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System Updates

Update 1467 11 May 2026

Ticket "Excursions" HEADLINE: For railways that offer tickets for "travel", this is a better system than the original journey picker and what you should be doing! If your travel tickets are all "events" then this doesn't apply to you. -- An improvement to the method of visitors selecting their journey for 'travel' has been implemented. Where previously a visitor used a 'main line' style journey planner, selecting start and end stations and a ticket type, etc, a new hand-holding flow called 'Excursions' has been created. Excursions are travel options that are already partly or completely populated with journey details. This reduces the number of choices that a visitor needs to make, which feedback indicates is a good thing at attractions where 99% of visitors choose the same option. For example, at Bodmin Railway, 99% of passengers buy a circular trip from the main station, which is the the middle. This will become the only option offered: https://bodmin.hops.org.uk/tickets/travel/plan Once the customer selects that excursion all the details of where the ticket is to and from and via are invisibly fixed without the user taking any action. A 'I know what I'm doing, give me all the options' button is provided for users that want all the options, and this leads to the current journey planner system. The above link to Bodmin is in the live system, but it is not the default that the customer sees yet. A changeover switch is available to send users to the Excursions page by default rather than the current ticket builder. Nearby, at the South Devon Railway, it is not the case that 99% of visitors choose the same option. 70% of visitors choose a round trip from Buckfastleigh (one end of the line) and 25% from Totnes (the other end). https://sdr.hops.org.uk/tickets/travel/plan It can be seen that two excursions are provided - both round trips. Here are some details about the excursion options available: SINGLE TICKET - Origin must be pre-determined. Destination can be pre-determined or selected by user. RETURN TICKET - Origin must be pre-determined. Destination can be pre-determined or selected by user. RANGER TICKET - Origin must be pre-determined. CIRCULAR TICKET - Origin must be pre-determined. Destination 1 and 2 can be pre-determined or selected by user. It is also possible to make them interchangeable. In the Bodmin case, above, the visitor does not care which way round the railway they go, so all train times from the middle station are offered, and which time the customer selects will fix which order destination 1 and destination 2 are applied. Where a destination is not given, the customer will be asked to select it. When designing your Excursions, consider carefully the balance between 'giving the user all the options' and 'making the user's life easy by guiding them to what they probably want'. This is especially the case on railways with many stations, which casual visitors may not appreciate some are more or less intended to be travelled-to than others. * NOTE * - None of the above affects the sale in any way. It is just a method of helping the customer select what they want to buy. Once it is in the basket and then purchased it is a ticket like any other. (If you are looking for it to be preserved, then an event session is the appropriate thing to use instead. Please contact us if you require advice.). The Excursions can be seen in Ticket System > Ticket System Settings > Travel tab > Excursions tab.