I don't know where in Northern-land you are, but certainly in the Manchester area, I can't remember the last time I had my ticket checked. I use a smart card, and I may as well not have a ticket on it at all because only one guard (literally, one guy - his name's Alan) ever bothers to actually scan and check it. I don't use e-tickets as much for local journeys, but the situation seems to be similar, they look at it but rarely if ever bother to scan. I do understand that it takes long to scan a load of tickets than it does just to look at them, I do, but I do think there needs to be a solution found.I’ve just done some more observation of the passengers standing around me on a Northern train. One guy had some some sort of season/pass that just needed a glance. A woman had a large QR code on her phone, took a while to read using the guard’s phone as each time he got it lined up the train swayed. In the end he had to hold her phone steady (while she was still holding it)
Another woman had a card single or return that he looked at and clipped very quickly. Last guy also had a QR code, but it was smaller in terms of how much screen it took up and his phone was smaller. He had the same problem with the devices moving relative to each other and in the end he had to take the phone off him to read it. Then he had to give it back to him to bring up his railcard. I would say that it took roughly as long to do three paper tickets as one of the e-tickets.
The EMT revenue staff I’ve seen have a separate reader that is linked to their devices, these seem to get a reading better, but I’ve not seen them in use on a rough riding train.
There are problems with e-tickets at certain gatelines, but then there are with mag-stripe tickets as well. If you ever try to use a West Midlands Day Ranger, in any format, for example, the barriers hate them, for example.Not as long as the scan locations don't suggest you've gone backwards in between. I think some might try to challenge it incorrectly but will it be any bigger problem than certain gatelines incorrectly not allowing breaks of journey with paper tickets?