National Location Code - Consequence For Ticketing Systems

Consequence For Ticketing Systems

In the 1960s and 1970s, there were various ticket issuing systems in use, some quite localised. Some had simple numerical code structures covering a limited number of stations in the relevant area, but there was no universal coding system to identify stations until the NLC was introduced. NLCs began to appear on certain types of ticket (such as the Southern Region mainstay, the NCR21) almost immediately.

With the introduction of the fully computerised INTIS (Intermediate Ticket Issuing System) in the early 1980s, the four-digit version of the NLC became fully established. INTIS tickets were partly pre-printed, and the station name printed on the ticket had the NLC next to it. The machine printed the codes of the "origin" and "destination" stations on the top line of the ticket.

INTIS was superseded by APTIS in 1986; the latter became the universal ticket office system for the next 15–20 years, with the last APTIS machines removed in March 2007. APTIS tickets had the NLC of the station of issue printed on their second line, irrespective of whether the journey started there - so for example, a ticket issued at Brighton (NLC 5268) for a journey from Gatwick Airport to London Victoria had 5268.

An NLC covered the station and all of its associated accounting activities; it was on everything from tickets issued from self-service ticket machines to ticket office staff wage slips. Where stations on the same site needed to be treated as separate entities, they were allocated different codes. When London Waterloo's East (serving South Eastern Division destinations) began in the late 1980s to be considered as a separate station from the main London Waterloo (NLC 5598), its self-service machines got their own code, 5158. Revenue could then be apportioned correctly to the relevant Division, and, after privatisation, the correct Train Operating Company (TOC).