Why is National Rail ticket routeing complicated?

[Somewhere]

Under British Rail, it was whatever route was deemed 'reasonable'. It didn't really matter as long as you were going more or less in the correct direction, as the money was all going to British Rail.
Under privatisation, the money from fares needed to be divvied up between umpteen private operators, so the concept of 'permitted routes' was invented, with the money for each flow split between each company that a ticket would be valid on, by a percentage of approximately of how many passengers would use each company's trains with that ticket

 

[BayPaul]

If I travel Penzance to Stonehaven I tap in at Penzance there's no barriers at Stonehaven and I walk out, only cost me £100. Bargain.
How would it know if I'd travelled First Class?

You are going to see a guard between Penzance and Stonehaven. Who would tap your card and check your destination and issue you a ticket.
For 1st class, I'd suggest a reader by the door to 1st class.

 

[Birkonian]

That won't help when ticket acceptance is put in place, and there isn't a data source for that either.

Showing maps aren't a solution for this; having ticket acceptance and realtime info in thd dara feeds would enable alternative itineraries to be generated.

There are plenty of occasions where a train is late or cancelled and there is no ticket acceptance in place. Thst is where a quick search of random alternative routes would be useful. I'm pretty clued up on what is/isn't allowed but a source that allows a check would be good.

 

[The exile]

...which infers a reasonable level of knowledge and/or experience to interpret the 'algebraic' notation, surely? If someone presented me with a ticket marked HA*(DO*MS*OS*HB/BI*H)*HAR I'd have no idea what it meant. But then I don't pretend to understand the NR Routeing Guide either. Ultimately, it all seems over-complicated for travelling from A to B even if there is a desire to explicitly travel via C.

It’s worthwhile pointing out that, with the exception of Hamburg-Harburg, all of the abbreviations would be pretty familiar to most Germans. For a start they are the car registration codes for the places in question. Incidentally, I’m struggling to think of a way you could come via Bremen and NOT pass through HH-Harburg.

 

[Watershed]

Under privatisation, the money from fares needed to be divvied up between umpteen private operators, so the concept of 'permitted routes' was invented, with the money for each flow split between each company that a ticket would be valid on, by a percentage of approximately of how many passengers would use each company's trains with that ticket

That was the claimed justification for introducing the Routeing Guide, but in reality ORCATS (the system used to distribute revenue between operators) takes no account of the Routeing Guide - and never has done. It instead uses 'journey opportunities', many of which will follow non-permitted routes because they are faster than the permitted route(s).

 

[Belperpete]

There are plenty of occasions where a train is late or cancelled and there is no ticket acceptance in place. Thst is where a quick search of random alternative routes would be useful. I'm pretty clued up on what is/isn't allowed but a source that allows a check would be good.

I likewise thought I was clued up, until I was told by a guard that the route I was travelling on was not allowed, despite having previously been told by the booking office that it was. I found that the routing manual had subsequently been changed. Fortunately the guard let me complete my journey, but it could have led to me being treated as travelling without a valid ticket. It is bad enough having an incomprehensible system, but one that can change without any public notice!!

I recently was travelling from Derby to London, and wanted to see if I could travel via Birmingham. Unfortunately various journey planners said no. But then I tried via Reading (which involves going via Birmingham), and they said yes. That really makes no sense whatsoever.

 

[Paul Kelly]

Under British Rail, it was whatever route was deemed 'reasonable'. It didn't really matter as long as you were going more or less in the correct direction, as the money was all going to British Rail.
Under privatisation, the money from fares needed to be divvied up between umpteen private operators, so the concept of 'permitted routes' was invented, with the money for each flow split between each company that a ticket would be valid on, by a percentage of approximately of how many passengers would use each company's trains with that ticket

I don't think this is correct at all. ORCATS is the system which divides ticket revenue among operators and it already existed long before privatisation - it was used to apportion revenue between different BR sectors. My understanding is the routeing guide was purely passenger-facing, designed to preserve the interavailable routes available to passengers.

 

[infobleep]

A check by the staff, it'd be just like travelling in first on a standard class ticket.

What of staff can"t get to first class to check the ticket?

Not all busy trains have first class declassified. I use to regularly travel on the 18:39 London Waterloo to Poole service, joining it at Clapham Junction and leaving it at Woking to change trains.

It had 5 carriages and was usually very busy, to the point a guard couldn't walk through. First class was never declassified.

 

[pokemonsuper9]

What of staff can"t get to first class to check the ticket?

People already use standard class tickets in first because they don't get checked (or if they do, they'll just claim they didn't know), if "contactless can't be used in First Class" or similar, then it would be no different to how things already are.

 

[infobleep]

People already use standard class tickets in first because they don't get checked (or if they do, they'll just claim they didn't know), if "contactless can't be used in First Class" or similar, then it would be no different to how things already are.

True one only has to look at the faat trains between East Croydon and London Victoria in the morning that are busy. Not declassified and people stand or sometimes sit, in first class, when they shouldn't be. I've never seen anything done about it.

 

[yorkie]

There are plenty of occasions where a train is late or cancelled and there is no ticket acceptance in place. Thst is where a quick search of random alternative routes would be useful. I'm pretty clued up on what is/isn't allowed but a source that allows a check would be good.

If no acceptance is in place, then you can plan the journey and see if the ticket you hold is offered in conjunction with it.

If acceptance is in place then there is no definitive electronic source, as the data doesn't currently exist, so unless that changes, no-one could offer a truly definitive system of offering alternative routes during disruption. I do think that should change, but that's a whole new topic really!

 

[Somewhere]

I don't think this is correct at all. ORCATS is the system which divides ticket revenue among operators and it already existed long before privatisation - it was used to apportion revenue between different BR sectors. My understanding is the routeing guide was purely passenger-facing, designed to preserve the interavailable routes available to passengers.

It was written in black and white in the Fares Manuals of the time that tickets were valid via any reasonable route. How revenue was split up behind the scenes was neither here nor there, as the Routeing Guide did not exist.
Privatisation changed that, and people became permitted to only travel on routes on which their ticket was valid as per the Routeing Guide. Passengers didn't have access to the Routeing Guide, so they couldn't have accessed it at all

 

[Andrew1395]

Tickets had Routeing information on them prior to credit card size printed tickets. For example a Manchester to London Edmundson ticket would say Manchester (Piccadilly) to London (Euston) via Crewe. APTIS created more flexibility, with the introduction of group locations, like Manchester Stations and London BR.

The Routeing Guide was available at Booking Offices and issued to staff. That was from 29 September 1996. It was even then a large and complicated document in an A4 ring binder. It was a few years later that it was digitalised as the Electronic National Routeing Guide, a component of the staff system Rail Journey Information System.

the Routeing Guide was introduced at the behest of OPRAF, as part of the requirement to ensure that the “Network Benefits” requirements of the privatisation process were followed by the privatised TOCs. Like for example ticket inter availability, impartial retailing, acceptance of railcards, etc.

ORCATS was retained at privatisation and used as the principle generator of Allocation Factors in LENNON. These factors are Required by the back office suite of settlement systems to turn Sales data into Earnings data. Once upon a time this was how BR Passenger sectors analysed their revenue against costs. And used by LENNON’s predecessor system CAPRI.

When the Routeing Guide was introduced, ORCATS was not changed to accommodate it. ORCATS creates millions of Opportunities To Travel from the timetable, fares data and its reference data. These are aggregated up into apportionment percentages for each flow (origin, destination and ticket type).

Revenue apportionment using ORCATS factors has never been influenced by rules around the Routeing Of journeys.