MoneySavingExpert.com has finally produced the first version of a tool which should shake up the railway ticketing industry. Tickety Split is an App for the iPhone (also available in a mobile web version) which allows the user to identify where to split a journey in fare stages in order to save money on the quoted through fare. Even better, it is free!
The App works by asking for the departure and arrival stations, and the time of travel. It returns train times, the quoted through fare, and the saving to be made by splitting. Thus, this morning, for Chiltern journeys, it identified Bicester North or High Wycombe as being split points on sample peak hour journeys whilst for Virgin, it identified Coventry, Rugby, or Milton Keynes as being the points at which to split the fare on sample journeys.
The limitations of the App are numerous of course as this is very much a work in progress. Currently, it works only for Walk-on SINGLE standard fares and only for journeys on the day (ie you can't check ahead today for Monday). It seems to be susceptible to returning errors if each train on a list is queried and, of course, cannot be used to book the discovered fares...
Nevertheless it is a huge step forward for those of us who believe that for too long the railway ticketing system has not been fully transparent.
I took the spportunity of the launch of the App to ask RedSpottedHanky as an example train ticket provider with no TOC backing (yes, I know it is owned by Atos but it does put itself forward as passenger friendly) why its site couldn't provide similar information. The first reply was...
"The Money Saving Expert app currently only looks
at standard fare tickets and not advanced tickets. It is normally cheaper to
buy advance tickets rather than split standard fare tickets. At the moment we
don’t have software which is capable of comparing advanced tickets to split
standard fare tickets. We are currently looking at how Redspottedhanky may be
able to do this but at the moment don’t believe it is of a great benefit to
consumers because of the difference between ticket types."
When I challenged this reply, RSH came back with the following...
"Our
licence for selling tickets did originally prevent us from marketing split
tickets, however, the recent changes to the licence allow us in certain ways to
advise on split ticketing within the restrictions placed upon us.
We
are currently building a software solution for this to help customers. However,
the routes on which it applies are varied and, advice to customers to check
split routes would be unhelpful and misleading if customers do not know calling
points for their route and the possible split points.
To
remain consistent and deliver a consistent message, it is important we have the
ability to show split routes in a meaningful way to customers before advising
to do it, especially where it might create the impression it's cheaper when an
advance ticket may be the best way.
It
would also be unhelpful to split tickets if the on-train staff then insisted
they alight at the split point and cause them a number of issues.
We
are actively looking to introduce this service to the site, but do require a
software solution to be confident in achieving beneficial results for
customers."
So there is hope. Keep up the pressure by downloading the App and insisting that ticket offices and ticketing web sites sell the split fare when appropriate! Well done, MSE
Finally, don't forget to make your views on the ticketing system known through the DoT 'consultation': http://www.dft.gov.uk/consultations/dft-2012-09/
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