a great fan of the Daily Mail and its politics but this was surely too big a mad-rail-company bashing to ignore.

Of course, being a professor might have helped his case.

That was done to death at the time, let's not rehash it again.

 

[RJ]

That was a notorious case, and I suggest that any fair-minded person outside of the rail industry would consider that an attempt to charge an honest paying customer the full cost of an ADDITIONAL premium ticket when they have in fact travelled LESS than the journey for which they have paid is outrageous and tantamount to officially sanctioned fraud. Why the hell should you NOT be allowed to travel short on an advance other than to catch people out who aren't as all-knowing as the site members here, and thus line the TOC's pockets?

I'm not a great fan of the Daily Mail and its politics but this was surely too big a mad-rail-company bashing to ignore.

Of course, being a professor might have helped his case.

Open Anytime Single tickets are perfect for you then. Stop moaning when there are tickets available for every single journey which meet those needs!

 

[All Line Rover]

Open Anytime Single tickets are perfect for you then. Stop moaning when there are tickets available for every single journey which meet those needs!

Stop moaning? neilmc might be a bit OTT but he makes a fair point. If you've got a ticket from A-C via B, any reasonable minded person would think you should be allowed to end or start your journey at B. The only reason why the railways want to claim otherwise is because they have such a ridiculous pricing structure!

(The only exception I can possibly think of is Eurostar).

 

[Flamingo]

Well, if anyone can design a better one, which is fairer to the passengers AND provides adequate revenue to the railway to cover the cost of the service and maintenance, please go ahead and do so.

 

[ainsworth74]

Well, if anyone can design a better one, which is fairer to the passengers AND provides adequate revenue to the railway to cover the cost of the service and maintenance, please go ahead and do so.

Does the present one actually manage that?

 

[All Line Rover]

Well, if anyone can design a better one, which is fairer to the passengers AND provides adequate revenue to the railway to cover the cost of the service and maintenance, please go ahead and do so.

The railway doesn't currently have enough money from revenue to cover its costs. I also don't see anything fair about the current system, where someone travelling from Plymouth to Birmingham pays £80, and the person sitting right next to them who is travelling from Plymouth to Derby pays £50. And that's supposed to be "simple!?"

At the very least, a reasonable request would be for a ticket from Plymouth to Birmingham to never cost more than a ticket from Plymouth to Derby (at the time of purchase, of course).

The very complexity of this thread flies in the face of ATOC's claim that ticketing is "simple."

 

[DaveNewcastle]

Does the present one actually manage that?

It does not.
[all the usual comparisons between governments' investment in the different transport infrastructures and operators, the taxes levied on them, their passengers and their fuel, and the other incentives such as allowances and permissions and political ideology and history usually follow from thes remarks but I will refrain from such comment].

 

[Flamingo]

So the present system is not fit for purpose, we are all agreed on that, passengers, politicians,. and railway.

What can it be replaced with?

 

[All Line Rover]

So the present system is not fit for purpose, we are all agreed on that, passengers, politicians,. and railway.

What can it be replaced with?

I've always thought a price-per-mile system would be good. The price-per-mile could decrease the more miles you cover on a train (which would encourage people to make longer journeys, such as London to Inverness), but the system would ensure that, at the time of purchase, people making a shorter journey (e.g. London to York) would never pay more than people making a longer journey (e.g. London to Inverness).

With regard to Advance tickets, the price-per-mile could increase as you get closer and closer to the date of travel.

The above would solve many of the railway's problems, such as split-ticketing, over-distance tickets, etc...

The DfT is currently focused on "smart-cards" and "zonal" ticketing technology, but I HIGHLY doubt it will be implemented by their supposed 2014 start date. The technology creates more problems than it cures. Ticketless technology works well on metro-style systems (e.g. TfL, Merseyrail, etc...) but I can't see it being implemented - in its current form - on long-distance, National Rail journeys.

 

[Greenback]

So the present system is not fit for purpose, we are all agreed on that, passengers, politicians,. and railway.

What can it be replaced with?

That is the big question, and I've yet to see it answered!

 

[Flamingo]

Me too.

Any system that replaces it will have major winners and losers, which is why it will never happen, it is too much of a political hot potato.

 

[yorkie]

I've always thought a price-per-mile system would be good.

Ah, it's been a few months, so it had to crop up again.

No-one who proposes such a system ever answers my questions. I invite you to be the first!

1) Please give me the proposed fares from York to Whitby for a day return, avoiding Darlington, and tell me how this fare is calculated and whether you think it will be competetive with the coach service provided by Coastliner that costs only slightly more than the current rail ticket price but offers a shorter journey time?

2) Please give me the proposed fares from York to London for a day return, and if this is lower than current prices, tell me where the revenue will be brought in to compensate EC for the revenue loss?

3) Please give me the proposed fares from Peterborough to Leicester, and also Leicester to Nottingham, and let me know how you are calculating the mileage and whether under your system it will be permitted to travel from Peterborough to Nottingham via Leicester or not, and if someone does go via Leicester what excess will be charged (if any)?

In the highly unlikely event that these questions can be answered in a way that would be satisfactory to the DfT, ATOC, the TOCs, and passengers, then I will be quite shocked.