Booking Systems used by each operator

[Huntergreed]

What makes you say this? So far as I know they are available to retail anywhere.

You’re right, I take it back! I just assumed this as I had never seen any other retailer offer them, but I now see trainline and Virgin Trains offer these tickets.

Would be good to see these on TrainSplit if possible!

 

[yorkie]

If I bought split tickets for my most frequent split journeys on Trainsplit rather at the station I would always pay more ! In one case you can’t buy the ticket from any online retailer, so not a Trainsplit issue, but for the other some TOCs do sell the ticket on line.

This is cryptic but the first is a Derbyshire Wayfarer (a lot of stations wont tell people about that, though) and the second will probably be a bug in the routeing engines of some TOCs websites; can you elaborate?

 

[OscarH]

What makes you say this? So far as I know they are available to retail anywhere.

They're allowed to be retailed, but they are a horrendous bodge in the data (what isn't in this industry I suppose) which is the main sticking point as I recall

 

[Bletchleyite]

They're allowed to be retailed, but they are a horrendous bodge in the data (what isn't in this industry I suppose) which is the main sticking point as I recall

They just show up in other booking engines as Standard Advances, but you only generally see them if there isn't a lower tier on sale. I am almost certain I have seen one come up on Trainsplit before.

 

[OscarH]

They just show up in other booking engines as Standard Advances, but you only generally see them if there isn't a lower tier on sale. I am almost certain I have seen one come up on Trainsplit before.

Yeah, I meant that's an issue with retailing them properly as a 3rd class option, rather them just appearing when standard runs out

 

[alistairlees]

Yeah, I meant that's an issue with retailing them properly as a 3rd class option, rather them just appearing when standard runs out

When I heard of Avanti’s plan I asked for a new class to be created especially for these so they could be managed through data, as things should be.

I was told that this was ‘too complicated’ so it would not be done. What was really meant was that the TOC introducing the change would not pay for the costs of this; but that it was expected that all TIS suppliers would pay for the costs instead, and hardcode some rules to make them work.

It would not have been difficult to add a new class (e.g. 8; 1, 2 and 9 already exist) to the data. There would still have been work to do for TIS suppliers but at least it wouldn’t have meant hard coding things.

 

[Adam Williams]

it was expected that all TIS suppliers would pay for the costs instead, and hardcode some rules to make them work

BAU for the rail industry, then...

When I heard of Avanti’s plan I asked for a new class to be created especially for these so they could be managed through data, as things should be.

Appreciate you trying to fight the good fight, though!

 

[penguin8967]

But it isn’t even cheaper! Literally the only difference is you’re using the website and deliberately refusing to give it any commission on the sale! If you can find an example where trainsplit offers an itinerary that isn’t cheaper, I recommend highlighting it here and I’m sure it would be quickly fixed!

Trainsplit takes a bigger share of saving (or booking fee, you could say) with the more you save. In the example below, I'd much rather book with an alternative site and save over £4. Sites like GWR and LNER let you add more than one ticket per transaction which makes it pretty easy as well.

 

[sheff1]

Do you mind sharing what journey this is? I’m sure the excellent trainsplit staff would be keen to update their system to include this for yourself and future users.

Splitting at Doncaster for journeys from Sheffield to stations such as Peterborough, Stevenage or Kings Cross. Trainsplit does not cater for buying a SY concession ticket on the first leg. Even if it did add the SY concession (as I said, various TOC sites do sell these tickets) I would have to book the tickets separately as Trainsplit will not allow a different Railcard for different legs. As an aside, they will also not allow different railcards for different passengers in a single booking or one person with a railcard and one without.

I have no problem with Trainsplit not allowing purchase of such tickets as it is simple enough to book them on TOC sites, which is contrary to your assertion:

The only sites that anyone should be considering are ticket splitting sites. Not using these just seems silly! Certainly, choosing a TOC website over a splitting site is just pointless

If using a TOC site to buy one leg of a journey, it is much easier to use them for all legs and get just the one booking reference.

 

[OscarH]

When I heard of Avanti’s plan I asked for a new class to be created especially for these so they could be managed through data, as things should be.

I was told that this was ‘too complicated’ so it would not be done. What was really meant was that the TOC introducing the change would not pay for the costs of this; but that it was expected that all TIS suppliers would pay for the costs instead, and hardcode some rules to make them work.

It would not have been difficult to add a new class (e.g. 8; 1, 2 and 9 already exist) to the data. There would still have been work to do for TIS suppliers but at least it wouldn’t have meant hard coding things.

That's exactly how I would've expected it to be implemented, agree it would've been very simple to do. Typical mess, I wish I could say it surprised me

 

[Huntergreed]

Trainsplit takes a bigger share of saving (or booking fee, you could say) with the more you save. In the example below, I'd much rather book with an alternative site and save over £4. Sites like GWR and LNER let you add more than one ticket per transaction which makes it pretty easy as well.
View attachment 125875

But adding each ticket to the basket individually on TrainSplit (after you have seen the splits, add them all as separate journeys), exactly what you would do on the GWR/LNER website, will result in the £23.20 fare, and remove the “share of saving fee”.

I’ll admit I often do this as I often think the share asked for is too high. I don’t mind paying a small share of saving fee for the service provided, but I’ve sometimes been asked for £20+, which is way too high for me. That said, I always book through them to ensure they still recieve the commission on the sale.

Not doing so is morally wrong as it is utilising the service provided by TrainSplit without financially supporting it.

Even with the “Share of Saving fee”, the price charged by TrainSplit is never higher than the price a TOC would charge for the through journey.

 

[Adam Williams]

In the example below, I'd much rather book with an alternative site and save over £4.

Nobody can stop you doing that if you're hell-bent on it, but the reason you're getting flack here is because the company behind TrainSplit has tried to do a good thing here by supporting the forum with its own booking site (which I believe helps the forum financially), making split ticketing more accessible to "ordinarily", less knowledgable passengers and generally trying to push for improvements across the industry - as a lot of the third-party retailers do. You're benefitting from the R&D work, costing the company in compute time and giving nothing back - not even basic commission by adding journey fares individually into your TrainSplit basket.

If everyone did what you're doing, the site wouldn't exist and I wouldn't be able to pay my mortgage.

 

[penguin8967]

But adding each ticket to the basket individually on TrainSplit (after you have seen the splits, add them all as separate journeys), exactly what you would do on the GWR/LNER website, will result in the £23.20 fare, and remove the “share of saving fee”.

I'll admit that I didn't realise trainsplit had a basket function with the ability to add more journeys. I'll certainly be using them more often now to buy tickets - they're certainly the best for choosing your route as well with much finer control over via points and the ability to have different ones on the return leg.

Sidenote - does anyone know if trainsplit's e-tickets can be added to the Apple wallet?

 

[Adam Williams]

Sidenote - does anyone know if trainsplit's e-tickets can be added to the Apple wallet?

Yup - if you're on iOS15+ they'll be grouped together and delivered as a bundle too, so no need to add them individually. Can also be added in-app from the iOS app.

 

[penguin8967]

Yup - if you're on iOS15+ they'll be grouped together and delivered as a bundle too, so no need to add them individually.

Even better

 

[Bletchleyite]

It would not have been difficult to add a new class (e.g. 8; 1, 2 and 9 already exist) to the data. There would still have been work to do for TIS suppliers but at least it wouldn’t have meant hard coding things.

What's 9?

 

[alistairlees]

What's 9?

Classless. Like a bike reservation.

 

[yorkie]

TOCs don't like

Trainsplit takes a bigger share of saving (or booking fee, you could say) with the more you save. In the example below, I'd much rather book with an alternative site and save over £4. Sites like GWR and LNER let you add more than one ticket per transaction which makes it pretty easy as well.
View attachment 125875

When do GWR or LNER charge less for the same journey than Trainsplit? Are you sure about that?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 26 Dec 2022 ==

Splitting at Doncaster for journeys from Sheffield to stations such as Peterborough, Stevenage or Kings Cross. Trainsplit does not cater for buying a SY concession ticket on the first leg. Even if it did add the SY concession (as I said, various TOC sites do sell these tickets) I would have to book the tickets separately as Trainsplit will not allow a different Railcard for different legs. As an aside, they will also not allow different railcards for different passengers in a single booking or one person with a railcard and one without.

I have no problem with Trainsplit not allowing purchase of such tickets as it is simple enough to book them on TOC sites, which is contrary to your assertion:

If using a TOC site to buy one leg of a journey, it is much easier to use them for all legs and get just the one booking reference.

Which TOC sites allow these things?

 

[Haywain]

Yup - if you're on iOS15+ they'll be grouped together and delivered as a bundle too, so no need to add them individually. Can also be added in-app from the iOS app.

How about Google Pay/Wallet?

 

[Adam Williams]

How about Google Pay/Wallet?

I think it supported groups of multiple tickets from day 1 to be honest, and so TrainSplit has supported them on Android/with Google Wallet a lot longer than iOS/Apple Wallet bundles - seems I wrote about it back in October of last year https://trainsplit.com/blog/save-your-tickets-to-google-pay

I added it to the Android app towards the end of that month, I think..? It was just available from the emails at first.

Obviously Android is the more important platform to build functionality for

 

[Haywain]

I think it supported groups of multiple tickets from day 1 to be honest, and so TrainSplit has supported them on Android/with Google Wallet a lot longer than iOS/Apple Wallet bundles - seems I wrote about it back in October of last year https://trainsplit.com/blog/save-your-tickets-to-google-pay

I added it to the Android app towards the end of that month, I think..? It was just available from the emails at first.

Good to know, I prefer to be able to add eTickets to the wallet.

 

[sheff1]

Which TOC sites allow these things?

LNER, XC, GWR, EMR, Northern & TPE all allow differemt railcards (or discounts) in the same booking - I anticipate others will as well.

EMR & Northern, at least, allow selection of the SY concession discounts.

 

[ashkeba]

It's not quite as slick as booking at the same time as your ticket, but I think it's possible you'd find that TrainSplit's customer service (it's nice to see it described as superior!) may be quite a bit more helpful than you'd expect with bike reservations if you shoot them a message

So is the claim in the Help page that they are unable to sell bike reservations incorrect?

 

[yorkie]

LNER, XC, GWR, EMR, Northern & TPE all allow differemt railcards (or discounts) in the same booking - I anticipate others will as well.

EMR & Northern, at least, allow selection of the SY concession discounts.

Can you show me how those websites will offer this:

Splitting at Doncaster for journeys from Sheffield to stations such as Peterborough, Stevenage or Kings Cross. Trainsplit does not cater for buying a SY concession ticket on the first leg. Even if it did add the SY concession (as I said, various TOC sites do sell these tickets) I would have to book the tickets separately as Trainsplit will not allow a different Railcard for different legs

I think you will find that this criticism applies to all websites and there is no practical way around it.

 

[Adam Williams]

So is the claim in the Help page that they are unable to sell bike reservations incorrect?

The claim applies to the website and is accurate today.

 

[Paul Kelly]

I think you will find that this criticism applies to all websites and there is no practical way around it.

Just joining in this thread to point out an inaccuracy here: TrainSplit will offer a combination of railcard and no railcards on different legs if it is cheaper. I think the issue here is rather that TrainSplit doesn't offer the SYPTE concessionary pass as a railcard option? Trainline does offer it and as a result comes up with the split:



The more general issue is offering a combination of different railcards (rather than just with/without one specified railcard) on split tickets across different journey legs, e.g. SYPTE+Senior - I wouldn't say there is no practical solution though - it's just that calculating the optimal combination of railcards is a bit computationally intensive and not quite so compatible with split ticketing which is also quite computationally intensive. No prohibitive problems though; just hard to do efficiently but I guess with today's computers and good parallelisation, not so much of a problem.

 

[alistairlees]

To add to this, using two types of railcard on the same journey will make for a more complex user interface (UI), particularly if there is more than one passenger. Like most things, it's doable technically, but it might not have much of a return on investment when compared with other things.

 

[yorkie]

...The more general issue is offering a combination of different railcards (rather than just with/without one specified railcard) on split tickets across different journey legs, e.g. SYPTE+Senior - I wouldn't say there is no practical solution though - it's just that calculating the optimal combination of railcards is a bit computationally intensive and not quite so compatible with split ticketing which is also quite computationally intensive. No prohibitive problems though; just hard to do efficiently but I guess with today's computers and good parallelisation, not so much of a problem.

Yes it's not impossible, but it's been looked at, and ruled out on practicality grounds.

If anyone wants to give it a try , they can have a niche unique selling point (at disproportionate computational cost).

My prediction is that this doesn't get offered by any retailer anytime soon, if ever. And if it does, its hardly likely to be offered by TOCs.

 

[ThisIsSurbiton]

It would not have been difficult to add a new class (e.g. 8; 1, 2 and 9 already exist) to the data. There would still have been work to do for TIS suppliers but at least it wouldn’t have meant hard coding things.

Given all the other nonsense that has to be hard-coded, this seems almost reasonable, although of course a new class would be best. A lot of the fares data - and timetables for that matter (train length/formation, bikes, time zone, minimum change times at complex stations) - isn't fit for purpose IMO

If anyone wants to give it a try , they can have a niche unique selling point (at disproportionate computational cost).

One retailer (you know the one ) and maybe others are considering the user-supplied Railcard and a few GroupSave discounts at once, so in those cases it's done already

 

[ashkeba]

The claim applies to the website and is accurate today.

Right, well, it is still a reason to use another retailer because I want to buy a ticket, not email someone to beg they sell me a bike ticket whenever they get around to it and hope both human and bike tickets I want are still available then.

As I've written in the past, I think retailers should be allowed and required to sell the full range, so Avanti's nonsense of tickets visible mainly on their own site wouldn't be allowed, but neither would Trainsplit's cherrypicking of able-bodied motorists who drive to stations and only use simple tickets.