mattdickinson
Member
According to a poster at Gatwick Airport, the Key (Southern's smartcard) is now valid on First Great Western trains between Gatwick Airport and Dorking (Deepdene)
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The Key on FGW
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bb21
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I would hazard a guess that it is to link up the Southern network. Dorking - Guildford has nothing to do with the Southern network with the exception of two trains a day.
I would imagine its probably because Dorking Deepdene is where the fares set by Southern start from.
It makes a massive difference. A couple of times a year I make a day trip from Guildford to Rye via Redhill. Buying a through ticket the only fare is £35(before any railcard discounts) this fare is set by SWT. Splitting at Dorking Deepdene(where all trains call) its £6 for the Guildford/Dorking return,and £15 for the Dorking/Rye return total £21! Also if you book on the Southern website you generally get a 10% discount.
bb21
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Guildford - Rye is set by SET (both flows), not SWT. Guildford - Dorking is set by FGW. Southern sets the Dorking Stations - Rye Route Via Edenb/Poleg fare.
swt_passenger
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When the railway (pre privatisation) invented the concept of 'station groups' to rationalise some fares this was the inevitable result. (Note these are fares groups, not to be confused with routing groups)
It's fairly common right across the country for fares to be set by what is notionally the 'wrong' TOC.
And 4% cashback on Quidco as well.
Hassocks5489
Member
I was travelling from Hove to Chilworth a few weeks ago. The distance between the previous station, Gomshall, and Chilworth is not great (I walked it, but that's another anecdote
), but a fare-setting boundary runs between them - with drastic results. The Hove-Gomshall fare is set by Southern, and Gomshall is in the Dorking fares cluster; an Off Peak Day Return with my GOLDC was £8.90, or £7.95 with the online discount. Hove-Chilworth, set by fGW and being the same as the Guildford fare, would have been £14.60!! I only needed to go to Chilworth on the outward leg because I was walking back, so I split at Gomshall and bought a £1.80 single to Chilworth before getting on the Chilworth train.
Tickets held on The Key are inter-available.
Unless it is "printed on the ticket", tickets are valid on all operators along the permitted route(s) for the ticket (NRCoC Condition 10).
Some Train Operating Companies do not issue their staff with smart card readers, but that's the Company's problem, not the passengers.
I've not yet had a smart card checked while on a train*, whenever any Guard has asked to see a ticket when I've used a smart card, they've had to accept it without being able to read it.
(* except by an off-duty forum member RPI
)
tsr
Established Member
Yorkie is correct. FGW have had to accept tickets on the key (though probably in practice held by only a few customers) on the Dorking-Redhill/Gatwick Airport section of the North Downs Line for some time.
I suspect there were some agreements in place for various reasons dictating why this was not advertised.
Dorking Deepdene - Guildford is not officially on the key map and I doubt there are many - if any - tickets available on the key which permit travel over this route. Southern do not run direct trains along this section of the North Downs Line, though they do run to both Dorking Main and Guildford. In addition, some Southern staff do, AFAIK, sign Turbos.
The reason for publicised acceptance towards Dorking Deepdene is presumably mainly to allow an out-of-station interchange onto Dorking Main-Horsham trains. This is, as it happens, a route I have previously needed to use with a key card, but without any ticket checks on the FGW service.
I suspect there were some agreements in place for various reasons dictating why this was not advertised.
Dorking Deepdene - Guildford is not officially on the key map and I doubt there are many - if any - tickets available on the key which permit travel over this route. Southern do not run direct trains along this section of the North Downs Line, though they do run to both Dorking Main and Guildford. In addition, some Southern staff do, AFAIK, sign Turbos.
The reason for publicised acceptance towards Dorking Deepdene is presumably mainly to allow an out-of-station interchange onto Dorking Main-Horsham trains. This is, as it happens, a route I have previously needed to use with a key card, but without any ticket checks on the FGW service.
mattdickinson
Member
And today there are further updates: The Key is now available on SWT between Dorking and Waterloo (not intermediately between Epsom and Clapham Junction), and FROM stations outside London TO FCC and SET London terminals (Charing Cross, Waterloo East, Cannon Street, City Thameslink and Blackfriars) not intermediately within the zones.
So when are they going to introduce a poster to explain all of that?
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mattdickinson
Member
They went up today, plus they kindly sent a letter to my home address. (saying that its now valid to London Terminals). It also seems October is the date when Oysters will be valid to gatwick.
Not sure what will happen to the Key is Govia dont get the franchise, as the Key is a Go-ahead product and used on their buses.
Not sure what will happen to the Key is Govia dont get the franchise, as the Key is a Go-ahead product and used on their buses.
Personally if I worked in London, say around any of the terminal stations, I don't see why I'd want the key. You can't break your journey in London. Say you wanted to go to a concert in East Croydon and you live in Brighton but usually work near London Victoria, you would have to buy another ticket. I guess in such cases the cheapest combination would be to travel to either Mersham or may be Victoria. The former would restrict you to slower trains and a change of train at Gatwick Airport and Mersham. At Mersham you would have to touch out and wait for the next train. With the Victoria journey you would have to change trains at Victoria and head back down. That might actually be quicker, due to less changes.
Of course if they offer discounted season tickets using the key then it might be more attractive and the break of journey part may not be considered important to people.
What are the chances they are trilling a lack of break of journey in London to see if they could introduce that in the future more widely?
With the break of journey, I think it would have made sense to include East Croydon and Clapham Junction in the list as they are interchange stations for people travelling to mainline terminals.
I doubt anyone travels from Brighton to Waterloo via Redhill and Dorking Deepdene. Of course they probably don't sell a key ticket for Brighton to Waterloo.
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Of course if they offer discounted season tickets using the key then it might be more attractive and the break of journey part may not be considered important to people.
What are the chances they are trilling a lack of break of journey in London to see if they could introduce that in the future more widely?
With the break of journey, I think it would have made sense to include East Croydon and Clapham Junction in the list as they are interchange stations for people travelling to mainline terminals.
I doubt anyone travels from Brighton to Waterloo via Redhill and Dorking Deepdene. Of course they probably don't sell a key ticket for Brighton to Waterloo.
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Not a lot. the key is a Go-Ahead brand but the underlying 'estate' is owned by the franchise.
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tsr
Established Member
infobleep - you can now "officially" break your journey at the majority of Southern or FGW stations supporting key use; indeed, many stations in the London area (and several elsewhere) only officially support breaking a journey on a ticket and not starting/ending it.
This is, of course, all over-simplified, as it allows a grey area to exist insofar as stopping or starting short, or breaking a journey whilst onboard a train - and then you have overall NRCoC ticket conditions which may permit breaks of journeys at stations where the technology is yet to be supportive.
Map: https://www.southernrailway.com/smart-card/graphics/routemap.pdf
This is, of course, all over-simplified, as it allows a grey area to exist insofar as stopping or starting short, or breaking a journey whilst onboard a train - and then you have overall NRCoC ticket conditions which may permit breaks of journeys at stations where the technology is yet to be supportive.
Map: https://www.southernrailway.com/smart-card/graphics/routemap.pdf
Yes, it is all based on the ITSO specification. This is mandated as part of their franchise requirements.
Bus smartcards, like the national concessionary card, are also ITSO based and bus operators receive a grant to accept the concessionary smartcard in a 'smart' way (i.e. through a smartcard reader as opposed to using it as a flash pass).
The NRCoC and rules regarding Seasons are not over-ruled by small print and/or maps
Good point.
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tsr
Established Member
The NRCoC and rules regarding Seasons are not over-ruled by small print and/or maps
I agree. Hence use of the word "officially" in quotation marks. I have no problem with the correct application of the NRCoC regarding journeys relating to tickets stored on the key. I am also pleased to say that I have yet to find any Southern staff who would have a problem if the NRCoC was relied upon for resolving queries about the key, but I have fairly limited experiences to rely on here.
You can get out (and, in any case, there is nothing to stop you at several of those stations), or indeed simply board/alight a train as part of a break of journey whilst holding a valid ticket, but would find it rather hard to find a ticket available for storage on the key which would have any of those stations as origin/destination point(s)!
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Looks like I didn't read the legend properly. My mistake.
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johnnycache
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The "right" operator to set the fare is not necessarily the station operator.
It is the train operator who is responsible for the largest share of the journey.
All flows were distributed among sub-sectors in BR days and these were inherited by franchisees
Where one TOC wants to control a fare "owned" by another it can request transfer of ownership.
If this is refused then it is possible to appeal and there are certain criteria to decide which TOC ought to control a fare.
TOCs can also create new flows although they have to differ from existing flows either by having a new route or being restricted to one operator (dedicated fare) or more than one named operator (joint fare) or one operator for the main part of the journey and then any other (and connections fare)
In the cases discussed in this thread Southern had a very different pricing policy from other operators in the area. I was responsible for Southern pricing at the time. This was based on the belief that for non-London journeys rail was in a relatively poor competitive position compared to the car in terms of cost, convenience and journey time. The pricing could be based on extracting the maximum from those passengers with no other options (the "wonga" option) or reducing the price to attract more price sensitive customers. We chose the second approach. Our strategy was not expected to produce immediate benefits (although it did!) but over the medium term as awareness grew it was expected that demand would grow. You can often see the results of this different approach wherever Southern fares and other TOC fares exist on the same flow or (as above) where Southern controls the fare at one station and another TOC at the next station.
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Fascinating response johnnycache. I always through of fares being like this, most expensive South West Trains; next expensive Southern and cheapest First Capital Connect. That may not actually be the case. It's just based on my travels.
Often wonder why every flow where multiple operators run do not have single operator only fares. For example Haywards Heath to Brighton doesn't have Southern only fares. Havant to Portsmouth doesn't have First Great Western only fares or Southern ones and so on.
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Often wonder why every flow where multiple operators run do not have single operator only fares. For example Haywards Heath to Brighton doesn't have Southern only fares. Havant to Portsmouth doesn't have First Great Western only fares or Southern ones and so on.
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