National Gold Card - RSPS5045-02

[Mikey Whiston]

Hello again,

In the RSPS5045-02 specification, it says this about railcard restrictions.



If that is true, then how does this restriction work?

In the raw data itself, it presents as:

RRRCNGC0001           RD

Unless I'm misunderstanding, this means, unless overriden, any ticket, using any route, at any location results in restriction code RD if applied with a National Gold Card.

If we take the BHM -> SHR flow, which holds route code 00269, that route has no specific overrides on the National Gold Card railcard restrictions... but somehow, TrainSplit, Trainline and LNR all report a valid Anytime Day Return (with no restriction code) under this route, with the railcard applied.

If someone could point me in the right direction as to what I'm missing, I would heavily appreciate it. 
 

I must be missing something.

Kind regards,
Mikey Whiston

[David Wheatley]

Hi Mikey,

Everything you've said seems correct to me, but I don't understand why restriction RD applying would make the ticket offered by retailers invalid for this journey. Nothing in the restriction data for RD prevents travel on TfW services between Birmingham New Street and Shrewsbury.

Railcard restriction codes aren't public-facing because they only exist in the electronic data and lack accompanying human-readable text. This is why you won't see any mention of these restriction codes on a retailer's website when buying a ticket. They are meant only for automated journey planning systems to represent the limitations of a railcard's validity; the restriction doesn't get applied to the ticket itself when you buy it, but the journey planner will consider the restriction(s) when determining if the fare is valid for a journey.

If you go to https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/ticket-types/validity/rd you'll get a 404, while https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/ticket-types/validity/b3 will work. This contributes to the problem the ORR raised regarding retailers not sufficiently highlighting railcard restrictions before ticket purchase.

David

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[Mikey Whiston]

Thank you for your reply.

To clarify, does that mean that the restriction code RD doesn't actually get applied to the ticket?

If that's the case, what is the point of the restriction code? As far as I can tell, the restriction code RD has a limitation on it that prevents.. what's seemingly all day? There is no date band for this restriction, so is it safe to ignore it?



Left is the Time Restrictions, right is the Date Restrictions for the given rules.
As you can see, there's no date restriction on the rule given for the 0001-2359 time restriction on the RD restriction code.

Should this RD restriction code "replace" the 00 Anytime Day Return code, or should it stay as 00, and is this consistent on all railcard-based restriction codes?
For a system that deals with ticket validity, do you use the railcard restriction code (e.g. RD) to determine validity, or rather the no restrictions in the Anytime Day Return?
Obviously, the 0001-2359 makes no sense - even though that's the raw data from the DTD feeds, so what then?

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[David Wheatley]

Those all-day restrictions are to prevent use on CrossCountry at those stations using the TT (Time Restriction TOC) records (RSPS5045 4.19.10).

> Should this RD restriction code "replace" the 00 Anytime Day Return code, or should it stay as 00, and is this consistent on all railcard-based restriction codes?

The RD restriction does not replace the not-set restriction for the fare. That remains without a restriction, and is consistent for all Railcard cases like this.

> For a system that deals with ticket validity, do you use the railcard restriction code (e.g. RD) to determine validity, or rather the no restrictions in the Anytime Day Return?

You'd combine all the restrictions, as they're all relevant for determining validity of the discounted ticket.

You might be interested to see the data on BRFares, noting that the Railcard restriction details show under "UNPUBLISHED RESTRICTIONS" as they're solely for journey planner use: https://www.brfares.com/!faredetail?orig=BHM&dest=SHR&grpo=0418&rlc=NGC&tkt=SDS

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[Mikey Whiston]

Hello,

Thank you for your prompt responses! Your insight has been crucial in helping me understand more about this specification.
I didn't consider how the TT TOC objects were linked to the original TT objects, so thank you for informing me of my oversight.

Kind regards,
Mikey Whiston

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