Specifying additional connection time - how should this work?

[py_megapixel]

You mean people who should be requesting additional time to change in their journey planner?

Not a critique specifically of the quoted post. This sort of thing is said quite often on this forum, and it does make sense. But I'm not sure it's particularly helpful, because IMO the current facilities to do it are really quite poor.

Trainline, which is used by a huge number of passengers, doesn't seem to have this feature at all.

I had a look at a random selection of TOC websites, which many passengers will also be using, and could find only one that has it - Cross Country. But theirs is so inflexible as to make it almost useless - you can only enter extra time in 30-minute increments, and it applies to every interchange station in your journey.

You could plan your journey on the National Rail Enquiries website and then click through to a TOC to buy. NRE has exactly the same lack of granularity as XC, but making matters worse it's buried under "More Options" and seems slightly broken (I selected "2 hours extra" and it was happy to give me connections of shorter than 2 hours in total). Also when I tried this for a few journeys, the TOC website I was redirected to threw an error or just redirected me back to its search page so it was impossible to actually buy the ticket.

The only journey planners I have found that have a vaguely decent option for this are most of the Trainsplit-based sites (but not Realtime Trains for some reason, the function is completely missing from there). You can enter any number of minutes you like, for either the whole journey or for specific stations, and it seems to work.

I wonder if the RDG should require ticket sellers to have a usable (for some definition) "allow extra time" feature? It is arguably quite an important accessibility feature.

 

[cav1975]

The feature on the forum’s site works well. I regularly use it to give extra time at Victoria when booking a Clapham Junction to Rainham Kent advance single.

 

[SaltAndVinegar]

GWR have... or... had... an "Accessible Booking Tool" which let you do this. It doesn't appear to be available, despite there being links to it on their website... not very 'accessible'!

TrainSplit, TicketySplit, RailUK Forums (all use the same back-end technology) let you specify extra time at specific points.

I regularly use it to give extra time at Victoria when booking a Clapham Junction to Rainham Kent advance single.

I strongly suspect you'd be able to catch a slightly earlier connecting service from CLJ regardless of having it on your itinerary. If it's restricted by SA, it's "Only valid on booked train and connecting services only". The mandatory leg on those advances is with Southeastern. Connecting services with Southern.

 

[Haywain]

TrainSplit, TicketySplit, RailUK Forums (all use the same back-end technology) let you specify extra time at specific points.

Given their share of the overall rail ticketing business they cannot be regarded as mainstream, much as I like the options presented.

 

[Plagiomnium]

I used to make journeys with a cross-London connection where I would walk between the stations, and journey planners (I'd use TOC websites and/or NRE) wouldn't give enough time for the connection because they assumed I'd take the tube. I would just book the legs separately - I don't think I had any idea there was a way to specify more connection time for a through itinerary. Of course I was pretty ignorant about how ticketing worked, but lots of non-expert passengers probably are, so I definitely think it should be made more available and prominent.

 

[befated]

Arguably the default connection times should be very generous, with a ‘shorter connection times’ option available for power users (who, unlike the less confident rail user, will know to look for it in advanced settings).

 

[blimmo]

Arguably the default connection times should be very generous, with a ‘shorter connection times’ option available for power users (who, unlike the less confident rail user, will know to look for it in advanced settings).

As long as I can buy advances with the shorter connection times this sounds sensible to me. Perhaps we can call the long ones default connection times and the shorter ones minimum connection times.

 

[Coleridge]

Arguably the default connection times should be very generous, with a ‘shorter connection times’ option available for power users (who, unlike the less confident rail user, will know to look for it in advanced settings).

I think the default connection time should be the minimum connection time for that station. After all, that's the whole point of the minimum connection time.

 

[Hadders]

Arguably the default connection times should be very generous, with a ‘shorter connection times’ option available for power users (who, unlike the less confident rail user, will know to look for it in advanced settings).

I disagree with this. It would work for ‘us’ on here, but I don’t think it would work for the majority of train travellers who are not as clued up as we are.

You’d end up with people selecting shorter connection times (especially if it ended up with a cheaper fare due to quota control etc), when it is not appropriate for them.

 

[styles]

On the National Rail website, you can specify extra change time but your options are limited to 30/60/90/120 minutes extra (and no, you can't fiddle it in the URL because it's formatted as `extraTime=4` for 120 minutes for example). This feels like it's catering less to accessibility and more to wanting to spend some time at the change point to idk visit some shops or get a bite to eat.

 

[blimmo]

I disagree with this. It would work for ‘us’ on here, but I don’t think it would work for the majority of train travellers who are not as clued up as we are.

You’d end up with people selecting shorter connection times (especially if it ended up with a cheaper fare due to quota control etc), when it is not appropriate for them.

Can we start treating passengers as adults? If you miss your next train because you shouldn't have selected the shorter connection time I won't have much sympathy for you.

Connection times will always do at least one of make people wait around for their advance (and therefore extend their journey time) or make people have to rush the connection. In reality they will probably do both for different people. So the only thing to do is to let people self identify how much time they need.

Some of the current times are good defaults (although many of the London ones have clearly not been thought about much since they are calculated in a very dumb way). But forcing everyone onto the same times wastes a massive amount of people's time and causes stress for others.

 

[py_megapixel]

On the National Rail website, you can specify extra change time but your options are limited to 30/60/90/120 minutes extra (and no, you can't fiddle it in the URL because it's formatted as `extraTime=4` for 120 minutes for example). This feels like it's catering less to accessibility and more to wanting to spend some time at the change point to idk visit some shops or get a bite to eat.

Yes, that's what I was getting at with my complaint about "lack of granularity" above. Even if you could fiddle the URL it would hardly be reasonable to expect the passenger to do that!

Also, if you specify additional change time, it's unlikely you will actually be able to book the ticket because the TOC website you get transferred to then won't allow it!

 

[styles]

Also, if you specify additional change time, it's unlikely you will actually be able to book the ticket because the TOC website you get transferred to then won't allow it!

Yeah that's already broken really, because the National Rail website lets you specify 120 minutes, but for the journey I chose (Chester to Hawarden Bridge changing at Shotton) it defaulted to Transport for Wales as the operator. When I clicked the button to buy tickets, it took me to the TfW website with a blank search form, effectively starting me from scratch. The TfW website allows 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 45, 60, not 120 (though you can fudge that one by changing `interchange_adjustment_time` in the POST request body )

 

[Coleridge]

Connection times will always do at least one of make people wait around for their advance (and therefore extend their journey time) or make people have to rush the connection.

I disagree. Minimum connection times are usually easily manageable for the vast majority of passengers, with or without luggage.

One of the journeys I make most frequently is Edinburgh to Cardiff. Sometimes, I change at Crewe, where both the minimum connection time and actual connection time are 10 minutes. I don't want a journey planner to default to giving me an itinerary with a wait at Crewe of 1 hour and 10 minutes.

 

[styles]

Maybe the solution is to allow either a greater or a shorter connection time to be specified