11.1) Once I’ve found a journey, can I find out what the fare is?
11.2) Can I find information about bus fares?
11.3) How can I find out how much the fuel will cost for a car journey?
11.4) How can I find out the full costs of a car journey taking into account how much I have to pay to own and run a car?
11.5) What types of rail fares can I see on the Journey Planner?
11.6) What rail fares are shown in advance of a fares change?
11.7) What is meant by "Route" in the list of rail fares shown for a journey?
11. Tickets and costs
11.1) Once I’ve found a journey, can I find out what the fare is?
If you find a journey on the Journey Planner and would like to find out the fare for that journey, select the journey and click ‘Ticket/Costs’. The train or coach ticket(s) required for each part of the journey will be displayed along with their fares, if these are known. You can choose to see ‘Child fares’ instead of ‘Adult fares’ and you can also enter your ‘Discount cards’ to see the discounted fares.
Now you can buy the tickets from online or offline ticket retailers by clicking ‘Buy tickets’.
If you click ‘Buy tickets’ a page will list the ticket(s) required for the journey. You need to click ‘Select’ at the bottom of a column to see ticket retailer(s) that sell the ticket(s).
Click ‘Buy’ across from your preferred ticket retailer to continue the transaction on the ticket retailer’s site. Please note: All the information you entered on the Journey Planner will be carried over to the retailer’s site.
11.2) Can I find information about bus fares?
In general, the Journey Planner does not have bus fare information. However, you can view local fare information for some stations.
Clicking the station name on a journey "Details" page, or selecting the station using ‘Find a Place’ and clicking ‘i" (information) will open the "Station Information" page, which contains details about taxi operators, facilities and car parking at the station.
Clicking "Local Fare Information" will display links to any local fare schemes that operate around the station, for example PlusBus schemes that can be bought as an add-on to a train ticket. These links will open in a new browser window.
11.3) How can I find out how much the fuel will cost for a car journey?
When you are planning a Door-to-door journey or using ‘Find a car route’, you can enter specific information about your car and the journey you plan to make in order for the Journey Planner to cost your journey.
The type of information you can enter is the size of your car, your car’s fuel consumption and fuel type, the cost of your fuel, whether you’d like to avoid tolls, or ferries, etc. The Journey Planner will calculate the ‘Fuel cost’, and will take into account any tolls or ferry costs to give you the total cost for the journey.
These costs are approximate and may vary by 50% or more depending on factors such as weather, driving style, high congestion levels, number of passengers and tyre pressures. They are intended to give you a rough estimate of how much a journey by car might cost.
Once you have planned a car journey, click ‘Tickets/Costs’ to find out how much the fuel for the journey is going to cost. The Journey Planner will take into account any information that you entered in the ‘Add car journey details’ section. If you have not entered any details in this section, then the Journey Planner uses the defaults which are based on average car size, average fuel costs for an unleaded petrol engine, average fuel consumption.
11.4) How can I find out the full costs of a car journey taking into account how much I have to pay to own and run a car?
The Journey Planner can also give you an estimate of the full cost of a journey taking into account the costs of running and owning a car.
On the Tickets/Costs page you will need to select ‘Total costs’ rather than ‘Fuel costs’ from the drop-down list.
This ’Total cost’ is approximate and will take into account the ongoing costs of running and owning a car. In estimating these costs we will assume you have a medium sized car. If you have a large or small car you will need to select the size on the ‘Car details’ page. We will assume your car is up to three years old and that you drive 12,000 miles a year in estimating this cost. More details can be found from the AA (opens new window) or the RAC (opens new window). Click here to see the assumptions we make about the miles per gallon for different sized engines (opens new window).
Fuel is likely to account for around a quarter to a third of the full cost of the journey. Fuel costs may vary by 50% or more depending on factors such as weather, driving style, high congestion levels, number of passengers and tyre pressures.
11.5) What types of rail fares can I see on the Journey Planner?
When you click the "Tickets/Costs" button, the Journey Planner searches for, then shows the full range of fares that are available to the general public. If you require a return fare and have not entered a return date or time, you should select "Return" from the dropdown menu in the "Amend fare" section, at the bottom of the page. Zonal fares and season tickets cannot be seen at present.
11.6) What rail fares are shown in advance of a fares change?
If you plan a journey for a date in the future, the fares shown will be those that apply on your date of travel provided that your ticket is purchased today.
11.7) What is meant by ‘Route’ in the list of rail fares shown for a journey?
Rail fares sometimes apply to a particular route or train operator. The route description shown under the ticket type is based on the route shown on the ticket. The validity of rail tickets is explained in the National Rail Conditions of Carriage available on the National Rail website.