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Distances between stations via track?

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Inselaffe

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I was wondering if someone could help me please. I'm interested in finding out how ATOC work out their pence per mile calculations and was wondering if it was based on distance between stations. If so, would that be on a 'normal' distance basis or strictly on how far the train travels along the track (so perhaps longer than road/crow flies etc.).

Is there a tool or a list somewhere please? I have tried google (and emailing ATOC - no reply) with little success.

Thanks in advance :)
 
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Eagle

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Track access charges are levied by Network Rail, not ATOC, being as it's Network Rail who own the track. And yes it is done by the length of the railway track (wouldn't make any sense to do it any other way, being as that's how far the trains travel).

Railway mileages are available in the full National Rail timetable, which is here.
 

Inselaffe

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Thanks. Since googling ppm brings up the most recent BBC article, which references ATOC as the source of their figures (which are also available on ATOC's website) they were the obvious place to start.
 

A60K

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Track access charges are levied by Network Rail, not ATOC, being as it's Network Rail who own the track. And yes it is done by the length of the railway track (wouldn't make any sense to do it any other way, being as that's how far the trains travel).

Railway mileages are available in the full National Rail timetable, which is here.
As this is the fares forum I'm wondering perhaps it's the ppm for tickets that's wanted.

If so the simple answer is that fares are market priced - meaning that it's not based on mileage, more on what the TOCs think the public are prepared to pay. This was introduced by British Rail a long while ago, so it's not an ATOC policy as such.

Many other countries do still price strictly by distance though.
 

Inselaffe

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The ones that were published on the BBC (and elsewhere - it was an ATOC press release) when the hike in regulated fares was announced around Christmas. I wondered how they calculated them - whether it was an average, a minimum/maximum and what tickets they used (were they just using season tickets, which would make it cheaper, or did they include other regulated fares).

BBC link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16390608

Just for curiosity's sake I wanted to compare those figures to some prices today - see how often the prices match with published PPM and just play around a bit with the figures. It just seems to me to be a bit misleading - you can take the figures at face value (which the reporter has done) but from what I've read it seems impossible to get a true PPM as so few of the non-season tickets are regulated.
 

yorkie

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Ah, in that case you'd need to ask the BBC to clarify if ATOC was the source of just the fares, and the BBC obtained the mileages separately, or if ATOC produced the figures used, or if the BBC asked ATOC both for the fares and the mileages and then came up with the price per mile.

The NRT figures are different to the actual (ie, sectional appendix) figures but the differences will be negligible. I suspect ATOC used the NRT mileage figures.

For London-Manchester, the costing assumes travel via Stoke. It would reduce by approximately 1 pence (when rounded; actually closer to 2 pence) if the Crewe route was used for the mileage. Of course you could get more 'value' if you want more miles for your money by going from Paddington via Reading!
 

Eagle

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The NRT figures are different to the actual (ie, sectional appendix) figures but the differences will be negligible. I suspect ATOC used the NRT mileage figures.

NRT mileages in any given timetable will usually be within half a mile of the exact value. (Obviously if you're adding up mileages from several columns or several tables errors will accumulate.)

Another thing I noticed in the BBC article is that season tickets were calculated on the basis of 10 journeys per week—whereas technically the tickets allow an indefinite number of journeys (only limited by the physical number of times you can travel along a line given the timetable, which in some cases could be 100 or more a day).
 

wintonian

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Rail fares calculated by PPM? How old fashioned and I can't see it working myself, we wouldn't want ATOC accused of patronising customers by making things too easy to understand.

Furthermore it is a ridiculous concept to think that you might be sitting next to someone on a train who has paid more than you for a longer journey. ;)
 
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