The advance rail fares availability system

razord

It seems more and more that the cheapest advanced rail fares sell out within hours of them becoming available.

Does anyone know exactly when rail tickets become available? Is it midnight each night that one more day becomes available? Or weekly at midnight for another week? Does it vary per TOC, etc?

I'd like to try and build a system to let people get alerts just before they become available to help with all the price increases!

yorkie2

It varies by TOC. Some of them already send alerts... http://www.eastcoast.co.uk/travel-information/advanced-ticket-alert/

Livingthedream

Train Companies' are very self centered and only think about their own priorities and interests. The majority of them have their own alert system in place but are limited to their own Advance ticket produces, yorkie gave East Coast as an example, here's AXC's which only does AXC's Advance tickets; http://www.alerts.buytickets.crosscountrytrains.co.uk/default.aspx

If you could develop an app that links all these systems that would be great, however, as you would have to use each Train Companies' databases for information you might have trouble getting permission.

You could use the National Rail Booking Horizons database, however, this database is notorious for been outdated at times.