Updated National Rail Conditions of Travel (NRCoT) - Effective from 6th February 2022

[Bletchleyite]

Not just the grammar, but the formatting of sub-clauses as bullet points.

Perhaps I'm unduly cynical to think that 30.1 has been written in a deliberately messy way, intentionally to remove the right to a fee-free refund in the event an intended itinerary is changed between the purchase of a ticket and the day of travel. In due course, when customers are faced with changed schedules, choose not to travel and submit their unused tickets for refund, it will become apparent how individual retailers will apply the new conditions and whether any will take advantage of the "messy grammar", as you put it, to deduct an admin fee.

Or in the case of an Advance refuse the refund entirely.

 

[Jason12]

Or in the case of an Advance refuse the refund entirely.

If my cynical interpretation of 30.1 was to be the one adopted by the retailer, the only options would be to travel on the designated alternative or rescheduled service(s) or forfeit the fare paid.

 

[tspaul26]

If my cynical interpretation of 30.1 was to be the one adopted by the retailer, the only options would be to travel on the designated alternative or rescheduled service(s) or forfeit the fare paid.

I do not share this interpretation. My view is that the most likely interpretation of this condition (were the matter to come up for formal determination by a court) is that, if your train is rescheduled compared to that shown in the timetable for the day on which you planned to travel which was published at the time you purchased the ticket, you would be entitled to a fee-free refund.

 

[robbeech]

I have what choice exactly? To refund my ticket and be stranded hundreds of miles from home with no accommodation, or clean clothes to wear. To return a day early, oops to late for that. To return home a day (or several days) later when the TOC deigns to provide a service?

Essentially they are your options unless they railway goes “above and beyond” to the level which was ‘normal’ before. But yes. Please use the railway.

If the traveller is using a return ticket there is more of an argument that the ticket is "being used" or the journey has begun than if he or she is using two single tickets.

Yet another reason why the railway would benefit from single leg pricing and the passenger would suffer. It’s staggering that so many people are STILL in favour of it when it’s blatantly obvious it is always implemented in a which that strips further rights from passengers.

And if the DfT and RDG had stopped for even a moment to consider a public consultation, I'm sure issues like this would have been pointed out to them.

Which is EXACTLY why they didn’t consult the public.

'we will rely on the good sense of the railway staff involved to cope with this unusual state of affairs' is what I would undoubtedly encounter in practice, but cannot be guaranteed or insisted upon contractually.

I think as time moves on you were already less and less likely to see this in practise and the new rules come across to everyone as ‘more strict/restrictive’ so staff are likely to tighten up by half a turn to what they otherwise would have been.

That is much more connected to 2 years of being told to avoid public transport than anything else.

I’m yet to see anything that is encouraging people back to the railway.

NRCOT n.28.2 already deals with this

But we have already had knowledgeable people in this thread saying that is doesn’t.

For instance, the bridge issue near Carlisle of a few years ago

But these issues don’t really cost that much. Most people don’t claim (as others go on to say), many people who do claim will have been told no by operators enforcing this new rule YEARS before it was a rule (proving beyond all reasonable doubt that the operators drive the DfT when it comes to this sort of thing)

Why would you buy walk up tickets the day before anyway? Surely the term walk up means just that.

Seat reservations, ability to get on your first train at an unstaffed station with no TOD facilities and not have to buy from the guard, lack of impartiality from some retailers (be that against the rules or not, it doesn’t matter it’s the railway) meaning you can’t buy the ticket you want, TVM not accepting AMEX despite them telling you they do, lack of understanding and knowledge of the ticketing system where people don’t know anything about tickets so have no idea that the price they see for an SVR won’t go up over night, passenger choice. Quite a few reasons all in all I guess.

(were the matter to come up for formal determination by a court)

But who will let it get that far? The customer hasn’t got a clue who’s right and wrong, so they’ll just bow down to the railway. If a guard went through a train at 1715 on a Thursday and told everyone with a valid off peak ticket that they needed an anytime and issued them an excess less than 10% would take matters further (though lots might complain initially).

 

[py_megapixel]

Yet another reason why the railway would benefit from single leg pricing and the passenger would suffer. It’s staggering that so many people are STILL in favour of it when it’s blatantly obvious it is always implemented in a which that strips further rights from passengers.

Effectively paying twice for a journey because it is triangular/circular rather than out-and-back, or because you don't wish to end at the same place you started, is quite passenger unfriendly as well.

 

[Tom]

That's an interesting point. I don't think I agree, but you saying it has made me realise it's open to interpretation! I had just automatically assumed that what is meant by PTOD is the nightly schedule data as issued by Network Rail and post-processed by RDG, before finally being published for use by retail journey planners in the RDG Data Transformation and Distribution system. Does the journey planner data used by NRE include VSTP additions? That is new to me if so, but I admit I am not certain. I think it would at least reduce arguments if someone "in the know" was able to clarify what was meant, although I acknowledge the contractual position will still be unclear as it's not defined clearly in the NRCoT. One point I would note is that the defintion ... snip ... does not actually say the data will be available on NRE at 22:00 the day before, just that it will be published before then! As you noted most journey planners do not reload until much later than this - indeed the PMS fares data can be incorrect if it is loaded before midnight, so most systems would probably need changes to load the new timetable data along with fares data from the day before.

The journey planner on NRE is meant to include "VSTP alterations and additions" into Darwin. It does not include those alterations entered into the Network Rail side because for <insert about sixty million reasons I think are mostly nonsense because no-one wants to deal with them> they don't flow down to Darwin. They should in theory match for train services, but not for road transport or shipping services. AIUI, journey planners on TIS are meant to (but frequently don't) include those schedule alterations. You and others will know better than me on the retail side.

If you mean that it is not published on DTD before 10pm on those cases, my reading of it is that delay repay claims would then be based on the out-of-data data from the day before, i.e. that most recently published before 10pm (more than 24 hours before in this case).

I don't really know how DTD works and have never really taken a huge interest in retail but I am led to believe that Darwin can ingest more than one CIF at multiple times and on an ad-hoc basis, it apparently doesn't cause issues with timetable consistency. The idea is that it has the fastest picture and then other systems can catch up when it appears in the NR CIF. Does Darwin run off the DTD processed CIF or the NR CIF? That's a fairly key question.

I think I agree with you that it should be based on the timetable that is present on NRE as at 10pm, so it'll be before the Darwin 2am (and presumably OJP at a similar time) reload for anything changed in the CIF. I would assume that NREs OJP still uses IPTIS as its core and I don't think that reloads before midnight either. Given the nature of this change being aimed straight at delay repay to some degree... given the way most of the delay repay validation systems work I think in reality delay repay claims will be evaluated based on what should have been there at 10pm. There is no way that anyone is going to spend the effort taking the time to work out at what point NRE has reloaded and what it contains at the given time.

I suspect the time for PTOD comes from the time at which TOCs and NR agree to the final timetable plan which I thought was 8pm (but equally it might be 10pm). The key factor here is that they agree to the timetable plan, it isn't published by this point on the operational side. The extra two hours might be to provide wiggle room to enter the additions and alterations into the appropriate systems. This entire process is a key part of the performance regime that train services are evaluated against for Right Time (and previously PPM). The giveaway whether a train should be part of the plan is whether the Applicable Timetable Service flag on the schedule is set to Y - this sits throughout Network Rail's side and I think is a parameter in Darwin schedules as well, but I haven't looked at that in some time.

 

[robbeech]

Effectively paying twice for a journey because it is triangular/circular rather than out-and-back, or because you don't wish to end at the same place you started, is quite passenger unfriendly as well.

Indeed. I’m not against the concept of it on that respect, but I am against using it as a way to remove passengers rights. By all means have half price singles but keep the returns too or match the same rights a customer has with a return for 2 singles.

 

[Skymonster]

.. given the way most of the delay repay validation systems work I think in reality delay repay claims will be evaluated based on what should have been there at 10pm. There is no way that anyone is going to spend the effort taking the time to work out at what point NRE has reloaded and what it contains at the given time.

I suspect the time for PTOD comes from the time at which TOCs and NR agree to the final timetable plan

It is irrelevant from a passenger point of view. The NRCoT is a customer-facing document, not an internal set of rules. It matters not a jot what problems or delays the industry faces trying to get the Timetable of the Day into the public domain, and at what time doing so is or is not possible from a systems point of view. For better or worse there is now a clearly documented watershed, and if a change isn’t exposed to customers by 22:00 the industry is liable to delay repay. I for one (and any other well-informed travellers) will be taking screen shots from NRE at 22:00 the day before I intend to travel, and if the industry removes trains after that time - even if it is at 22:01 - it will get a delay repay claim that I will energetically pursue as far as is possible.

 

[tspaul26]

But we have already had knowledgeable people in this thread saying that is doesn’t.

And I am a knowledgeable person who says that it does.

So there we have it. The only way to know for certain is for someone to bring a test case which any TOC would almost certainly be well-advised to settle before it reaches trial.

But who will let it get that far? The customer hasn’t got a clue who’s right and wrong, so they’ll just bow down to the railway. If a guard went through a train at 1715 on a Thursday and told everyone with a valid off peak ticket that they needed an anytime and issued them an excess less than 10% would take matters further (though lots might complain initially).

Who indeed, but that applies across the board: not just to this particular matter or, indeed, in the rail industry.

 

[py_megapixel]

Indeed. I’m not against the concept of it on that respect, but I am against using it as a way to remove passengers rights. By all means have half price singles but keep the returns too or match the same rights a customer has with a return for 2 singles.

Yes, I would agree with that.

 

[Paul Kelly]

The journey planner on NRE is meant to include "VSTP alterations and additions" into Darwin.

I really need to stand corrected here; you are right and I had no idea NRE could do this. It is a bit clunky about it; you first get some results saying (for example) the itinerary is cancelled and you need to click another link to redo the journey search using real time data. I wonder does this mean this secondary search is not IPTIS and is running on a different system.

I've just done a quick survey of a few sites as I was fascinated by this. The journey I searched for was Ilkley (ILK) to New Pudsey (NPD), departing after 22:00 this evening. There are four options for this:

• dep 22:10 arr 23:06
  Normally the fastest but not possible tonight as the 22:57 from Leeds to NPD is cancelled
• dep 22:10 arr 23:39
  The next best and most optimal option this evening. Shown by NRE with some fuss and an extra click and page load, and by Worldline WebTIS (GWR) with no fuss at all
• dep 22:51 arr 00:02
  Normally the next viable itinerary after the first one, but not the most optimal for someone ready to depart ILK at 22:00. Shown by OnTrackRetail (Southern), Silverrail (Chiltern, Railsmartr - erroneously shown as sold out rather than cancelled), IBM Pico (c2c) and FastJP (TrainSplit).
• Nothing at all
  A really daft and pointless option, shown by Trainline

Some screenshots from my research below:

NRE showing the two stages with an extra click



Worldline (GWR), seamlessly showing the next most optional and hiding the original cancelled journey)



OTR (Southern), Silverrail (Chiltern, Railsmartr?), IBM Pico (c2c), FastJP (TrainSplit): Showing the original as cancelled and offering the next normally viable itinerary instead




Trainline, showing no journeys possible until tomorrow morning!

 

[robbeech]

One things for sure, it’s astonishing (though unsurprising) how Trainline can offer any couple of quid ticket via a 400 mile diversion 1 week and not find simple trains in the timetable the next.

 

[Mainline421]

If my cynical interpretation of 30.1 was to be the one adopted by the retailer, the only options would be to travel on the designated alternative or rescheduled service(s) or forfeit the fare paid.

Don't forget CIV applies to domestic travel now too, so if the advertised service doesn't run you are entitled to not travel and claim a full refund. There's also 20% compensation for a 2 hour+ delay if I recall correctly. Not applicable per post #348

 

[_toommm_]

One things for sure, it’s astonishing (though unsurprising) how Trainline can offer any couple of quid ticket via a 400 mile diversion 1 week and not find simple trains in the timetable the next.

For a period of about a week in 2019, TheTrainLine let me buy a single from Manchester Piccadilly to Manchester Airport via Penzance for the low price of four-ish squids.

 

[Jason12]

Don't forget CIV applies to domestic travel now too, so if the advertised service doesn't run you are entitled to not travel and claim a full refund.

That's all very well, but when is a service "advertised"?

 

[Haywain]

Don't forget CIV applies to domestic travel now too,

Where do you get that idea from?

 

[Mainline421]

Where do you get that idea from?

It's printed on the back of every ticket. (image shows "Issued subject to CIV and the National Rail Conditions of travel...")

 

[skyhigh]

It's printed on the back of every ticket. (image shows "Issued subject to CIV and the National Rail Conditions of travel...")

You are reading way too much into that. It simply means 'issued subject to CIV if it applies'. Travel within the UK does not come under CIV.

The first paragraph of the document says:

This Convention shall apply, subject to the exceptions set forth in the following paragraphs, to the carriage of passengers and luggage* under international carriage documents over the territories of at least two of the Contracting States and exclusively over lines included in the list compiled in accordance with Article 59 of this Convention.

https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%201101/volume-1101-I-16898-English.pdf

 

[Mainline421]

You are reading way too much into that. It simply means 'issued subject to CIV if it applies'. Travel within the UK does not come under CIV.

The first paragraph of the document says:

https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%201101/volume-1101-I-16898-English.pdf

Fair point, that would make the rest of the document irrelevant except for SailRail, Eurostar etc (possibly Anglo-Scottish journeys in a few years ). I'd still be doubtful the rail industry could sell a ticket for a service, not provide it, and refuse a full refund legally. Especially with the push by some to get pax to commit to a specific service.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I found something interesting related to the PToD this weekend when checking a train for a friend.

This train:

Realtime Trains | 1343 Swansea to Manchester Piccadilly | 13/02/2022

Real-time train running information for 1343 departure from Swansea to Manchester Piccadilly on 13/02/2022. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

...was part cancelled due to a planned cancellation (PG).

I then Googled PG and found here:

Delay Attribution Guide - Open Rail Data Wiki

wiki.openraildata.com

PG

Planned cancellation where that cancellation isidentified and agreed prior to 22.00 the day before the schedule runs

PLAND CAPE

So, is this how it would be dealt with - a "PG" cancellation would mean no Delay Repay, but another code would mean it being paid?

Unofficial sources I know, but I can definitely smell whatever fish might have been being landed at Haverfordwest that day.

 

[Haywain]

I found something interesting related to the PToD this weekend when checking a train for a friend.

This train:

Realtime Trains | 1343 Swansea to Manchester Piccadilly | 13/02/2022

Real-time train running information for 1343 departure from Swansea to Manchester Piccadilly on 13/02/2022. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

...was part cancelled due to a planned cancellation (PG).

I then Googled PG and found here:

Delay Attribution Guide - Open Rail Data Wiki

wiki.openraildata.com

PG

Planned cancellation where that cancellation isidentified and agreed prior to 22.00 the day before the schedule runs

PLAND CAPE

So, is this how it would be dealt with - a "PG" cancellation would mean no Delay Repay, but another code would mean it being paid?

Unofficial sources I know, but I can definitely smell whatever fish might have been being landed at Haverfordwest that day.

Delay attribution is not related to Delay Repay.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Delay attribution is not related to Delay Repay.

Is there a different mechanism that would be used to identify it being a planned removal from the timetable rather than an ad hoc cancellation, then?

 

[87015]

Is there a different mechanism that would be used to identify it being a planned removal from the timetable rather than an ad hoc cancellation, then?

PD is planned proper via train planning, PG is (effectively) control cancellation the day before. Neither count as a train in the 'timetable of the day' towards performance figures so would presume won't count for delay repay either.

 

[Tom]

PG is (effectively) control cancellation the day before. Neither count as a train in the 'timetable of the day' towards performance figures so would presume won't count for delay repay either.

I agree a PG cancellation means it is not in the 'timetable of the day'. But is it still in the advertised timetable of the day if it is still on NRE at 10pm?

It is irrelevant from a passenger point of view. The NRCoT is a customer-facing document, not an internal set of rules. It matters not a jot what problems or delays the industry faces trying to get the Timetable of the Day into the public domain, and at what time doing so is or is not possible from a systems point of view.

I entirely agree with you. I was merely stating the reality of the mechanisms underneath it.

 

[Paul Kelly]

PD is planned proper via train planning, PG is (effectively) control cancellation the day before. Neither count as a train in the 'timetable of the day' towards performance figures so would presume won't count for delay repay either.

I don't see why "timetable of the day" for performance figures should be the same as the "published timetable of the day". Maybe I am reading too much into it but I saw significance in the word "published" (in the sense of the dictionary definition "to be made generally known"), and combining that with the retail context of the NRCoT, and took that to mean the scheduled data that was published to retailers each evening.

 

[TheManOnThe172]

I made a formal complaint to National Rail that they were not providing the "Published Timetable of the Day" (PTD) that is specified in 30.1 in the new NRCoT applying from 6th February. They have now responded:

I would like to clarify that the snapshot of the timetable remains static on all journey planner results made after 22:00 the night before travel. If the Published Timetable of the Day (PTD) changes, it is updated as an amendment or a cancellation in the journey planner. The PTD will be available in the journey planner from 22:00 the night before, all the way up until the end of service for that day.

I would like to explain this further through the following scenario:

• A customer visits our journey planner or visits a ticket office on Monday to purchase a ticket to travel from station A to station C (assuming that this journey takes an hour to complete), which departs at 15:00 and arrives at 16:00 on Thursday.

• In this scenario, if the train operator of the 15:00 service cannot run the service and has to run it at 15:30 instead, they must confirm this change in the timetable and make it available by 22:00 on Wednesday. Once this change is reflected on our journey planner at 22:00 on Wednesday, this will make it the scheduled service. This means that the 15:00 service has now become the 15:30 service in the PTD for Thursday.

• If the (current) 15:30 service does not experience any delays on route and arrives at 16:30, then this will not be regarded as a 30 minute delay, and therefore, the customer will not be able to claim compensation.

• However, if the (current) 15:30 service does experience delays on route and arrives at 17:00, then this will be regarded as a 30 minute delay instead of a 60 minute delay. In this case, the customer can claim for compensation for the 30 minute delay on the route.

• If the train operator of the 15:00 service decides to run the same service at 15:30 and fails to make it available on the timetable by 22:00 on Wednesday, then the 15:00 service will remain as the scheduled service on the PTD for Thursday and will show a 30 minute delay to its start time.

• I would also like to advise you that the condition 30.1 in the NRCoT allows the customer to obtain a full refund on their ticket if they no longer wish to travel from A to C on the 15:30 service. However, it is permissible to travel on the 15:30 service if they decide to do so.

Furthermore, I agree that customers will use the PTD as a reference point to check if they are eligible for Delay Repay, and therefore, I can confirm that they can do so by searching for their journey in the journey planner.


Does this make sense?

Is the National Rail Journey Planner really frozen from 2200 the night before service, so that later changes aren't possible after that?

Am I right in understanding them to admit that the PTD will disappear at the end of the day of travel? That would appear to oblige passengers wanting to be sure they are give the right amount of Delay Repay to access and screenshot the NR Journey Planner version of their itinerary before the end of the day, which could be particularly difficult if you have suffered a delay to a late-evening service.

 

[Haywain]

Am I right in understanding them to admit that the PTD will disappear at the end of the day of travel?

That would seem unlikely, as the delay would be expected to be reflected in sources such as Realtime Trains.

 

[nickswift99]

I made a formal complaint to National Rail that they were not providing the "Published Timetable of the Day" (PTD) that is specified in 30.1 in the new NRCoT applying from 6th February. They have now responded:

I would like to clarify that the snapshot of the timetable remains static on all journey planner results made after 22:00 the night before travel. If the Published Timetable of the Day (PTD) changes, it is updated as an amendment or a cancellation in the journey planner. The PTD will be available in the journey planner from 22:00 the night before, all the way up until the end of service for that day.

I would like to explain this further through the following scenario:

• A customer visits our journey planner or visits a ticket office on Monday to purchase a ticket to travel from station A to station C (assuming that this journey takes an hour to complete), which departs at 15:00 and arrives at 16:00 on Thursday.

• In this scenario, if the train operator of the 15:00 service cannot run the service and has to run it at 15:30 instead, they must confirm this change in the timetable and make it available by 22:00 on Wednesday. Once this change is reflected on our journey planner at 22:00 on Wednesday, this will make it the scheduled service. This means that the 15:00 service has now become the 15:30 service in the PTD for Thursday.

• If the (current) 15:30 service does not experience any delays on route and arrives at 16:30, then this will not be regarded as a 30 minute delay, and therefore, the customer will not be able to claim compensation.

• However, if the (current) 15:30 service does experience delays on route and arrives at 17:00, then this will be regarded as a 30 minute delay instead of a 60 minute delay. In this case, the customer can claim for compensation for the 30 minute delay on the route.

• If the train operator of the 15:00 service decides to run the same service at 15:30 and fails to make it available on the timetable by 22:00 on Wednesday, then the 15:00 service will remain as the scheduled service on the PTD for Thursday and will show a 30 minute delay to its start time.

• I would also like to advise you that the condition 30.1 in the NRCoT allows the customer to obtain a full refund on their ticket if they no longer wish to travel from A to C on the 15:30 service. However, it is permissible to travel on the 15:30 service if they decide to do so.

Furthermore, I agree that customers will use the PTD as a reference point to check if they are eligible for Delay Repay, and therefore, I can confirm that they can do so by searching for their journey in the journey planner.


Does this make sense?

Is the National Rail Journey Planner really frozen from 2200 the night before service, so that later changes aren't possible after that?

Am I right in understanding them to admit that the PTD will disappear at the end of the day of travel? That would appear to oblige passengers wanting to be sure they are give the right amount of Delay Repay to access and screenshot the NR Journey Planner version of their itinerary before the end of the day, which could be particularly difficult if you have suffered a delay to a late-evening service.

NRE does not allow a traveller to query the PTOD historically for the same day. Specifically, if you try to search for a journey before the current time, it produces an error. This means that the traveller must query the PTOD after 2200 and before their journey starts if they want to use the search feature directly.

The traveller can work around this by searching for the current time and then selecting earlier trains (probably repeatedly). This is not particularly satisfactory.

I've also tried some test queries looking at overnight journeys that start mid evening and run through into the next railway day (i.e. today). Apart from the issue I have previously mentioned, it does seem possible to get the itinerary.

What I'm a little unclear on is if a traveller has an itinerary that involves an overnight journey and connecting trains the following morning, if they were to check the NR site before setting off, the PTOD could change without them being aware. This is an edge case.

In summary, as things stand, anyone wishing to use the PTOD must access NRE no later than the end of the day after their travel has started. After this, there seems to be no official public source of historic PTOD (although there are many unofficial sources).

 

[Haywain]

After this, there seems to be no official public source of historic PTOD (although there are many unofficial sources).

But that simply reflects the situation that we already had.

 

[nickswift99]

But that simply reflects the situation that we already had.

I don't think it does. If you held an itinerary your delay repay would (should) have been based on that.

Now you have to visit NRE in addition, should you want to claim DR and check that the TOC has calculated it correctly.