Actually, what I have never found clear is what the comeback is if you have an AP ticket which is routed with a maltese cross (for tube transfer) or which is valid on light rail (for example T&W metro Sunderland - Newcastle) or a specific connecting bus?
Take for example:
You're on your way from Peterborough to Bristol, with your five year old son. It's a Sunday so the Circle line is closed for engineering works. You get to King's Cross, a few minutes late, get on the Victoria line, and get off at Oxford Circus. It's taken you a little longer than normal because your son seems insistent on stopping to look at everything and ask difficult questions, but that's OK, the journey planner allows 60 minutes for the transfer, and you've only used 20. You get to the Bakerloo platform. The indicator seems to have gone a bit haywire, but that's not that unusual. The platform is getting rather full. Eventually a train crawls into the platform, and you squeeze on. You're now 27 minutes into your transfer time. Driver comes on the PA: "I'm sorry Ladies and Gentlemen, this train is terminating here, and the line is suspended due to a signal failure at Edgeware Road". Collective groan and everyone squeezes off the train. It takes you a few minutes to get up the escalator, to find that your National Rail ticket won't operate the barriers, and have to queue for the now heavily inundated "assistance". About 40 people are trying to peer at the bus map, but eventually you discover that you need a 7, 23 or 159 from stop OQ, and make your way up to the bus stop with 200 other souls trying to go to that quarter of West London. 45 Minutes of your connection time have now passed. You couldn't get on the first three buses because they were too full. You tried to get on the fourth, but the driver said "you can't use that on a bus, mate" when examining the ticket, and stopped listening when you said the Bakerloo was off. When you tried to buy a ticket, the driver said "you've gotta get them from that machine" pointing at the pavement. The fifth bus let you on, but by now over an hour has elapsed since your scheduled arrival time at King's Cross. It takes 20 minutes on the bus to Paddington. By the time you get there, your Bristol train has passed Slough.
Now you can't plan for that, particularly because you have attempted to travel on the two trains for which you have a reservation. But it was not the "Railway's fault" that you were delayed, for the "service" was provided by TfL. How do you stand? If that was any other form of consumer contract, I would suggest regardless that the "railway" has outsourced their contract with you to a third party (TfL), they are still liable to deliver the contracted service despite the third party's failure to perform. From a railway perspective, would you agree with my assessment?
I would suggest that the same should apply to other light rail and bus connections where through tickets are purchased, would you also agree?
Finally, and this is the trickiest one, what happens if you are using the National Rail CoC Rule 19 (Combination of Tickets) with a PTE or TfL multimodal ticket which is valid on National Rail, AND the connection is shown in the NR Online Journey Planner (e.g. You are travelling from Sunderland to Edinburgh, and you use your existing PTE ticket to travel from Sunderland to Newcastle, which is shown in the Journey Planner as travelling on T&W Metro and changing at Newcastle). What if the Metro service fails? Do you have a comeback?
