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Title: Hello - from lurking to registration Post by: JonnyD on January 22, 2008, 15:53:16 Hi there - have been reading loads of your stuff for a while. I commute from Bristol to Bath going by bike one way, and taking a train home the other way which saves ^3.15 a day using my YP Railcard.
I was wondering if there was a way of looking up split tickets automatically? I am a capable programmer, and could probably do it myself, but I'd have no idea where to access all the pricing data! Title: Re: Hello - from lurking to registration Post by: dog box on January 22, 2008, 16:49:51 just ask the guard to look on his Advantix for you. hazard a guess spliting you ticket wont be worth it
Title: Re: Hello - from lurking to registration Post by: JonnyD on January 22, 2008, 17:01:30 just ask the guard to look on his Advantix for you. hazard a guess spliting you ticket wont be worth it To Bath won't be better, no: I just meant more generally, since I also take trips to more far-flung places. I'd be up to making something that could be website-accessible, but I don't know how some sites get access to the stations/pricing info Title: Re: Hello - from lurking to registration Post by: devon_metro on January 22, 2008, 17:33:50 You'd probably need a NFM then (National Fares Manual)
Title: Re: Hello - from lurking to registration Post by: Timmer on January 22, 2008, 17:58:37 Welcome to the forum JonnyD. Its always great when lurking guests as it were decide to join us by signing up. Any guests out there reading this you are more than welcome to sign up and contribute to the many and varied debates taking place here at the coffee shop.
Title: Re: Hello - from lurking to registration Post by: Mookiemoo on January 23, 2008, 08:18:30 Hi there - have been reading loads of your stuff for a while. I commute from Bristol to Bath going by bike one way, and taking a train home the other way which saves ^3.15 a day using my YP Railcard. I was wondering if there was a way of looking up split tickets automatically? I am a capable programmer, and could probably do it myself, but I'd have no idea where to access all the pricing data! I do it using national rail website Not great but if you have enough time it works Title: Re: Hello - from lurking to registration Post by: grahame on January 23, 2008, 09:16:36 I'm sure that the online ticket sales sites have access to an appropriate data feed (National Rail? ATOC?) but I doubt whether they would make it available, and trying to cover off even a small area by scraping (even with robots) would, I suspect, be impractical - sorry to be the bearer of bad news, JonnyD. In fact this is something I have throught about, but I decided it is beyond my skill and resources. If you manage it, I would love to see it and use it ... do keep us in the picture!
There are one or two others here who may - just may - be able to point you at feeds ;) And welcome to the forum! Title: Re: Hello - from lurking to registration Post by: swlines on January 23, 2008, 09:26:15 The feeds are available, at a cost... some ^300 per update (roughly the same cost as the timetables) last time I checked. And of course that doesn't include the various offers that TOCs may provide over a period which is a subset of an update ... all goes in the system slowly.
Also it's a proprietary format so is very complicated to understand. You may want to go searching for the Avantix Traveller software and see whether you get anywhere with unencrypting the data from that to put on a website. Title: Re: Hello - from lurking to registration Post by: grahame on January 23, 2008, 10:42:23 http://www.joyce.whitchurch.btinternet.co.uk/private.htm
Title: Re: Hello - from lurking to registration Post by: swlines on January 23, 2008, 11:30:21 Hmm, didn't know it was available from there.
The only problem with the paper NFM is digitising it all. Title: Re: Hello - from lurking to registration Post by: TerminalJunkie on January 23, 2008, 13:06:58 Quote from: swlines Also it's a proprietary format so is very complicated to understand. You may want to go searching for the Avantix Traveller software and see whether you get anywhere with unencrypting the data from that to put on a website. I know of at least one employee of ATOS Origin (the authors of the Avantix software) who reads this forum, so you might like to, um, amend that advice somewhat... Title: Re: Hello - from lurking to registration Post by: swlines on January 23, 2008, 15:14:50 To be fair that software has been withdrawn as of this fares change AFAIK - at least, it was meant to! Not to mention the data that was released is now well out of date...
Also the data is available elsewhere, it's more the convenience if you see what I mean. Title: Re: Hello - from lurking to registration Post by: swlines on January 24, 2008, 10:24:57 Oh by the way, cheers Graham! ;)
(http://img510.imageshack.us/img510/652/nfm98ff1.jpg) Title: Re: Hello - from lurking to registration Post by: smokey on January 24, 2008, 20:13:02 You almost need a degree to understand the NFM.
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