NRES not offering interchange at the first station where interchange is possible

mm333 · 21 Apr 2019

I travelled from Shipley to Silecroft yesterday. On that particular journey, NRES said to change at Lancaster and Barrow. By the time we got to Carnforth, we were running a few minutes late so I bailed and waited there for the Barrow train, which made me wonder what the point was of NRES suggesting I change at Lancaster.

It seems that unless the connection doesn't mean the station's minimum interchange time, NRES will take you to the last station it can within the routeing group. You can see this with Carlisle-Dundee journeys where you'll often be recommended to change at Edinburgh instead of Haymarket.

If I'd not known that both trains call at Carnforth, I would have ended up late and probably a Delay Repay claim. It seems that occasions where you're recommended not to change at the interchange station could end up costing a TOC money.

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PHILIPE · 21 Apr 2019

mm333 said:
I travelled from Shipley to Silecroft yesterday. On that particular journey, NRES said to change at Lancaster and Barrow. By the time we got to Carnforth, we were running a few minutes late so I bailed and waited there for the Barrow train, which made me wonder what the point was of NRES suggesting I change at Lancaster.

It seems that unless the connection doesn't mean the station's minimum interchange time, NRES will take you to the last station it can within the routeing group. You can see this with Carlisle-Dundee journeys where you'll often be recommended to change at Edinburgh instead of Haymarket.

If I'd not known that both trains call at Carnforth, I would have ended up late and probably a Delay Repay claim. It seems that occasions where you're recommended not to change at the interchange station could end up costing a TOC money.

The system gives you the first available point and the fastest journey at which to change. Many people from the east of Cardiff requiring Swansea and West Wales are advised to change at Newport into a service from he Marches going west when Cardiff Central is far more suitable and convenient. An anomaly is that when trains from the Marches for Carmarthen or Milford Haven are running late a fresh train is started Right Time at Cardiff and this creates a situation where passengers can be waiting at Newport for the late running service and which then terminates Cardiff. This instead of continuing to Cardiff in the first place and so delaying them unnecessarily twice.

30907 · 21 Apr 2019

Weirdly, if you ask NRE for Shipley-Barrow on the same train (0832) it tells you to change at Carnforth!

mm333 · 21 Apr 2019

30907 said:
Weirdly, if you ask NRE for Shipley-Barrow on the same train (0832) it tells you to change at Carnforth!

Weird. As I’ve just asked it for that and it’s still saying change at Lancaster.

ForTheLoveOf · 21 Apr 2019

Where interchange would be possible between two services at a number of different stations without affecting the overall journey time or number of changes, I understand journey planners are instructed to suggest the itinerary that involves staying on the train with greater facilities for longer (facilities meaning things like reservations and trolley/buffet services), or if this is equal, then changing at the station which has a higher 'interchange' priority - you can see the interchange priority of a station at brtimes.com.

What journey planners do when everything, including journey times, number of changes, facilities on trains, and station interchange priority, is equal, I do not know. Personally, when I am making such a journey my strategy is to go as far as possible without changing, because if the train you are changing onto is disrupted then in most (but not all) cases, you will be better of being nearer to your actual destination, in terms of available alternative services or at least alternative transport methods.

For example, I recently made a journey where I could have changed from a CrossCountry service to a GWR service either at Oxford or at Reading. I stayed on the CrossCountry service for longer, changing at Reading, and this ended up being the correct choice since I was then able to take an earlier than booked train from Reading which I would not have made if I had changed at Oxford.

robertclark125 · 21 Apr 2019

I'll tell you another reason for the anomaly. There are some stations on the London Underground where interchange is possible, but not advertised, as the platforms may be too narrow. On the District and Piccadilly lines, you're recommended to change between both lines at Hammersmith. The next station east, Barons Court, is also served by both lines, with cross platform interchange above ground. The platforms at Barons Court are quite narrow, hence interchange in not advertised.

A second possible reason is that it could ease capacity at one station, recommending people change at another. For instance, people travelling from Cardenden to Bathgate would change at Haymarket. So, to make sure that capacity is not exceeded with too many interchanges, some people from the south will be asked to change at Edinburgh Waverley. This also applies on the Tyne and Wear Metro. Passengers heading from say Benton to Seaburn are asked to change at Heworth, as opposed to the next station, Pelaw. This is because passengers who may be travelling from the Sunderland line to the South Shields line, or vice versa, will change at Pelaw. It's simply to spread things out, and make it easier for people.

alistairlees · 21 Apr 2019

ForTheLoveOf said:
Where interchange would be possible between two services at a number of different stations without affecting the overall journey time or number of changes, I understand journey planners are instructed to suggest the itinerary that involves staying on the train with greater facilities for longer (facilities meaning things like reservations and trolley/buffet services), or if this is equal, then changing at the station which has a higher 'interchange' priority - you can see the interchange priority of a station at brtimes.com.

I don't believe that on-train facilities are used to determine where to interchange. You are right that journey planners should suggest a change at the station with the highest interchange priority though.

ForTheLoveOf said:
What journey planners do when everything, including journey times, number of changes, facilities on trains, and station interchange priority, is equal, I do not know. Personally, when I am making such a journey my strategy is to go as far as possible without changing, because if the train you are changing onto is disrupted then in most (but not all) cases, you will be better of being nearer to your actual destination, in terms of available alternative services or at least alternative transport methods.

Where there are two stations with the same interchange priority, then the passenger should be told to interchange at the one which is furthest from their origin (i.e. nearest their destination). Though I think this is probably an unwritten rule - I can't recall seeing it written down anywhere.

Trainfan344 · 21 Apr 2019

An annoying example is Changing from the East Mids service from Norwich to Liverpool to the XC Stansted to Brum service. A journey planner will inform you to change at Ely, yet onboard staff will advise to change at Peterborough as it is a Cross Platform connection.

paddington · 21 Apr 2019

Changing earlier can result in being able to get a seat, or being able to get a preferred seat, when the train you are changing to is likely to be crowded (e.g. XC services during daytime). Sometimes you may have to stand for a bit, but then you are already on the train at a station where lots of people get off and have the first choice of all unreserved seats in your coach.

alistairlees · 21 Apr 2019

Trainfan344 said:
An annoying example is Changing from the East Mids service from Norwich to Liverpool to the XC Stansted to Brum service. A journey planner will inform you to change at Ely, yet onboard staff will advise to change at Peterborough as it is a Cross Platform connection.

Which "journey planner"? They are not all the same. As both Peterborough and Ely are medium interchange stations, I'd expect the interchange to be shown as Peterborough when going westwards, and Ely when going eastwards.
The point about cross-platform interchange is a good one, but unfortunately there is no industry data feed that enables platforms to be understood in such a way. It would certainly be very useful to improve customer / passenger experience though.

alistairlees · 21 Apr 2019

robertclark125 said:
A second possible reason is that it could ease capacity at one station, recommending people change at another. For instance, people travelling from Cardenden to Bathgate would change at Haymarket. So, to make sure that capacity is not exceeded with too many interchanges, some people from the south will be asked to change at Edinburgh Waverley. This also applies on the Tyne and Wear Metro. Passengers heading from say Benton to Seaburn are asked to change at Heworth, as opposed to the next station, Pelaw. This is because passengers who may be travelling from the Sunderland line to the South Shields line, or vice versa, will change at Pelaw. It's simply to spread things out, and make it easier for people.

I think you've made this up? Journey planners have no concept of capacity, as no data is provided on this matter that could be used in journey planning.

For the Edinburgh / Haymarket example, journey planners should choose interchange at Edinburgh if it meets the minimum interchange requirements, even where each leg of the journey calls at Haymarket. This is because both Edinburgh and Haymarket are in the same station routeing group (not the same as being members of a "group station", which they are not!) and Edinburgh has a higher interchange value than Haymarket. It is permitted to doubleback between the stations in a routeing point group for such a reason (in this case pass through Haymarket twice; in an earlier post in this thread pass through Carnforth twice).

yorkie · 21 Apr 2019

robertclark125 said:
I'll tell you another reason for the anomaly. There are some stations on the London Underground where interchange is possible, but not advertised, as the platforms may be too narrow. On the District and Piccadilly lines, you're recommended to change between both lines at Hammersmith. The next station east, Barons Court, is also served by both lines, with cross platform interchange above ground. The platforms at Barons Court are quite narrow, hence interchange in not advertised.

A second possible reason is that it could ease capacity at one station, recommending people change at another. For instance, people travelling from Cardenden to Bathgate would change at Haymarket. So, to make sure that capacity is not exceeded with too many interchanges, some people from the south will be asked to change at Edinburgh Waverley. This also applies on the Tyne and Wear Metro. Passengers heading from say Benton to Seaburn are asked to change at Heworth, as opposed to the next station, Pelaw. This is because passengers who may be travelling from the Sunderland line to the South Shields line, or vice versa, will change at Pelaw. It's simply to spread things out, and make it easier for people.

Is this actually a thing on the TfL journey planner for LU journeys?

It is not applicable to National Rail journey planners.

robertclark125 · 21 Apr 2019

I'm going by experience of on train announcements in both cases.

yorkie · 21 Apr 2019

robertclark125 said:
I'm going by experience of on train announcements in both cases.

OK, but this thread is about what journey planners do.

Doctor Fegg · 21 Apr 2019

alistairlees said:
I think you've made this up? Journey planners have no concept of capacity, as no data is provided on this matter that could be used in journey planning.

With both this and your cross-platform example, I think you're overstating it. You don't need an industry-standard data feed, you just need a savvy developer and a few manual overrides.

Assuming a weighting mostly based on earliest arrival, you can then easily tweak interchange points by adding penalties for certain stations or positive weightings for others (effectively "turn costs" in algorithm terms). My gut feeling is that 30ish overrides by a developer who understood the rail network would make a material difference to journey-planning results. In particular, you could go a long way by just implementing this in code, and that's only four overrides - i.e. reduce the interchange penalty at Cheltenham Spa, Leamington Spa, Wolverhampton and Derby. Given the number of developers employed by the biggest journey-planner sites and the number of transactions they push through every day, I can well believe this would be worthwhile from a customer satisfaction POV.

I'd be interested to hear of anyone who's taken the open timetabling data and put it into OpenTripPlanner, for experiments like this.

(source: writing routing software is one of the things I do for a living)

alistairlees · 21 Apr 2019

robertclark125 said:
I'm going by experience of on train announcements in both cases.

Ok, but this is a thread about NRES (National Rail Enquiry Service, by which I think the OP means the nationalrail.co.uk website). The differences between on-train announcement advice, and online journey planner advice, is probably enough for a whole new thread!

Edit: I see Yorkie said exactly the same a couple of minutes before I did, and I didn't notice.

alistairlees · 21 Apr 2019

Doctor Fegg said:
With both this and your cross-platform example, I think you're overstating it. You don't need an industry-standard data feed, you just need a savvy developer and a few manual overrides.

Assuming a weighting mostly based on earliest arrival, you can then easily tweak interchange points by adding penalties for certain stations or positive weightings for others (effectively "turn costs" in algorithm terms). My gut feeling is that 30ish overrides by a developer who understood the rail network would make a material difference to journey-planning results. In particular, you could go a long way by just implementing this in code, and that's only four overrides - i.e. reduce the interchange penalty at Cheltenham Spa, Leamington Spa, Wolverhampton and Derby. Given the number of developers employed by the biggest journey-planner sites and the number of transactions they push through every day, I can well believe this would be worthwhile from a customer satisfaction POV.

I'd be interested to hear of anyone who's taken the open timetabling data and put it into OpenTripPlanner, for experiments like this.

(source: writing routing software is one of the things I do for a living)

Your approach is a good one, though it would lead to further differences between journey planners (though that might not be a bad thing) as different developers from different companies used different data, or data interpretations.

Doing it means adding more rules. And adding more rules means more stuff to maintain. For the XC example, the main requirements are:
- the legs need to be on XC
- interchange at BHM should be barred if interchange at one of the other four stations is possible, and the origin and departure times remain the same, and the number of interchanges remains the same. You would want to make sure this doesn't affect journeys to (e.g.) Stratford upon Avon from Leeds.

For the platform thing, I agree it's a good idea. Ideally there would be - whether from an industry data source or just self-sourced - data for each station on 'platform adjacency'. Combined with accessibility, facilities etc. The question is, how to interpret that well under all circumstances, and not to cause unintended consequences. And what are the rules to use to override interchanging somewhere else? I doubt there are many cases (other than the XC examples) where it will make a substantial difference.

ForTheLoveOf · 21 Apr 2019

paddington said:
Changing earlier can result in being able to get a seat, or being able to get a preferred seat, when the train you are changing to is likely to be crowded (e.g. XC services during daytime). Sometimes you may have to stand for a bit, but then you are already on the train at a station where lots of people get off and have the first choice of all unreserved seats in your coach.

Of course, sometimes it may be the opposite way around, where changing onto a service later can mean a better chance of a seat. This could especially be the case for a train where the majority of passengers want to get off mid-way along. For example, cross-London, cross-Manchester or cross-Birmingham services, or those passing through a major airport station. Sometimes journey planners will do this by proxy, if for example they can see that a cheaper tier of Advance is available by altering where the change in the itinerary occurs, or for the likes of TrainSplit if they see that a cheaper combination is available if you alter the change point.

Arguably station facilities and the complexity of the layout should also be considerations in this kind of calculation, but to be honest I would imagine that only a very small percentage of all train journeys will come into this kind of category. It's questionable to me whether it's worthwhile for the rail industry to spend effort on this rather than measures like improving the accessibility of the Routeing Guide for passengers, adding reasonable but non-permitted routes, and improving passenger information for changes and during disruption.

Greybeard33 · 23 Apr 2019

Planning a journey from Sheffield to Scarborough recently, making use of a Northern-only travel voucher, I was puzzled that the FastJP planner recommended a change at Driffield. This between a service from Sheffield to Bridlington via Hull and a service from Hull to Scarborough via Bridlington.

I have nothing against Driffield, but IMO either Hull or Bridlington offer better facilities to while away a half hour wait.

nw1 · 24 Apr 2019

I found on Sunday that the opposite can be the case. When looking up Gatwick to Southampton, it offered a 40-minute interchange at isolated, windswept Ford - while Barnham, Chichester and Havant were also possible and offer more facilities.

As it happens the next Sunday you can do that is the 26th May - seems there's an epic lineup of engineering works due and one week the 'via Barnham' fare wasn't even showing. Though I did discover that the 'via Barnham' ticket appears to be permitted via Brighton. Must do that next time I go to Gatwick as I've never done the BML between Brighton and Three Bridges.

Wilts Wanderer · 24 Apr 2019

In the West it's been a real problem that XC passengers on services terminating at Plymouth who are traveling to Cornwall are generally advised to change onto the following Paddington-Penzance at Exeter St David's rather than remain on XC until Plymouth. There is a particularly busy GW service in the afternoon which gets swamped with changing pax with luggage at Exeter who have just watched their Voyager depart half empty a few minutes earlier. It makes no sense on any level - as an experienced railway traveller the mantra of 'get on the first train and travel as far as you can' has got me out of a fair number of avoidable difficulties through the years.

michael74 · 24 Apr 2019

The whole Exeter Vs Newton Abbot thing confuses me. Every journey west to Paignton GWR or XC suggests change at Exeter, to catch what on a Summer and most weekends is a rammed (from Central) pacer stopping all the way to Paignton, but empties out by Newton Abbot. Given the choice I stay on the HST, IET or Voyager (with associated septic tank smell) nice and comfy a change at Newton and crack on to Paignton, job done.... Granted less time on the platform at Exeter, but it's only 15 or 20 minutes, no big deal really. Better than an hour on a pacer inside someone else's armpit...

yorkie · 24 Apr 2019

Greybeard33 said:
Planning a journey from Sheffield to Scarborough recently, making use of a Northern-only travel voucher, I was puzzled that the FastJP planner recommended a change at Driffield. This between a service from Sheffield to Bridlington via Hull and a service from Hull to Scarborough via Bridlington.

I have nothing against Driffield, but IMO either Hull or Bridlington offer better facilities to while away a half hour wait.

What day/time is this for?

I've just done a search and a change at Hull was offered.

AndrewE · 24 Apr 2019

I haven't spotted any suggestion that same platform connections are often recommended, even over cross-platform changes. I have deduced that this is the reason behind changes at some places that I would never have thought of. Maybe Driffield comes into this category?

Kite159 · 24 Apr 2019

AndrewE said:
I haven't spotted any suggestion that same platform connections are often recommended, even over cross-platform changes. I have deduced that this is the reason behind changes at some places that I would never have thought of. Maybe Driffield comes into this category?

Probably, chances are it will be a different platform at Hull and at Bridlington will most likely be a transfer from the bay platform to the northbound platform. However it would make sense to change at Hull if the Scarborough train starts there as you get a better chance of a better seat.

Greybeard33 · 24 Apr 2019

yorkie said:
What day/time is this for?

I've just done a search and a change at Hull was offered.

It was for 16 April, changing from the 1124 Sheffield to Bridlington (arr Driffield 1325) to the 1330 Hull to Scarborough (dep Driffield 1356).

Driffield is the last station offering a same platform change, although that is a dubious advantage when there is a half hour wait. Cottingham, Beverley and Hutton Cranswick are the other options for a same platform change between these two services.

Skipness · 25 Apr 2019

Wilts Wanderer said:
In the West it's been a real problem that XC passengers on services terminating at Plymouth who are traveling to Cornwall are generally advised to change onto the following Paddington-Penzance at Exeter St David's rather than remain on XC until Plymouth. There is a particularly busy GW service in the afternoon which gets swamped with changing pax with luggage at Exeter who have just watched their Voyager depart half empty a few minutes earlier. It makes no sense on any level - as an experienced railway traveller the mantra of 'get on the first train and travel as far as you can' has got me out of a fair number of avoidable difficulties through the years.

What you need to remember is that XC voyagers dont run along the sea wall at Dawlish whrn there are strong winds and high tides. Rsther than consult tide tables the journey planners could always plan for the worst and factor in a change at Exeter.

Wilts Wanderer · 25 Apr 2019

Skipness said:
What you need to remember is that XC voyagers dont run along the sea wall at Dawlish whrn there are strong winds and high tides. Rsther than consult tide tables the journey planners could always plan for the worst and factor in a change at Exeter.

Not sure this is the reason to be honest! The number of occasions each year the sea conditions exceed the threshold for Voyagers is relatively low; the number of trains advertising this wrong connectional choice is basically every 2 hours.

Old Yard Dog · 25 Apr 2019

Travelling from Liverpool to Chorley on Saturday, the system suggests I change at Preston (or Manchester) when I can just as easily change at Leyland. I would end up on the same train as it's a 30-40 minute wait at Leyland, but I wouldn't have to hang around for ages at a desolate station. Don't know what the ticket inspectors would think if I had an unnecessary run up to Preston and back.

On the return journey, the system suggests I change at Leyland as its a better connection with insufficient time for a detour via Preston.

kieron · 28 Apr 2019

One other criterion NRE seems to consider is "is there a valid ticket for this journey. For instance, if I ask to go from Leamington to Stratford-upon-Avon first thing in the morning (like so*), it correctly gives me a change at Lapworth for the first train of the day, switching to Dorridge later on because it doesn't realise the later Stratford trains go through Lapworth.

Other web sites seem a bit hit and miss with this. For instance, Greater Anglia only shows fares for the first journey if you select "via Lapworth", whereas South Western Railway shows it straight away.

I don't know what NRE does when there are two possible interchange points, but when one set of tickets is valid with one possible interchange, and a different set with the other one. For instance, if one is valid with a "via Manchester" ticket, the other with an "any permitted" one.

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NRES not offering interchange at the first station where interchange is possible

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