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Title: Why offer advanced ONLY on the train with an unreliable connection? Post by: grahame on November 20, 2012, 08:39:05 It wasn't the first time last night ... delays to the 17:45 off Paddington to Swansea, and the TransWilts connection, which is allowed 8 minutes, misses at Swindon. For passengers to Trowbridge, Westbury and Warminster, this typically results in a late arrival (assuming everything else is on time) of around half an hour. For Dilton Marsh, you're looking at 2 hours, and for Melkskam there's no other connection, and you end up with a taxi or a wait for the late bus.
Question ... why on earth are advanced fares to Melksham ONLY offered on the 17:45? It's a tight change at Swindon which results in frequent missed connections at great expense. Why not offer advanced fares on the 17:30? *) Much better change - Chippenham (Same Platform) rather than Swindon *) Much less likely to fail to connect, so saves First on taxi fares *) Much less stressful for the traveller *) For people for whom a short journey is critical, there's better fare differentiation. Cheaper is a bit slower (and that's not going to worry people who are price-driven) Title: Re: Why offer advanced ONLY on the train with an unreliable connection? Post by: stationstop on November 20, 2012, 10:39:42 Grahame,
It might be possible to do that combination on an earlier train. It's possibily a limitation of the booking software. Have you tried forcing a longer connection time? Very often this produces results. Title: Re: Why offer advanced ONLY on the train with an unreliable connection? Post by: Trowres on November 20, 2012, 13:47:30 Hmm, on the Nationalrail site, allowing extra interchange time has a minimum half-hour increment, so it puts one on an even earlier train than desired. However, using the "Exclude interchange" option to avoid SWI worked (and also showed the alternative route via Westbury).
Whether or not the TOC booking engines replicate this I haven't the time to check. :( Title: Re: Why offer advanced ONLY on the train with an unreliable connection? Post by: JayMac on November 20, 2012, 15:55:32 Using the 'text only' versions of WebTIS booking engines, which now include FGW's, allows you to specify 'extended station change times'.
http://tickets.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/gw/en/JourneyPlanning/Wizard/StationSelect Looking at a specimen journey from Paddington to Melksham on 27th November I was able to get the booking engine to offer me an Advance Purchase fare on the 1730 changing at Chippenham. This page is printed from the "Coffee Shop" forum at http://gwr.passenger.chat which is provided by a customer of Great Western Railway. Views expressed are those of the individual posters concerned. Visit www.gwr.com for the official Great Western Railway website. Please contact the administrators of this site if you feel that content provided contravenes our posting rules ( see http://railcustomer.info/1761 ). The forum is hosted by Well House Consultants - http://www.wellho.net |