SE High Speed services

mike57 · 6 Mar 2024

A simple one this: Is a one day travel card valid on SE High Speed services from St Pancras to Stratford? Arrival into KGX at about 09:10, plan is to go there first.

We are visiting London in a few weeks and SWMBO wants to visit a particular shop at Westfield Stratford. Journey time less than 10 mins, not going to be visiting any other shops there, so seems simple, just need to understand ticketing as we will then return to Central London and be visiting other places as well.

TIA

RailUK Forums

Haywain · 6 Mar 2024

Unless you are coming from a Southeastern station with a ticket specifically marked 'plus High Speed' or similar, a Travelcard is not valid on HS1. If, as your location suggests, you are coming from the north then definitely not.

James H · 6 Mar 2024

Thameslink to Farringdon then Elizabeth line to Stratford is an alternative for which you can definitely use your Travelcard

mike57 · 6 Mar 2024

OK thanks for the answers. I had a feeling they were not valid, thats why I asked. I looked at the TFL website and it isn't mentioned at all. I would be interested to see where its written down. To be honest we will just buy tickets and 'suck up' the cost, we are only visiting for the day so time is of the essence.

Haywain · 6 Mar 2024

The cheapest way will be to use contactless, at £4.90 each way per person.

Hadders · 6 Mar 2024

mike57 said:
OK thanks for the answers. I had a feeling they were not valid, thats why I asked. I looked at the TFL website and it isn't mentioned at all. I would be interested to see where its written down. To be honest we will just buy tickets and 'suck up' the cost, we are only visiting for the day so time is of the essence.

View attachment 153736

Stratford International High Speed station isn't in a fare zone which is why Travelcards aren't valid to/from that station.

Contactless and Oyster PAYG is accepted between St Pancras at Stratford International but special fares apply which don't count towards the daily or weekly caps.

mike57 · 6 Mar 2024

Hadders said:
Stratford International High Speed station isn't in a fare zone which is why Travelcards aren't valid to/from that station.

I did finally manage to find it on the TfL website, but its not easy to find.

Edit: also says Fridays are not in 'peak' times, likelyhood is will be on the 09:34 anyway, as I cant see us legging it from Kings Cross to SE platform in time for the 9.20 as we arrive at 09:14.

Hadders · 6 Mar 2024

There are 4 irregularly spaced trains an hour from St Pancras to Stratford International that take 7 minutes. Cost £4 single each way on contactless/Oyster or £9.90 return with a paper ticket.

Alternatively take Thameslink from St Pancras to Farringdon (4 mins around 12 trains an hour) and change to the Elizabeth Line (11 mins 8 trains an hour). Cost included in your Travelcard.

Depending on where you’re going afterwards you could do High Speed to Stratford International then National Rail/Underground/DLR from Stratford to wherever you’re going next.

Haywain · 6 Mar 2024

Hadders said:
Cost £4 single each way on contactless/Oyster

That's what BRFares says, but @MikeWh's site OysterFares.com, says it is £4.90.

mike57 · 6 Mar 2024

Hadders said:
£9.90 return with a paper ticket.

According to National Rail Enquiries that comes down to £6.50 with a rail card (or £5.30 for a single). Will definitely do HS out, we are both reaching that time of life we want the easiest journey, after a full day out my knee and my wifes back are usually hurting so we try and plan things to minimise standing, queueing, changes etc. Save our stamina for the good bits, may get Elizabeth line back to central London, it depends on plans.

MikeWh · 7 Mar 2024

Haywain said:
That's what BRFares says, but @MikeWh's site OysterFares.com, says it is £4.90.

DO NOT TRUST brfares.com FOR OYSTER OR CONTACTLESS FARES.

Adam Williams · 7 Mar 2024

MikeWh said:
DO NOT TRUST brfares.com FOR OYSTER OR CONTACTLESS FARES.

TfL and RDG really need to sort this complete mess of POP/PAP out. It's absolute madness that fares need to be manually entered, in an error-prone way, by Cubic into an entirely separate system and nobody has thought to put any work in to making this stuff interoperable and automatically synchronised. TfL are well aware that this has caused (and continues to cause) problems far beyond customer confusion.

POP/PAP are the only reasonable ways that retailers and e.g. NRE can surface PAYG fares for customer journeys.

Kenny G · 7 Mar 2024

Consider that Westfield Stratford is quite large and Stratford international may be farther from the shop your partner is headed for than Stratford station itself. Having said that the journey to Stratford International from St Pancras is quite fun in terms of feeling the acceleration. Nowadays I always use the cheaper option described above.

MikeWh · 7 Mar 2024

Adam Williams said:
TfL and RDG really need to sort this complete mess of POP/PAP out. It's absolute madness that fares need to be manually entered, in an error-prone way, by Cubic into an entirely separate system and nobody has thought to put any work in to making this stuff interoperable and automatically synchronised. TfL are well aware that this has caused (and continues to cause) problems far beyond customer confusion.

POP/PAP are the only reasonable ways that retailers and e.g. NRE can surface PAYG fares for customer journeys.

Do you know who is responsible for entering the data into the RDG database? Is it really Cubic?

If I, a one-man band, can write a fare finder using TfL's open data, it shouldn't be beyond the skill of someone at RDG.

Adam Williams · 7 Mar 2024

MikeWh said:
Do you know who is responsible for entering the data into the RDG database?

I wasn't suggesting Cubic enter data into PMS today! Clearly that doesn't happen.

MikeWh said:
Is it really Cubic?

I'm pretty sure it was Cubic responsible for this for TfL's system for Oval, yes - and last I checked, that involved National Rail stations. How's TfL's delivery of that project going?

MikeWh said:
If I, a one-man band, can write a fare finder using TfL's open data, it shouldn't be beyond the skill of someone at RDG.

Why is TfL considered the source of truth for this information at all? Particularly for stations outside the London zonal areas?

I genuinely think there was a missed opportunity here to have one accurate dataset which could support both PAYG and point-to-point fares across all of GB rail, which would allow for multimodal planning & fares calculations as well as e.g. app-based PAYG initiatives. Someone travelling from Leeds to Harrow should be able to use the retailer of their choice and get completely accurate information about how much that journey will cost them, and the services that they can use. They should have the confidence that the journey planner is suggesting the most cost-effective journey to them (whether that be a combination of a point-to-point ticket and contactless, or a Travelcard). They should not need to use a different organisation's own ad-infested "Single Fare Finder" tool.

ThameslinkUser · 7 Mar 2024

Adam Williams said:
Why is TfL considered the source of truth for this information at all? Particularly for stations outside the London zonal areas?

Because it is their database ??

Joe Paxton · 7 Mar 2024

Adam Williams said:
[...]
I genuinely think there was a missed opportunity here to have one accurate dataset which could support both PAYG and point-to-point fares across all of GB rail, which would allow for multimodal planning & fares calculations as well as e.g. app-based PAYG initiatives. [...]

Er, the rail industry is awash with missed opportunities of this sort over the past say 25/30 years. It can barely maintain accurate datasets (for fares and other passenger facing information) when it should... well in many cases it fails to do so. To a significant degree this is structural, down to the fragmented nature of the industry, but that doesn't excuse the failings or mean it's good enough for the travelling public.

I am not au fait with all the ins and outs of Project Oval and its delays, but I have to say I trust TfL to be a reasonable custodian of it a fair deal more than the potential omnishambles of some multi-TOC or RDG-(un)guided mishmash of outsourced suppliers. TfL have run the sprawling Oyster and contactless system across London pretty competently for many years now.

That's not to say that your dream is wrong-headed... far from it, such a thing would be fantastic - but perhaps we need to start building with smaller, more realistic dreams!

MikeWh · 8 Mar 2024

Let's be completely clear here. TfL's database runs the whole Oyster/contactless PAYG system. It has to be the master database for PAYG fares. The National Rail database (PMS?) is separate, and presumably run by RDG or a firm contracted by them, in the same way that Cubic run the TfL database.

Adam Williams said:
I'm pretty sure it was Cubic responsible for this for TfL's system for Oval, yes - and last I checked, that involved National Rail stations.

Cubic will have been responsible for entering the fares into TfLs system, yes. Do you know whether they were also given access to the NR database? Project Oval, along with the earlier contactless only stations, are entirely NR. TfL won the contract to provide the PAYG system, largely because they already had the infrastructure for their own Oyster system. You can't have two different companies each receiving touch data from the PAYG area, particularly as integration with the Underground and DLR was desired.

Adam Williams said:
Why is TfL considered the source of truth for this information at all? Particularly for stations outside the London zonal areas?

Because the charges made to peoples bank accounts all come from the one system.

plugwash · 8 Mar 2024

Adam Williams said:
Why is TfL considered the source of truth for this information at all? Particularly for stations outside the London zonal areas?

Because it's really not very practical to have multiple contactless pay as you go schemes operating on the same gatelines. TFL were the first to set up a pay as you go scheme and the first to add contactless support to it and the only feasible way to expand contactless PAYG in the south east was to expand the existing system.

So TFL run the system, their computers look at the touch data from the readers and gatelines, decide what journey you have made and what fare you should be charged for it, and presumablly how that revenue should be distributed among the participating operators.

Wallsendmag · 8 Mar 2024

plugwash said:
Because it's really not very practical to have multiple contactless pay as you go schemes operating on the same gatelines.

Currently but it's coming.

Mojo · 8 Mar 2024

I use ltfares.com instead for Oyster / CPC fares.

MikeWh · 8 Mar 2024

Unsurprisingly, I use oysterfares.com/fare-finder.

CyrusWuff · 8 Mar 2024

In summary: For everything pre-Oval, my understanding is that the "source of truth" is TfL's fares database (accessible via their Single Fare Finder, LTFares, Oyster Fares Central and their API.)

For the Oval area, that flips to being the rail industry fares database, with TfL taking a feed from that.

MikeWh · 8 Mar 2024

CyrusWuff said:
For the Oval area, that flips to being the rail industry fares database, with TfL taking a feed from that.

Interesting. Presumably the feed is used to populate the TfL database which is then used to charge people when touching in and out. Any idea how frequently the feed happens. And are there any plans to retrofit this for the other contactless extensions, esp Reading and the branches?

Adam Williams · 8 Mar 2024

CyrusWuff said:
For the Oval area, that flips to being the rail industry fares database, with TfL taking a feed from that.

It's entirely possible I'm wrong, but this wasn't the understanding I had (though I do think that's how it should work!)

Haywain · 8 Mar 2024

Adam Williams said:
It's entirely possible I'm wrong, but this wasn't the understanding I had (though I do think that's how it should work!)

I have to say that it doesn’t fit in with what I heard when I was on some calls about fare setting at the start of Project Oval.

CyrusWuff · 8 Mar 2024

Just relaying what I've gleaned from colleagues.

Doesn't mean that TfL will interpret the fares data correctly, of course, but eliminates the risk of transcription errors compared to TOCs submitting spreadsheets.

Benjwri · 8 Mar 2024

CyrusWuff said:
For the Oval area, that flips to being the rail industry fares database, with TfL taking a feed from that.

Given Project Oval is still being charged by the same system as, the rest of London, and therefore TfL, the TfL database remains the authoritative source, as that's what you will be charged?

CyrusWuff · 8 Mar 2024

Benjwri said:
Given Project Oval is still being charged by the same system as, the rest of London, and therefore TfL, the TfL database remains the authoritative source, as that's what you will be charged?

I think the point my colleague was making was that the Oval fares are coming directly out of the NR fares system and being imported into TfL's system, rather than involving manual processing. As such, both should give the same results (assuming the TfL system doesn't go rogue.)

As opposed to the situation inside London, where what appears in BRFares doesn't always reflect what TfL are actually charging.

thedbdiboy · 8 Mar 2024

MikeWh said:
Let's be completely clear here. TfL's database runs the whole Oyster/contactless PAYG system. It has to be the master database for PAYG fares. The National Rail database (PMS?) is separate, and presumably run by RDG or a firm contracted by them, in the same way that Cubic run the TfL database.

PMS is a contracted service. The big difference between TfL/Cubic and TOCs/PMS is that in the case of the former, Cubic are dealing with the fares for a single entity; whereas PMS is required to process and distribute fares input by multiple fare setting TOCs

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