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West Byfleet (WBY) to Clapham Junction (CLJ)

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jneves

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Hi,

First time posting here, as this was the only place I could find with decent information on routeing (great job on that). My main question is whether West Byfleet to Clapham Junction via Woking is a permitted route for my usual commute ticket from West Byfleet to Shoreditch High Street not via London (out at 6:25, return from 4:10pm, 3 times a week). Going via Woking means getting to the office 15 minutes earlier when I miss the 6:25am.

I've tried to get to my own conclusion, but I'm afraid the doubleback rules have me confused. So this is what I have so far:
  1. It's not the shortest path.
  2. It's not under the 3 mile rule (West Byfleet to Woking is over 2 miles, so the route via Woking is over 4 miles more than the shortest path.
  3. Woking is an origin routeing point from WBY to CLJ (passes a fare check done manually and through the calculator on the Rail Delivery Group site).
  4. The journey planner in the National Rail site shows the same prices if I ask it for a ticket via Woking for this route.
So, the only thing that makes me think it would not be a permitted route is that it looks to me to be a doubleback. The train from Woking that I take doesn't stop at West Byfleet. Not sure if that's relevant or not. Also couldn't find a specific doubleback easement for this case.

Is the origin routeing point enough? Have I misunderstood what a doubleback is? Or how they prevent routes from being permitted?

Thanks in advance,
João
 
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yorkie

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Woking is an appropriate origin Routeing Point for West Byfleet to Clapham Junction

It's really as simple as that.

There is no blanket "no doubling back on the journey" rule; that's a myth. Each step is calculated separately.
 

pelli

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for my usual commute ticket from West Byfleet to Shoreditch High Street not via London

I'm not an expert, but in case your ticket is the West Byfleet (WBY) to Shoreditch High Street (SDC) Not via London (00700) Anytime Day Return for £21.50 or the equivalent 5% discounted Carnet Day Return rather than just WBY-CLJ, then surely the correct routeing point search should be for WBY to SDC rather than WBY to CLJ? Anyway, the Routeing Point Calculator seems to give Woking as a valid origin routeing point, so the conclusion should be the same.

Now the weird thing is that nationalrail.co.uk offers up your desired doubling back itinerary (WBY 06:33 - WOK 06.38, 06.43 - CLJ 07.02, 07.15 - SDC 07.50) for a straight search WBY-SDC without explicitly asking to go via WOK, but does not offer a through ticket to go with it, while for WBY-CLJ as you say it offers the £17.60 WBY-CLJ Not via London Anytime Day Return regardless of if you doubleback. Similarly, for WBY-WOK-SDC, trainsplit.com does not offer a through ticket but the more expensive combination of WBY-CLJ plus a separate CLJ-SDC. Do the journey planners know something we don't?
 

maniacmartin

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My understanding is that the ban on double-backs is only on the mapped part between the two appropriate routeing points. This part can double-back with the legs at each end to get to and from the appropriate routeing points though.
 

jneves

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Woking is an appropriate origin Routeing Point for West Byfleet to Clapham Junction

It's really as simple as that.

There is no blanket "no doubling back on the journey" rule; that's a myth. Each step is calculated separately.

That's great, so I misunderstood the instructions on page F4:

FINDING APPROPRIATE ROUTEING POINTS
Any routeing point can be used, provided it does not (...): cause doubling back (passing through the same station twice between origin and destination); make the journey double back through the origin or destination station unless the fare permits (for example Ealing Broadway to Swindon via London) (...)

Thank you very much.
 
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jneves

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Now the weird thing is that nationalrail.co.uk offers up your desired doublebacking itinerary (WBY 06:33 - WOK 06.38, 06.43 - CLJ 07.02, 07.15 - SDC 07.50) for a straight search WBY-SDC without explicitly asking to go via WOK, but does not offer a through ticket to go with it, while for WBY-CLJ as you say it offers the £17.60 WBY-CLJ Not via London Anytime Day Return regardless of if you doubleback. Similarly, for WBY-WOK-SDC, trainsplit.com does not offer a through ticket but the more expensive combination of WBY-CLJ plus a separate CLJ-SDC. Do the journey planners know something we don't?

I don't think so, I've found this kind of limitations before (from getting citymapper to show SDC-WBY as an option for my commute to SWR actually not showing a return trip on this route as possible during the December strike, at least at my normal return time). I suspect the calculation engine is either shared or at least reuses some optimizations that break when you join Overground and other rail services.
 

yorkie

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That's great, so I misunderstood the instructions on page F4:

FINDING APPROPRIATE ROUTEING POINTS
Any routeing point can be used, provided it does not (...): cause doubling back (passing through the same station twice between origin and destination); make the journey double back through the origin or destination station unless the fare permits (for example Ealing Broadway to Swindon via London) (...)

Thank you very much.
The wording of that is abysmal but the short answer is: the fare does 'permit' because Woking passes the fares check.

The instructions given to online booking systems differ to the public PDF document and are much more comprehensively worded (with one minor exception relating to the common routeing point rule).

This may be a one-off query for you but if you or anyone else reading this is interested in learning more about fares, including how to use the Routeing Guide, you are more than welcome to join us at a free Fares Workshop. Drinks & nibbles will be provided.
 

jneves

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The wording of that is abysmal but the short answer is: the fare does 'permit' because Woking passes the fares check.

Thank you very much for all the help and information. It took me a few years to decide to dig into this as the information provided to me by staff was between useless and contradictory. This saves me half an hour per day, which gets spent with my kids, so that's of great value to me.

I'm very tempted by the workshop as I'm curious to have a glimpse into what the real information looks like. Particularly after I started noticing the different between the several sites. Maybe we'll meet in one.

Thanks again,
João
 

yorkie

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Thank you very much for all the help and information. It took me a few years to decide to dig into this as the information provided to me by staff was between useless and contradictory. This saves me half an hour per day, which gets spent with my kids, so that's of great value to me.

I'm very tempted by the workshop as I'm curious to have a glimpse into what the real information looks like. Particularly after I started noticing the different between the several sites. Maybe we'll meet in one.

Thanks again,
João
You're welcome :)

The actual rules are quite complex and not many people really understand them fully. I suspect most who do are contributors to, or at least readers of, this forum.

Rail staff will generally be told that if the journey can be reproduced on an accredited journey planner as valid with one ticket, then it's a permitted route, i.e. let the computer figure it out. In 99% of cases it's as simple as that, but of course there are edge cases, which we can cover in the workshops :)
 

jneves

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Now the weird thing is that nationalrail.co.uk offers up your desired doublebacking itinerary (WBY 06:33 - WOK 06.38, 06.43 - CLJ 07.02, 07.15 - SDC 07.50) for a straight search WBY-SDC without explicitly asking to go via WOK, but does not offer a through ticket to go with it, while for WBY-CLJ as you say it offers the £17.60 WBY-CLJ Not via London Anytime Day Return regardless of if you doubleback. Similarly, for WBY-WOK-SDC, trainsplit.com does not offer a through ticket but the more expensive combination of WBY-CLJ plus a separate CLJ-SDC. Do the journey planners know something we don't?

I noticed the problem seems to be with the return. If you ask for an open return, national rail enquiries gives you the right results (with the very useful feature of "ticket also valid on"). SWR site gives the right results always now though (versus having the same issue last December during the strike, when I ended up buying all tickets as open return tickets). So I'm really curious if it's a wrong mapping or an algorithmic optimisation to reduce resources on the calculation (software developer here).
 
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jneves

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The actual rules are quite complex and not many people really understand them fully. I suspect most who do are contributors to, or at least readers of, this forum.

Been there. I'm a software developer that makes a living out of transforming law/contracts into systems where people don't have to know them (more recently tax, payroll - but used to launch a lot of small services that shared these characteristics). I recognise the SNAFU from these kind of situations: contracts/laws aren't known, the ones that exist are badly written, only a small bunch of people has actually digged into them enough to be able to see the mistakes and then they see them everywhere, professionals are told the functional minimum to do their job and end up accepting their set of rules of thumb as the real thing. Sometimes I just think that's the same with everything, it's just that we don't usually look at it with enough resolution. It's painful because it actually results in poorer service, less time and less money for a huge amount of clients.

Just as an example, in my particular case and after this last learning bit, my commute is now £400/year cheaper than it was when I moved here (served by West Byfleet, working around Shoreditch), more comfortable (1 to 2 changes, instead of 2 changes or train+bus) and with less time (about 70h/year). And all of this could have been supplied directly by the train company as the default.

Once again, thanks a lot,
João
 
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(software developer here)

Glad to hear it! Having worked around two teams who have developed routeing guide code (but not done it myself... yet) I don't think it's optimisations, except perhaps not considering every pair of possible origin and destination routeing points and using the quickest journey as a way to implicitly pick one instead. The rules about how to implement, which I don't think are public, are very detailed but not particularly problematic for performance.

For me it all depends upon whether you can pick Weybridge Group as a routeing point and then do a double-back via Woking before continuing the journey. The rules involve whether the fare from that far point are no more than the fare in question (they're not, it seems) and a few other things like no other double-backs along the way. If that's all OK, the journey is possible using maps SU+EL (although the Fujitsu planner, usually the reference for these things, thinks it's not).

Picking Woking as a routeing point, however, fixes the trouble at that end of the journey but disallows the Overground (IMO) as the only map sequence defined is 'via London' and the journey round the south doesn't visit any stations in the London routeing point group. The only way is therefore through London, allowed by the maps, and valid anyway as the shortest path.
 

JB_B

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For me it all depends upon whether you can pick Weybridge Group as a routeing point and then do a double-back via Woking before continuing the journey. The rules involve whether the fare from that far point are no more than the fare in question (they're not, it seems) and a few other things like no other double-backs along the way. If that's all OK, the journey is possible using maps SU+EL (although the Fujitsu planner, usually the reference for these things, thinks it's not).

Yes, Weybridge passes the fares-check as an origin routeing point for destination routeing point Surrey Quays but unfortunately I don't think that helps the OP make their West Byfleet-Woking-Clapham Junction-Shoreditch High Street journey because they'd be passing through the same stations twice on the mapped part of the journey (ie the portion between the origin and destination routeing points).


Picking Woking as a routeing point, however, fixes the trouble at that end of the journey but disallows the Overground (IMO) as the only map sequence defined is 'via London' and the journey round the south doesn't visit any stations in the London routeing point group. The only way is therefore through London, allowed by the maps, and valid anyway as the shortest path.

I suspect that you're correct: journey planners won't validate the journey using Woking as the origin routeing point because the journey doesn't pass through a London Routeing Point Group (G01) member. Using the maps listed in the yellow pages (LE , SU and WV+WX to London, HI+EL and SQ from London) the only routes traceable pass through G01.

There is a widely held view that a yellow pages LONDON entry means that the journey must pass through a London Group member but as far as I can see the public-facing routeing guide doesn't actually state this explicitly. Routeing Guide section F page 9 says that yellow pages LONDON should be interpreted as a placeholder for a further set of a permitted map combinations (ie the cartesian product of the to-London and from-London maps with malformed combinations deleted.) As far as I know journey planners don't implement the rule described on F9 but even if they did it wouldn't help the OP as the route isn't traceable on any of the additional combinations.
 

jneves

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Picking Woking as a routeing point, however, fixes the trouble at that end of the journey but disallows the Overground (IMO) as the only map sequence defined is 'via London' and the journey round the south doesn't visit any stations in the London routeing point group. The only way is therefore through London, allowed by the maps, and valid anyway as the shortest path.

My normal ticket to Shoreditch High Street is already "not via London Terminals". Not sure if that helps or confuses things more.
 

JB_B

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My normal ticket to Shoreditch High Street is already "not via London Terminals". Not sure if that helps or confuses things more.

As far as I can see only mapped routes from Woking to Surrey Quays go via London Group but your intended route doesn't reach any London Group member (and there isn't an intersecting point on the available maps where you could stop short on your to-London journey and continue starting long on your from-London journey). I think that means that neither the route:Not Via London nor the route:+Any Permitted tickets are valid.

What you want to do isn't at all unreasonable (particularly given that Woking passes the fares check) - it's just unfortunate that Woking-Surrey Quays doesn't have a map combination covering the route specified - e.g SU+EL - like Weybridge Group does. This may just be an oversight and it's possible that it could be changed in the future.

For journeys actually starting from Woking (the fares from Woking are the same) the lack of a mapped route via Clapham and the East London line isn't a problem because this route is within three miles of the shortest route by rail ( Unfortunately, that's no help if you start from West Byfleet and add 5+ miles heading back to Woking.)
 

jneves

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What you want to do isn't at all unreasonable (particularly given that Woking passes the fares check) - it's just unfortunate that Woking-Surrey Quays doesn't have a map combination covering the route specified - e.g SU+EL - like Weybridge Group does. This may just be an oversight and it's possible that it could be changed in the future.

Oh, I think you're wrongly assuming the via Woking option isn't permitted. SWR will sell me this same ticket with the same price if I explicitly ask it to be via Woking. National Rail's site tells me a ticket bought for the 6:25 train can also be used on the 6:33 via Woking with 2 changes route as long as I ask it for an open return. With that and the twitter's SWR thread that ended up with them "checking another system" and telling me that returning via Clapham Junction and via Woking I have a folder on my phone with enough screenshots to feel comfortable in dealing with an enforcement agent on this.
 
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I have a folder on my phone with enough screenshots to feel comfortable in dealing with an enforcement agent on this.
I would be surprised if anyone would complain, of course it shouldn't be down to this.

The Fujitsu journey planner doesn't allow via Woking at all. I often use this one to 'check my working' and I'll take it as conclusive, I think some other planners are wrong. I think it comes down to JB_B's point about whether via London requires a visit to the London group. The 'secret' instructions are clear that it does, while the public document is vague. This might be the cause of the difference of opinion. Still, it's an obviously reasonable route.
 

JB_B

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Oh, I think you're wrongly assuming the via Woking option isn't permitted. SWR will sell me this same ticket with the same price if I explicitly ask it to be via Woking. National Rail's site tells me a ticket bought for the 6:25 train can also be used on the 6:33 via Woking with 2 changes route as long as I ask it for an open return. With that and the twitter's SWR thread that ended up with them "checking another system" and telling me that returning via Clapham Junction and via Woking I have a folder on my phone with enough screenshots to feel comfortable in dealing with an enforcement agent on this.

Yes - I can see the SWR site is validating these journeys - e.g. offering the £11.30 Not London SDS for the 06.33 departure via Woking, Clapham then ELL.

Your journey is unequivocally valid if you get your ticket with an itinerary from the SWR site.

Most sites - including NRE ( http://ojp.nationalrail.co.uk/service/timesandfares/WBY/SDC/thu/0630/dep ) - won't allow this but there is a subset of retail sites that will validate this journey - e.g. SWR, GWR ( https://www.gwr.com/tickets/#/5684/1024/2020-02-13/D06:00/N/N/1/0/0/1/1/N/N/ ) - I suspect that the ones which do allow this share the same back end.
 

Paul Kelly

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For me it all depends upon whether you can pick Weybridge Group as a routeing point and then do a double-back via Woking before continuing the journey. The rules involve whether the fare from that far point are no more than the fare in question (they're not, it seems) and a few other things like no other double-backs along the way. If that's all OK, the journey is possible using maps SU+EL (although the Fujitsu planner, usually the reference for these things, thinks it's not).
Nice thinking! So you're talking about what I call the "Permitted Local Doubleback Rule", which is not publicly documented but does indeed seem to allow designating Weybridge as your origin routeing point, even though Woking is the first routeing point you would pass through.

But as I see it, the big problem with that is that it's selectively quoting from the unpublished rules, and another part of the unpublished rules explicitly says that the first routeing point on the journey that is associated with the origin is deemed the origin routeing point. So that must be Woking, if you're following the unpublished rules religiously.

And as JB_B says above, it seems really odd that Weybridge Group to Surrey Quays is mapped on SU+EL as well as LONDON, whereas Woking to Surrey Quays just has LONDON maps. That is really the core of the problem.
 
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