I'm sure I've seen this in a thread before, but my Search skills have failed to locate it. The basic question is "Can you use a walk as the first leg of a route?"
Now for the specifics: The logical route for a Bicester Village - Slough ticket is via Oxford, but is it also valid via High Wycombe and London? There's no Maltese Cross on it, so the cross-London transfer isn't included if it is, it's not a direct train, and with an eNRT distance of 73.25 against 56.75 via Oxford, it fails the shortest route test too.
Doing a fares check, both Oxford and Princes Risborough pass the check when using the NFM64 Cheap Day Single fares, and this is where it gets tricky: Prior to 2015, the only way to get from Bicester Village to Princes Risborough was to start with a walk to Bicester North, and the fares from Bicester North to Slough were higher than those from what was then Bicester Town.
Obviously, there are now direct trains from Bicester Village via Princes Risborough, yet journey planners say that you need a combination of tickets (Bicester North/Village to London Terminals via High Wycombe, and Zone U1 to Slough) for such a journey. I can't see an obvious negative easement precluding the use of such tickets on the longer route (even though it 100% makes sense), which brings us back to my initial question.
Given it's not showing as valid, this is mostly an academic exercise, hence why I've named the stations involved rather than giving them cryptic A, B, C and D "names".
Now for the specifics: The logical route for a Bicester Village - Slough ticket is via Oxford, but is it also valid via High Wycombe and London? There's no Maltese Cross on it, so the cross-London transfer isn't included if it is, it's not a direct train, and with an eNRT distance of 73.25 against 56.75 via Oxford, it fails the shortest route test too.
Doing a fares check, both Oxford and Princes Risborough pass the check when using the NFM64 Cheap Day Single fares, and this is where it gets tricky: Prior to 2015, the only way to get from Bicester Village to Princes Risborough was to start with a walk to Bicester North, and the fares from Bicester North to Slough were higher than those from what was then Bicester Town.
Obviously, there are now direct trains from Bicester Village via Princes Risborough, yet journey planners say that you need a combination of tickets (Bicester North/Village to London Terminals via High Wycombe, and Zone U1 to Slough) for such a journey. I can't see an obvious negative easement precluding the use of such tickets on the longer route (even though it 100% makes sense), which brings us back to my initial question.
Given it's not showing as valid, this is mostly an academic exercise, hence why I've named the stations involved rather than giving them cryptic A, B, C and D "names".