Can anyone explain what ORCATS is.?

Question

For people not in the know ORCATS is somthing to do with Ticket issuing on the UK railways.

I am wondering how it works and what it actualy stands for.

Answer 1

Virgin Cross Country isn't a orcats raid, the cross country network was operating under BR, and provides useful through journeys. Its Semi-Fast operation is similar to the German InterRegional model. All operators have minor raids, but what they gain, they also loose somewhere else.

BTW the Virgin Voyagers were designed to be extendable as demand grew, however the Government has blocked any extention and is now ordering that whoever wins New Cross Country later this year will have to give a large chunk of the Voyager fleet to West Coast (run by Virgin currently, but will be up for re-tender in the next couple of years) for an increase in services to Chester and Wales

Grand Central meanwhile is almost certainly an Raid, I think GNER and the other operators would have been happier if they had a set down/pick up only stop at York. But it is looking more like the entire profitablity of Grand Central is based on orcats raiding the busy York to London route

Answer 2

If a passenger buys an advance purchase ticket requiring them to travel on a named train with an allocated seat, the rail company gets the whole fare, minus 9% selling commission.

However, if that same passenger buys an open ticket enabling them to choose their trains, the fare is divided up according to a pre-agreed formula called Orcats. This is a scheme overseen by the Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC).

Orcats allows for the fact that passengers can often use more than one rail company to get to the same destination. It effectively works out what proportion of passengers use each company on each particular route, and allocates the money accordingly.

For example, on the London to Stirling route it is possible to use any one of three rail companies including both GNER and Virgin, and the companies probably only get 40% of all the "open" fares each - after the 9% sales commission. However, if the same passenger pre-books a restricted ticket with either firm, that company will get almost all the fare paid. In many cases the amount will be greater than their share of the higher "open" fare.

Thats as simple as I can get it and, although it still seems confusing, it isn't really.

:~}

Answer 3

look here

http://www.rail-reg.gov.uk/server/show/C...

Answer 4

As firecat says above its the formula used to work out how to spit up the money received from open tickets. The system has led to train operators doing what is called "orcats raiding". They do this by running services solely designed to get a certain percentage of orcats money sometimes these services run just behind another service from a different operator needlessly duplicating services. It is rumored that much of virgins cross country routes were created solely for the purpose of orcats raiding and that the design of virgins voyager trains was heavily influenced by the companies desire to orcats raid.

Answer 5

ORCATS is an acronym for "Operational Research Allocation of Tickets to Services.(UK Railroads.)