Why don't TOCs allow super off peak day tickets on ITSO smartcard?

[KT550]

I was experimenting with my Southern issued smartcard at a Greater Anglia TVM at the weekend to see if it worked.

The TVM only offered the more expensive off peak day return, instead of the super off peak ticket which is available as a paper ticket.

Luckily I knew the price but wonder how many passengers are being overcharged by using the smartcard at the TVM?

 

[CyrusWuff]

I was experimenting with my Southern issued smartcard at a Greater Anglia TVM at the weekend to see if it worked.

The TVM only offered the more expensive off peak day return, instead of the super off peak ticket which is available as a paper ticket.

Luckily I knew the price but wonder how many passengers are being overcharged by using the smartcard at the TVM?

It depends on the ticket type.

GTR have created "Smart" versions of most ticket types to work with theKey, but not all of them can be sold at TVMs, and the "traditional" versions (which can be sold at TVMs) can't be fulfilled to Smartcards.

 

[Haywain]

It depends on the ticket type.

GTR have created "Smart" versions of most ticket types to work with theKey, but not all of them can be sold at TVMs, and the "traditional" versions (which can be sold at TVMs) can't be fulfilled to Smartcards.

And some can't be fulfilled to smartcard because the gate logic can't be programmed to deal with a second set of off-peak restrictions.

 

[redreni]

So the incentives to encourage uptake of smartcards are:

• no discount whatsoever for getting a ticket on a smartcard compared to on paper; and
• when you present your smartcard to a TVM, it may hide the cheapest fares from view without telling you it's done so?

Shouldn't the TOCs be required to make these features known to passengers when they issue a smartcard to them, so that people are aware of them?

Also, is it strictly necessary for the TVM to hide the tickets that can't be added to a smartcard? Could it not still display them and then, if the customer selects them, display a message saying "this ticket cannot be added to a smartcard" and give the customer options to buy it as a paper ticket or go back to the previous menu?

 

[Wallsendmag]

I don't think Smartcard is the desired media to use from TVMs for day tickets, PRT is much better suited for this.

 

[Tazi Hupefi]

Smartcards on National Rail took so long to introduce as a concept, that they were pretty outdated as a form of technology at launch. Perhaps if the sale of annual season tickets at any significant level had persisted post COVID they'd have had a fighting chance - but annual seasons are a distant, legacy product now for many passengers.

They will disappear along with the Oyster Card in due course I suspect.

Capped EMV/contactless card payments for anything local and barcode tickets for everything else.

Given that even bus operator equipment is being updated to read rail Aztec codes, the whole multi-modal/ interoperability benefit of ITSO, (which the way RDG set this up meant that it wasn't really interoperable across different modes, at least not easily), means that ITSO doesn't really have any advantages left.

Even Wightlink is installing new ticket barriers at their ferry terminals which read rail Aztec barcodes.

They're also comparatively expensive to produce and post out/support once issued and their plastic nature means poor environmental credentials.

 

[Wallsendmag]

Smartcards on National Rail took so long to introduce as a concept, that they were pretty outdated as a form of technology at launch. Perhaps if the sale of annual season tickets at any significant level had persisted post COVID they'd have had a fighting chance - but annual seasons are a distant, legacy product now for many passengers.

They will disappear along with the Oyster Card in due course I suspect.

Capped EMV/contactless card payments for anything local and barcode tickets for everything else.

Given that even bus operator equipment is being updated to read rail Aztec codes, the whole multi-modal/ interoperability benefit of ITSO, (which the way RDG set this up meant that it wasn't really interoperable across different modes, at least not easily), means that ITSO doesn't really have any advantages left.

Even Wightlink is installing new ticket barriers at their ferry terminals which read rail Aztec barcodes.

They're also comparatively expensive to produce and post out/support once issued and their plastic nature means poor environmental credentials.

And yet on Merseyside .......

 

[island]

Luckily I knew the price but wonder how many passengers are being overcharged by using the smartcard at the TVM?

The number of people using smartcards at TVMs for day tickets is surely minuscule.

 

[Jan Mayen]

I use my Southern KeyGo card to load day tickets (although I often use the KeyGo function).

What would be the best medium for annual season tickets?

 

[Tazi Hupefi]

And yet on Merseyside .......

I despair. I'm hearing awful things about how they are planning to set up their PAYG trial with iBlocks. It genuinely is incompetence and inexperience causing the issues - along with an extremely insular view of the world. If they participated more enthusiastically (or at all in some cases) with the industry initivates they'd have a lot more support available to them, and they'd not be trying to reinvent the wheel or having to make the same mistakes other TOCs have long moved on from by now.

This isn't just the case with ticketing- it's embedded throughout the business with everything from train planning to performance - albeit they don't have as much wiggle room to make up their own rules when it comes to Network Rail and ORR.

 

[redreni]

Smartcards on National Rail took so long to introduce as a concept, that they were pretty outdated as a form of technology at launch. Perhaps if the sale of annual season tickets at any significant level had persisted post COVID they'd have had a fighting chance - but annual seasons are a distant, legacy product now for many passengers.

They will disappear along with the Oyster Card in due course I suspect.

Capped EMV/contactless card payments for anything local and barcode tickets for everything else.

Given that even bus operator equipment is being updated to read rail Aztec codes, the whole multi-modal/ interoperability benefit of ITSO, (which the way RDG set this up meant that it wasn't really interoperable across different modes, at least not easily), means that ITSO doesn't really have any advantages left.

Even Wightlink is installing new ticket barriers at their ferry terminals which read rail Aztec barcodes.

They're also comparatively expensive to produce and post out/support once issued and their plastic nature means poor environmental credentials.

My interest in smartcards is pretty much limited to working out if I can use them as a workaround for the unavailability of e-ticket versions of one or more of:

• travelcards,
• cross-London tickets,
• boundary zone tickets,
• tickets to or from a LU zone.

To return to the OP's perfectly legitimate point, however, I think we should ask ourselves whether, if a passenger went into a ticket office on a Sunday, presented their smartcard and asked for a day return to X, anyone would think it remotely acceptable for the ticket office clerk to sell them an unnecessarily expensive ticket rather than explain the cheapest is a Super off-peak return but it can only be issued on paper?

I think most people accept that TVMs can't necessarily always do everything a ticket office can do, but the failure mode should be "sorry, you can't do that here" not "sure, here are the fares" with no indication given that the cheapest fares are hidden. Especially when the name of the unnecessarily expensive ticket offered is "off-peak", which doesn't exactly alert the passenger to the fact there may be cheaper fares that they're not being shown.

 

[blueberry11]

On the plus side, at least smartcards are a way to use less paper. But since e-tickets (as a PDF ticket which can also be printed out), m-tickets (as a ticket on a mobile app) and (in some areas) contactless are now a thing, it is in decline, like with Oyster. I think smartcards are mainly used for season tickets still.

 

[Wallsendmag]

Travelcards yes

On the plus side, at least smartcards are a way to use less paper. But since e-tickets (as a PDF ticket which can also be printed out), m-tickets (as a ticket on a mobile app) and (in some areas) contactless are now a thing, it is in decline, like with Oyster. I think smartcards are mainly used for season tickets still.

mTickets are in decline not so sure about the rest

 

[MrJeeves]

The number of people using smartcards at TVMs for day tickets is surely minuscule.

It's only really worth it for Travelcards, but as my local station has super off-peak ones on weekends, even those scenarios are rare!

 

[sprunt]

Also, is it strictly necessary for the TVM to hide the tickets that can't be added to a smartcard? Could it not still display them and then, if the customer selects them, display a message saying "this ticket cannot be added to a smartcard" and give the customer options to buy it as a paper ticket or go back to the previous menu?

It could, but the rail industry doesn't like its customers so they aren't going to make the fairly limited effort to do that.

 

[bcarmicle]

mTickets are in decline not so sure about the rest

I think they were saying that the availability of eTickets/mTickets and contactless meant that smartcard usage was in decline.

 

[Wallsendmag]

I think they were saying that the availability of eTickets/mTickets and contactless meant that smartcard usage was in decline.

Apples and oranges

 

[Haywain]

I think they were saying that the availability of eTickets/mTickets and contactless meant that smartcard usage was in decline.

That is what was being said. Of course, the industry was late to smartcards and their unintegrated and half-hearted (or half-baked?) implementation means that take up is relatively small, so they will remain something of a niche product.

 

[smsm1]

The number of people using smartcards at TVMs for day tickets is surely minuscule.

I tried with Scotrail in the past just and the single or return wouldn't activate with the card readers just saying not valid yet. Used to work fine on Greater Anglia.

The biggest pain point about ITSO is that you can't be issued with one card that works everywhere. Eg why can't I use a Greater Anglia card with credit on it on the Glasgow Subway? There is some cross over, however it should have been like the Dutch where one card works everywhere.

 

[DelW]

The introduction of smart card tickets was a classic example of how *not* to do it.

It was left up to each TOC to devise their own scheme, and as a result, they came up with a confusing mixture of different cards with conflicting T's & C's, and limited or no inter-availability. They were mostly inconvenient for anyone other than regular commuters to use.

The waste of resources must have been enormous, starting off with the multiple duplication of effort in so many different systems being produced simultaneously. At my local station (then ungated) four card readers were installed, including two at a little used back entrance. In over a decade I never saw anyone use one, before they were all scrapped when a gate line was installed.

If that level of resource and expenditure had been put into a single national scheme, usable on any British train, we might have had a workable and useful system, and even saved some money. But of course the privatisation mantra was that commercial competition works better (even where it obviously doesn't).

 

[AM9]

The introduction of smart card tickets was a classic example of how *not* to do it.

It was left up to each TOC to devise their own scheme, and as a result, they came up with a confusing mixture of different cards with conflicting T's & C's, and limited or no inter-availability. They were mostly inconvenient for anyone other than regular commuters to use.

The waste of resources must have been enormous, starting off with the multiple duplication of effort in so many different systems being produced simultaneously. At my local station (then ungated) four card readers were installed, including two at a little used back entrance. In over a decade I never saw anyone use one, before they were all scrapped when a gate line was installed.

If that level of resource and expenditure had been put into a single national scheme, usable on any British train, we might have had a workable and useful system, and even saved some money. But of course the privatisation mantra was that commercial competition works better (even where it obviously doesn't).

There is of course a national ITSO caRd that works on all operators services *, i.e. the ENCTS, which considering the diverse nature of bus company size, equipment and resources works pretty well. So why not rail?
* Ironically, London Bus services seem unable to integrate ENCTS into its largely automated ticketing system.

 

[Haywain]

There is of course a national ITSO caRd that works on all operators services *, i.e. the ENCTS, which considering the diverse nature of bus company size, equipment and resources works pretty well. So why not rail?
* Ironically, London Bus services seem unable to integrate ENCTS into its largely automated ticketing system.

So it doesn't actually work on all operators services? And it doesn't do anything to remove the need for other ITSO cards for train, or other bus or tram use. If anything, it's a perfect example of why the "standard" was flawed from the start.

 

[AM9]

So it doesn't actually work on all operators services? And it doesn't do anything to remove the need for other ITSO cards for train, or other bus or tram use. If anything, it's a perfect example of why the "standard" was flawed from the start.

The point that I was making is that they work with a very wide assortment of bus operations (yes I know that there are some smaller outfits that aren't operating them at the moment), so the implementation has effectively been largely successful.

 

[Blindtraveler]

I get the distinct impression that most of the rail industry sees smart cards as old technology now compared to e-tickets and would be unsurprised to learn that the greatest majority of smart card usage is in the southeast or by users of mid distance into regional or intercity operations serving London who might issue products such as day travel cards or origin to London zone single or returns onto them


This usage will drop off dramatically. Should transport for London ever modernise sufficiently to start accepting e-tickets at tube and rail barriers. Worth noting that some tfl stations already do except some e-ticket products if they are served by other operators all

 

[Haywain]

I get the distinct impression that most of the rail industry sees smart cards as old technology now compared to e-tickets and would be unsurprised to learn that the greatest majority of smart card usage is in the southeast or by users of mid distance into regional or intercity operations serving London who might issue products such as day travel cards or origin to London zone single or returns onto them

The main use cases for smartcards on rail are season tickets, including flexi-seasons, and pay-as-you-go systems like KeyGo, SWR Touch and the GWR PAYG. Anything else is just an edge case for a tiny minority of travellers.

 

[Wallsendmag]

Don't forget the new fairly soon to be rolled out West Midlands PAYG will use a Smartcard

 

[Haywain]

Don't forget the new fairly soon to be rolled out West Midlands PAYG will use a Smartcard

Yes. Another scheme, another smartcard. If only a card for one area's PAYG scheme could be used on the others.

 

[Tazi Hupefi]

I've said it before on this forum, but you can't just go from zero to hero with this stuff - you need a phased approach, with gradual incremental improvement/enhancement until you reach the optimal position (or you have no end position, and support continuous improvement).

Much like ScotRail with their mTickets, the technology is now bedded in, customers are appreciating of the need not to abuse them having become accustomed to activating and scanning them, staff are now familiar with how scanning works/looks, the back end processes have matured and the fraud risk understood and measured. This has now led to the introduction of PRT format tickets, and true e-Ticket introduction won't be much too far behind.

So like Merseyrail / West Midlands with Pay as you Go, the need to have an intermediary smartcard linked to a payment card instead of jumping to pure EMV/contactless, is simply an interim step - not the final position.

 

[paul1609]

Yes. Another scheme, another smartcard. If only a card for one area's PAYG scheme could be used on the others.

Or in the case of GTR one operators scheme could be used on all their trains. Our railusers group were told that keygo would be extended to Portsmouth/Southampton in a few months something like 6 years ago!

 

[MrJeeves]

Our railusers group were told that keygo would be extended to Portsmouth/Southampton in a few months something like 6 years ago!

Doubly frustrating when SWR's touch PAYG scheme can be used on some GTR services, showing that they can come to some form of agreement if they really want to.