Higher fares for shorter journey (SUO->GLD)

The Anytime Day return (SDR) for Sutton London [SUO]-> Guildford [GLD] is £18.40 but the SDR for SUO-> Godalming [GOD] is £14.40.

Two questions?

1) Does anything prevent me getting the cheaper (GOD) ticket and aligting/joining at GLD in both directions?

2) Why does this occur? Guessing it is because the GOD ticket is not valid via London but the GLD one is?

Yes - you can start/stop short at Guildford.

There's an even cheaper fare available to Wanborough - £11.70.

How is it right to charge people £7 extra?

If you're concerned, why not point out the anomaly to South West Trains and see what happens next?

Please use the station names, not just the codes, the first time they are introduced.

Please also use the correct codes if you are going to use codes for ticket types. These are often based off the acrynums for the tickets' former names.

As for why the fares are set in such a way, what it essentially boils down to is that Pricing Managers like to keep things simple, so they try to keep things priced in clusters of stations rather than setting every fare individually. A side effect of this is that you it creates pricing anomalies.

So, for example, if you look at the Sutton to Godalming fare in further detail, you discover that it's actually between two clusters as follows:

Q049 - West Sutton, Banstead, Belmont, Cheam, Epsom Downs, Sutton London, Wallington, Carshalton, Carshalton Beeches.
Q406 - Godalming, Witley, Farncombe, Milford Surrey

Guildford, on the other hand, falls into another cluster:

Q407 - Chilworth, Guildford, London Road Guildford, Shalford Surrey, Worplesdon

And, for completeness, Wanborough falls into a fourth:

Q392 - Farnham, Ash Vale, Aldershot, North Camp, Wanborough, Ash

Doing a quick routeing guide check, Sutton and Guildford are both routeing points, whereas Godalming has both Guildford and Havant as routeing points.

To determine which is "appropriate", we need to compare the Single fare from Sutton TO Godalming against the Single fares FROM Guildford and Havant TO Sutton. If either is that same, or lower, that's deemed appropriate.

Sutton - Godalming Anytime Day Single is £10.60
Guildford - Sutton Anytime Day Single is £9.70
Havant - Sutton Anytime Day Single is £28.00

Not surprisingly, Guildford is therefore the only appropriate routeing point for Godalming in this example.

Permitted routes between Sutton and Guildford can be found on map combinations SC+PD and SC+SD.

SC+SD basically permits travel via Croydon, Redhill and Dorking
SC+PD allows some "interesting" stuff via Wimbledon

The "obvious" route via Epsom, on the other hand, is only valid by virtue of being the shortest route. It doesn't appear to feature on either map combination.

But to cut a long story short, yes you can buy a ticket to Godalming and "stop short" at Guildford.

But that still doesn't explain why the fares between Q049 and Q406/Q392 are cheaper than the fares between Q049 and Q407, given that the distances are greater for the former?

rratgerg said:

But that still doesn't explain why the fares between Q049 and Q406/Q392 are cheaper than the fares between Q049 and Q407, given that the distances are greater for the former?

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It appears to have been like that for years, and was probably inherited from British Rail in that condition. The Singles and Off-Peak Day Return are priced as you'd expect, but the Anytime Day Return is the "wrong way round" as it were.

There's also no Season Ticket fare between Sutton and Guildford, but there is between Sutton and Godalming (which is more expensive than 5 Anytime Day Returns).

CyrusWuff said:

It appears to have been like that for years, and was probably inherited from British Rail in that condition. The Singles and Off-Peak Day Return are priced as you'd expect, but the Anytime Day Return is the "wrong way round" as it were.

There's also no Season Ticket fare between Sutton and Guildford, but there is between Sutton and Godalming (which is more expensive than 5 Anytime Day Returns).

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However,BRfares seems to show a Travelcard 7DS from Guildford to Sutton route via Epsom at £69.60. Why on earth would there be a weekly season between 2 stations but in one direction only? And I suppose it would still be cheaper to buy the Sutton/Wanborough ticket daily.

alastair said:

However,BRfares seems to show a Travelcard 7DS from Guildford to Sutton route via Epsom at £69.60. Why on earth would there be a weekly season between 2 stations but in one direction only? And I suppose it would still be cheaper to buy the Sutton/Wanborough ticket daily.

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Maybe the lack of a fare from Sutton is an acknowledgment that it would not be worth buying.

CyrusWuff said:

It appears to have been like that for years, and was probably inherited from British Rail in that condition. The Singles and Off-Peak Day Return are priced as you'd expect, but the Anytime Day Return is the "wrong way round" as it were.

Click to expand...

Historically, the old DY Day Returns from London (and intermediate points) to SR stations outside the old London Transport Area) carried no time restriction.
In the reverse direction DY fares were restricted to arriving London after 10.00. Ì suspect the Godalming fare under discussion is the successor of this, so costs only a bit more than a single. The only other return fare would have been a 3-month OR ordinary return.

Guildford was within the LT Area where the SR restriction on a CD Off Peak return was the wellknown "any train from 09.30" whatever the route, and an OR ordinary return was only valid one day anyway.

30907 said:

Historically, the old DY Day Returns from London (and intermediate points) to SR stations outside the old London Transport Area) carried no time restriction.
In the reverse direction DY fares were restricted to arriving London after 10.00. Ì suspect the Godalming fare under discussion is the successor of this, so costs only a bit more than a single. The only other return fare would have been a 3-month OR ordinary return.

Guildford was within the LT Area where the SR restriction on a CD Off Peak return was the wellknown "any train from 09.30" whatever the route, and an OR ordinary return was only valid one day anyway.

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You are absolutely spot on. I recall when I lived at Ashtead(between Epsom and Leatherhead) in the early 1980's and sometimes used to travel to work in Guildford by rail, if you wanted a return to Guildford in the peak hour,it was well known that you asked for a cheap day return to Farncombe because it was cheaper!

Always remember a sign at Aldershot c1992 saying that CDRs to Farncombe were not valid in the morning peak to Guildford and you would be charged more. Guildford was an open station in those days.

Ditto Tonbridge and High Brooms

Like Alastair, I'm talking 30 years back, when APEX fares were the exception and IC was still on Weekend and Monthly returns....

CyrusWuff said:

To determine which is "appropriate", we need to compare the Single fare from Sutton TO Godalming against the Single fares FROM Guildford and Havant TO Sutton. If either is that same, or lower, that's deemed appropriate.

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Do fares checks need to be done in reverse like that?

asharpe said:

Do fares checks need to be done in reverse like that?

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It doesn't, no. It should be done in the same direction, but in reality it very rarely makes any difference.

bb21 said:

It doesn't, no. It should be done in the same direction, but in reality it very rarely makes any difference.

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OK thanks.

asharpe said:

Do fares checks need to be done in reverse like that?

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That's what the instructions in the Routeing Guide say for determining "appropriate" routeing points for the destination. For the origin, it's fares from the RP to the destination.

It's left as an exercise for the reader as to why this should be, particularly given not all flows are reversible.

alastair said:

However,BRfares seems to show a Travelcard 7DS from Guildford to Sutton route via Epsom at £69.60. Why on earth would there be a weekly season between 2 stations but in one direction only? And I suppose it would still be cheaper to buy the Sutton/Wanborough ticket daily.

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Guildford - Sutton via Epsom 7DS is based on a Guildford - Zones 5&6 season ticket as the Travelcard price will be cheaper than a rail only one. Travelcard season can only have a London Zonal combination as a destination.

It now looks like the Sutton to Guildford anytime day return has been reduced to £16.10.