Advance ticket support in RTJP / What Can I Do With My Ticket API

[Dmytro Liasko]

Hello everyone,

I’m investigating disruption recovery journeys for UK rail and would appreciate any insight on Advance ticket support in the National Rail developer web services.

I tested RTJP using ExtendedJourneyPlannerRequest and the “What Can I Do With My Ticket” webservice using its /otherjourneys endpoint for a disrupted journey.

The /otherjourneys endpoint returned:

{ "status": "ERROR", "payload": { "type": "java.lang.IllegalArgumentException", "message": "Restricted Journeys Not Supported.", "code": "203#2026-07-15-11-56-31-452" } }

RTJP returned an ExtendedJourneyPlannerFault with OJPOtherError and server error code 108.

Has anyone successfully used either service with Advance tickets, particularly during disruption scenarios? Is this a known limitation, and are there any workarounds or plans to support this ticket category?

Thank you.

[Adam Williams]

Hi Dmytro,

I do not think there is very good quality electronic data that would enable this to be easily worked out in the general case.

The rules for what you can do with an Advance during disruption are already complex and vary based on whether a DfTO operator (or an OAO, particularly) is involved. The range of available services can then also differ due to planned or short-notice ticket acceptance agreements (which are sometimes deliberately kept quiet by the operator) and/or whether a service is the last one of the day and the passenger would otherwise end up stranded/unable to complete their journey (NRCoT 28.2). There are also rights conferred on passengers by the Rail Passenger Rights and Obligations (PRO) Regulations, but it is my understanding that they do not automatically entitle a passenger to e.g. self re-route (i.e. it's down to the railway undertaking to sort out initially).

I suggested to the ORR in the past (back in 2023) that there should be a proper electronic feed to enable retailers and other parties to automatically re-plan journeys affected by disruption and wrote up a high-level proposal, but I'm not aware of any developments in this area in the years that have passed.