Restriction code AW - overcharging?

[supervalkoinen]

Restriction code AW permits Off Peak Return fares for return travel starting before 15.59.
Forum ticketing site, amongst others (TfW, Northern), only offers Anytime Return for a journey starting at 15.52.

I suspect that in practice there would be no problem buying the Off Peak and using it on the 15.52 departure but the fare offered online does seem incorrect.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Is this a multi leg journey? The line "Connections to journeys..." cannot be implemented in planners unless you do it by having a separate restriction code for each individual station, which would take ages to set up.

It's an issue that's existed for WCML Super Off Peaks for 20 odd years now. The staff know they're valid, the planners just won't sell them. Most tickets like that are probably bought without a return train selected as there's no specific reason to select one, but it is misleading in the extreme and does result in overcharging.

I suppose we should count our blessings that the TOCs didn't just remove the connections stipulation!

Interestingly the same issue affects cross-London fares under Oval. But they don't have the easement in the text, so if you go across the peak it's often cheaper to split if using a paper ticket, whereas if you use contactless only the tap in time at the origin matters. It's an annoying inconsistency and could really do with being fixed. One would think Oval was a big enough thing to be worth solving the problem, but it seems not!

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Is it possibly because using the 1552 TfW train from Shrewsbury (headed for Manchester Piccadilly) requires a change at Crewe to get to Chester, and the onward Crewe->Chester Avanti train needed to get to Chester isn't until 1644, i.e. after 1600.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Is it possibly because using the 1552 TfW from Shrewsbury (headed for Manchester Piccadilly) requires a change at Crewe to get to Chester, and the onward Crewe->Chester Avanti train needed to get to Chester isn't until 1644, i.e. after 1600.

It is that yes. The line "Connections to journeys..." makes that valid, but it is not possible to implement it in the journey planners with a single restriction covering more than one origin station.

 

[Adam Williams]

Just to add some additional context here, the human-readable restriction is not one supported by the schema used to encode restrictions electronically.

It is not the responsibility of the journey planner to implement anything here until and unless RSPS5045 evolves. The fare offered online is correct according to the industry's requirements of journey planners.

 

[supervalkoinen]

Thanks for the replies, which explain but don't excuse the situation.

In my example the difference between the Off Peak and Anytime fares is small but I can imagine circumstances in which the difference would be significant.

While I'm far from a fares expert, I consider myself reasonably savvy on how fares and routeings work and I often offer advice to friends, colleagues and clients on their travel needs. I find it incredible that asking for the fare between two points which have two permitted routes should produce the wrong outcome because the system believes a journey has '2 origin points'.

I would struggle to explain that error to the lay person by telling them "the human-readable restriction is not one supported by the schema used to encode restrictions electronically. It is not the responsibility of the journey planner to implement anything here until and unless RSPS5045 evolves. The fare offered online is correct according to the industry's requirements of journey planners."

 

[Adam Williams]

I would struggle to explain that error to the lay person by telling them "the human-readable restriction is not one supported by the schema used to encode restrictions electronically. It is not the responsibility of the journey planner to implement anything here until and unless RSPS5045 evolves. The fare offered online is correct according to the industry's requirements of journey planners."

That's a great complaint to direct towards Rail Delivery Group, who (along with their members) are responsible for this mess.

AW is not unique in this respect.

If it was up to me, I'd bin off the human readable restriction text and require it to be generated entirely from the electronic restrictions which would guarantee they could never diverge. It would also incentivise maintaining PMS and the fares data structure to support restrictions that pricing managers actually want to be able to implement.

 

[Bletchleyite]

If it was up to me, I'd bin off the human readable restriction text and require it to be generated entirely from the electronic restrictions which would guarantee they could never diverge. It would also incentivise maintaining PMS and the fares data structure to support restrictions that pricing managers actually want to be able to implement.

Only if they improved the spec to allow that line to be implemented - there are quite a few journeys where you would barely ever be able to use the Super Off Peak on WMT if the restriction applied each time you boarded a train. That would also allow the Oval restrictions to be the same between tickets and contactless (aside from one being based on train time and the other being based on tap in/out, which is not and never would be possible to line up).

Presumably it's a disconnect between RDG and individual TOCs given how long it's been an issue (something like 20 years). I think it goes right back to the start of the London Midland franchise - I've complained about it repeatedly to them including when you had direct access to one of their senior managers on Twitter, but they've never been able to do anything about it. It was probably less of an issue back then as most tickets were bought from booking offices or TVMs and none of the latter used planners. Whereas now most are sold on Trainline lots of people are being overcharged every day I suspect.