National Routeing Guide update

VauxhallandI · 24 Sep 2014

I will definitely consider that.

I believe it is above the method of execution, from the NRG it clearly states that the route is ALWAYS valid so easements are neither here no there.

RailUK Forums

VauxhallandI · 9 Oct 2014

So it would seem Passenger Focus are now against my ticket!

VauxhallandI · 9 Oct 2014

Reply

VauxhallandI · 9 Oct 2014

Clarification.

I think I just need to ask them they are sure the word "always'" can also not mean always.

I also didn't know they don't have to be consulted on changes within the "London" zone.

Merseysider · 9 Oct 2014

Surely a route no more than 3 miles longer than the shortest route cannot be removed as permitted??

VauxhallandI · 9 Oct 2014

JakeF said:
Surely a route no more than 3 miles longer than the shortest route cannot be removed as permitted??

I agree but it doesn't seem too hopeful when even the "goodies" don't agree!

greatkingrat · 9 Oct 2014

JakeF said:
Surely a route no more than 3 miles longer than the shortest route cannot be removed as permitted??

The three mile rule is not mentioned in the Conditions of Carriage, only in the Routeing Guide, therefore I think they can be removed by easements.

The shortest route (and through trains) are mentioned in the Conditions of Carriage, so they can't be removed by easements (although I think there are some that try).

Merseysider · 9 Oct 2014

greatkingrat said:
The three mile rule is not mentioned in the Conditions of Carriage, only in the Routeing Guide, therefore I think they can be removed by easements.

The shortest route (and through trains) are mentioned in the Conditions of Carriage, so they can't be removed by easements (although I think there are some that try).

Call me a pedant but the very first sentence in the RG page of easements is

ATOC Routeing Guide said:
Easements are relaxations of Routeing Guide rules to allow journeys that strict adherence to the rules would forbid.

Therefore if it doesn't relax a rule in the Routeing Guide, it isn't an easement.

VauxhallandI · 9 Oct 2014

What am I missing, is this not cut and dried?

Journeys on direct trains or taking the route of shortest distance or a distance longer by no more than 3 miles are always following a permitted route.

ALWAYS?

yorkie · 9 Oct 2014

Johngill100 said:
What am I missing, is this not cut and dried?

Journeys on direct trains or taking the route of shortest distance or a distance longer by no more than 3 miles are always following a permitted route.

ALWAYS?

That's what the NRCoC says.

Even the DfT know that.

VauxhallandI · 9 Oct 2014

yorkie said:
That's what the NRCoC says.

Even the DfT know that.

I only found it in the NRG.

What are. Passenger. Focus playing at then?

I feel a phone call coming on tomorrow

yorkie · 9 Oct 2014

I had to do a lot of scrolling to see what the ticket was, and it was tricky to read the screenshots on my phone. It will be impossible for our blind members to make sense of this. This also is nothing to do with the Routeing Guide.

John - any chance of a new thread with the text quoted and a description of what's happening please? If that's not feasible for you to do, I'll type it up based on the images, on Saturday night as I have some time to kill on a train when it'll be dark outside!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Johngill100 said:
I only found it in the NRG.

What are. Passenger. Focus playing at then?

PF get their funding from the DfT, who wish to minimise subsidy payments to TOCs and increase the amount passengers pay for their journeys in order to reduce the amount wealthy people pay in taxes to support us peasants who use public transport.

Therefore, PF - though purporting to represent passengers interests - actually pander to the Train Companies.

Their level of knowledge on ticketing is minuscule. This is because Anthony Smith - who gets a whopping great big salary (£95k in 2008; rising to £122 in 2011 - source) - is the only person seemingly on a decent wage. His minions get peanuts and, as the saying goes, if you pay peanuts...

You may have more luck with London Travelwatch.

But as for Passenger Focus, don't accept their reply. You need to go down the dispute procedure, which I believe means contacting your MP.

By the way, the DfT refused to allow ATOC to abolish Darton-Doncaster as being valid via the shortest route (ie, via Wakefield), so perhaps someone can FOI them asking what correspondence they've had with this ticket?

VauxhallandI · 10 Oct 2014

Dear Mr Gill

Thank you again for your enquiry regarding easement 700495.

I have now discussed this with my colleagues in our policy team and they have advised me that we have not been, and would not expect to be, consulted on this easement because the stations it concerns are within London TravelWatchs geographical area.

They also advised me that the intention of a negative easement is to remove a previously permissible route from the Routing Guide. This easement overrides the rules concerning the shortest distance or a distance longer by no more than 3 miles being a permitted route.

If you would like to get in touch with London TravelWatch to enquire as to whether they were consulted and their view on the easement they can be contacted in one of the following ways:

By post:
London TravelWatch
Dexter House
2 Royal Mint Court
London
EC3N 4QN

***************************************************************

Jordan,

Thank you for your response, I have indeed raised this with London TravelWatch.

I've read the feedback from your policy team and I am not 100% sure of their views. Are they agreeing with me or not?

I.e. Negative easements are for the remove of previous permissible (and not protected) routes and cannot be used to override rules within the guide such as the three mile and shortest route rule.

Regards,

John Gill

********************************************************

Dear Mr Gill,

Im afraid my colleagues in our policy team are not in agreement with you. They have advised me that the negative easement does overrule the guide and the three mile and shortest route rule. An easement normally provides permission to do something that would normally be outside of the rules and in contrast a negative easement revokes permission to do something which the rules would otherwise normally allow.

Kind regards,

Jordan.

CyrusWuff · 10 Oct 2014

Just to throw the cat amongst the pigeons a bit more, isn't the "three mile rule" only mentioned in the examples section (Section F) of the NRG, which hasn't been updated since 1996, rather than in the Instructions (Section A), which have?

John @ home · 10 Oct 2014

CyrusWuff said:
isn't the "three mile rule" only mentioned in the examples section (Section F) of the NRG

The "three mile rule" is located in The National Routeing Guide in Detail (Section F), described by ATOC as "More information on how to use the National Routeing Guide, including some step by step examples".

I am not aware that any part of the National Routeing Guide takes precedence over any other part, but this is unimportant because there is nothing in the Railway Byelaws, the National Rail Conditions of Carriage or the National Routeing Guide which contradicts the statement that:

Journeys on direct trains or taking the route of shortest distance or a distance longer by no more than 3 miles are always following a permitted route.

http://iblocks-rg-publication.s3-website-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/nrg_detail.pdf

VauxhallandI · 10 Oct 2014

John @ home said:
The "three mile rule" is located in The National Routeing Guide in Detail (Section F), described by ATOC as "More information on how to use the National Routeing Guide, including some step by step examples".

I am not aware that any part of the National Routeing Guide takes precedence over any other part, but this is unimportant because there is nothing in the Railway Byelaws, the National Rail Conditions of Carriage or the National Routeing Guide which contradicts the statement that:

This is he corner stone of my argument.

Which ever way it goes, it goes but this to me is obvious and I haven't seen evidence to disprove it.

CyrusWuff · 10 Oct 2014

John @ home said:
The "three mile rule" is located in The National Routeing Guide in Detail (Section F), described by ATOC as "More information on how to use the National Routeing Guide, including some step by step examples".

I'm not saying it isn't. My point is that, when undertaking a Routeing Guide check, it's unlikely to occur to most people that they may need to refer to Section F to find further instructions that aren't given in Section A. It's something which RSP/ATOC could fix quite easily...

jkdd77 · 11 Oct 2014

The right to take the shortest route, or a through train, subject to any restrictions shown on the ticket, is contractually guaranteed by the NRCoC, and may not, in any circumstances, be subject to a 'negative easement', as even the DfT seem to recognise (and shame on Passenger Focus for ignoring this)!

For example, a ticket from Bristol Parkway- London Terminals 'rte Warminster- Salisbury' would be valid on the shortest route passing through these stations, but clearly would not be valid via Swindon and Reading, since the calculation of the shortest route is subject to the restriction shown on the ticket.

I'm less certain on whether routes permitted under the 'three mile rule' may validly be prohibited by a negative easement.

bb21 · 11 Oct 2014

jkdd77 said:
For example, a ticket from Bristol Parkway- London Terminals 'rte Warminster- Salisbury' would be valid on the shortest route passing through these stations, but clearly would not be valid via Swindon and Reading, since the calculation of the shortest route is subject to the restriction shown on the ticket.

I am not sure about this. While this is true for Any Permitted fares, it is much less clear in the case of route-restricted tickets. There is no indication whether Condition 13a takes precedence or Condition 13d, or neither.

island · 11 Oct 2014

jkdd77 said:
The right to take the shortest route, or a through train, subject to any restrictions shown on the ticket, is contractually guaranteed by the NRCoC, and may not, in any circumstances, be subject to a 'negative easement', as even the DfT seem to recognise (and shame on Passenger Focus for ignoring this)!

For example, a ticket from Bristol Parkway- London Terminals 'rte Warminster- Salisbury' would be valid on the shortest route passing through these stations, but clearly would not be valid via Swindon and Reading, since the calculation of the shortest route is subject to the restriction shown on the ticket.

I'm less certain on whether routes permitted under the 'three mile rule' may validly be prohibited by a negative easement.

I agree with the above and am more confident that routes permitted because they are no more than three miles longer than the shortest route can be prohibited by a negative easement. However, that is just my opinion based on my reading of the various documents.

kieron · 11 Oct 2014

John @ home said:
The "three mile rule" is located in The National Routeing Guide in Detail (Section F), described by ATOC as "More information on how to use the National Routeing Guide, including some step by step examples".

I am not aware that any part of the National Routeing Guide takes precedence over any other part, but this is unimportant because there is nothing in the Railway Byelaws, the National Rail Conditions of Carriage or the National Routeing Guide which contradicts the statement that:

Journeys on direct trains or taking the route of shortest distance or a distance longer by no more than 3 miles are always following a permitted route.

Click to expand...

It says on the next page (page 10) that:

A journey which follows a route permitted by the Routeing Guide may be forbidden that route by a negative easement.

To me, this suggests that their scope is very broad indeed. The instructions file doesn't say much about easements at all.

For Johngill100, I think the important point is that Passenger Focus claim this is outside their remit. I don't know if that's correct or not, but while this is in dispute I don't think it's worth worrying about their views on the substantive issue.

Deerfold · 12 Oct 2014

kieron said:
For Johngill100, I think the important point is that Passenger Focus claim this is outside their remit. I don't know if that's correct or not, but while this is in dispute I don't think it's worth worrying about their views on the substantive issue.

Isn't that only beacuse it's within the are covered by London Travelwatch?

kieron · 12 Oct 2014

Deerfold said:
Isn't that only beacuse it's within the are covered by London Travelwatch?

That's what they've said.

Greeby · 23 Oct 2014

Latest data dump is here

New Dataset RJRG0324 published 22/10/2014

Following approval from Passenger Focus(12/09/14) and the Department for Transport (16/10/14) an original Routeing Guide permission has been withdrawn. This permitted travel from Birmingham to Stoke on Trent via Crewe.The withdrawal was agreed to because there were no timetable advantages of travel via Crewe, and a significant fare anomaly existed. Historic fares checking revealed that the anomaly existed in NFM64 data, and it was not previously a reasonable route to travel from Birmingham to Stoke on Trent via Crewe.
Map sequence added
BIRMINGHAM GROUP (G02) and Stoke On Trent (SOT) - added sequence 'BJ+TL'
Map sequences deleted
BIRMINGHAM GROUP (G02) and Stoke On Trent (SOT) - removed sequence 'BP+TO'
BIRMINGHAM GROUP (G02) and Stoke On Trent (SOT) - removed sequence 'BV'

Fares between London Terminals and Eynsford routed Not High Speed are intednded to be valid via Sevenoaks (and also between London Terminals and Shoreham Kent routed Not High Speed).
Journeys via Sevenoaks are failing in Journey Planners
Map sequences added
LONDON GROUP (G01) and OTFORD GROUP (G83) - added sequence 'SV'

To prevent journeys between Southampton Central and Portsmouth Harbour allowing travelling via Havant in error.
Map sequences added
PORTSMOUTH GROUP (G23) and SOUTHAMPTON GROUP (G26) - added sequence 'RB'
Map Sequences removed
PORTSMOUTH GROUP (G23) and SOUTHAMPTON GROUP (G26) - removed sequence 'CW'
PORTSMOUTH GROUP (G23) and SOUTHAMPTON GROUP (G26) - removed sequence 'CW+XR'

EASEMENTS
Added
700545: Customer travelling from Derby, Long Eaton and Spondon may travel to Syston, Barrow upon Soar and Sileby via Leicester on route 'Any Permitted'. This easement overrides the Fare Check Rule and applies in both directions.
Amended
700544: "To facilitate Club 55 promotion ticket journeys from Achnashellach to Dunbar to travel via Aberdeen, this Routeing Point easement to the Fare checking rules is required..." (see dataset RJRG0323 published 10/10/2014)
Easement items data amended to ensure easement applied by retailing systems.
Easement Total 647 (previously: 646)
Circuitous Route: 265 (previously 265)
Doubleback: 89 (previously 89)
Fare route: 18 (previously 18)
Local: 56 (previously 56)
Manual: 15 (previously 15)
Map: 1 (previously 1)
Routeing Point: 203 (previously 202)

http://www.atoc.org/about-atoc/rail-settlement-plan/routeing-guide/

Merseysider · 23 Oct 2014

Following approval from Passenger Focus(12/09/14) and the Department for Transport (16/10/14) an original Routeing Guide permission has been withdrawn. This permitted travel from Birmingham to Stoke on Trent via Crewe.The withdrawal was agreed to because there were no timetable advantages of travel via Crewe

So far, can't complain.

and a significant fare anomaly existed

I take issue. Fare anomalies should not be a reason for withdrawing a permitted route.

Historic fares checking revealed that the anomaly existed in NFM64 data, and it was not previously a reasonable route to travel from Birmingham to Stoke on Trent via Crewe.

This depends on what you define as 'reasonable' - you could argue there are no timetable advantages for wanting to travel from Chester to Warrington via Liverpool but it's still a reasonable route.

Paul Kelly · 24 Oct 2014

JakeF said:
I take issue. Fare anomalies should not be a reason for withdrawing a permitted route.

Indeed, I would go so far as to say one of the main purposes of the Routeing Guide is to ensure consistency in permitted routes in the face of ongoing variation in fares due to the interactions between the commercial interests of privatised TOCs. I think Passenger Focus should be challenged about their attitude to this.

Merseysider · 24 Oct 2014

Indigo2 said:
Indeed, I would go so far as to say one of the main purposes of the Routeing Guide is to ensure consistency in permitted routes in the face of ongoing variation in fares due to the interactions between the commercial interests of privatised TOCs. I think Passenger Focus should be challenged about their attitude to this.

A very well made point.
I would be interested to know whether a specific TOC (or TOCs) requested and pushed for this permitted route to be withdrawn, or whether it was the result of meticulous combing through the RG by ATOC/DfT and/or its subsidiary departments. I know which one my money's on!

All Line Rover · 24 Oct 2014

JakeF said:
A very well made point.
I would be interested to know whether a specific TOC (or TOCs) requested and pushed for this permitted route to be withdrawn, or whether it was the result of meticulous combing through the RG by ATOC/DfT and/or its subsidiary departments. I know which one my money's on!

London Midland requested it. They have been wanting it changed for months.

Merseysider · 24 Oct 2014

All Line Rover said:
London Midland requested it. They have been wanting it changed for months.

I wonder why this removal of permission has been done correctly for once, with both PF and the DfT consulted?

kieron · 25 Oct 2014

I've indented the notes from the routeing guide update text below.

Following approval from Passenger Focus(12/09/14) and the Department for Transport (16/10/14) an original Routeing Guide permission has been withdrawn. This permitted travel from Birmingham to Stoke on Trent via Crewe.The withdrawal was agreed to because there were no timetable advantages of travel via Crewe, and a significant fare anomaly existed. Historic fares checking revealed that the anomaly existed in NFM64 data, and it was not previously a reasonable route to travel from Birmingham to Stoke on Trent via Crewe.

That's a nice, detailed rationale. This change does mean that someone travelling from Birmingham to Longport can't go via Crewe, though. During the day, there's a train every 30 minutes leaving Birmingham. Trains via Stoke take 68 minutes, and ones via Crewe 86 minutes, so both routes are useful.

This change also remove the route via Nuneaton, but that's not such a great loss.

Fares between London Terminals and Eynsford routed Not High Speed are intednded to be valid via Sevenoaks (and also between London Terminals and Shoreham Kent routed Not High Speed).
Journeys via Sevenoaks are failing in Journey Planners

It's also now valid via Bromley North.

To prevent journeys between Southampton Central and Portsmouth Harbour allowing travelling via Havant in error.

I'm assuming this is a journey planner bug. All the change does as per the guide is allow travel via Eastleigh.

700545: Customer travelling from Derby, Long Eaton and Spondon may travel to Syston, Barrow upon Soar and Sileby via Leicester on route 'Any Permitted'. This easement overrides the Fare Check Rule and applies in both directions.

As there are also "not via Leicester" tickets, I'm sure that was what was intended in the first place.

Amended

700544: "To facilitate Club 55 promotion ticket journeys from Achnashellach to Dunbar to travel via Aberdeen, this Routeing Point easement to the Fare checking rules is required..." (see dataset RJRG0323 published 10/10/2014)

Easement items data amended to ensure easement applied by retailing systems.

The published text has not changed, and still doesn't explain what the easement does.

National Routeing Guide update

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