Great Western Coffee Shop

Example Scenario.

I'm wishing to travel tomorrow [written yesterday] from Exeter St Davids to London (Waterloo) at lunchtime and I visit your web site at https://www.southwesternrailway.com/ to find out train times and prices. I enter "Exeter St Davids" and "London Waterloo", I change the date to tomorrow and my departure time to 12:00. I am offered 7 journeys, at prices (single, no railcard for simplicity) of either £57.00 or £57.50. And that's where "Joe Public" would be, selecting his train.

But wait a minute ... wasn't there a lower fare last time I made the journey?

Amending my search, clicked on edit, and entered "Tisbury" into the "via" box, clicked on "Find Tickets at Prices" and now came up with a whole load of previously hidden journeys at £50.00, and one as cheap as £37.80.

Screen captures from the two searched above are at the end of this email.

My concern is that passengers who do not understand the intricacies of the fare system may make a reasonable assumption that coming to the SWR web site, and asking about a journey on an SWR route, will be offered SWR trains and tickets by default, especially where those services cost significantly less that the "Great Way Round".

I happen to know that putting in "Tisbury" - almost like a secret discount code - would give me a lower cost journey. Other probably wouldn't. Last week, they paid £50 for a direct train, this week their fare has gone up to £57. That's a rise of 14% for the same journey, and to add insult to injury they now have to change trains along the way. Holders of "Network" Rail cards will find the change even more alarming - via Tisbury the fare is £33, but without that magic knowledge your web site is suggesting only services at £57 plus!

Andrew, I do understand what's happened here - all your SWR services from Exeter to London are now overtaken by GWR trains, and unless instructed otherwise, your web site does not offer the (now) slower but cheaper journeys. I have often booked Glasgow to London tickets and been offered "via Birmingham" fares, with a clear indication that these are slower trains - but the prices have been clearly better, and it has been up to me to choose. Aren't all ticketing systems based on the same "engine" - could your folks simply switch that option on as a quick neat solution?

Hope that helps clarify the issue - agreed the fares have not changed, it's just that you're not offering journeys at the lower fares now, where you did in the past, unless people know about them and specifically search them out.

Default:
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/exd_wat_any.jpg)



Having typed in "Tisbury" in the "via" box:
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/exd_wat_tis.jpg)

Thanks for the further info – I agree having looked at it it is a bit of an oddity. It is of course a bit of a quirk due to the fact that we are now temporarily splitting services at Salisbury so that you can’t currently choose the direct train option.
 
Colleagues are currently looking at it and I’ll let you know what they come up with.

Thank you for your prompt replies to my emails of 17th January, reporting current issues with services and tickets. You took the following two issues away to look at further, and I was wondering if you have an update before you head off on leave [my contact away in a couple of days, for a while]:

1. On 10th December, you withdrew all your services from Bristol, and the only concession / was an additional Westbury to Salisbury service in the late evening, connecting with GWR's 22:25 from Bristol / 22:39 from Bath Spa. A month later, you withdrew that train. It is not a duplicate - there is no late evening alternative, something you acknowledge by the very fact that you promised the replacement. Please re-instate this train as (I note) you have some others in recent days.

2. Your web site continues to default to offering Exeter St Davids to Waterloo singles at £57 where it was £50 a couple of weeks ago.  In your email, you describe this as an "oddity" and "a bit of a quirk" and you promise to let me know how your colleagues are going to deal with this. A 15% higher fare from one week to the next (72% for people who have bought a Network Railcard) on your main flow is not something that passengers feel is a "quirk" - it looks like opportunism. Please switch your own booking engine to offer your own trains where they are lower cost, even if your sister First group company is offering faster trains but at significantly higher prices.

You can't have failed to notice that South Western Railways is receiving considerable bad press at present. Fixing these two issues before you head off on leave, Andrew, will be a "good news" story helping you show that you really do care. We understand many of the issues you face, but small customer-sensitive adjustments such as these two will bring you goodwill far beyond the cost of providing them.

Item 2 is just not reslistically possible in the time-frame that you suggest. It would mean wholesale changes to the programming which currenly selects journeys based on end-to-end duration, rather than price - & would ean every operator would have their journey s changed too.

Right way to go or not (& that is a network-wide discussion in itself before any agreement might be reached), is not relevant, but wholesale change to several booking engines will take weeks, if not months. And the DfT would probably need to pay for it.

Item 2 is just not reslistically possible in the time-frame that you suggest. It would mean wholesale changes to the programming which currenly selects journeys based on end-to-end duration, rather than price - & would ean every operator would have their journey s changed too.

Could a message be displayed when fares are listed on the relevant routes saying ‘cheaper tickets may be available by changing at Salisbury, please select via Salisbury when entering your search query’ in the same way you get a message about potential service disruption sometimes?

That would be quicker, yes. But still not likely before the contact goes in leave.

All booking engines are based on a shared base program, and identifying SWR journeys would take quite a large ‘If-then-else’ prigram addition to only display relevant journeys, and check that they aren’t SWR provision already.

So how come that bookings made on the West Coast with their website do exactly what I have suggested?

My understanding is that booking systems all use the same "engine(s)" underneath and the individual TOCs chose how to tune the offering. 

My suggestion was for a practical change of settings not for reprogramming.

The National rail OJP, which is meant to set the reference standard for others, has a more serious issue. It always did have an option to include or suppress overtaken trains in its advanced mode. I'm sure that was changed not long ago, from "include overtaken trains" to "show only fastest trains". But it looks as if the default behaviour is still suppress overtaken trains! So the tick box does nothing.

Similarly, I sometimes find that the Via/Avoid option on the NR OJP is sometimes ignored. e.g. I might plan a route avoiding Clapham Junction but then find that every journey presented includes a change there.

Makes sense, though I would suggest telling people to select "via Tisbury".  "via Salisbury" (and indeed the current default) offer some journeys changing at Westbury and again at Salisbury, at the higher "via Taunton" fare ... some (not sure if all) services via "The Mule" ARE offered if you say "via Salisbury" but perhaps better to select an intermediate SWR station west of Salisbury to make the new offering clean, and complete for that route.

If travelling from Exeter, there is already a recognised routeing 'via Honiton'. Obviously from stations east thereof would require the 'via Tisbury' option.

I have had some feedback on the SWR booking engine issue. It is a known piece of work to be done but it needs to be agreed across all First Group TOCs as it affects us all, not just SWR. It is a bit more of a complex piece of work than it first appears and is certainly not about opportunism - it involves changing the built in rules about not showing overtaken trains. This means it will take longer to deal with than the expected short term duration of the emergency timetable - as you are aware it is the splitting of services at Salisbury that has caused the issue as you cannot select the direct trains option. The most effective measure in the short term is to add a note to the booking engine page to say to include 'via Salisbury' if you want to travel to Waterloo on SWR services

Where are you finding this "via" option on the SWR website? I can't see one, and of course you don't even get the "direct trains only" option until you ask for prices.

I do not use the 'phone app, but the 'via' option is fairly obvious on the website as seen on a PC/laptop....

I do not use the 'phone app, but the 'via' option is fairly obvious on the website as seen on a PC/laptop....