The following article appeared in the December edition of Railtalk magazine ( www.railtalk.net ). Please reply with your comments.
Cross London ticket woes
A reader wanted to travel from Leeds to Croydon, departing on the 07:40 service from Leeds. On searching for a ticket to Croydon Stations he was presented with only expensive Anytime fares being available for that journey, with a connection into a Victoria to East Croydon service. Yet the NXEC train had plenty of availability for Advance Purchase (AP) fares to London - so why were AP fares not available to East Croydon? It has long been the case that journeys south of the Thames are not reservable, and therefore there are no quota restrictions on AP tickets. In other words, the only train that could sell out was the long distance service. But has that changed?
A search for Leeds to West Croydon yielded a £35 Advance fare a saving of around £72! A search for Croydon Stations only provides results to East Croydon, as those journeys are always faster than West Croydon, in some cases AP fares are not immediately obvious. Is this a breach of impartial retailing rules? No, because the 1,000+ page Ticketing Settlement Agreement that all retailers are bound by, does not appear to cover cases like this amongst all its waffle.
But we've only scratched the surface. Why is West Croydon cheaper? There are, for some journeys, AP tickets available to East Croydon so it's not the case that West Croydon is a cheaper destination. Besides, tickets are issued to 'Croydon Stations' irrespective of the destination chosen. So it has to be down to something else.
Another reader travelling between Croydon and Nottingham had no problems with a northbound booking, being routed into St Pancras via FCC, yet had problems booking a southbound ticket with no AP fares available to East Croydon. It was routing him via Victoria. Changing the destination to West Croydon gave an £18 fare. Another method to get the AP fares to appear would be to change the 'via' station to London Bridge, but it makes no difference which method is used. The solution appears to be to avoid certain fast services out of London Victoria.
A third reader, based in the South who regularly resorts to split ticketing due to the lack of AP through fares, informs us that is cheaper to split AP tickets combined with Oyster to cross London. He is right. Our railway is so fragmented that it is so often cheaper to split tickets and go to considerable lengths to get the best deals. It shouldnt be this way.
We investigated the matter and discovered that the cause of the problems was the recent introduction by Southern of AP fares for off-peak services between Victoria and selected south coast destinations. These trains are not fully reservable there are no seats allocated, and no reservation labels provided - yet they do have a quota for AP fares. The quotas are in limited supply and NXEC AP tickets are not available on these quotas, although we were able to book Virgin AP tickets from Manchester on these trains.
When you select a journey such as Leeds to Croydon, the time your train arrives into London will determine the service that the system suggests for onward travel, and it's down to pure luck whether or not it puts you on one of the quota-restricted trains. If no AP fares are available, you can get around this by specifying a via point of London Bridge as the problem applies only to certain fast services from Victoria. Being allocated on an unreservable train means you do not get a compulsory reservation so you are free to use any train, and your ticket will be accepted, and work the barriers, equally via Victoria or London Bridge.
Interestingly, services at peak times to/from Victoria do not have a quota for AP tickets and are completely unreservable. This is to prevent AP tickets being available for journeys wholly on Southern by commuters, yet it opens up those services to those travelling beyond London, such as the Leeds example above.
Looking in the National Rail Timetable (NRT), only the off-peak Brighton fasts are shown with the diamond symbol indicating that reservations are available. The Portsmouth and Littlehampton services also have AP fares available yet they do not have the symbol. There is no logic in this whatsoever, as in both cases seats cannot be reserved.
Good value on Southern
Although the AP quotas are causing problems for long distance passengers, these problems are easy to get round, and it is a positive move that Southern have introduced them as they do offer excellent value, with journeys such as Portsmouth or Brighton to London from only £3 single (£6 return). The problems described above are due to the poor implementation of this system, and Southern probably dont even realise they are causing problems for long distance passengers.
Even better value than the AP fares is the DaySave, at £10 off peak this is tremendous value for unlimited travel on all Southern trains for a day. A group ticket, at £20 is even better at only £5 per person for a group of 4! Bookings can be made on the Southern website at least a week in advance.
Completing the Southern theme this month is the news that, with the extension of Gatwick Express to principal stations along the Brighton line, many 'Route: Not Gatwick Express' fares have been re-routed 'Route: Any Permitted' and the formerly expensive Any Permitted fares have been withdrawn. About time, too!
South Eastern rip-off
In contrast, passengers on South Eastern Trains (SET) are experiencing huge price rises in January to pay for their high speed services, whether passengers use them or not. For example, the yearly season for Gillingham to London increased by over 9% on January 2008 and have again increased by over 9% in January 2009, the overall increase equating to £524 in the space of 366 days (See Table 1)! Can you imagine the Government imposing such increases on fuel excise duty? I think not!
Gillingham being relatively close to London, thus having minimal journey time reduction, it is difficult to see how a commuter who works in the centre of London - where Charing Cross and London Bridge are ideally located - will benefit. Indeed they may be worse off as many of these trains are set to be withdrawn to cater for the St Pancras services. Thats not to say that high-speed services are not a good thing, and for many the journey to St Pancras will increase interchange options and reduce journey times, but passengers for the traditional termini who get a worse service should not have to pay more. If anything, they should pay less!
It gets worse. The 2009 fares on SET have been re-routed from Any Permitted to Not Valid on HS1 where applicable, meaning that the cost of travel on high speed services to St Pancras are going to be even higher than the massively overpriced fares listed here. And all this, despite inflation falling, yet the Government acts as if inflation is increasing where railways are concerned. Of course, its a different matter on the roads .
Table 1
Gillingham to London Annual Season
Price from 02-Jan-07 to 01-Jan-08 £2,496
Price from 02-Jan-08 to 01-Jan-09 £2,740
Price from 02-Jan-09 to 01-Jan-10 £3,020
Table 2
Canterbury to London Annual Season
Price from 02-Jan-07 to 01-Jan-08 £3,132
Price from 02-Jan-08 to 01-Jan-09 £3,480
Price from 02-Jan-09 to 01-Jan-10 £3,780
Cross London ticket woes
A reader wanted to travel from Leeds to Croydon, departing on the 07:40 service from Leeds. On searching for a ticket to Croydon Stations he was presented with only expensive Anytime fares being available for that journey, with a connection into a Victoria to East Croydon service. Yet the NXEC train had plenty of availability for Advance Purchase (AP) fares to London - so why were AP fares not available to East Croydon? It has long been the case that journeys south of the Thames are not reservable, and therefore there are no quota restrictions on AP tickets. In other words, the only train that could sell out was the long distance service. But has that changed?
A search for Leeds to West Croydon yielded a £35 Advance fare a saving of around £72! A search for Croydon Stations only provides results to East Croydon, as those journeys are always faster than West Croydon, in some cases AP fares are not immediately obvious. Is this a breach of impartial retailing rules? No, because the 1,000+ page Ticketing Settlement Agreement that all retailers are bound by, does not appear to cover cases like this amongst all its waffle.
But we've only scratched the surface. Why is West Croydon cheaper? There are, for some journeys, AP tickets available to East Croydon so it's not the case that West Croydon is a cheaper destination. Besides, tickets are issued to 'Croydon Stations' irrespective of the destination chosen. So it has to be down to something else.
Another reader travelling between Croydon and Nottingham had no problems with a northbound booking, being routed into St Pancras via FCC, yet had problems booking a southbound ticket with no AP fares available to East Croydon. It was routing him via Victoria. Changing the destination to West Croydon gave an £18 fare. Another method to get the AP fares to appear would be to change the 'via' station to London Bridge, but it makes no difference which method is used. The solution appears to be to avoid certain fast services out of London Victoria.
A third reader, based in the South who regularly resorts to split ticketing due to the lack of AP through fares, informs us that is cheaper to split AP tickets combined with Oyster to cross London. He is right. Our railway is so fragmented that it is so often cheaper to split tickets and go to considerable lengths to get the best deals. It shouldnt be this way.
We investigated the matter and discovered that the cause of the problems was the recent introduction by Southern of AP fares for off-peak services between Victoria and selected south coast destinations. These trains are not fully reservable there are no seats allocated, and no reservation labels provided - yet they do have a quota for AP fares. The quotas are in limited supply and NXEC AP tickets are not available on these quotas, although we were able to book Virgin AP tickets from Manchester on these trains.
When you select a journey such as Leeds to Croydon, the time your train arrives into London will determine the service that the system suggests for onward travel, and it's down to pure luck whether or not it puts you on one of the quota-restricted trains. If no AP fares are available, you can get around this by specifying a via point of London Bridge as the problem applies only to certain fast services from Victoria. Being allocated on an unreservable train means you do not get a compulsory reservation so you are free to use any train, and your ticket will be accepted, and work the barriers, equally via Victoria or London Bridge.
Interestingly, services at peak times to/from Victoria do not have a quota for AP tickets and are completely unreservable. This is to prevent AP tickets being available for journeys wholly on Southern by commuters, yet it opens up those services to those travelling beyond London, such as the Leeds example above.
Looking in the National Rail Timetable (NRT), only the off-peak Brighton fasts are shown with the diamond symbol indicating that reservations are available. The Portsmouth and Littlehampton services also have AP fares available yet they do not have the symbol. There is no logic in this whatsoever, as in both cases seats cannot be reserved.
Good value on Southern
Although the AP quotas are causing problems for long distance passengers, these problems are easy to get round, and it is a positive move that Southern have introduced them as they do offer excellent value, with journeys such as Portsmouth or Brighton to London from only £3 single (£6 return). The problems described above are due to the poor implementation of this system, and Southern probably dont even realise they are causing problems for long distance passengers.
Even better value than the AP fares is the DaySave, at £10 off peak this is tremendous value for unlimited travel on all Southern trains for a day. A group ticket, at £20 is even better at only £5 per person for a group of 4! Bookings can be made on the Southern website at least a week in advance.
Completing the Southern theme this month is the news that, with the extension of Gatwick Express to principal stations along the Brighton line, many 'Route: Not Gatwick Express' fares have been re-routed 'Route: Any Permitted' and the formerly expensive Any Permitted fares have been withdrawn. About time, too!
South Eastern rip-off
In contrast, passengers on South Eastern Trains (SET) are experiencing huge price rises in January to pay for their high speed services, whether passengers use them or not. For example, the yearly season for Gillingham to London increased by over 9% on January 2008 and have again increased by over 9% in January 2009, the overall increase equating to £524 in the space of 366 days (See Table 1)! Can you imagine the Government imposing such increases on fuel excise duty? I think not!
Gillingham being relatively close to London, thus having minimal journey time reduction, it is difficult to see how a commuter who works in the centre of London - where Charing Cross and London Bridge are ideally located - will benefit. Indeed they may be worse off as many of these trains are set to be withdrawn to cater for the St Pancras services. Thats not to say that high-speed services are not a good thing, and for many the journey to St Pancras will increase interchange options and reduce journey times, but passengers for the traditional termini who get a worse service should not have to pay more. If anything, they should pay less!
It gets worse. The 2009 fares on SET have been re-routed from Any Permitted to Not Valid on HS1 where applicable, meaning that the cost of travel on high speed services to St Pancras are going to be even higher than the massively overpriced fares listed here. And all this, despite inflation falling, yet the Government acts as if inflation is increasing where railways are concerned. Of course, its a different matter on the roads .
Table 1
Gillingham to London Annual Season
Price from 02-Jan-07 to 01-Jan-08 £2,496
Price from 02-Jan-08 to 01-Jan-09 £2,740
Price from 02-Jan-09 to 01-Jan-10 £3,020
Table 2
Canterbury to London Annual Season
Price from 02-Jan-07 to 01-Jan-08 £3,132
Price from 02-Jan-08 to 01-Jan-09 £3,480
Price from 02-Jan-09 to 01-Jan-10 £3,780
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