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Have TfL been told to accept e-tickets?

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cactustwirly

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A very high proportion of teenagers do have contactless cards actually - and their must be some way to implement child and railcard fares onto contactless cards. Also, under 11s already travel free on the Tube anyway so they are not an issue.

Do they?
I only got contactless when I got my student bank account.
The bank account I had when I was a teenager didn't have contactless.
 
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35B

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I agree that your through ticket should be continue to exist and that your rights would therefore be protected. Only the cross-London element would be missing (use contactless or oyster as you prefer), and the through ticket would be cheaper by at least the same amount (£2.40 for an adult). There would be no need to have ‘split’ rail tickets.
And when we’re past the initial transition period, what then? The logic of the decision to preserve rights will be forgotten, and there will be a whole new cottage industry of avoiding honouring contracts as admin teams struggle with a further layer of complexity. A through ticket means a through ticket, with one ticket covering an entire journey. Rebooking, even with Oyster or Contactless, is not a through ticket.

That, by the way, is for the adult full fare payer. As others have pointed out, the implications for railcard holders, group discounts, etc. are wider - not to mention the simple confusion caused to irregular travellers as they find their “through ticket” does not work the barrier and have to pay “extra” to do the journey they think they’ve paid for.

This is an awful idea, driven by dogma and disregarding entirely the needs of the customer.
 

35B

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Do they?
I only got contactless when I got my student bank account.
The bank account I had when I was a teenager didn't have contactless.
My 14 year old son does have contactless, but not my 12 year old daughter - her bank don’t allow it
 

Jetpack_Johnny

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ITSO tickets from rail companies are already compatible with London underground readers and bus reader providing they have a valid ticket on them to use on the underground.

Thats true but sadly you can only load them with "Anytime" Or "Off Peak" travelcards not "Super-Off Peak" Which is only available on paper, Something that is definitely going to stop the further introduction of Smartcards!
 

Bletchleyite

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Thats true but sadly you can only load them with "Anytime" Or "Off Peak" travelcards not "Super-Off Peak" Which is only available on paper, Something that is definitely going to stop the further introduction of Smartcards!

Well, that's rather stupid.

Of course the fix is to correct that, not to retain paper tickets.
 

Jetpack_Johnny

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Just put it on a smartcard (though I'm not sure if GTR do day Travelcards on Smartcard; some TOCs like c2c do though).

Yes, Yes they do, But only off peak and anytime, not super off peak, which is frustrating.. this i believe is caused by a limitation in TFL'S oyster card system, which these smartcards use to run on the underground.
 

HSTEd

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Shouldn't the e-ticketing system have been thought out properly for full deployment to all transport modes, and across all operators, before we spent huge sums of money on a partial rollout?
 

Starmill

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I think I am in complete agreement with @alistairlees about the way forward, and have been for some time!

Unfortunately, I think the civil service see it rather differently. Presumably the discussion around an instruction to cut the price of tickets with the cross-London marker is something the TOCs are happy to accept on the basis of backfill of that sum from DfT coffers every time the ticket is sold.

Sure, the government can now force them to accept the changes by use of Emergency Measures Agreements, but that doesn't solve the problem for long-term contracts. Avanti West Coast and East Midlands Railway in particular, the Department seem to be clinging to as long-term prospects without renegotiation.
 

Starmill

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Shouldn't the e-ticketing system have been thought out properly for full deployment to all transport modes, and across all operators, before we spent huge sums of money on a partial rollout?
It should. The blame lies with the Department - and them only. It's their micro-management that did this.
 

HSTEd

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It should. The blame lies with the Department - and them only. It's their micro-management that did this.
If they hadn't "micromanaged" we would have fifty completely incompatible systems that could never be made to work together.
Looking at the railway industry's post privatisation rolling stock procurement process (especially in the early years) is proof of that.
 

Starmill

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If they hadn't "micromanaged" we would have fifty completely incompatible systems that could never be made to work together.
Looking at the railway industry's post privatisation rolling stock procurement process (especially in the early years) is proof of that.
This doesn't follow at all. It would have been quite possible to delegate all of these decisions to a national Quango composed of railway experts. They could have been allowed to write the spec, and given the power to roll it out nationally, maybe across different business sectors. Rather than today's situation where the civil service and Ministers are making day-to-day decisions that aren't appropriate for their skills. They should only set broad policy goals, review progress and direct funding.

Sound familiar?
 

HSTEd

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This doesn't follow at all. It would have been quite possible to delegate all of these decisions to a national Quango composed of railway experts. They could have been allowed to write the spec, and given the power to roll it out nationally, maybe across different business sectors. Rather than today's situation where the civil service and Ministers are making day-to-day decisions that aren't appropriate for their skills. They should only set broad policy goals, review progress and direct funding.

Sound familiar?
It would be politically impossible for a panel of railway "experts" (chosen by whoom, on what criteria?) to impose a solution on bus operators that represent the majority of trips (not distance mind you).
 

Starmill

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It would be politically impossible for a panel of railway "experts" (chosen by whoom, on what criteria?) to impose a solution on bus operators that represent the majority of trips (not distance mind you).
Why would it? No reason why the government couldn't contract the operation of most bus services either? It's purely a case of not wanting to pay a fairly small amount of money. And I don't see how it's difficult to select people based on their experience of running railways. This is too far off topic though.

I think the problem is that you mean it's unacceptable to the Conservative party, not to the industry or to the public in general.
 

Ralph Ayres

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Yes, Yes they do, But only off peak and anytime, not super off peak, which is frustrating.. this i believe is caused by a limitation in TFL'S oyster card system, which these smartcards use to run on the underground.
ITSO smartcard data in the LU readers is separate from Oyster; any ticket type can be accepted as required if the relevant train company requests it. It's far more flexible than for magnetic tickets, which involve a number of compromises to allow NR tickets to work LU gates.
 

infobleep

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Plusbus is a cheaper product than the usual bus day tickets.
Not always. Take Oxford. Plusbus only lasts for the day, whereas a multi journey bus ticket from a bus driver lasts 24 hours. So if you there for two days, Plusbus is more expensive.
 

infobleep

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There is another solution. Do nothing. It's worked for this long, why bother changing it. It's cheaper in the short term to do nothing and some people in positions of management like not to spend money.

It dlesn't require person hours to design an alternative that works either. Another short term saving.

Are there lots of complaints from passengers about not being able to buy an eTicket? You'd need to weigh that up vers the costs of implementing a change.

It may store up a problem for the future but that might be someone else's problem.

Obviously the above was said tongue in cheek.
 

edwin_m

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There is another solution. Do nothing. It's worked for this long, why bother changing it. It's cheaper in the short term to do nothing and some people in positions of management like not to spend money.

It dlesn't require person hours to design an alternative that works either. Another short term saving.

Are there lots of complaints from passengers about not being able to buy an eTicket? You'd need to weigh that up vers the costs of implementing a change.

It may store up a problem for the future but that might be someone else's problem.

Obviously the above was said tongue in cheek.
If you do nothing for long enough then barriers will become due for replacement, and I suspect barcode functionality is much easier and cheaper on a new barrier than as a retrofit. As soon as they are changed at a few terminals/interchanges, e-ticket can be enabled for flows that can only pass through those stations.
 

infobleep

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If you do nothing for long enough then barriers will become due for replacement, and I suspect barcode functionality is much easier and cheaper on a new barrier than as a retrofit. As soon as they are changed at a few terminals/interchanges, e-ticket can be enabled for flows that can only pass through those stations.
Well I just did a check and one still can't get an eTicket from Effingham Junction to Sutton. That route doesn't pass through any TfL owned stations and surely Sutton can't be so busy that using eTicket would slow things down too much.
 

Starmill

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Well I just did a check and one still can't get an eTicket from Effingham Junction to Sutton. That route doesn't pass through any TfL owned stations and surely Sutton can't be so busy that using eTicket would slow things down too much.
They actually slow things down really significantly, all over the place.
 

infobleep

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They actually slow things down really significantly, all over the place.
Well if that is the case, perhaps eTicket isn't the solution but what would be faster but not paper based? This is more likely a separate discussion.

I had read on here more stations would be getting the ability to accept eTickets but I don't know if it has happened yet.
 

Bletchleyite

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Well if that is the case, perhaps eTicket isn't the solution but what would be faster but not paper based?

Improved tech would speed them up. For instance scanners which (a) had you hold your barcode screen-upwards rather than screen-downwards, and (b) used camera rather than laser-scanner tech so you could see on a small screen that you'd aligned it properly.

With phones, another option would be to develop a means of using NFC to reference an e-ticket rather than just a barcode, that would be quicker. Like with most things you don't have to speed everyone up, just most people. Most people are now using barcoded tickets on phones, not paper.

Actually, might that be a short term solution to e-tickets on TfL - NFC on a phone only, no paper? Could the Oyster pads get a software mod to read that? It's already used effectively for contactless from phones...
 

Wallsendmag

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eTickets aren't that much slower if at all than paper tickets just TfL much prefer the speed of Oyster which doesn't depend on the user not to hold it too far away or to turn their brightness up.
 

JonathanH

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Actually, might that be a short term solution to e-tickets on TfL - NFC on a phone only, no paper? Could the Oyster pads get a software mod to read that? It's already used effectively for contactless from phones...

Doesn't that raise the issue of 'card clash'?
 

stuu

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Improved tech would speed them up. For instance scanners which (a) had you hold your barcode screen-upwards rather than screen-downwards, and (b) used camera rather than laser-scanner tech so you could see on a small screen that you'd aligned it properly.
Having a sign saying 'Hold your phone still' would be even better, the number of people who wave the phone around and don't understand it needs to focus is very high
 

Wallsendmag

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Hopefully we'll have udated gates at LNER (excluding Kings Cross which are supplied by a different supplier) in the next couple of weeks which should make the whole smart ticket experience much better.
 

PeterC

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This all reminds me of the work I was doing back in the 90s. Did you keep replanning a project to account for the "next big thing" that was always just appearing and say goodbye to your budgets and deadlines or did you deliver something that was already slightly out of date and worry about the new stuff later.
 

800002

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Actually, might that be a short term solution to e-tickets on TfL - NFC on a phone only, no paper?
That would require one to have an NFC enabled device. Not everyone has one of those.
But many do have a smart phone though.
 

infobleep

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eTickets aren't that much slower if at all than paper tickets just TfL much prefer the speed of Oyster which doesn't depend on the user not to hold it too far away or to turn their brightness up.
But that isn't an issue at Sutton is it? I'm examole doesn't use TfL. I mentioned it again as I thought more stations were meant to be accepting eTickets.
 
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