Can I choose the change point with AP tix?

[BigVince76]

Hi, I hope this makes sense!

I want to buy advance tickets from Exeter to Stoke-on-trent on a Sunday afternoon. At the time I want to travel there are no direct trains so I have to change. The XC website provides options with the change at Birmingham, however, the train up to Stoke goes through Bristol. Is there any way to 'force' the XC website to make the change at Bristol? Just splitting the tickets puts the price up a lot so that is not an option, are there any others?

Thanks for your help.

 

[John @ home]

Is there any way to 'force' the XC website to make the change at Bristol?

Different TOCs' booking engines appear to have different settings in some way, causing different changing points. For example, for this journey East Coast gives changes at Cheltenham Spa for the 1425, 1525 and 1625 departures from Exeter St Davids, while FGW gives changes at Birmingham New St.

I think it has been suggested in the past that if you book at a railway station the changing point may be specified. That facility does not appear to be available on the online booking sites.

 

[yorkie]

Some things to try:
1) Use a different website (WebTis is different to Thetrainline-bases sites)
2) Try specifying 'arrive by' instead of 'leave after'
3) Specify a via/avoid point that is not a timing point where the train you want to take/avoid calls at. (Won't work in this particular case)

 

[BigVince76]

Thanks for the suggestions, I wanted to use the XC website because of the seat selection feature. At least booking at a station I can use up some travel delay vouchers.

1) Use a different website (WebTis is different to Thetrainline-bases sites)

Can you give me examples of each, I am not sure what sites use which system.

Thanks

 

[mullin]

I'm wondering this too..A sunday service from Eus to Wigan via Bolton (via Manc is cheaper 99% of the time), however I usually swap at Manchester (Starbucks being a key reason), yet sites force me to swap at Stockport on Sundays,.despite the train carrying on to Manc....

 

[button_boxer]

Can you give me examples of each, I am not sure what sites use which system.

I know that East Coast and Southern are WebTIS, EMT and Virgin are trainline, not sure about the others off the top of my head.

 

[yorkie]

31 Jan Blackpool North (BPN) Selby (SBY) departing at 1229

www.tpexpress.co.uk (thetrainline based)
If I put "depart after 12:00" it tells me to change Hebden Bridge (1349-1421)
If I put "arrive before 16:00" it tells me to change Hebden Bridge (1349-1421)
If I specify "avoid Bramley (W Yorks)" it tells me to change at Leeds (1439-1515)

www.eastcoast.co.uk (WebTIS based)
If I put "depart after 12:00" it tells me to change Halifax (1402-1433)
If I put "arrive before 16:00" it tells me to change Halifax (1402-1433)
If I specify "avoid Bramley (W Yorks)" it tells me to change at Leeds (1439-1515)

Note that "depart after" and "arrive before" now give the same results; I am absolutely certain this did not used to be the case, so I believe the algorithm may have changed. I recall for one of the options on Thetrainline-based sites it had you changing at Micklefield.

Hebden Bridge is the earliest interchange point; Micklefield is the latest. Halifax and Leeds are among several stops in between. Bramley (W Yorks) is one of the few stations that the Blackpool - York service does not stop at, but the Manchester - Selby does, and is also not a timing point.

I'm certain I used to be able to get it to specify a change at Micklefield, but can no longer do so.

 

[laird]

I've often thought it would be a useful feature, both from a convenience viewpoint and from finding trains with advance availability.

The logic of choosing Cheltenham Spa over Birmingham or Bristol was understood at one stage with leaflets being published suggesting that rather than changing at Birmingham New Street other stations would provide better options.
Aimed at Crosss Country travellers Leamington Spa, Cheltenham Spa, Wolverhampton and Derby I think appeared on the list (possibly Stafford or Tamworth too).
I think the requirement was to have an on platform cafe, staffing etc so Banbury was probably missed off the list.

Today I wonder if could be used to allow advance ticket availability to be found on longer journeys, for example if advance availability was present on the Exeter to Cheltenham section but not between Cheltenham and Birmingham then the user could choose to change at Cheltenham to fill spare capacity on a following train which itself might have no availability between Bristol and Cheltenham.

Perhaps we enthusiasts could get together to develop a new front end to the booking system that would provide for the more advanced rail user that wants to have more control over the booking process and outcome?

 

[MCR247]

I've often thought it would be a useful feature, both from a convenience viewpoint and from finding trains with advance availability.

The logic of choosing Cheltenham Spa over Birmingham or Bristol was understood at one stage with leaflets being published suggesting that rather than changing at Birmingham New Street other stations would provide better options.
Aimed at Crosss Country travellers Leamington Spa, Cheltenham Spa, Wolverhampton and Derby I think appeared on the list (possibly Stafford or Tamworth too).
I think the requirement was to have an on platform cafe, staffing etc so Banbury was probably missed off the list.

Today I wonder if could be used to allow advance ticket availability to be found on longer journeys, for example if advance availability was present on the Exeter to Cheltenham section but not between Cheltenham and Birmingham then the user could choose to change at Cheltenham to fill spare capacity on a following train which itself might have no availability between Bristol and Cheltenham.

Perhaps we enthusiasts could get together to develop a new front end to the booking system that would provide for the more advanced rail user that wants to have more control over the booking process and outcome?

I think you might have slightly misunderstood, there is an advance for Exeter - Manchester. That is one advance for the whole journey, not Exter - BHM etc. All he wants to do is change at Bristol. Also did you say spare capacity?!?!

 

[Paul Kelly]

But surely the quotas for advance fares are based on how many seat reservations have been made on the individual trains that the journey will be made on, not on the number of advance fares sold between two stations? In this example the journey planner would tell you to take the earliest possible connection from Cheltenham to Birmingham, and if there was not much quota left on that train then would only offer you a higher fare for the whole journey. Whereas if the journey planner had flexibility to allow you to specify a longer connection time at Cheltenham, you could perhaps get a later train to Birmingham that had more quota available, and thus get access to a lower fare for the whole journey? I think that is what laird is saying anyway, though I have to admit I have no knowledge of how the quotas are implemented in the reservation system.

 

[MCR247]

I don't think so. There will x amount of APs for Exeter - Manchester and thats it. No adding up of inbetween APs

 

[Paul Kelly]

So are you suggesting that every CrossCountry train that could be used as part of an Exeter to Manchester journey has a certain quota of each tier of Exeter to Manchester advance fares that can be used on it? When you consider all the other possible pairs of stations that that train could possibly form part of a journey between, including "& CONNECTIONS" tickets, I think that would be very unwieldy.

I've had a little think about it and here is my suggestion for how the system might work: Every TOC that sets advance fares has a standard set of ticket type codes it uses for all its advance fares. E.g. for CrossCountry standard class advances these generally seem to be MAS, MBS, MCS, MDS, and MES in decreasing order of price. Now if XC takes care to always price these in the same order on every advance purchase flow it offers, then in the reservation system, for each combination of pairs of stations an individual train calls at, a quota only needs to be maintained of how many of each of these 5 ticket types are still available. As the same ticket type codes are used with the same relative order of prices for every flow, there is no need to keep track of how many tickets from an individual flow (e.g. Exeter to Manchester) have been sold.

This seems like it would be a very simple system to implement. It then wouldn't matter where you changed trains and what your ultimate origin and destination were; as long as each train you were booked onto still had quota of MES fares available then you'd be able to book the through ticket at that fare. If one train had only a more expensive MDS available, then you'd only be able to book that as a through fare even if the other one had some of the cheaper MES quota still left. I think that is what laird was getting at in his post anyway...

 

[MCR247]

So are you suggesting that every CrossCountry train that could be used as part of an Exeter to Manchester journey has a certain quota of each tier of Exeter to Manchester advance fares that can be used on it? When you consider all the other possible pairs of stations that that train could possibly form part of a journey between, including "& CONNECTIONS" tickets, I think that would be very unwieldy.

XC will have a quota of Exteter - Manchester tickets per train. They don't join Exeter - Cheltenham and Cheltenham - Manchester and stuff

 

[laird]

It would be difficult to be precise without some more detailed knowledge of how the quotas have been set.

What I was trying to get at - and perhaps not being very clear about is that I suspect there isn't a set number of Exeter to Manchester tickets available, instead the train is allocated a number of advance purchase seat opportunities. In that way if a passenger wants to book Taunton to Stockport they would take one of the allocation but only for that section of the journey. In which case the allocation would still be available Exeter to Taunton for a second passenger wanting to take advantage of it. But if there was only the one opportunity then a customer wanting Exeter to Manchester would be refused.

Indigo2's idea of being able to set a longer connection time does work in Europe as I've heard tales of people using it on the DB website to find cheaper tickets so it could be a useful function here.

I seem to recall one or other of the booking engines used to allow you to specify additional connection time, I've never tried using that function though to see if it would offer a lower price by putting me on a lower price advance ticket.


One other quirk I have noticed of late is that the quota for advance tickets must be separate from that of non-advance tickets. So it is sometimes possible to obtain a reservation if buying an advance ticket but the system will respond no seat reservations available if asking for a reservation alongside an off peak ticket. So far I've only seen this with Crosscountry but it perhaps appears elsewhere too?

I find there is spare capacity even on Crosscountry when you get off the core section around Birmingham.
A little like so many trains heading away from London near the origin the load is good but by the time you approach say Swansea the train is carrying around plenty of empty seats. This could be a way to market the excess capacity at the end of each route, it wouldn't have much impact if any on the core sections.

 

[Failed Unit]

I must admit I have the same issue that sometimes east coast specify Haymarket other times Edinburgh. Luckily the distance is short and asking the gaurd first normally means I can stay onto Haymarket to charge (if the train is due to use platforms 8 or 9 at Waverley)

 

[CompactDstrxion]

Possibly due to the connection time at Haymarket being less than Waverley, making a change only 'possible' there on occasion.

 

[Failed Unit]

Possibly due to the connection time at Haymarket being less than Waverley, making a change only 'possible' there on occasion.

Sometime that can be the case but to be honest on East Coast it is very rare as the trains normally sit in Waverley for a while. Waverley is 10 minutes and Haymarket is 5. However one example that does work is the 1400 London - Aberdeen if you are going to Stirling.

I must admit I prefer Haymarket as worse case you need to cross the bridge between 2 & 4. At Waverley it can take you nearly 5 minutes to get onto the bridge if your train arrives on 8 or 9 because of the conjestion, if you then have to get to 12 or 18 you are at risk of missing the connection.

On the East Coast website, if you search Falkirk - London with via Haymarket it does offer you changes at Haymarket where possible, even if you would have got the full 10 minutes at Waverley. Changing the requirement to via Edinburgh it offered changes at Waverley. Useful to know for future bookings!

The trouble with chosing between the 2, if you decide to get an earlier Scotrail train it is better to wait at Waverley in terms of comfort if you have a while, get a magazine snack whatever. Haymarket will always win for speed now they have the lifts, wasn't good with bags over the bridge.

 

[laird]

Maybe we could come up with a list of stations that would be particular focus for alternate locations, Haymarket is certainly one I've used too.

Ideally like the Cross Country leaflet I guess we would be looking for stations that offer easy connections, level changes would be optimum but I can see it being an advantage to include stations like Haymarket where they avoid complex stations while still providing some level of waiting facilities.
I suspect it might be best not to recommend the unmanned stations with little or no facilities, particularly if those with little or no PIS.

 

[Failed Unit]

I guess what we really want is fairly simple an option to specify where you want to change, in the same way as you have the avoid / via tab.

Didn't the qjump website offer this when it existed?

 

[ashworth]

I guess what we really want is fairly simple an option to specify where you want to change, in the same way as you have the avoid / via tab.

Didn't the qjump website offer this when it existed?

I can't remember qjump offering that choice but it did offer the chance to allow longer waits for connections. By opting for this choice it would sometimes bring up much cheaper fares on less busy trains and even AP tickets that didn't appear without this option.

On the subject of changing trains at less busy locations than Birmingham New Street. I have often found it very difficult when booking AP tickets from Nottingham to find journeys with a change of train at Derby. Birmingham or cheltenham seem to come to for most journeys to the southwest. Derby has always been the place where passengers from Nottm have changed and where I would change if I had the choice.

 

[yorkie]

There is some confusion here.

There certainly are quotas of AP availability, and someone can buy loads of e.g. York-Sheffield AP tickets and potentially prevent people buying through AP fares e.g. Penzance to Glasgow because of this!

Yes, specifying a different change point would be useful and allow you to avoid trains that have no quota, where applicable.

Stations can specify a change point for you. Other than that, you can try the WebTIS/Thetrainline sites and try via/avoid options, where appropriate.

Optimum change points will vary. For example it's OK saying Cheltenham is easier than Birmingham however it isn't clear at somewhere like Leeds or York; you could have a cross-platform change at Leeds but then one of the trains may go to platform 11, while the other is platform 4 at York. On another occasion the trains may be far apart at Leeds and then be cross-platform (e.g. 5 to 9) at York. Unless you have knowledge of the timetable, it is difficult to say which stations are going to be easy interchanges unless they only have a couple of platforms like Cheltenham.

 

[Failed Unit]

Optimum change points will vary. For example it's OK saying Cheltenham is easier than Birmingham however it isn't clear at somewhere like Leeds or York; you could have a cross-platform change at Leeds but then one of the trains may go to platform 11, while the other is platform 4 at York. On another occasion the trains may be far apart at Leeds and then be cross-platform (e.g. 5 to 9) at York. Unless you have knowledge of the timetable, it is difficult to say which stations are going to be easy interchanges unless they only have a couple of platforms like Cheltenham.

Darlington is a very good one as well, East Coast often pick that one. As you say small station.

 

[Paul Kelly]

A big problem seems to be the fact that the available fares are simply not taken into account as part of the journey planning. Lots of websites offer to find you the cheapest fare for your journey, but all they are really offering is the cheapest fare for the pre-planned journeys that the journey planner in its "wisdom" has prepared for you, using a black box algorithm that is kept secret. The available fares (and whether the route determined is valid according to the routeing guide) aren't taken into account in this black box algorithm - the available fares are only determined afterwards as an additional secondary processing stage. I'm sure there is a market for someone to devise a journey planner that takes fares and routeing into account as a key input into the main journey planning algorithm.

In fact there aren't even that many journey planners in the market. Jeppesen IPTIS seems to be behind all the Trainline-based sites and the National Rail Enquiries site. Presumably the WebTIS sites use an in-house ATOS Origin journey planner? I really have no idea though.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

someone can buy loads of e.g. York-Sheffield AP tickets and potentially prevent people buying through AP fares e.g. Penzance to Glasgow because of this!

That's really interesting - and suggests the system is even simpler than I suggested. I.e. rather than there being a quota for each tier of advance tickets between every possible combination of pairs of stations a particular train calls at, there is simply a quota for every adjacent pair of stations and a through journey is reserved as a string of station-to-station reservations. That makes a lot of sense...

Last year I booked a journey from Newcastle to Reading on CrossCountry for a friend and it was cheaper to buy as a string of six different tickets than one through advance fare. For the Sheffield to Derby stretch it was actually cheaper to buy an off-peak day single than an advance fare. So looking back on it I wonder if this was the "blocker" stretch that prevented cheap advance fares for the through journey from Newcastle to Reading being available. Hmmm.

 

[Failed Unit]

It is odd how it works however. Lets take the 1700 London Kings Cross - Edinburgh service, very few APs because it is a ticket from Kings Cross in the peak, however a lot of people get off at York. I am not sure if they have a quota from York - Edinburgh to resell the seats vacated from the London - York passengers, saying that they will probably have made the money on that seat anyway!

 

[laird]

The York example is a good one where this sort of system could benefit the train company, if they were able to specify AP avaialability North of York but remain leaving little or no availability Kings Cross to York then they might find additional passengers being drawn to use the service.
Admitedly there are probably few additional customers available at that time of night but I suspect if it was part of a wider move then as with the clockface timetable it would slowly grow demand throughout the day.
I presume ORCATS wouldn't apply to splitting the cost between providers where a single operator is specified so the share of income would be greater even if the fare paid is lower (passengers choosing low cost advance over off peak tickets).
The next question then becomes the compatibility of advance ticketing, some seem to be single operator specific but there could be an advantage at stations like York in enabling passengers to utilise (operator+connection) tickets thus a passenger arriving on cross country might switch to East Coast for the onward section.

Thinking about the data available to decide the optimum station to change it would have two functions, one would be to minimise cost - theoretically an easy algorithm.
With stations made easy giving the distances and facilities at each station platform) added to some of the online planners that list platforms a combined calculation could be done.
Something like if arrival/departure is from the same platform this is best option, then same island platform and so forth.
There would need to be a note warning potential users that while the algorithm has tried to offer the easiest connection platform changes can and do happen. The train companies journey care service can then still be switched in where the passsenger would normally have been assisted anyway.

I wonder if it might also have a positive impact at some stations where like Birmingham New Street there will currently be large numbers of assisted passengers requiring connection support, this would be shared with the surrounding stations lightening the load and supporting the continued staffing at the outlying stations.

 

[Greenback]

The problem with any system deciding where the ebst place to change is that it doesn;t take into account the personal preferences of the passenger. I think I would prefer to change at Cheltenham Spa than Birmingham New St in many cases, but sometimes it is more comfortable to while away some time at a large station with a godo choice of facilities than at a small station, even if it means having to cross to a different platform.

It's a bugbear of mine that Traveline journey planenrs often instruct you to change buses at some godforsaken crossroads and wait for ages in the middle of nowhere, when a few minutes extra wills ee you changing buses ina town centre with shops, cafes and warm places to wait!

 

[laird]

agreed Greenback, I was thinking it could be set up so that if you don't say "I want to change at" then the algorithm would run and put you on the optimised changeover location.

I guess the traveline system could be doing something similar, since it knows the distances between bus stops, does it see changing from one bus to another at a single bus stop as being optimum over a walk through a bus station or between bus stops in a town?
In Reading I've noticed traveline will sometimes recommend changing buses to get me closer to my destination even though the walk time from the logical disembarkation point would be almost invariably quicker than changing buses and certainly cheaper.

 

[ashworth]

Another problem with the booking system for AP tickets is with the 'via' and 'avoid' option as they will only let you enter one location.

I always used to be able to find cheap AP tickets readily available from Nottingham to Blackpool North changing at Derby and Leeds. Entering via Leeds (or via Hebden Bridge which sometimes brought up more journeys) always used to find these fares.
Since the introduction of the new direct Nottingham to Leeds service operated by Northern, I can no longer access these AP tickets via Derby and Leeds.
If you enter 'via Leeds' it only shows fares for the direct Nottingham-Leeds service (sometimes with a change at Chesterfield) and if you enter 'via Derby' it sends you via Crewe. It does not allow you to enter both via Derby and Leeds. Can these tickets be accessed if I went to the booking office at Nottingham or are the booking office staff also only able to access fares on the same computerised system as I can online at home?
I am told that these tickets via Derby and Leeds (XC + connections) will still be available but they can no longer be accessed because the system always comes up with the shortest journey times or the shortest by distance available at the requested times.

 

[Olympian]

I just wish that Deutsche Bahn's website would sell UK tickets, and not just give times, as their journey planner allows multiple via points to be specified, together with stopover times which effectively allows change points to be specified. You can also specify "means of transport" to do things like exclude local trains, and this also works for UK journeys. Much better than any UK TOC website!

 

[laird]

Yes multiple vias would help, sometimes I've managed to simulate it by picking an intermediate point even though the train isn't scheduled to call there.
Looking at the map I guess it might be able to do something like that for Blackpool Nottingham but having quickly looked at the map it would probably be difficult to fine one that takes in Leeds and Derby so then you are left with one via point and hoping that the train will be quicker over the via Leeds and Derby route before it would sell the ticket.
From the sounds of it two vias or more would help find even more low fares so should be on the wish list for the new booking engine!