GWR reservations not open a fortnight before travel!

[gallafent]

According to https://www.gwr.com/plan-journey/tickets-railcards-and-season-tickets/booking-tickets-in-advance as of today, the following journeys are not yet open for reservations:

• from Monday 1 January through to Friday 9 March 2018 for services between London and Oxford/Worcester/Hereford
• all GWR services on Saturday 3 February 2018
• all GWR services on Sunday 28 January and Sunday 4 February 2018

That's only a fortnight away, in the case of the Oxford / Cotswold Line services.

I assume this means that it's not possible to book advance tickets on those routes/dates. Nice money-spinner for GWR, a couple of months with no advance purchase fares available on the Oxford/Cotswold route. I imagine there'll be a feeding frenzy once they are released … but when will that be, and how will one find out (apart from hitting refresh every few minutes on the page linked above ?

I think I read somewhere that GWR isn't the only one failing to release reservations appropriately far in advance (90 days?) — and that it's a franchise requirement to do so. Hmm.

 

[221129]

How can GWR release tickets for a timetable that's not finalised yet?

 

[bb21]

There is no such franchise obligation.

 

[FenMan]

The OP may be referring to this piece, which includes plenty of harrumphing, but no clear indication that any TOC is in breach of their contracted obligations:-

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...dal-chris-grayling-orders-full-investigation/

Christmas rail fare scandal: Chris Grayling orders a full investigation into 'totally unacceptable' situation
Christopher Hope, Chief Political Correspondent 12 December 2017 • 9:00pm

Chris Grayling has ordered a full inquiry into claims that more than half of train companies are not offering cheap rail fares this Christmas.

The Transport Secretary demanded the probe after a report found that six out of 11 train companies failed to offer a full range of cheaper “advance purchase” fares in the weeks before Christmas.

Transport Focus, a watchdog, also found thousands of errors in the timetables, meaning passengers could find that their trains have been cancelled or switched to a bus replacement service.

Mr Grayling said: “It would be totally unacceptable if any passenger has to pay walk-up fares this Christmas because advance tickets were not available.
“I expect passengers to be offered the highest standards of customer service and have ordered an immediate investigation into this report.

(Report continues)

 

[gallafent]

The OP may be referring to this piece […]

Yes, that's the story (though not the source I'd found it in I think …).

I guess the key point then is “Timetables and fares should be locked down twelve weeks in advance and if they are not, it should be made clear to people.” — and when one is trying to book a ticket on GWR's website, (for an Oxford / Cotswold line service in January, for example) it isn't made clear that the advance fares aren't available not because they've run out, but instead because they haven't yet been released. It's an information dissemination problem again …

 

[Merseysider]

As far as I know, no TOC is under any obligation to offer Advance fares at all, except for the most recent franchise changes such as Northern, where APOD must be offered and an amount of APs equal to 25% of diagrammed seats on Northern Connect must consistently be offered (Page 254).

Whether due to overcrowding concerns or purely a commercial decision, there’s little Grayling can do to force the release of ‘withheld’ Advance fares unfortunately.

 

[Hadders]

I travelled from Stevenage to Swansea last Sunday (18th December, returning same). Advance tickets were not available until a couple of weeks before travel and when they eventually did go on sale only the higher priced tiers were available.

I ended up using a combination of walk up tickets costing £61 return.

 

[Doctor Fegg]

According to https://www.gwr.com/plan-journey/tickets-railcards-and-season-tickets/booking-tickets-in-advance as of today, the following journeys are not yet open for reservations:

• from Monday 1 January through to Friday 9 March 2018 for services between London and Oxford/Worcester/Hereford
• all GWR services on Saturday 3 February 2018
• all GWR services on Sunday 28 January and Sunday 4 February 2018

That's only a fortnight away, in the case of the Oxford / Cotswold Line services.

No surprise. The 180s will have all gone by then, and GWR isn't exactly awash in HSTs or (LTV) Turbos right now. The Cotswold Line has been pretty grim for the past couple of months, and unless the 80xs work perfectly out of the box (which inevitably they won't), is going to get worse before it gets better. Restricting the sale of advance tickets is entirely sensible in the circumstances, given that any service in January/February previously booked for a 180 may well be a Turbo, an HST, or cancelled entirely.

Of course, that does mean an effective price hike given that GWR tightened the Cotswold Line off-peak restrictions in 2015, claiming the introduction of Advances as a quid pro quo; and now the Advances aren't available.

 

[Gerald Fiennes]

Yes, as things stand parts of the industry are not complying with the 'T-12' requirement, sometimes known as 'Informed Traveller', and are open to enforcement under their passenger/network licences. The requirement is to get timetables sorted at least 12 weeks in advance so that passengers can reasonably plan their lives in advance. Not unreasonable, particularly for longer intercity trips. However, there is no requirement on anyone to offer ADV fares in any prescribed levels and it looks like the quotas on these are either non-existent or heavily restricted on some weekends, once the timetable has been sorted.. It looks like NR and some of the TOCs are struggling to get all the retimings of trains that are being affected by planned work sorted out fast enough. Rightly, Ministers have asked for a review of what's been going on here: given that T-12 was only established after some difficulty about 15 years ago following an earlier round of 'possession chaos', it is disappointing that things are breaking down on some routes.

 

[infobleep]

Yes, that's the story (though not the source I'd found it in I think …).

I guess the key point then is “Timetables and fares should be locked down twelve weeks in advance and if they are not, it should be made clear to people.” — and when one is trying to book a ticket on GWR's website, (for an Oxford / Cotswold line service in January, for example) it isn't made clear that the advance fares aren't available not because they've run out, but instead because they haven't yet been released. It's an information dissemination problem again …

It's been like this for years so why is Chris Grayling only interested in it now? Does he not travel on trains that often?

BDO think warning people that advanced tickets are not yet on sale would be a good thing though. Not sure how easy it would. Be to program in for apps like the National Rail Enquiries App, which has been around for a while.

 

[infobleep]

I'm sure with South West Trains, earlier this year, some timetables changes weren't relaased until less than a week before. It did say the timetable was subject to change though.