to London Terminals

[bb21]

This sounds very worrying indeed. Very disappointed to read this!

I'm not sure what is worrying about what I said or what is disappointing.

I have not passed judgement on whether any proposed removal would be reasonable, which I suspect is what you are referring to. Each case should be considered on its own merit.

Commonly used London terminals are not going to be removed.

As for the benefits, you only have to look at the amount of confusion London Terminals causes, simply by browsing through this forum. This situation is long overdue a revamp.

 

[yorkie]

What "benefits" are there to removing permitted routes?

How would you route a ticket that is valid out of half a dozen London termini?

I hope this plan fails before it gets off the ground, but I will be putting up a fight if it gets proposed, that's for sure. I hope the good journalists on this forum are up for it too. I am not going to let them get away with removing flexibility that easily.

 

[MarlowDonkey]

The rationale behind getting rid of London Terminals is sound.

The problem is that the term is used with multiple meanings depending on the context. From Birmingham and beyond it can mean Euston, Paddington, Marylebone and quite possibly Waterloo (via Reading). From Cambridge, it means Kings Cross, Liverpool Street and one or two others.

A ticket with a TfL dagger that allowed travel to every single one would have merit, but other than that, the specific ones need to be named, or there need to be named and publicised groups.

 

[yorkie]

What groups do you propose? I will object to anything that reduces our rights.

Changes must either have no material change, or only positive benefits for customers.

 

[bb21]

What "benefits" are there to removing permitted routes?

You missed the most obvious benefit which is clarification to normal passengers.

A truly simplified system would bring with it many benefits, ultimately benefitting the average customer due to increased clarity and certainty. The current maze of a system has much room for improvement. One should not need a PhD in railway ticketing in order to get the best value fares (or at least close to the best value).

You cannot have simplification without a bit of give and take.

It can possibly be argued whether RDG are best positioned to carry out such exercises, or whether the DfT should appoint an independent body to do so.

It isn't always black and white.

How would you route a ticket that is valid out of half a dozen London termini?

It may not be possible to remove station groups entirely. It would however cut down on the unnecessary use of the confusing term "London Terminals", thereby benefiting a large proportion of passengers who only have a small number of relevant London terminals.

 

[Paul Kelly]

The problem is that the term is used with multiple meanings depending on the context. From Birmingham and beyond it can mean Euston, Paddington, Marylebone and quite possibly Waterloo (via Reading). From Cambridge, it means Kings Cross, Liverpool Street and one or two others.

Well yes, but that is rather the whole point of it - it's supposed to be a succinct way of indicating that that context-specific flexibility, isn't it?

A ticket with a TfL dagger that allowed travel to every single one would have merit, but other than that, the specific ones need to be named, or there need to be named and publicised groups.

I think you are getting to the core of the problem there - it doesn't necessarily need to be publicised, as long as it is reasonably obvious to the average passenger. It strikes me that since the demise of British Rail and the much clearer "LONDON BR" fares group, there is no easily recognisable brand name that can be used to group together the mainline National Rail terminals, and that is the fundamental issue that everyone is grappling with here.

 

[MikeWh]

Bring back London SR Terminals as a group otherwise you'll need a separate ticket to list them all.

As for removing little used ones, do you have any examples in mind?

 

[greatkingrat]

The only place confusion seems to occur with London Terminals tickets is on the Thameslink route. So I think how that is handled needs to be looked at, particularly as Crossrail will be opening in a couple of years causing similar problems.

On other routes, I don't see the problem.

 

[bb21]

Bring back London SR Terminals as a group otherwise you'll need a separate ticket to list them all.

As for removing little used ones, do you have any examples in mind?

Not off the top of my head, no. This is more from a theoretical perspective. There may not be any which is why every case needs to be assessed on its own merit.

 

[Joe Paxton]

The only place confusion seems to occur with London Terminals tickets is on the Thameslink route. So I think how that is handled needs to be looked at, particularly as Crossrail will be opening in a couple of years causing similar problems.

On other routes, I don't see the problem.

Oh confusion occurs far more widely than that.

 

[bb21]

The only place confusion seems to occur with London Terminals tickets is on the Thameslink route. So I think how that is handled needs to be looked at, particularly as Crossrail will be opening in a couple of years causing similar problems.

On other routes, I don't see the problem.

You'll be surprised.

Most people on here would not even be able to imagine some of the confusion from the average punter. I was the same before I get to see some of them first-hand. I often run into such cases whenever I needed to work on the platform. The last one being a couple of young ladies in probably their 30s wanting to know which train was the next one for Clapham Junction, while waving a pair of tickets from somewhere in East Anglia (Ipswich I think but I could be wrong) to London Terminals. Apparently they came through the Underground gates unchallenged (at both ends), and I had to send them off to the gateline to touch in on their Oysters so that they don't end up getting Penalty Fared at the destination.

Going slightly further back, I had someone wanting to know whether her ticket from Reading (or possibly Didcot but somewhere on Western's patch) to London Terminals would be fine and how much extra to pay, because she was worried the whole way that she might not have enough money to pay for another ticket. There is no shortage of people who believe that "London Terminals" means just the one terminal they were given an itinerary for.

Added to those some cases where the customer was actually misinformed by ticket office staff (as they claim) re: ticket validity, most notable one I remember a holder of a London Terminals - Wolverhampton ticket holder being sold an additional single from somewhere like Banbury in order to travel via Reading and south London. I had to tell him to make sure he gets his money back and left him a stamped card with a note verifying that he did not need the extra ticket.

I am not saying that there is a massive problem, because my own experiences would be too small a sample size to draw any conclusion from, although I remember some research work from a while back which pointed out such an issue to at least a significant minority of the population, which may or may not include groups such as overseas visitors, etc.

 

[alistairlees]

The only place confusion seems to occur with London Terminals tickets is on the Thameslink route. So I think how that is handled needs to be looked at, particularly as Crossrail will be opening in a couple of years causing similar problems.

On other routes, I don't see the problem.

Unfortunately on some routes it's a very complex problem

Take Tunbridge Wells for instance. According to London Terminals mapping these are the valid stations

<Terminal>BFR</Terminal>
<Terminal>CHX</Terminal>
<Terminal>CST</Terminal>
<Terminal>CTK</Terminal>
<Terminal>LBG</Terminal>
<Terminal>VIC</Terminal>
<Terminal>VXH</Terminal>
<Terminal>WAE</Terminal>
<Terminal>WAT</Terminal>

That's 50% (9 out of 18) of the London Terminals.

From Tunbridge Wells, most customers go to Cannon Street or Charing Cross (or London Bridge or Waterloo East, which are both through stations rather than 'terminals'), as that's where regular direct trains go to (via Sevenoaks, Orpington and Hither Green).

You're entirely valid via Redhill and East Croydon into Victoria though. Or via Orpington and Bromley South into Victoria.* Or via Orpington and Herne Hill into Blackfriars and City Thameslink (but no further north!). Or, when London Bridge is fixed, via London Bridge on Thameslink to Blackfriars and City Thameslink.

And finally, because you are valid into Victoria via Clapham Junction, you are also valid into Waterloo (via Vauxhall, which also counts as a 'terminal').

If fares were simplified, the minimum set of London stations I could see being acceptable to people traveling from Tunbridge Wells would be:
- Charing Cross
- Waterloo East
- Cannon Street
- London Bridge
- Blackfriars
- City Thameslink

Although it's worth noting trains get diverted to Victoria when there's a problem (but that could be managed on an ad hoc basis).

Finally, of the London Terminals that are currently valid from TBW, five of them (Vauxhall, Waterloo East, London Bridge, Blackfriars and City Thameslink) are not actually 'terminals' in the sense that a terminal is defined in the dictionary. No wonder customers are confused.

Maybe the solution is something like this (on a ticket / website), with the restricted group of 'just' six:

London
(BFR, CHX, CST, CTK, LBR, WAE only)

With links and maps available online / via the booking process to explain clearly.

There are probably around 10 such logical groupings that would cover 90% or so of origins. Advance fares can be to a named station, and if there is a flow that's only valid to one station (e.g. Ealing Broadway) it could also just specify it.

The advantage with this approach is that we don't have to start giving names (like "London Terminals" or "London BR" or "London Southern Group") to groups of stations, when people clearly don't understand them.

Anyway, long post over.

*There are many other routes through the spaghetti of south London to Victoria, or indeed to Blackfriars.

 

[yorkie]

Consider this: if "via High Wycombe" fares get issued to Marylebone specifically, it could be used as an excuse by some staff to refuse to issue change of route excess fares up to "Any Permitted".

... (but that could be managed on an ad hoc basis).....

Sadly this often doesn't happen. Many of the easements that get published for engineering works only happen because someone tried to book a ticket and couldn't, and then a fares analyst at a retailer (or their suppliers) had to investigate the issue, or it gets posted on this forum, and then ATOC get to be asked to introduce an easement (or they spot it, if it's on here).

It appears to be very rare that an easement appears automatically before booking horizons open because a TOC actually realised this had to be done.

 

[Starmill]

GW stations in London had their tickets to London Terminals changed to London Paddington quite a long time ago.