It says "Adult Standard Class with" then there is some overprinted text and the letter C.Most of us check by the listed railcard, for me the D either goes unnoticed or after I've noted the listed railcard.
It says "Adult Standard Class with" then there is some overprinted text and the letter C.Most of us check by the listed railcard, for me the D either goes unnoticed or after I've noted the listed railcard.
Can I just say that I think the new design is terrible. It looks like it was designed on the back of a fag packet. And the worst thing is they don't even print out properly! You get words printed on top of other words! :roll:
I can't see what was wrong with the old design. Time for ATOC to have a re-think I think.
Is there a consensus on what the initial idea actually was? There was a lot of murmuring at the start about getting rid of "jargon", but new format tickets to London still show "London Terminals", and instead of "Route: ANY PERMITTED" now we generally have "Travel is allowed via any permitted route" - yes, a small improvement in clarity, but it's not much! And some information useful for ticket checking/inspections has been removed, such as the distinction between different types of discounts as mentioned above. I have seen some of the sample/specimen examples of the new print formats that are provided to ticket machine suppliers as a reference, and even some of them have problems with overlapping print and generally untidy (to my eyes anyway) formatting.As with many ticketing-related projects in the industry, the initial idea was sound
Is there a consensus on what the initial idea actually was? There was a lot of murmuring at the start about getting rid of "jargon", but new format tickets to London still show "London Terminals", and instead of "Route: ANY PERMITTED" now we generally have "Travel is allowed via any permitted route" - yes, a small improvement in clarity, but it's not much! And some information useful for ticket checking/inspections has been removed, such as the distinction between different types of discounts as mentioned above. I have seen some of the sample/specimen examples of the new print formats that are provided to ticket machine suppliers as a reference, and even some of them have problems with overlapping print and generally untidy (to my eyes anyway) formatting.
There are some nice crisply printed tickets being issued by the two new Parkeon TVMs in Newcastle
There are some nice crisply printed tickets being issued by the two new Parkeon TVMs in Newcastle
Why fix something that is not broken? There should be more money invested into educating people on how to read tickets, not wasting money on "simplifying" the layout that has been the used for years.
Dumbing down ticket designs is not going to help anyone. People will still continue to get on the wrong train in the peak. Other will still try to travel on later trains with advance ticket and nothing will stop people from sharing their rail card with their friends to save them a few quid.
A very astute post, if I may say.
Thank you. I wish that Southeastern and National Rail would agree with you!
My friend visited me the other day. He got off at Ramsgate where Revenue Inspectors were checking tickets. He showed them his perfectly valid ticket to Ramsgate which was printed in this new design and they insisted that it was fake.
I have bought two tickets using the Virgin Red App discount now, printed on two separate machines, both had 'D' printed in the top corner. One printed on an S&B and one on a Shere machine. I'm not quite sure the purpose of printing this, given the fact the ticket is discounted is of no relevance to the person checking tickets, nor the customer.
It's silly really. This is exactly the sort of thing that ATOC/RDG should be taking the lead on by establishing one standard with clear and strict quality requirements which they then give to the various TOCs and TVM/TIS manufactures to implement. If they can't meet the standard then they don't get to print the new style!
I bought an Advance using a 20% off code and it says "Under 16 year old 1st Class with DISCOUNT AUTHORITY" on it; I'm expecting it not to go smoothly, that's for sure.I had this, a discounted online advanced was issued "Adult with DISCOUNT AUTHORITY" which sounds very ominous. Nobody I ask that I work with knew the D meant discounted anyway!
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Tickets should look the same, whatever the printer/machine. Ticket vending machine user interfaces should also be the same nationally, with the only thing different being branding - although is even that necessary? Why not National Rail branding, with everything managed by ATOC/RTG?
You can be 100% sure that if you set tight rules on how machines must operate and print, all companies wanting to sell their hardware would comply. It really wouldn't be a problem, and far better than each company coming up with its own software for TOCs to rebrand, with different layouts and capabilities.
Customers get confused buying tickets. Staff get confused checking tickets. What a farce!
Tickets should look the same, whatever the printer/machine. Ticket vending machine user interfaces should also be the same nationally, with the only thing different being branding - although is even that necessary? Why not National Rail branding, with everything managed by ATOC/RTG?
You can be 100% sure that if you set tight rules on how machines must operate and print, all companies wanting to sell their hardware would comply. It really wouldn't be a problem, and far better than each company coming up with its own software for TOCs to rebrand, with different layouts and capabilities.
Customers get confused buying tickets. Staff get confused checking tickets. What a farce!
It's silly really. This is exactly the sort of thing that ATOC/RDG should be taking the lead on by establishing one standard with clear and strict quality requirements which they then give to the various TOCs and TVM/TIS manufactures to implement. If they can't meet the standard then they don't get to print the new style!
Then again I think that the same thing should have happened for Avantix replacement...
Legacy systems can be replaced quicker than it has taken (is taking) to do this.They do , the problem comes with legacy systems that can't print in the new format quite as well as people would like
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It's hardly new is it ,how many years has it been out now
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It's silly really. This is exactly the sort of thing that ATOC/RDG should be taking the lead on by establishing one standard with clear and strict quality requirements which they then give to the various TOCs and TVM/TIS manufactures to implement. If they can't meet the standard then they don't get to print the new style!
What, like we already had?