Route DIRECT

[First class]

I am a little confused with the routeing "DIRECT".

Not many of these exist AFAIK, but the ones I know of are strange:

Ince & Elton to Warrington

Route Direct £6.30 SDR (Merseyrail priced)
Any Permitted £6.90 SDR (ATW priced)
Liverpool £13.10 SDR (Merseyrail priced)

From that, I can assume that the Any Permitted ticket is not valid via Liverpool, but via any other Permitted Route.

The route LIVERPOOL ticket allows travel INE-ELP-LIV-WBQ/WAC

The route DIRECT ticket?

--The shortest route: INE-HSB-FRD-RUE-WBQ
--A direct train: 07:03 and 16:11 (the only direct services)

Does anyone have an official ruling on whether DIRECT means shortest route or direct train? NRES will allow it to be sold on a train with a change at Helsby so assume it must be the MOST DIRECT ROUTE, (according to the mileage table in the NRT). In this case, route HELSBY or RUNCORN EAST would surely be clearer?

Incidentally, a Ince & Elton - Earlestown ticket would seemingly be valid via Warrington or Liverpool and costs £5.70 SDR Any Permitted, priced by RMS Merseyrail.

 

[tony_mac]

From that, I can assume that the Any Permitted ticket is not valid via Liverpool, but via any other Permitted Route.

I think an 'Any Permitted' should be valid by 'any permitted' route, and the routeing guide says that quite clearly as well (and contradicts it elsewhere, but not quite so cleary). Booking engines do allow Any Permitted tickets via Liverpool.

As I recall, nobody is quite sure what 'route Direct' actually means; but it is available between station pairs that have no through trains at all.

 

[yorkie]

route direct remains undefined. It obviously.allows the shortest route and direct trains but the shortest route may be difficult to define.

However ATOC refuse to clarify. So we can only speculate

 

[CheapAndNerdy]

The mixing desk on Southern's website describes it as "Via the shortest direct route". I would suppose that DIRECT refers to a route that doesn't require looking up in the routeing guide.

 

[First class]

I think an 'Any Permitted' should be valid by 'any permitted' route, and the routeing guide says that quite clearly as well (and contradicts it elsewhere, but not quite so cleary). Booking engines do allow Any Permitted tickets via Liverpool.

As I recall, nobody is quite sure what 'route Direct' actually means; but it is available between station pairs that have no through trains at all.

Is Liverpool a mapped (permitted) route? (I don't think it is at the top of my head). I believe the route LIVERPOOL fare is offered to provide an additional route, for a higher price.

I read the 3 fares to mean:

1) Any Permitted - Go via Any Permitted route according to the routeing guide
2) Liverpool - You must go via Liverpool group/stns using a route that passes through Liverpool. As it is higher priced than the Any Permitted, those routes are also available, (although it would be good to get a Zero excess just in case of problems).
3) Direct - You must travel via the shortest normally permitted route , (irrelevant of timetable)


Reading to Manchester is strange:

1) Any Permitted (Any permitted route, unless a higher route specific fare is available)
2) +LONDON (Via London, and could zero excess to Any Permitted for other routeing)

Unlike the Ince & Elton ticket route LIVERPOOL ticket where Liverpool is not usually a permitted route, LONDON is usually permitted, so the only thing I can see stopping the Any Permitted being valid is the fact a route specific fare exists for via LONDON which is higher than the ANY PERMITTED.

Are there any other oddities like this?

 

[Mojo]

3) Direct - You must travel via the shortest normally permitted route , (irrelevant of timetable)

I wonder if this allows for the Mile rule? WebTIS allows a Nuneaton to Loughborough Junction route +DIRECT to travel via Coventry and then via the Tube through central London, despite the shortest route being via Kensington Olympia.

Similarly I cannot imagine a customer with a Lichfield TV to London Terminals route DIRECT being refused travel on the direct LM train, instead being told to change at Rugby for Virgin which takes the absolute shortest route!

 

[Lampshade]

An example of it is Hazel Grove - Chinley, the DIRECT route is on the very infrequent service at 0555, otherwise it's via Manchester.

 

[John @ home]

An example of it is Hazel Grove - Chinley, the DIRECT route is on the very infrequent service at 0555, otherwise it's via Manchester.

If so, that makes the £5 CDR fare useless!

Hazel Grove - Chinley route Direct

CDR Off-Peak Day Return £5.00 B6

Restriction B6
OUTWARD TRAVEL By any train except those timed to depart Mondays to Fridays before 0815.
RETURN TRAVEL By any train.

 

[clagmonster]

Surely it is valid on bank holidays, so it is only next to useless. I'm not sure if any stoppers go that way on weekends.

 

[tony_mac]

Is Liverpool a mapped (permitted) route? (I don't think it is at the top of my head).

Yes, it is - Hooton is the routeing point and is the same fare for an Any Permitted. Hooton to Liverpool to Warrington is mapped (it's the only mapped route).

I think Reading to Manchester is just wrong!
It seems to be the only 'Any Permitted' fare that the journey planners do not allow via all permitted routes.
Every other similar fare (Wigan, Stockport, etc) has +London and 'route Oxford', which is much more sensible.

 

[Lampshade]

Surely it is valid on bank holidays, so it is only next to useless. I'm not sure if any stoppers go that way on weekends.

It's completely useless as the only return service is at 0803, so you'd have to excess the return portion anyway.

 

[323235]

not so useless, as you could still use it via New Mills Newtown/New Mills Central with a nice walk included.

 

[hairyhandedfool]

....Reading to Manchester is strange:

1) Any Permitted (Any permitted route, unless a higher route specific fare is available)
2) +LONDON (Via London, and could zero excess to Any Permitted for other routeing)

Unlike the Ince & Elton ticket route LIVERPOOL ticket where Liverpool is not usually a permitted route, LONDON is usually permitted, so the only thing I can see stopping the Any Permitted being valid is the fact a route specific fare exists for via LONDON which is higher than the ANY PERMITTED.

Are there any other oddities like this?

The 'rte Any Permitted' ticket is valid by any route shown in the Routeing Guide (regardless of the existance of route specific fares). It will also be valid on a route not shown in the routeing guide where a route specific fare exists, provided that the route specific fare is NOT higher than the 'rte Any Permitted' fare.

Thus, even if the 'rte +London' fare is more expensive than the 'rte Any Permitted' fare, if London is a mappped route (or the shortest route) the 'rte Any Permitted' fare is valid via London.

However, if the 'rte +London' fare is more expensive than 'rte Any Permitted' and London is not a mapped route, the 'rte Any Permitted' fare would not be valid via London without an excess to the 'rte +London' fare.

 

[jkdd77]

The 'rte Any Permitted' ticket is valid by any route shown in the Routeing Guide (regardless of the existance of route specific fares). It will also be valid on a route not shown in the routeing guide where a route specific fare exists, provided that the route specific fare is NOT higher than the 'rte Any Permitted' fare.

Thus, even if the 'rte +London' fare is more expensive than the 'rte Any Permitted' fare, if London is a mappped route (or the shortest route) the 'rte Any Permitted' fare is valid via London.

However, if the 'rte +London' fare is more expensive than 'rte Any Permitted' and London is not a mapped route, the 'rte Any Permitted' fare would not be valid via London without an excess to the 'rte +London' fare.

Does that mean an "8X" Stirling- Bristol Temple Meads Off Peak Return 'rte Any Permitted' is valid via London (shown as a permitted route in the Routeing Guide), notwithstanding the existence of a much more expensive +London routeing?

That could be a real bargain (well, in relative terms) for someone wanting to travel Newcastle- London in the peak, and who needs flexibility.

 

[hairyhandedfool]

Does that mean an "8X" Stirling- Bristol Temple Meads Off Peak Return 'rte Any Permitted' is valid via London (shown as a permitted route in the Routeing Guide), notwithstanding the existence of a much more expensive +London routeing?

That could be a real bargain (well, in relative terms) for someone wanting to travel Newcastle- London in the peak, and who needs flexibility.

If it is shown in the routeing guide it is valid on a 'rte Any Permitted' fare.

 

[FGWman]

Going back to what is route direct I 've been thinking about it and come up with a likely explaination:-

Back in BR days routes were any reasonable. On some journeys there may have been an infrequent service and one way of getting from A to B would be a circuituous route. For example in my area we have tickets from Taunton to Castle Cary which are route Direct.

Now at some times of day the quickest way to do this journey could be via Bristol or Westbury. Now maybe BR did not want people to do this and use it as a cheap way to get to other stations enroute by breaking their journey so made it route direct so the ticket was only valid on the services from Taunton to Castle Cary.

 

[tony_mac]

I wonder what the 'shortest direct route' is from Nuneaton to Ealing Broadway!

 

[yorkie]

I wonder what the 'shortest direct route' is from Nuneaton to Ealing Broadway!

Nuneaton > Euston plus Paddington > Ealing Broadway.
(Travel via Northampton is less than 3 miles longer so is permitted)

 

[northwichcat]

route direct remains undefined. It obviously.allows the shortest route and direct trains but the shortest route may be difficult to define.

However ATOC refuse to clarify. So we can only speculate

In the case of Huddersfield-Wakefield it is very clear. There's a Route: Direct ticket and a Route: Leeds ticket and the two options that journey planners will show is a hourly direct service via Mirfield and more frequent options to change at Leeds.

 

[Paul Kelly]

I think if I was implementing a journey planner, that I would make route DIRECT default to mean either travelling on a direct train, travelling by the shortest route, or travelling by a route no more than 3 miles longer than the shortest route. In other words not using the routeing guide.

 

[185]

Bromborough to Warrington "Direct" involves a swim.