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Questions for people who have used e-tickets

What do you think of e-tickets ?


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Bungle965

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Does anyone have more information about this? I've not booked anything with Greater Anglia but if they are issuing m-tickets as e-tickets then this is incorrect. Does anyone have any screenshots showing this?
On the app, it varies by route. So for an example a ticket from Lichfield City to Trent Valley will give you an option as an e-ticket, however for a single from Ipswich to Norwich it will give you the option of either a Mobile ticket or add to your (if you own one) smartcard.
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Haywain

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But as I said if you also record issues you have the advantage that it becomes true e-ticketing, allowing for things like reprints and amendments at any sales channel without even needing to hold the ticket in any form. Same as airlines.
I don’t believe airline tickets work like that. If I have bought a ticket to fly on BA from a secondary seller, I can’t go to EasyJet to obtain a reprint of my boarding pass.
 

Bletchleyite

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I don’t believe airline tickets work like that. If I have bought a ticket to fly on BA from a secondary seller, I can’t go to EasyJet to obtain a reprint of my boarding pass.

Airlines don't have interavailable tickets in the same way[1], so that's no surprise. But you can, at any easyJet sales channel, amend an easyJet ticket. You can't, at any Northern sales channel, amend a Northern ticket. Indeed, Avanti West Coast are the only ones to even propose doing this.

Because the railway does have interavailable ticketing, we can meaningfully consider the whole thing as analagous to one airline, anyway.

[1] Full IATA fare e-tickets are "endorseable" between IATA airlines, easyJet isn't an IATA airline (it is "ticketless" rather than "e-ticketed"), but I believe this involves moving the record from one airline's database to the other.
 

infobleep

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If you want to get "proper" e-tickets via a mobile app and are buying walk-up, buy from the Trainline app. On the day there are no fees. For any e-ticket enabled flow you will get a proper PDF e-ticket by e-mail plus a replica of it in the app (no activation).

I don't quite get why the TOC branded Trainline apps aren't just a skinned version of this. Maintaining multiple different ones must be a faff.
Perhaps they make more money this way by charging upgrade fees or customisation fees
 

ashkeba

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Does anyone have more information about this? I've not booked anything with Greater Anglia but if they are issuing m-tickets as e-tickets then this is incorrect. Does anyone have any screenshots showing this?
Well I tried and I am completely sure this is different to last time. Maybe my complaint after discovering the difference between e-ticket and m-ticket has had an effect but I have had nothing other than the usual "we will reply later" reply yet.

Today it seems that the Greater Anglia website labels m-tickets as "Mobile" and will sell me e-tickets but it will try to sell them as "Mobile" too instead of e-tickets sometimes. Here is a journey on the 13:01 Crosscountry from Cambridge to Ely on the booking summary screen on both Great Northern (which offers e-tickets or Ticket-on-Departure) and Greater Anglia (which offers only "Mobile" and says you need their app). Can anyone who can see the behind the scenes data tell me what options this journey should be showing? They cannot both be correct, can they?
 

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35B

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I agree with that in the sense that everything should be an e-ticket and you should be able to choose your preferred method of carrying that barcode with you, i.e. a bit of A4 from your own printer, a PDF, something in an app or a bit of card from a TVM. But in all cases the technology behind it should be the barcoded e-ticket. That's the beauty of it. If a barcode can be displayed on it, it can be used as a medium for an e-ticket.
So does that mean that each ticket must be associated with a purchaser? I've no issue with the idea that all purchases be recorded on a ledger, but the implication of your comment is that a walkup ticket purchased at the station requires attribution to a user.

This strikes me as impractical and off putting to a casual user - why would I want to register for a purchase when make a one-off, ad hoc, purchase? It would also represent a reversion to the position imposed by the government at the time the Liverpool & Manchester opened - and were soon reversed.
 

35B

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I thought 35B was suggesting that he should be able to have a classic orange card ticket, i.e. one that itself held the validity by its existence, not one that was a reference to an e-ticket in a database?

I am also not opposed to charging for more expensive methods of fulfillment, e.g. a fee for purchasing from a staffed ticket office as the Dutch have, or a fee for ToD when you can use PDF e-tickets or print your own instead, or a reprint fee if lost and wanting to print it at the station.
I was - on the basis that implementation for ad hoc ticket purchases should require attribution to a specific person.
 

Bletchleyite

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So does that mean that each ticket must be associated with a purchaser?

Tickets would need to be named in order to gain some of those benefits. However, that could easily be optional. For example, in many parts of Germany you can buy a personal season ticket or a transferrable one. If you buy a personal one, forget it and are PFed, the PF can be cancelled on providing the ticket and proof of identity. If you choose the transferrable one, the PF stands because someone else could have been using it.
 

35B

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Tickets would need to be named in order to gain some of those benefits. However, that could easily be optional. For example, in many parts of Germany you can buy a personal season ticket or a transferrable one. If you buy a personal one, forget it and are PFed, the PF can be cancelled on providing the ticket and proof of identity. If you choose the transferrable one, the PF stands because someone else could have been using it.
So, in the use of ticket machines that already have a reputation for user unfriendly behaviour, we are adding a further layer of complication?
 

Wallsendmag

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Airlines don't have interavailable tickets in the same way[1], so that's no surprise. But you can, at any easyJet sales channel, amend an easyJet ticket. You can't, at any Northern sales channel, amend a Northern ticket. Indeed, Avanti West Coast are the only ones to even propose doing this.

Because the railway does have interavailable ticketing, we can meaningfully consider the whole thing as analagous to one airline, anyway.

[1] Full IATA fare e-tickets are "endorseable" between IATA airlines, easyJet isn't an IATA airline (it is "ticketless" rather than "e-ticketed"), but I believe this involves moving the record from one airline's database to the other.

How do you know LNER aren't in the process introducing the ability to exchange (refund and rebook) e-Tickets at their own Travel Centre's
 

Mathew S

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How do you know LNER aren't in the process introducing the ability to exchange (refund and rebook) e-Tickets at their own Travel Centre's
While that would a step in the right direction, until it's any ticket, at any staffed station, or online/in-app, it's not really fit for purpose as a system and is still going to catch people out.
 

Bletchleyite

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While that would a step in the right direction, until it's any ticket, at any staffed station, or online/in-app, it's not really fit for purpose as a system and is still going to catch people out.

It is a franchise commitment of Avanti West Coast to be able to do that, for what it's worth. I agree it is needed nationally, and true e-ticketing (every ticket creating a record in one national database which itself is the ticket with anything else just a reference to it) is required for it to work.
 

edwin_m

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I bought an off-peak return Nottingham-Bristol through our work system, and it offered me m-ticket but not e-ticket, anyone know why? In view of the warnings on here and the grim state of my phone battery I opted for cardboard. My last journey in that direction was an off-peak return Coventry-Bristol which I think was only available in cardboard formats.
 

ashkeba

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Because XC are an awful TOC, and one manifestation of this is a like for the m-ticket format, so e-tickets aren't enabled for their flows.
I could buy an eticket for XC in my earlier example and Great Northern also offer me an e ticket for Nottingham - Bristol. I think the work retailer of @edwin_m may be at fault in this case.
 

edwin_m

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I could buy an eticket for XC in my earlier example and Great Northern also offer me an e ticket for Nottingham - Bristol. I think the work retailer of @edwin_m may be at fault in this case.
I've just re-tried the same ticket on EMR and it gives me the choice of e-ticket or collection but not m-ticket (the date is too close to send by post). The description of an e-ticket on the site refers to printing or PDF so it's not a misdescribed m-ticket. I'll email our travel provider.
 

Mathew S

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Veteran Radio 4 reporter Hugh Sykes has fallen foul of Chiltern's misnamed e-tickets

https://twitter.com/HughSykes/status/1219679238158258176
and
https://twitter.com/HughSykes/status/1219679563787182083
I adore Hugh, I really do - nothing short of a professional idol for me, frankly - but I think even he would admit he's something of a technophobe. It's a good advert for why consistency is with a handful of completely standardised, clear, and technophobe-proof formats.
 

Haywain

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I adore Hugh, I really do - nothing short of a professional idol for me, frankly - but I think even he would admit he's something of a technophobe. It's a good advert for why consistency is with a handful of completely standardised, clear, and technophobe-proof formats.
The app failing to download because it doesn't like the operating system doesn't make the man a technophobe, in my view.
 

CaptainHaddock

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I adore Hugh, I really do - nothing short of a professional idol for me, frankly - but I think even he would admit he's something of a technophobe. It's a good advert for why consistency is with a handful of completely standardised, clear, and technophobe-proof formats.

Alternatively it's a good advert for why paper tickets are better. E-tickets may well work in the future but it's clear the technology isn't quite there yet, which I suspect is why they haven't really caught on with the general public.
 

James H

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The point is that if what Hugh has been sold was actually an e-ticket as specified by the industry he would have had a PDF he could use or print without any compatibility problems.
 

Bletchleyite

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Alternatively it's a good advert for why paper tickets are better. E-tickets may well work in the future but it's clear the technology isn't quite there yet, which I suspect is why they haven't really caught on with the general public.

A proper e-ticket would have been fine, I doubt there is a single smartphone out there that can't show a PDF.

Personally, I would say m-tickets, if they have to issue the infernal things, should be issued only when the ticket is actually booked using a compatible app so you know they will work.
 

infobleep

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It's a good job Mr Sykes HD 45 minutes spare to sort it out.

Is their a formal British Standard for e-ticketing? If not perhaps there should be with companies accredited if they follow it. Then it might be more easy to name and shame those that don't, assuming there are still some who don't wish to follow the British Standard.
 

Bletchleyite

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It's a good job Mr Sykes HD 45 minutes spare to sort it out.

Is their a formal British Standard for e-ticketing? If not perhaps there should be with companies accredited if they follow it. Then it might be more easy to name and shame those that don't, assuming there are still some who don't wish to follow the British Standard.

Yes, there's an e-ticket standard. In my view it should (among other things) be mandatory for being a member of RSP, i.e. if you don't do it properly you are totally removed from the through ticketing system including acceptance and sale. (Guess which yellow north west TOC I think deserves this sanction).
 

infobleep

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Yes, there's an e-ticket standard. In my view it should (among other things) be mandatory for being a member of RSP, i.e. if you don't do it properly you are totally removed from the through ticketing system including acceptance and sale. (Guess which yellow north west TOC I think deserves this sanction).
Does it have a British Standard BS number? I couldn't see anything online.

Which body oversees the standard and consults or revises it?
 

Bletchleyite

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Does it have a British Standard BS number? I couldn't see anything online.

Does it need to? It's an RSP standard applicable to its members. There is no sense in paying for BS/CE certification of something that is only used by one industry that already has a trade body that can itself have a standard as a condition of membership.

Sorry, I misread your post, didn't get it as meaning "BSnnnn" but more that there is a standard applicable to the UK. There is, it's just that TOCs are ignoring it and it is not being enforced.
 

infobleep

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Does it need to? It's an RSP standard applicable to its members. There is no sense in paying for BS/CE certification of something that is only used by one industry that already has a trade body that can itself have a standard as a condition of membership.

Sorry, I misread your post, didn't get it as meaning "BSnnnn" but more that there is a standard applicable to the UK. There is, it's just that TOCs are ignoring it and it is not being enforced.
Thats fair enough. I was kind of thinking maybe if the standard was overseen by an independent body from the railways, it might get more compliance but perhaps I'm being too confident on such a thing

Where I work, I have a national body who oversees some of the work I do. If the bit of our organisation that I work in didn't meet a standard we follow, for long enough, there would consequences.
 
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