The calculation / derivation of railway fares

The request was partially successful.

Nicholas Westlake

Dear Department for Transport,

I am writing to request information on how the price of railway tickets (those subject to the National Rail Conditions of Carriage) are derived / calculated. Except for small journeys, it would unfeasible to store the fare of every possible combination of origin and departure stations, therefore I understand they must be derived by an algorithm when requested.

As a specific example, please could you list all the raw data used in the derivation of the fare for an adult "Anytime Single" ticket between Penzance station and Wick station, and provide an overview of how the data is used to calculate the price of the ticket.

I thank you very much in advance for your assistance.

Yours faithfully,

Nicholas Westlake

Lara Bolch, Department for Transport

Dear Mr Westlake

I am writing to acknowledge receipt of your request for information which has been allocated reference number P0006434. A response will be issued to you in due course.

Regards,

Department for Transport
Information Rights Unit
D/04, Ashdown House
Sedlescombe Road North
St Leonards on Sea
East Sussex
TN37 7GA

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David1 Williams, Department for Transport

Dear Mr Westlake

Request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 made for the raw data
used in the derivation of fares. I refer to your request dated April 14^th
2010 requesting this information reference P0006434.

There is actually no process for calculation the price of fares by such a
method. It is simply for the train operator responsible for setting any
fare (and this is usually that operator who provides the most services
over the majority of the trip mileage between any two stations) to do so.
When setting regulated fares they have of course to take account of the
fares regulation process. Please follow this link to the last major fares
review document. Pricing unregulated fares is a simple commercial
decision.

[1]http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.u...

However there is a process that decides who gets the money form the price
of a ticket for any journey made on the National Rail network. I am afraid
I am unable to give you the specific details of the apportionment process
for any specific ticket such as Penzance to Wick as the Department does
not hold this information. The revenue apportionment system is the
property of "RSP" Rail Settlement Plan, itself a sub division of "ATOC"
the Association of Train Operating Companies. Please see the link below
for details

[2]http://www.atoc.org/

I am able to tell you how the process works however. The ticket revenue
apportionment for journeys where the ticket is valid for use by any
operators is based on the opportunities to travel as defined in the public
National Rail timetable. Therefore the allocation behaves pretty much the
way a passenger would when wishing to travel from Penzance to Wick.

The allocation process looks at the number of services available, direct
where appropriate, and the combinations of connections where not, and also
at the operators providing any of the journey legs. The mileage
percentages of these journey legs, their relative attractiveness in terms
of speed and frequency and their relevance to the particular trip and
ticket type are then converted into percentage allocations for the whole
journey in terms of the fare, the mileage and the journey for the ultimate
purpose of allocating the price of the ticket to those companies providing
the service.

Before the railways were privatised British Rail also used this system to
allocate revenue to its subsidiary Inter-City, Regional and Network South
East Sectors and beneath that level to particular routes. I do hope that
this is helpful.

Yours sincerely

David Williams

Retail Standards Manager

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Nicholas Westlake

Dear Mr David Williams,

Request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 made for the raw data used in the derivation of fares. I refer to your response dated April 30 2010 requesting this information reference P0006434.

Thank you very much for replying to my request and for pointing me towards information about how fares are regulated and how the fare income is split across Train Operating Companies. I would like to challenge the claim that "There is actually no process for calculation the price of fares by such a method."

By the logic of the number of national rail stations in Britain, there are at least 10^3000 (that is 10 to the power of 3000) possible combinations of national rail fares. This is to say that no storage medium in the world could store all the available national rail fares, and that no amount of staff could individually determine the price of every available fare.

It is entirely unfeasible, therefore to suggest that there is no method used to dynamically calculate fares, rather than to simply look up a stored value of the fare. I accept that it entirely reasonable to suggest that no member of staff in the Department for Transport is aware of what the process is, but the existence of such a process cannot be denied.

I would therefore like to request an internal review into who or which public or corporate body determines the process and whether it is in the public interest for the Department for Transport to have no awareness of or involvement in such a process.

Yours sincerely,

Nicholas Westlake

David1 Williams, Department for Transport

[Subject only] RE: THE CALCULATION / DERIVATION OF RAILWAY FARES

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David1 Williams, Department for Transport

Thanks very much for the response Mr Westlake

I am sorry if I had not answered your question to your satisfaction. In stating there is no process I had intended to convey that there is no simple software application to run at the press of a button every time that fares change. There are frameworks and databases of course. There is separate short distance pricing for local trips, then there is often a grouping of such adjacent local stations together to price longer distance flows, allowing for different routes between two points, for tickets that allow use on all operators trains and those that don't, the relationship between the price of season tickets and one return ticket between the same stations, the class of tickets. Fares regulation is another factor as are fares baskets which is why I thought you might find the fares review of interest. A principal consideration is precedent and historical practice of course as fares rarely fluctuate wildly.

It might be better to contact one of the train operators who actually do the pricing for each flow and ticket type year after year for the rail fares they are responsible for to give you an explanation of how they actually go about it if you have a specific example like the Wick Penzance ticket, which in real terms it is highly probable nobody has bought for quite some while. Rover tickets tend to be cheaper. This particular flow is priced by Cross Country please follow this link:

http://www.crosscountrytrains.co.uk/Abou...

Yours sincerely

David Williams
Retail Standards Manager
Fares Ticketing & Passenger Benefits Team

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Nicholas Westlake

Dear David Williams,

Thank you very much for your previously reply and elaboration.

In recognition of the existence of such frameworks use in the process of setting fares, I would like to ask if such information is in the domain of the public of a public body. In additional, is the public entitled to request such information from Train Operating Companies or is access to such information at their goodwill.

Given the vast amounts of subsidy granted to the rail industry, I would find it shocking if such information was kept secret.

Yours sincerely,

Nicholas Westlake

Linus Norton left an annotation ()

Despite what the DfT says, there is a process and it is industry insider knowledge but not secret per se. The problem is that it is not defined or written down.

I have outlined what I know of the process here:

https://github.com/open-track/fares-serv...

I am seeking further clarification from RDG (formerly ATOC).