Trainsplit adding unnecessary tickets?

[Jurg]

I've been looking to book a return journey for today, Nuneaton to Leamington. For my outbound journey this means travelling via Rugby, which clearly has implications on ticket choices.

The best itinerary for me would be this one suggested by Trainsplit, changing at Rugby and Coventry on the way out, and at Coventry on the way back:



Trainsplit gives this fare split for the journey at £26.20:


My understanding is that a £7.60 Nuneaton to Rugby return is valid via Coventry, so this ticket plus a £6.20 Coventry to Leamington return should be valid for the journey, a total of £13.80.

Presumably this is due to the way Trainsplit handles multi-leg journeys. Could this be added to the list of bugs to sort out, or is this a known issue that would be difficult to resolve? Or are my assumptions above mistaken?

 

[island]

Yes, you're correct about the validity – I assume Trainsplit isn't capable of using the outbound and then part of the return portion of a ticket for the "outbound" journey. I wager it would be difficult to factor in without massively increasing search complexity, but I'm not one of their staff so I'll leave them to speak for themselves.

 

[Class800]

You can just buy the tickets separately from a TOC site - I would do that if there are few tickets needed and it's not a long journey requiring seat reservations

 

[Paul Kelly]

You would be finishing and starting short on the return portion of the Nuneaton to Rugby ticket. In the general case, calculating time restrictions etc. at stations that aren't the origin/destination on the ticket doesn't really work properly as TOCs don't consider it when setting the data; it would lead to all sorts of anomalies if websites started selling tickets for starting short (and it would also uncover lots of anomalies that people in the know like to make use of!). I can see it isn't the case with this ticket as it has simple straightforward restrictions but it's not really possible to do in the general case.

 

[Jurg]

Thanks for the replies all. Yeah, given that the Coventry to Leamington return journey would take place within a break of journey in the Nuneaton to Rugby return ticket, I guess that it would add a degree of complexity to a booking engine that would be difficult to achieve for the sake of a few examples where it could save money.

 

[alistairlees]

It is not just a technical challenge, but also a customer communications one. If a customer wants to go from B to C, but is sold a ticket from A to C (which is valid from B to C, but cheaper than a ticket from B to C), then this will need explaining to the customer, who would otherwise think they have been overcharged, or sold the wrong ticket, or be concerned about it being valid to get on / off "half way". Similarly, if a customer is expected to use only part of the return portion of a ticket (as in your example), that will need explaining.

All of this also increases support costs (training of customer service and social media, for example), as well as ongoing technical costs (there is more business logic to maitain).

Finally, it creates a new challenge for reservations - if a customer is really travelling from B to C, with an A to C ticket, then an A to C reservation may not be helpful (somebody else might already have occupied the seat before you get on, assuming you were a "no-show"). So this requires additional logic to manage, as well as more customer communications. Besides, I am not even sure that RSP specs support the idea of a ticket from A to C, but with a reservation from B to C, on it.

Essentially, this is all extremely niche and is well into diminishing returns territory.

 

[Paul Kelly]

I am not even sure that RSP specs support the idea of a ticket from A to C, but with a reservation from B to C, on it.

Is even a reservation from A to C, with tickets A-B and B-C supported? My understanding was that reservations are issued as supplements, and supplements are always associated with a ticket, therefore to comply with the spirit of the spec each ticket always needs its own reservation.

 

[js517]

Is even a reservation from A to C, with tickets A-B and B-C supported? My understanding was that reservations are issued as supplements, and supplements are always associated with a ticket, therefore to comply with the spirit of the spec each ticket always needs its own reservation.

You're right, and reservation availability per seat can be dependent on ticket type.

 

[island]

Is even a reservation from A to C, with tickets A-B and B-C supported? My understanding was that reservations are issued as supplements, and supplements are always associated with a ticket, therefore to comply with the spirit of the spec each ticket always needs its own reservation.

From first principles, it's possible to issue a reservation for A-C against (existing) tickets from A-B and B-C at a booking office at least; on the rare occasion I've obtained a reservation from a booking office against a walk-up ticket, it's simply said "valid only with travel ticket" without citing the ticket number.