Bradford Interchange-Reading-Todmorden

[tomoufc]

Hello

I’ve had a good do using the routing guide and it’s getting too complex for me to work out, so help would very much be appreciated.

On early evening on 17 June, I need to travel from Bradford to Reading. Then on the afternoon of 18 June, I need to travel from Reading to Todmorden. My exact times are unknown, so I need a flexible ticket. Since I am claiming on expenses, I likely need one ticket for these journeys.

So my question is - would it be possible to travel from Bradford to Reading via London on the first day, then Reading to Todmorden via either cross country or Avanti, on the following day, with this ticket https://www.brfares.com/!faredetail?orig=TOD&dest=RDG&tkt=SVR (And also why is this ticket cheaper than the Not Via London equivalent?)

Thanks for your help

 

[drueberflug]

This seems weird, but even Trainsplit forces the purchase of a ticket routed "via Leeds" and does not display the "any permitted" one as a valid option if you wish to travel via Bradford on a Todmorden to Reading ticket.

What's unfortunate for you is that while a Bradford to Reading ticket might suit you better (going via Manchester and Todmorden on the return journey is a mapped permitted journey; see MN+RM), those are only available as "not via London" for return tickets because LNER, who set the "any permitted" fares between Bradford and Reading, is rolling out Single-Leg Pricing, making return tickets unavailable as a result.

If you can avoid London, that would simplify matters, but if you have to be there, you might need two tickets.

 

[Benjwri]

This seems weird, but even Trainsplit forces the purchase of a ticket routed "via Leeds" and does not display the "any permitted" one as a valid option if you wish to travel via Bradford on a Todmorden to Reading ticket.

This would seem to be because the way most sites calculate valid routing points (And how I believe they are meant to), brings Halifax up as an invalid routing point. This is the only routing point that has mapped routes via Bradford, and therefore they calculate that a valid route is not found.

However where it gets interesting is the calculator provided in the guide thinks that it is a valid. I'm not entirely sure why this is though

 

[kieron]

This seems weird, but even Trainsplit forces the purchase of a ticket routed "via Leeds" and does not display the "any permitted" one as a valid option if you wish to travel via Bradford on a Todmorden to Reading ticket.

The problem is, I sispect that the "any permitted" ticket doesn't have a cross-London marker (✠), so you may struggle to find an itinerary which goes via London. I haven't looked in detail, but I can't see anything obvious which would stop the route from being vaild.

This would seem to be because the way most sites calculate valid routing points (And how I believe they are meant to), brings Halifax up as an invalid routing point. This is the only routing point that has mapped routes via Bradford, and therefore they calculate that a valid route is not found.

I don't know what you mean here. The nre.co.uk calculator says that all of the routeing points which are associated with Todmorden (Accrington, Halifax Group and Manchester Group) are valid routeing points for an "any permitted" Todmorden–Reading ticket.

 

[Class800]

Hello

I’ve had a good do using the routing guide and it’s getting too complex for me to work out, so help would very much be appreciated.

On early evening on 17 June, I need to travel from Bradford to Reading. Then on the afternoon of 18 June, I need to travel from Reading to Todmorden. My exact times are unknown, so I need a flexible ticket. Since I am claiming on expenses, I likely need one ticket for these journeys.

So my question is - would it be possible to travel from Bradford to Reading via London on the first day, then Reading to Todmorden via either cross country or Avanti, on the following day, with this ticket https://www.brfares.com/!faredetail?orig=TOD&dest=RDG&tkt=SVR (And also why is this ticket cheaper than the Not Via London equivalent?)

Thanks for your help

On expenses, I find increasingly I get split tickets most of the time as Trainline for Business tends to produce them quite often

 

[Benjwri]

The problem is, I sispect that the "any permitted" ticket doesn't have a cross-London marker (✠), so you may struggle to find an itinerary which goes via London. I haven't looked in detail, but I can't see anything obvious which would stop the route from being vaild.

I don't know what you mean here. The nre.co.uk calculator says that all of the routeing points which are associated with Todmorden (Accrington, Halifax Group and Manchester Group) are valid routeing points for an "any permitted" Todmorden–Reading ticket.

I have seen TrainSplit handle the cross London element fine before.

While the NRE calculator handles it like that, the calculator most routeing engines use doesn’t calculate in the quite same way, and therefore isn’t coming up with Halifax and Accrington being valid.

 

[alistairlees]

I have seen TrainSplit handle the cross London element fine before.

While the NRE calculator handles it like that, the calculator most routeing engines use doesn’t calculate in the quite same way, and therefore isn’t coming up with Halifax and Accrington being valid.

What is "the calculator most routeing engines use"?

 

[Benjwri]

What is "the calculator most routeing engines use"?

As in calculating it as specified by the accreditation sprecification . Having talked to @OscarH, it might be that the NRE calculator is calculating it in an overly generous way, and comparing the cheapest fare from Halifax to the most expensive from Todmorden, which the specification doesn't allow.

 

[OscarH]

As in calculating it as specified by the accreditation sprecification . Having talked to @OscarH, it might be that the NRE calculator is calculating it in an overly generous way, and comparing the cheapest fare from Halifax to the most expensive from Todmorden, which the specification doesn't allow.

Yeah, so just sticking with Accrington for now, because I haven't looked much into Halifax yet

The NRE calculator gives:

Allowed by any route at NFM64: SOS from ACR to RDG on route 00332: £42.20 is NOT more expensive than SOS from TOD to RDG on route 00064: £57.00.

However mine rejects it because it's comparing the £42.20 Accrington fare with the £39.60 Todmorden route 00323 fare, making the routeing point more expensive.

The table in RSPS5047 section 9.5.6.3 which defines how to do various stages of matching suggests that when there is no ticket route match, and no any-permitted match, you pick the cheapest route code (independently) for both the routeing point fare and the basis fare - so I don't know why NRE is picking this £57 fare (having now looked it isn't even the most expensive fare, that's route 00312)

 

[tomoufc]

Thanks for the responses everyone. Think I’m best going BDI-MCV-MAN-RDG via cross country on the way there, and the same route back. Any time saving for going via London would be lost trying to work out the minutia of routing rules anyway!

 

[JB_B]

Yeah, so just sticking with Accrington for now, because I haven't looked much into Halifax yet

The NRE calculator gives:



However mine rejects it because it's comparing the £42.20 Accrington fare with the £39.60 Todmorden route 00323 fare, making the routeing point more expensive.

The table in RSPS5047 section 9.5.6.3 which defines how to do various stages of matching suggests that when there is no ticket route match, and no any-permitted match, you pick the cheapest route code (independently) for both the routeing point fare and the basis fare - so I don't know why NRE is picking this £57 fare (having now looked it isn't even the most expensive fare, that's route 00312)

Unfortunately, table is 9.5.6.3 (in common with the earlier guidance ) isn't exactly explicit about exactly what rules are to be applied.

I'd interpret it as...

Row 1: Match on-route where possible ( so use 99999) ; otherwise
Row 2: If an off-route but route-consistent check is available use that ( so use 00000 ); otherwise

Rows 3&4 : If route-consistency is impossible, match across mixed routes ( choosing the cheapest routes where there's a choice.)


The "choose the cheapest" rule doesn't appear anywhere in the public-facing routeing guide information ( sections A and F ) it and doesn't seem to be applied by rp_calc*.

As you say, that final rule leads to Accrington failing but for Halifax a consistent off-route check can be done using SOS on route 00700 and, as far as I can see, Halifax passes ( as a routeing point for Todmorden to Reading on route 00000).


(* rp_calc also purports to apply a weird fail-routeing-point-group-members-which-can-only-be-reached-by-passing-through-another-group-member rule which is, as far as I know, undocumented.)

 

[OscarH]

Row 2: If an off-route but route-consistent check is available use that ( so use 00000 ); otherwise

Hmm, I can definitely see the argument for that (and logically it would make sense to have that). The fact they specified 00000 specifically and noted it was any permitted made it seem like it was specific to that route to me, otherwise why not just use 22222 or something like the other examples

 

[JB_B]

Hmm, I can definitely see the argument for that (and logically it would make sense to have that). The fact they specified 00000 specifically and noted it was any permitted made it seem like it was specific to that route to me, otherwise why not just use 22222 or something like the other examples

I think it's hopelessly ambiguous and I can see why you might interpret row two as suggesting that there's something special about route 00000.

When I was first coding up a fares check I was working just from the public-facing info and NFM64. ( The developer guidance wasn't in the public-domain back then and I didn't know it existed. )

Working from the scraps of information and examples in RGF I came up with four levels or quality : matched-route, off-route but route-consistent, mixed-route and finally, as a last resort, mixed ticket-type (SOS/SDS). When I finally got to see the guidance that naturally coloured my reading of the table but I remember thinking even then that it could be read otherwise.