York to Northallerton routing discrepancies

[yorkie]

Normally, when travelling from York (YRK) to Thirsk (THI) or vice versa you would take the direct train. Doubling back can be the fastest route at certain times of day, but I don't think it's permitted.

However, every 6 weeks, engineering works mean that certain trains on Wednesday evening and Thursday morning don't call at THI. This also happens on certain weekends. THI calls are replaced with a bus which runs to/from Northallerton (NTR) (e.g. this bus).

Most booking engines - including Silverrail (NRE, also LNER and Chiltern I believe), On Track Retail (GTR/SE), Worldline MixingDeck (GWR/TPE etc.) and Raileasy/FastJP (TrainSplit)- are happy to sell tickets via Northallerton when this happens.

However, The Trainline (which also powers Northern/XC etc.) and Pico (Avanti/C2C) do not recognise this as a valid route. They suggest the last itinerary on a Wednesday evening to/from Thirsk is much earlier than it actually is, and that the first itinerary on a Thursday morning is much later.

Does anyone know why different booking sites are handling this in different ways?

 

[Paul Kelly]

Surely the non-rail leg is discarded from the end of the journey so the route being validated is York to Northallerton, which passes the routeing check trivially as it's a through train? The permitted routes from York to Thirsk are not relevant here, unless I'm missing something?

 

[Watershed]

Surely the non-rail leg is discarded from the end of the journey so the route being validated is York to Northallerton, which passes the routeing check trivially as it's a through train? The permitted routes from York to Thirsk are not relevant here, unless I'm missing something?

But discarding non-rail legs does not seem in line with what the Routeing Guide says? I can't see how going via Northallerton is a permitted route, in the absence of an easement.

It also seems odd that RRBs would be planned in such a way that passengers may or may not see them, depending on which booking site they use!

 

[JB_B]

Surely the non-rail leg is discarded from the end of the journey so the route being validated is York to Northallerton, which passes the routeing check trivially as it's a through train? The permitted routes from York to Thirsk are not relevant here, unless I'm missing something?

I knew that the bus miles would be disregarded. Are you saying that, because the bus leg is stripped from the journey, the effective destination in the journey to be tested for validity actually changes to the last point reached by rail? ( So even though the ticket held is York-Thirsk we test it as if it were York-Northallerton? )

 

[yorkie]

I knew that the bus miles would be disregarded. Are you saying that, because the bus leg is stripped from the journey, the effective destination in the journey to be tested for validity actually changes to the last point reached by rail? ( So even though the ticket held is York-Thirsk we test it as if it were York-Northallerton? )

That's correct yes.

 

[Paul Kelly]

Are you saying that, because the bus leg is stripped from the journey, the effective destination in the journey to be tested for validity actually changes to the last point reached by rail? ( So even though the ticket held is York-Thirsk we test it as if it were York-Northallerton? )

That's certainly my understanding. The instructions issued by RDG to journey planner developers say "Any non-rail legs can be stripped off from the start and end of the journey without checking that the locations on those legs are valid." which suggests that Thirsk doesn't come into the calculation at all (i.e. if you're not even required to check that it's a valid station, why would it feature in the routeing calculation?).

 

[yorkie]

Agreed

Trainline (actually their supplier, Hacon) and Pico (I don't know much about that) are wrong not to validate the journey via Northallerton when replacement buses are in operation.

 

[JB_B]

That's certainly my understanding. The instructions issued by RDG to journey planner developers say "Any non-rail legs can be stripped off from the start and end of the journey without checking that the locations on those legs are valid." which suggests that Thirsk doesn't come into the calculation at all (i.e. if you're not even required to check that it's a valid station, why would it feature in the routeing calculation?).

Thanks - I've learned something new.

 

[Wallsendmag]

Agreed

Trainline (actually their supplier, Hacon) and Pico (I don't know much about that) are wrong not to validate the journey via Northallerton when replacement buses are in operation.

Pico seems to have some strange "features" that I'm sure weren't part of their presentation that we saw.

 

[yorkie]

I wouldn't take anything Pico does as being gospel; it used to allow all sorts of invalid routes. I used to specifically book through the c2c website for this reason and I know others did too, but it then got a lot stricter so I abandoned it.

Hacon made some major bloopers when their Hafas system first took over Trainline's fares & routeing engine back in early 2018 (who can forget the common routeing point issue? that said, I can certainly see how they made that mistake, so I don't want to sound too critical!)

By necessity it is a complex system (and you cannot easily simplify it) and so mistakes will be made; it can happen to anyone, but some providers do seem to be more robust/accurate than others.

 

[mikeg]

I'm local to that route. The intention is indeed for Thirsk pax to double back via Northallerton on the replacement bus. This is indeed not normally permitted but usually recognised by most journey planners. Interesting to see why as they never add a temporary easement to the passenger readable routeing guide

 

[yorkie]

I'm local to that route. The intention is indeed for Thirsk pax to double back via Northallerton on the replacement bus. This is indeed not normally permitted but usually recognised by most journey planners. Interesting to see why as they never add a temporary easement to the passenger readable routeing guide

Where a rail replacement bus is involved, its usually the case that no easement is needed, especially if the bus is at the start or end of the journey.

It can become problematic if the bus in the middle or if the fare has a route restriction which precludes travel via the interchange point with the bus

Sometimes replacement buses allow additional unintended routeings and in this case a negative easement would be needed to prevent that