Cambridge to Farnham: non-direct route, break of journey, and Boundary Zone 6 ticket

[arb]

On Saturday, I'm wanting to make a return journey from Cambridge (CBG) to Farnham (FNH), and travel via Guildford (GLD) on the return leg. Not being sure if this was a valid route, I tried it in National Rail Enquiries, and it seems to be valid, costing the same £39.20 (or £25.90 with Network Railcard) to travel via GLD that the "direct" route costs: http://ojp.nationalrail.co.uk/servi...021113/0700/dep/021113/1700/dep?via=Guildford

So far, so good, so I'll add the complex requiremnts in . I want to break my journey on the return leg at both GLD, and in central London (somewhere around Piccaddilly Circus/Leicester Square/Covent Garden, still TBC). I assume that there are no problems with breaking at GLD, but as far as I can see, the cross-London part of the CBG-FNH ticket only allows me one tube journey in either direction and doesn't let me break the journey half-way across London. So this ticket doesn't appear to be valid for what I want to do.

Therefore, I investigated getting separate CBG-London (£10.55 with Network Railcard) and London-FNH tickets (£10.95), and using Oyster for the three tube journeys (one outward, two return with the break of journey), costing an additional (3*£2.10 = £6.30), so the overall cost has increased a bit to £27.80. This seems to have solved the problem, and is only slightly more expensive, so not really a problem.

Then I remembered Boundary Zone 6 tickets. I almost wish I hadn't, considering how confused I've now become! But it's too late now...

I checked CBG-London with a travelcard (£14.50), plus BZ6-FNH (£6.85, according to brfares.com since National Rail Enquiries doesn't do BZ6). Total cost now only £21.35 - which lets me do the break of journey in London, and is cheaper than the direct ticket I started out with

But would splitting tickets at BZ6 affect the validity of the routing via GLD? Since National Rail Enquiries doesn't do BZ6 I can't easily check the routing for this. So I picked a station just inside zone 6, Surbiton (SUR), and compared SUR-FNH with and without a via GLD option. National Rail Enquiries shows that travelling via GLD now requires a much more expensive ticket: http://ojp.nationalrail.co.uk/service/timesandfares/SUR/FNH/021113/1000/dep/021113/1700/dep (£6.85 return if travelling direct - same cost as the BZ6 ticket) compared to http://ojp.nationalrail.co.uk/servi...021113/1000/dep/021113/1700/dep?via=Guildford (three separate singles adding up to £14.90 if travelling via GLD). This suggests to me that it might not be valid to do the route via GLD on a BZ6 ticket. But is SUR-FNH is the right thing to be checking for the BZ6 ticket?

I know that with a travelcard+BZ6 ticket combination, I'm treated as if I'm doing one journey from London to my destination, and the train doesn't have to stop at a BZ6 station, unlike with normal split tickets. So might it be more reasonable to check the valid routes of Waterloo-FNH, instead of SUR-FNH? National Rail Enquiries tells me that the journey from Waterloo is the same price with and without the via GLD routing, suggesting that the via GLD is now a valid route.

So ... which routing does actually apply to the travelcard+BZ6 option? Can I travel via GLD on this ticket combination, or not? (And if I can, does anybody have any thoughts on how likely it is to be hassle-free?)

 

[maniacmartin]

With the through ticket, you can break your tube journey in central London, but you cannot resume on the tube. Thus you would need a separate ticket (or Oyster) for the 2nd leg of the tube on the return part. There's no need to get drawn into the mysteries of Boundary Zone tickets.

 

[tannedfrog]

The combination with boundary zone ticket is a few pounds cheaper though so I think it's worth looking at. (I think this is because the Cambridge to London weekend tickets are particularly inexpensive)

I think you can travel via Guildford with the boundary zone ticket because it takes the same route restrictions as the Cambridge to Farnham ticket

 

[Be3G]

The permitted routes for a combination of a travelcard and a boundary zone ticket are every route from every possible station within the travelcard area to the destination. So all the OP needs to do is find any station within London which has a permitted route to Farnham via Guildford, and the combination will be valid.

Incidentally, as a London resident, I often find that the combination of a zone 1–6 travelcard plus a boundary zone ticket to my destination is cheaper than a ticket from a named (local) station. So this isn't an unusual anomaly!

 

[soil]

The permitted routes for a combination of a travelcard and a boundary zone ticket are every route from every possible station within the travelcard area to the destination. So all the OP needs to do is find any station within London which has a permitted route to Farnham via Guildford, and the combination will be valid.

Actually the permitted routes are only from the boundary zone 6 stations (plus of course any route on any trains up to the boundary)

Will be the same thing in most cases of course.

But the upshot is that a BZ6 combination tends to be more flexible than the through return.

 

[John @ home]

the permitted routes are only from the boundary zone 6 stations (plus of course any route on any trains up to the boundary)

Do you have a source for this?

I have been advising forum members using the information in post #8 of the Routeing Guide and Boundary zone tickets thread.

 

[soil]

Do you have a source for this?

I have been advising forum members using the information in post #8 of the Routeing Guide and Boundary zone tickets thread.

From NRG Rules document:

"When a zonal fare applies to a journey, then the routeing guide only applies to that part of the journey which is not within the zones included in the fare. That part of the journey which is not subject to ENRG checking should be disregarded, and only that part of the journey which requires to be validated is subject to the above rules. For example, on a journey from Walsall to Stratford the zonal fare “WALSALL to ZONE U345* LONDN” may apply. The fare is zonal because the fare destination is a zonal destination.

A fare will be deemed to be a zonal fare if specific zonal data exists for that fare. The zonal data will indicate to which zonal system the fare location or route relates, and which zones within that zonal system are included in the fare location/route. Any stations which exist within a zone must have zonal data so that the zones to which the stations belong can be recognised. If the zonal data does not exist, then the fare should be validated as if it is a non-zonal fare.

If a zonal fare applies to a journey, then the part of the journey which is within the zones is not subject to the standard routeing guide checking.

Journeys wholly within a zonal system
If the journey is wholly within the permitted zones for a fare, i.e. both origin and destination are within the same zonal system and included in the permitted zones, then the journey is valid if all the pass/stop events on the journey are covered by the permitted zones. The permitted zones are those associated with the fare origin location or the fare destination location or the fare route.

If all the pass/stop events on the journey are not covered by the permitted zones, then the journey is invalid.

Journeys where the origin is outside the zonal system
For journeys which commence outside the zonal system, where the fare destination is zonal, the Rail part of the journey should be validated, up to the first relevant station inside the zonal system. The first station pass/stop event which is in one of the zones covered by the zonal fare is the relevant station. The part of the journey from the journey origin to this station should be validated using NRG rules. All other pass/stop events in the journey must be included in the zones covered by the zonal fare destination.

Journeys where the destination is outside the zonal system
For journeys which terminate outside the zonal system, where the fare origin is zonal, the Rail part of the journey is validated, from the last relevant station inside the zonal system to the destination. The last station pass/stop event which is in one of the zones covered by the zonal fare is the relevant station. The part of the journey from this station to the journey destination should be validated using NRG rules. All other pass/stop events in the journey must be included in the zones covered by the zonal fare origin.

Journeys where a ticket route is via the zonal system

Some fares have zonal routes such as ZONE R1256 LONDN. For journeys where there is a fare with a route of this type the following validation is required.

The part of the journey from the origin to the first pass/stop event station inside the zonal system must be validated.

The part of the journey from the last pass/stop event station inside the zonal system must be validated. Each of these journeys must be validated separately using the ticket type which is relevant for the overall journey. If both parts of the journey are valid, then the total journey is valid. No validation is required on the part of the journey which is within the zonal system, except to check that all pass/stop events are within the zones covered by the route description."

I think some of these rules are determined on the fly, so you can get different answers from different people because the Routeing Guide is insufficiently precise. But logically it makes sense to validate from the border rather than potentially having to validate dozens of different stations en route.

 

[arb]

From NRG Rules document:

"When a zonal fare applies to a journey, then the routeing guide only applies to that part of the journey which is not within the zones included in the fare.........

What's the "NRG Rules" document? I can't find that quote anywhere in the sections of the NRG available online. Still, it sounds official enough that I'm willing to believe it, which means I need Surbiton to Farnham to be valid via Guildford to do what I want, and I couldn't get National Rail Enquiries to show it as being valid.

But having got the routeing guide out, I decided to see what it said about Farnham to Surbiton (the first station I'd pass through in zone 6), and I think it actually should be valid to go via Guildford:

Farnham has Ash Vale, Guildford and Wokingham as routeing points; Surbiton is a routeing point itself.

Farnham to Surbiton anytime day single is £9.70.
Ash Vale to Surbiton is £8.70.
Guildford to Surbiton is £6.90.
Wokingham to Surbiton is £11.50.
So only Ash Vale and Guildford are valid routeing points according to the fares check.

So picking Guildford as the routeing point I want to use, I can travel on a direct route between Farnham and Guildford (which is what I want to do), and then any mapped route from Guildford to Surbiton. Ideally I'd want to travel via Woking, since it's much faster to get to my ultimate destination of Waterloo via this route.

Guildford to Surbiton is valid on map PU only, and this map shows I can indeed do Guildford to Surbiton via Woking and Weybridge, or also on a completely different line with no identifiable stations on it at all! (Which I assume is meant to be via Effingham Junction, having cross-referenced the routeing guide map with a real map?)

So it appears it should be valid, if only I could get National Rail Enquiries to actually show it as being valid (as stated in my first post, searching for a Surbiton to Farnham return via Guildford offers me a much higher fare than Surbiton to Farnham direct, and is actually made up of three singles rather than one return ticket).

 

[Be3G]

I haven't checked the NRE site or NRG, but I expect you could make it work if you went on a detour. You could quite legitimately want to travel from, say, Farnham to Sutton on your return leg with your ticket combination, which would make Ewell East the relevant station discussed in the NRG Rules document (which I hadn't heard of either!).

 

[John @ home]

it appears it [Farnham to Surbiton via Guildford] should be valid, if only I could get National Rail Enquiries to actually show it as being valid

Farnham to Surbiton via Guildford is indeed a Permitted Route. The reason NRE doesn't show it is that it is programmed always to send the passenger by the fastest route, obeying any routeing instruction, even if that's not where the passenger wants to go.

In this instance, journeys from Farnham to Surbiton via Guildford are routed with a walk from North Camp to Ash Vale, and for some obscure reason the booking engine thinks Farnham to Surbiton via Guildford, North Camp and Ash Vale is not a Permitted Route. Some journeys in the opposite direction are by rail from Aldershot to Ash and don't have this problem.

To overcome this, search on East Coast for Farnham to Surbiton avoiding Ash Vale. This generates valid itineraries via Guildford (without a walk between stations).

From NRG Rules document:

What's the "NRG Rules" document? I can't find that quote anywhere in the sections of the NRG available online.

I too would welcome instructions for accessing the NRG Rules document.

 

[arb]

To overcome this, search on East Coast for Farnham to Surbiton avoiding Ash Vale. This generates valid itineraries via Guildford (without a walk between stations).

Excellent, thanks for finding that. It also seems to work on National Rail Enquiries: http://ojp.nationalrail.co.uk/servi.../021113/0900/dep/021113/1700/dep?avd=Ash_Vale

So to summarise, the ticket combination of:

• Cambridge to London return + travelcard
• BZ6 to Farnham return

is valid for the following journeys, and I can use fast trains that don't have to stop at a BZ6 station (Surbiton) for the journeys marked with [#], because of condition 19a in the conditions of carriage:

Outward:

• Cambridge to Farnham direct [#]

Return:

• Farnham to Guildford
• Guildford to Waterloo [#]
• At least two tube journeys across London
• Kings Cross to Cambridge

Correct?

 

[soil]

I too would welcome instructions for accessing the NRG Rules document.

The spec here:

http://www.atoc.org/clientfiles/files/RSPS5002 sp0037_12.pdf

accessed here:

http://www.atoc.org/about-atoc/rail-settlement-plan/data-feeds/types-of-data/

reveals the existence of this document

" RJIS Datafeeds Interface Specification for Fares and Associated Data – sp0035.doc "

I obtained it by emailing ATOC and asking, they advised me:

"I took this up with the Fujitsu, who handle Datafeeds for us, and they have told me that the attached document should have been issued with the Routeing Guide Data. "

and attached said document.

 

[Be3G]

Correct?

Absolutely.

 

[soil]

For cross-London journeys it's typical that BZ6 tickets at each end, plus a z1-6 one-day travelcard (3 tickets in total), is the cheapest option.

It depends on the TOC. SWT overcharge for travelcard combinations generally. FCC's Cambridge travelcards are quite cheap so here you get away with just two tickets.

For something like Colchester - Farnham you'd probably find three tickets the cheapest option.

 

[maniacmartin]

SWT overcharge for travelcard combinations generally

Likewise for FGW in the Thames Valley. A Travelcard + BZ6 ticket can often be cheaper.