Boundary Zone tickets: TrainSplit glitch or my misunderstanding?

[arb]

Having recently made good use of TrainSplit's ability to sell me a boundary zone ticket with an itinerary, I've found a case where it won't sell me any ticket at all for a particular train, even though I believe the boundary zone 6 ticket is valid. But maybe I've misunderstood the rules!

Example: Search for London Bridge to Aylesford, via Maidstone East, today, out at 10:00, return at 15:00, saying that you already hold an off-peak zones 1-6 travelcard. A variety of different journey options are returned, with the £14.70 BZ6 to Aylesford available for most of them, but not on the 10:38 departure. The only unusual thing I can see about the 10:38 compared to the other journeys is that it is non-stop within zones 1-6, first stop at Swanley. Whereas all the other journeys have multiple stops within the zones between London Bridge and Swanley.

However a counterexample where the BZ6 ticket is offered on a non-stop train is Paddington to Reading, so it doesn't look like the non-stop nature of my original example is to blame for the BZ6 ticket not being offered.

Is TrainSplit correct that the BZ6 ticket is not valid on the 10:38 train that is non-stop to Swanley? Have I missed some other subtelty of the route taken by that paritcular train which makes the BZ6 ticket invalid? Or is it a glitch in their Boundary Zone algorithm?

 

[SickyNicky]

Hmm. It looks like that fast journey doesn't pass through any routeing points after Maidstone East. And because Maidstone East isn't associated with Aylesford, we can't use it. According to the Routeing Point Calculator, the journey must pass through either Strood or Tonbridge.

As the route isn't Permitted, we can't offer BZ tickets (remember that we don't split tickets with BZ ... yet).

For other journeys this is solved by them being within 3 miles of the shortest route, but this route fails this (by 0.01 miles!).

 

[arb]

Ah, right, so TrainSplit's current alogorithm just looks to see if the route chosen for London Terminals to Aylesford is valid? If it is, and if the customer says "I have a travelcard", then it sells the ticket from BZ6 instead of from London Terminals?

Ignoring TrainSplit's algorithm, am I correct to say that a BZ6 ticket is actually valid via this route? My understanding is that the actual check needed for a BZ6 ticket is to look for a valid route from the last station within zones 1-6, regardless of whether the train stops there or not. So in this case, St Mary Cray to Aylesford, which is definitely valid via Maidstone (well, I say that on the assumption on that every journey planner I've tried, including TrainSplit, will sell me a normal off-peak day return for St Mary Cray to Aylesford via Maidstone. I haven't attempted to confirm this with the routeing guide!)

 

[jfollows]

St Mary Cray to Aylesford is valid via Tonbridge or Strood, the former meaning via Maidstone West.

 

[arb]

St Mary Cray to Aylesford is valid via Tonbridge or Strood, the former meaning via Maidstone West.

All three of National Rail Enquiries, South Eastern's journey planner, and TrainSplit will offer me a route from St Mary Cray to Aylesford via Maidstone East, walk to Maidstone Barracks, and then train to Aylesford, not going via either Tonbridge or Strood. And they'll do this for a simple journey request without me needing to force the issue with any "via" points.

 

[jfollows]

All three of National Rail Enquiries, South Eastern's journey planner, and TrainSplit will offer me a route from St Mary Cray to Aylesford via Maidstone East, walk to Maidstone Barracks, and then train to Aylesford, not going via either Tonbridge or Strood. And they'll do this for a simple journey request without me needing to force the issue with any "via" points.

Fair enough, but you said "Maidstone" rather than "Maidstone East" in your post above, it helps to be clear, especially to someone who doesn't know the area well.

 

[SickyNicky]

All three of National Rail Enquiries, South Eastern's journey planner, and TrainSplit will offer me a route from St Mary Cray to Aylesford via Maidstone East, walk to Maidstone Barracks, and then train to Aylesford, not going via either Tonbridge or Strood. And they'll do this for a simple journey request without me needing to force the issue with any "via" points.

It's within 3 miles of the shortest route, so is allowed via Maidstone East with a walk to Maidstone Barracks.

Ah, right, so TrainSplit's current alogorithm just looks to see if the route chosen for London Terminals to Aylesford is valid? If it is, and if the customer says "I have a travelcard", then it sells the ticket from BZ6 instead of from London Terminals?

Ignoring TrainSplit's algorithm, am I correct to say that a BZ6 ticket is actually valid via this route? My understanding is that the actual check needed for a BZ6 ticket is to look for a valid route from the last station within zones 1-6, regardless of whether the train stops there or not. So in this case, St Mary Cray to Aylesford, which is definitely valid via Maidstone (well, I say that on the assumption on that every journey planner I've tried, including TrainSplit, will sell me a normal off-peak day return for St Mary Cray to Aylesford via Maidstone. I haven't attempted to confirm this with the routeing guide!)

The route may well be valid and accepted without question, but there are plenty of routes from other London Terminals which may be technically valid but are never going to be accepted by gateline staff. The "average" passenger isn't going to know why. Should we offer those routes, knowing they will cause friction and they will be denied travel, or should we be pragmatic about it and only offer routes which can actually be taken in practice?

This one is unfortunate because of the 0.01 miles over the 3 mile rule.

 

[arb]

Fair enough, but you said "Maidstone" rather than "Maidstone East" in your post above, it helps to be clear, especially to someone who doesn't know the area well.

My first post said "Maidstone East", I admit I dropped the "East" in post #3, which was not helpful to people reading that post out-of-context from the original post.

The route may well be valid and accepted without question, but there are plenty of routes from other London Terminals which may be technically valid but are never going to be accepted by gateline staff. The "average" passenger isn't going to know why. Should we offer those routes, knowing they will cause friction and they will be denied travel, or should we be pragmatic about it and only offer routes which can actually be taken in practice?

My two questions in post #3 were (1) trying to double-check I had understood TrainSplit's algorithm correctly (out of personal curiosity), and (2) trying to double-check if I had understood the rules for using Boundary Zone tickets myself (without an itinerary) correctly. I was not attempting to suggest that TrainSplit should be changing what it does.

 

[SickyNicky]

Yeah, no worries. The journey planner TrainSplit uses is provided by us, and we use the last station actually stopped at in the zones when calculating the validity. And yes, I believe that you are correct in your assertion that your BZ ticket is technically valid.

But for other readers of this thread, I'd like to give an example of why we don't calculate from stations that aren't called at:

Imagine you're an "average" customer with no idea about the routeing guide. You buy a St Pancras to Milton Keynes Central journey, indicating that you have a travelcard. It suggests you catch the 08.36 to Bedford, then on to Bletchley and thence to Milton Keynes, and it sells you this ticket: https://www.brfares.com/!faredetail?orig=QAJ&dest=MKC&rte=1000&tkt=CDR

Obviously this isn't a Permitted Route from St Pancras. They're not going to let you through the gateline. You'll be told to go to Euston. But Elstree and Borehamwood (the last station in the zones) to Milton Keynes is actually valid that way, so your boundary zone 6 ticket makes the route technically valid.

To further complicate matters, the time restrictions on this ticket from the boundary zone end at 08.45 and you pass the boundary at 08.49. But tickets up the midland main line have different time restrictions and wouldn't be valid at that time.

We took the pragmatic view that offering such tickets would cause too much friction.

 

[kieron]

For other journeys this is solved by them being within 3 miles of the shortest route, but this route fails this (by 0.01 miles!).

I would bring up the way that this sort of system normally avoids using a 3 mile cut-off because they don't use the mileages from the eNRT, but I notice that there's a bigger difference if you try to use those figures to find the shortest distance.

According to the eNRT, London Bridge is both 2 miles from Deptford and 1/2 a mile from Deptford (as someone copied part of one column from another column without thinking that St Pancras is north of Charing Cross). And there are a couple of bits of the route the London-Maidstone trains take which don't have any distance listed at all (St. Johns-Hither Green direct and Chislehurst-St. Mary Cray).

Ignoring TrainSplit's algorithm, am I correct to say that a BZ6 ticket is actually valid via this route? My understanding is that the actual check needed for a BZ6 ticket is to look for a valid route from the last station within zones 1-6, regardless of whether the train stops there or not.

That sounds reasonable, but I don't know of any official explanation of how a travelcard+boundary zone ticket combination may be used beyond a few snippets (no need for train to call, not valid on HS1, etc.).

 

[Nicholas43]

...Imagine you're an "average" customer with no idea about the routeing guide. You buy a St Pancras to Milton Keynes Central journey, indicating that you have a travelcard. It suggests you catch the 08.36 to Bedford, then on to Bletchley and thence to Milton Keynes, and it sells you this ticket: https://www.brfares.com/!faredetail?orig=QAJ&dest=MKC&rte=1000&tkt=CDR

Er, can't I get through the barrier at St Pancras with my travelcard? But then risk a difficult discussion about the validity of my boundary zone ticket for the legs Elstree to Bedford to Bletchley?

 

[SickyNicky]

Er, can't I get through the barrier at St Pancras with my travelcard? But then risk a difficult discussion about the validity of my boundary zone ticket for the legs Elstree to Bedford to Bletchley?

Yes, of course you could to those platforms - so imagine you're trying to get an East Midlands Railway train instead of a Thameslink one. I doubt your travelcard will get you through those.

 

[CyrusWuff]

Yes, of course you could to those platforms - so imagine you're trying to get an East Midlands Railway train instead of a Thameslink one. I doubt your travelcard will get you through those.

Would have thought the EMR gateline would accept in-boundary Travelcards given it's entirely possible for Thameslink to terminate in the High Level platforms.

 

[Haywain]

Would have thought the EMR gateline would accept in-boundary Travelcards given it's entirely possible for Thameslink to terminate in the High Level platforms.

When Thameslink use the high level the gatelines are usually bypassed.

 

[Nicholas43]

Be that as it may, the suggested 0836 to Bedford normally leaves, of course, from platform A.

 

[infobleep]

For tickets such as some described in the this thread, is it a case of they weren't intended to be valid but due to how the system works they are. Therefore best not to try and use them in this way?

 

[Andrew1395]

Surely with an in boundary travelcard requiring an extension for Milton Keynes you would go to Euston anyway. It’s quicker and cheaper. The Elstree -> Milton Keynes ticket is priced via Bedford, presumably to stop you going via St Albans Abbey and Watford Junction. For which you pay a premium compared to the Hatch End to Milton Keynes Any Permitted ticket.

 

[miklcct]

Surely with an in boundary travelcard requiring an extension for Milton Keynes you would go to Euston anyway. It’s quicker and cheaper. The Elstree -> Milton Keynes ticket is priced via Bedford, presumably to stop you going via St Albans Abbey and Watford Junction. For which you pay a premium compared to the Hatch End to Milton Keynes Any Permitted ticket.

If my origin is Elstree having a Zone 1-6 Travelcard, travelling via St Albans or Bedford is more reasonable than going all the way back to London and out.

Is the journey planner going to suggest a London-avoiding route if I actually type Elstree as the origin with the Travelcard selected?

 

[arb]

Is the journey planner going to suggest a London-avoiding route if I actually type Elstree as the origin with the Travelcard selected?

I just experimented with TrainSplit, and the answer is that "sort of". By default it wants to send me via St Pancras, but with an explicit "via Bedford" then it does offer that route and does offer the Boundary Zone ticket.

This agrees with the explanation of TrainSplit's algorithm that was offered up-thread (that in order to sell a Boundary Zone ticket, it checks for a valid route from the last station that the train calls at within the zones, not the last station that it passes through).

 

[miklcct]

I just experimented with TrainSplit, and the answer is that "sort of". By default it wants to send me via St Pancras, but with an explicit "via Bedford" then it does offer that route and does offer the Boundary Zone ticket.

This agrees with the explanation of TrainSplit's algorithm that was offered up-thread (that in order to sell a Boundary Zone ticket, it checks for a valid route from the last station that the train calls at within the zones, not the last station that it passes through).

One kind of Boundary Zone ticket that I could never successfully buy is a Boundary Zone 2 ticket to somewhere within the London fare zones, routed not via London. I tried c2c and the journey planner attempted to use London itself as the origin and it, of course, failed the "not via London" check, but we all know it's valid, while Trainsplit refuses to provide boundary fares if the other end is within the London fare zones (but outside my zonal coverage).

With an Annual Gold Card, buying a ticket is cheaper than using Oyster during the evening peak, but currently I can only buy such tickets from a ticket machine.

 

[Andrew1395]

If my origin is Elstree having a Zone 1-6 Travelcard, travelling via St Albans or Bedford is more reasonable than going all the way back to London and out.

Is the journey planner going to suggest a London-avoiding route if I actually type Elstree as the origin with the Travelcard selected?

I am not sure, what Journey Planners would do. They all have the capacity to deliver different answers to certain journey requests. The example posed was If you know you are at St Pancras and want to go to Milton Keynes and have an In Boundary Travelcard. As an average customer I would expect a Journey Planner to default offer the quickest option and the cheapest valid extension ticket for that journey option. Which would be walk/underground to Euston take the train to Milton Keynes and therefore sell the Hatch End to Milton Keynes ticket.

If you are at Elstree I would agree you would expect the Journey Planner to offer you a different option. I expect it’s quicker go from Elstree to Milton Keynes via St Albans and Bedford. But in that scenario holding an In boundary Travelcard is possibly Irrelevant to the Journey Planner. it is likely to sell you the point to point ticket. If it is quicker to go to St Pancras and Euston though, because of say engineering works on the Bedford to Bletchley line, then it should offer you an itinerary via Euston.

 

[redreni]

The nice thing about TrainSplit is it lets you specify your origin and also your existing Travelcard held, so it doesn't give you an itinerary that starts at an arbitrary station such as the most convenient London Terminal.

It's true that not being able to buy single and return tickets from, say, Boundary Zone 3 to a station in zone 5 can be annoying, though worth noting that for off-peak journeys it's generally cheaper to buy a ticket to the first station beyond zone 6 and stop short, which TrainSplit will of course let you do.

 

[miklcct]

It's true that not being able to buy single and return tickets from, say, Boundary Zone 3 to a station in zone 5 can be annoying, though worth noting that for off-peak journeys it's generally cheaper to buy a ticket to the first station beyond zone 6 and stop short, which TrainSplit will of course let you do.

It was the exact functionality I required when I held an Annual Gold Card in the past, because with a Gold Card, buying a paper ticket is cheaper than using Oyster card in the evening peak.

 

[redreni]

It was the exact functionality I required when I held an Annual Gold Card in the past, because with a Gold Card, buying a paper ticket is cheaper than using Oyster card in the evening peak.

Presumably that was before Boundary Zone tickets became widely available at TVMs, leaving you wholly reliant on ticket offices?

 

[miklcct]

Presumably that was before Boundary Zone tickets became widely available at TVMs, leaving you wholly reliant on ticket offices?

It was widely available at Thameslink TVMs during the period I held my Gold Card. Also, some (but not all - I contacted Customer Service and got an unhelpful reply of telling me to use Oyster when I pointed out the problem) Boundary Zone tickets could be bought from c2c website as well.