Validty of a gold card season

[sarahj]

If a punter has a gold card season from Littlehampton to London zones 1-6 T/C where can he go?

I think.

Littlehampton to Victoria/London Bridge/London Terminals via Horsham/Gatwick/Dorking/Hove/Brighton/Lewes.

Via Chichester/Havant and Guildford to Waterloo? I think yes.
Can he get to Fareham and head to Waterloo via Eastleigh/Winchester
Can he go to Southampton then on to London via Airport.

Ticket does not say Any permitted on it, but advantix shows it as any permitted.

Thoughts?

 

[James Wake]

I also wonder about my Haywards Heath to Zones 2-6 AAA Crawley Gold Card. I know I can go from East Grinstead or Uckfield line stations, but can I go to Redhill then across to Dorking Deepdene, walk to Dorking Main and up to Ewell East/West from there? I don't think I can go via Horsham and up from there to Ewell East.

 

[LexyBoy]

In my opinion - it's valid on any route permitted for journeys from Littlehampton to any station within Zones 1-6 (unless there are any routes which leave the Zones after entering them, in which case the ticket is valid to the first station in the Zones only).

AFAIK there is no official word on this - my view is based on the case for BZ tickets which has been clarified. I've read that there is a (characteristically mean-spirited) move to reduce validity to the equivalent London Terminals ticket, but don't know if this is progressing. It could hit quite a few holders of Z56 Travelcards if implemented.

I've not checked the Routeing Guide but NRE does not allow via Guildford, Fareham nor Southampton for LIT-Surbiton, so I don't think they would be valid. I too would have expected via Guildford at the least to be valid.

 

[furlong]

In my opinion - it's valid on any route permitted for journeys from Littlehampton to any station within Zones 1-6 (unless there are any routes which leave the Zones after entering them, in which case the ticket is valid to the first station in the Zones only).

It's not quite that general. An Out-Boundary travelcard is an ordinary Travelcard with a return journey to the boundary of the zonal area added on. So you calculate permitted routes based on the first station at which the train stops or passes within the zones, (and of course as you say must discard any such permitted routes that themselves pass through the zones as they would have a different boundary station).

AFAIK there is no official word on this

The official position comes from interpreting the TSA and the Travelcard agreement and has been quoted from ATOC on this forum in the past and is also provided to developers of routeing engines.

The reasoning goes roughly as follows. From the Travelcard agreement (1995):

Out-Boundary Ticket shall mean a ticket issued by an Operator to a passenger for a journey on Railway Services outside the Zones which includes a Travelcard to be used in conjunction with the relevant journey on Railway Services;

I.e. the travelcard covers all travel within the zones (as it must) and additionally there is a journey outside the Zones. That journey outside the zones is from an origin to the boundary station and so for that journey outside the zones the destination "London Zones 1-6" gets interpreted as meaning the first station encountered at the boundary of the zones, and routes are therefore calculated (under the familiar rules set out in the TSA using the Routeing Guide) to that point. There is no restriction on which boundary stations to consider so the passenger can choose, but for most there will be no permitted routes satisfying the conditions. There is a small ambiguity in the application of the shortest route provision - my reading is that it only applies to the closest of the available boundary stations and for any other boundary station, you're limited to what the Routeing Guide maps give you. (In other words, there can only be one shortest route for the ticket as a whole, not one for every boundary station you might consider, but I think this remains open to alternative interpretations.)

Once you get your head around it, the documentation does all knit itself together reasonably coherently and consistently.

 

[LexyBoy]

Thanks - I think I understand now.

So you calculate permitted routes based on the first station at which the train stops or passes within the zones, (and of course as you say must discard any such permitted routes that themselves pass through the zones as they would have a different boundary station).

Which train though?

If I follow, one may start with any arbitrary route, identify the boundary station and then calculate permitted routes from origin to this station (discounting any which pass through the zones beforehand). Correct?

Practically speaking, I would imagine this would give more flexibility than what I described, as a Zone 6 station will typically have more variation in permitted routes than a Zone 2 station, but I imagine that there would be some differences. Do you know how NRE (for example) calculates it? I've always assumed it simply showed Travelcard fares as valid for any journey to a station within the zones (assuming it's on a permitted route).

 

[paul1609]

As a former Littlehampton Season Ticket holder I don't think that Ford Group Stations ever had validity via Guildford to the Zones. If you wanted to travel to the edge of the zones Surbiton you would always travel via Clapham Junction.
The shortest route is the direct one via Dorking and Raynes Park, via Havant is 20 miles further.
Chichester and stations West of have always had any permitted and Hove/ Horsham (now Southern only) seasons to London

 

[furlong]

Thanks - I think I understand now.

I saw ATOC's official interpretation for routeing engines posted on this forum (requoted below) back in 2013 and, as you would expect, as I set out above, I believe its interpretation of the Travelcard agreement and TSA here is broadly in line with the approach that a court would take.

"When a zonal fare applies to a journey, then the routeing guide only applies to that part of the journey which is not within the zones included in the fare. That part of the journey which is not subject to ENRG [Electronic National Routeing Guide] checking should be disregarded, and only that part of the journey which requires to be validated is subject to the above rules. For example, on a journey from Walsall to Stratford the zonal fare “WALSALL to ZONE U345* LONDN” may apply. The fare is zonal because the fare destination is a zonal destination."

"For journeys which commence outside the zonal system, where the fare destination is zonal, the Rail part of the journey should be validated, up to the first relevant station inside the zonal system. The first station pass/stop event which is in one of the zones covered by the zonal fare is the relevant station. The part of the journey from the journey origin to this station should be validated using NRG rules. All other pass/stop events in the journey must be included in the zones covered by the zonal fare destination."

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If a punter has a gold card season from Littlehampton to London zones 1-6 T/C where can he go?

Can he go to Southampton then on to London via Airport.

So that would pass through Surbiton as the boundary station.

So on nationalrail.co.uk you look up Littlehampton to Surbiton to see whether or not it allows this journey via Southampton Airport Parkway on one ticket. It does allow this, and it also offers a single ticket 'with travelcard' option confirming that the travelcard season can be used on this route into the zonal area.

 

[CyrusWuff]

There's a key difference between the public NRE page about Travelcards and the KnowledgeBase (internal) one on this point.

The internal page explicitly states the validity of an "out-boundary" Travelcard as being between the origin and the first station in the Travelcard Area on the line of route (the example being Elstree and Borehamwood for a Bedford Travelcard), whereas the public site says they "include the return rail fare to London plus travel in the selected zones".

Another example is that of someone holding a Haslemere Travelcard wishing to travel to Dorking via Epsom. The ticket they're stated as needing is Leatherhead - Dorking.