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validity restriction code printed on ticket

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323235

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Had a text from a friend of mine yesterday telling me that he had purchased a ticket from Birmingham New Street and the restriction code BX was printed on the ticket. Having been unable to recall any previous reports of this or any definate plan to do this from ATOC or the TOCs, i was both surprised and pleased to hear of this welcome development.
 
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wintonian

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Had a text from a friend of mine yesterday telling me that he had purchased a ticket from Birmingham New Street and the restriction code BX was printed on the ticket. Having been unable to recall any previous reports of this or any definate plan to do this from ATOC or the TOCs, i was both surprised and pleased to hear of this welcome development.

This is part of ATOC or rather the DfT's plan for trying to sort some of the mess of Simplification out and was agreed upon sometime before last Autum.

Obviously this is something that we here have also been asking for.
 

yorkie

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Tickets bought at Stockport & Manchester Piccadilly recently have shown the restriction code, while tickets bought at York and Garforth have not.

So I suspect Virgin are among the first to implement this.
 

sonic2009

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I've had the same printed on my ticket as well, when obtaining zero-fare excess from Manchester Piccadilly and Birmingham New Street.

Surely with Virgin starting this, it will help the guards understand restrictions on certain types of ticket, yet confuse your average traveller.
 

transportphoto

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Yes, I've had this from a Southern TVM in Brighton that tickets dates back to 03 December, also most recently (and AFAIAA the only other occurrence) from Carlise (Virgin) ticket office last Wednesday.

However, on a slightly off topic note, if you ask a London Overground office for an Off - Peak tickets' restriction they'll say 'Only after 0930' in most cases, I have even asked them to look it up and they refused, even after pointing out the ticket I was buying from them was one originating at Norwich, nowhere near London! "SIMPLE" I do have to add a disclaimer, this is my personal experience of buying tickets from LO offices, other experiences may vary.

TP
 

yorkie

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However, on a slightly off topic note, if you ask a London Overground office for an Off - Peak tickets' restriction they'll say 'Only after 0930' in most cases, I have even asked them to look it up and they refused, even after pointing out the ticket I was buying from them was one originating at Norwich, nowhere near London! "SIMPLE" I do have to add a disclaimer, this is my personal experience of buying tickets from LO offices, other experiences may vary.
Then write to LO. If they do not agree to provide suitable training, then escalate the matter to Passenger Focus, and also report the matter for ATOC, who may be interested in arranging some mystery shopping at LO stations.
 

crosscity

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Had a text from a friend of mine yesterday telling me that he had purchased a ticket from Birmingham New Street and the restriction code BX was printed on the ticket. Having been unable to recall any previous reports of this or any definate plan to do this from ATOC or the TOCs, i was both surprised and pleased to hear of this welcome development.

This is a welcome development. I was going to create a post on this a few weeks ago, but never got round to it! From a customer perspective being able to see the official restriction can only be a boon. I suspect it will help railway staff too. I still haven't seen a ticket with one on yet. Will it be rolled to all TOCs? Or is it not mandatory?
 

GadgetMan

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Out of interest, now that the railway is doing something useful and printing the restriction on the ticket itself. How easy is it for the passenger to then look up the restrictions the code refers to?

As it would be pretty pointless to print the code on the ticket if there is no easily accessible source for the passenger to then refer to for the restrictions.
 

theblackwatch

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Out of interest, now that the railway is doing something useful and printing the restriction on the ticket itself. How easy is it for the passenger to then look up the restrictions the code refers to?

As it would be pretty pointless to print the code on the ticket if there is no easily accessible source for the passenger to then refer to for the restrictions.

A sensible approach would be to have a card/leaflet detailing the restriction codes, which could be put out in the leaflet racks in ticket offices/travel centres.


 

34D

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Out of interest, now that the railway is doing something useful and printing the restriction on the ticket itself. How easy is it for the passenger to then look up the restrictions the code refers to?

As it would be pretty pointless to print the code on the ticket if there is no easily accessible source for the passenger to then refer to for the restrictions.

Could anyone provide a picture of such a ticket? I'm curious to see how it is actually described. Definitely a good move though!
 

transportphoto

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Here we are, next to the word 'Validity' near the bottom right.

TP

I have removed some identifying information from the Manchester to Norwich ticket, hence the blur at the bottom :smile:
 

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yorkie

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A sensible approach would be to have a card/leaflet detailing the restriction codes, which could be put out in the leaflet racks in ticket offices/travel centres.
Indeed. However we are not allowed to have a free copy of the National Rail Timetable, as it's so large. I suspect that the same would apply here, and we'd be asked to pay for a printed copy, the excuse being that we can look it up online (despite not everyone having internet access) or ask at a station (despite some stations refusing to look them up) :roll:. An online copy can be found here: www.nationalrail.co.uk/pdfs/OffPeak.pdf (115 pages!:o)

And before anyone asks for them to be simplified, if that happened it would cause huge fare rises on routes that have lenient restriction codes, as you cannot trust the DfT, ATOC or the TOCs to ensure that people would not be penalised, they would certainly do the opposite and penalise people.
 

Brucey

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A sensible approach would be to have a card/leaflet detailing the restriction codes, which could be put out in the leaflet racks in ticket offices/travel centres.


A PDF of all the restrictions is available on the National Rail website. At 115 pages long, I don't think it would be practical to print these on cards for display at stations.

However, the ability to look up (and even print) the restriction by restriction code on a TVM could be useful.
 

hairyhandedfool

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Out of interest, now that the railway is doing something useful and printing the restriction on the ticket itself. How easy is it for the passenger to then look up the restrictions the code refers to?

As it would be pretty pointless to print the code on the ticket if there is no easily accessible source for the passenger to then refer to for the restrictions.

If you know where to look you can view them through the National Rail website, although, tbf, you can look up the restrictions in exactly the same way without knowing the restriction code.

Apparently 'The Manual' is to become viewable by the public, if they know where to look for it, and that would tell them also.
 

theblackwatch

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Indeed. However we are not allowed to have a free copy of the National Rail Timetable, as it's so large. I suspect that the same would apply here, and we'd be asked to pay for a printed copy, the excuse being that we can look it up online (despite not everyone having internet access) or ask at a station (despite some stations refusing to look them up) :roll:. An online copy can be found here: www.nationalrail.co.uk/pdfs/OffPeak.pdf (115 pages!:o)

And before anyone asks for them to be simplified, if that happened it would cause huge fare rises on routes that have lenient restriction codes, as you cannot trust the DfT, ATOC or the TOCs to ensure that people would not be penalised, they would certainly do the opposite and penalise people.

Surely this is simplified already (ATOC told us it had been a couple of years ago ...). How many pages long was it prior to 'Simplfication' of the fares system?

 

Brucey

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Surely this is simplified already (ATOC told us it had been a couple of years ago ...). How many pages long was it prior to 'Simplfication' of the fares system?


Roughly the same length IIRC. Simplification only changed the fare names. Few of the restrictions actually changed.
 

GadgetMan

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The number of codes could be reduced without affecting restrictions.

For example, we should make much wider use of the B codes which are simple to understand.

Do away with all the different codes which have an identical restriction.

So for example, Crosscountry's BX and 2V can both be done away with by replacing them with B1 (09:30).

Other TOCs use 2c (I think for 9am), well they could all be replaced with B3.

I appreciate different off peak ticket types have different break of journey restrictions, but these could all be made uniform to further simplify ticketing.
 

bnm

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Individual TOCs will want to retain control of restrictions on flows they price. If you start lumping together different TOCs restrictions just because the times currently match then when a change to times/wording is made by one TOC it will have to revert back to a separate code or all TOCs using that code will have to agree to a timing/wording change.

TOCs having the same restrictions is a nice idea in principle, but individual TOC's Fares and Pricing Managers won't want to give up their independence to set and change restrictions as suits the needs of their business.
 

emorris

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How about doing away with codes altogether, and just printing the validity for that particular ticket part? Yes, you would have to limit it to much simpler restrictions, but, for example, you could put "AFTER 0915" on the OUT portion and "NONE" on the RTN portion.
 

ainsworth74

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How about doing away with codes altogether, and just printing the validity for that particular ticket part? Yes, you would have to limit it to much simpler restrictions, but, for example, you could put "AFTER 0915" on the OUT portion and "NONE" on the RTN portion.

That would work for some tickets but by no means all (and probably not even most certainly not most long distance restriction codes), for example there's no way you could really simplify this restriction code (1D) enough to be included on a ticket:

OFF PEAK JOURNEYS TO/VIA
LONDON (including Stevenage,
Watford Junction, Milton
Keynes, Bedford & Luton)

Available as listed below
MONDAYS-FRIDAYS (By any train
on Bank Holidays and other
days).
For journeys to southern
England on Cross country via
Birmingham use restriction
code 2V.

Outward Travel SOUTHBOUND_-
by any train scheduled to
ARRIVE at or after:

LONDON TERMINALS (except as
shown below) Before 0430 and
at or after 1008.

LONDON LIVERPOOL STREET 1000

LONDON ST PANCRAS 1005

LONDON EUSTON Before 0720 or
at or after 1130

STEVENAGE Before 0400 and at
or after 0957.

LUTON 1005

LUTON AIRPORT PARKWAY 1005

BEDFORD 0930

WATFORD JUNCTION Before 0644
or at or after 1045

MILTON KEYNES CENTRAL Before
0639 or at or after 1048

Return Travel NORTHBOUND - by
any train scheduled to DEPART:

LONDON TERMINALS (except as
shown below)_At any time.

LONDON LIVERPOOL STREET
At or after 0930.

LONDON ST PANCRAS
Between 0901 and 1629
inclusive & at or after 1859.

LONDON EUSTON
Between 0926 and 1500
inclusive & at or after 1845.

LUTON
Between 0901 and 1629
inclusive & at or after 1859.

LUTON AIRPORT PARKWAY
Between 0901 and 1629
inclusive & at or after 1859.

BEDFORD
Between 0901 and 1629
inclusive & at or after 1859.

WATFORD JUNCTION
Between 0938 and 1438
inclusive & at or after 1838.

MILTON KEYNES CENTRAL
Between 0951 and 1514
inclusive & at or after 1914.


For all other stations please
refer to the appropriate
restriction.
 

emorris

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True, but if the passenger was going to Bedford, say, the only thing relevant is out: arrive after 0900 and return: depart 0901-1629 or after 1859.
 

hairyhandedfool

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So what about London to Edinburgh? or Manchester to Reading?

It is simply not feasible for railway tickets unless you severely restrict the use of routes for some tickets.
 
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SickyNicky

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It is simply not feasible for railway tickets unless you severely restriction the use of routes for some tickets.

Agreed.

There's nothing to stop them printing the existing PDF restriction details onto "pocket sized guides" that could be given away from ticket offices on request, though. On many routes (eg Birmingham to London) they have something similar already.

Well ... almost nothing except that the PDFs are oftennot very easy to read and understand.
 
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