Why I prefer to use a ticket office and obtain a physical ticket

[Runningaround]

Banks now have the last resort option to help you and it's a Bank branch(if your lucky to still have one) or the phone if you cannot do so online. Its often solved as the trained and paid staff can do things you cant to help.
Railway Ticket Offices NRE and TOC call centres are the opposite. I can google a solution and do it in my own time, you don't get that luxury at the ticket office and you find they were no help anyway.

 

[The Ham]

It's an awful lot easier if you have compulsory identity - all you'd need to do is enter the ID card or passport number and say the first name as a "checksum" and you'd be able to pull up everything booked under that person.

Gender my suggestion of our being linked to a bank card or smart card.

Whilst not photograph ID few are going to lend their card to others. Of course you could still require, at least for season tickets, that there is a photo held online so that if there's a question over it that could be checked.

 

[AdamWW]

Gender my suggestion of our being linked to a bank card or smart card.

Whilst not photograph ID few are going to lend their card to others. Of course you could still require, at least for season tickets, that there is a photo held online so that if there's a question over it that could be checked.

The ideal system from the passenger's point of view is one where all you have to do is show a reservation code and some form of ID with your name on, so there is redundancy on ID as well as the ticket.

The redundancy of an e-ticket isn't much use if it relies on not having the credit card you bought it with lost or stolen.

Ideally in emergency you could even have the reservation code looked for you up from, say, your name and journey details.

 

[Hadders]

The ideal system from the passenger's point of view is one where all you have to do is show a reservation code and some form of ID with your name on, so there is redundancy on ID as well as the ticket.

Are you seriously suggesting that you should have to carry ID to travel by train? If that's what you're saying then any discussion about CCST v etickets becomes insignificant.

 

[RT4038]

The ideal system from the passenger's point of view is one where all you have to do is show a reservation code and some form of ID with your name on, so there is redundancy on ID as well as the ticket.

The redundancy of an e-ticket isn't much use if it relies on not having the credit card you bought it with lost or stolen.

Ideally in emergency you could even have the reservation code looked for you up from, say, your name and journey details.

An ideal system for fraudsters too. Make up a reservation code and how will that be checked ?

 

[AM9]

Are you seriously suggesting that you should have to carry ID to travel by train? If that's what you're saying then any discussion about CCST v etickets becomes insignificant.

That's as ridiculous as presuming that somebody carries a smartphone or has a printer readily available.

 

[Bletchleyite]

An ideal system for fraudsters too. Make up a reservation code and how will that be checked ?

Ask Megabus as that is exactly how they do it.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Having just been reading some of the thread postings, I felt quite sad to hear some comments made that certainly go against the ethos of "the caring society" in their dismissiveness of the genuinely held fears of technology of certain members of the elder generation who had already reached a certain age when computers first made their mark upon society.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Having just been reading some of the thread postings, I felt quite sad to hear some comments made that certainly go against the ethos of "the caring society" in their dismissiveness of the genuinely held fears of technology of certain members of the elder generation who had already reached a certain age when computers first made their mark upon society.

The solution to fears isn't to accept them, it's to help people get over them, and if the issue is the cost of equipment to help provide it.

iPads (specifically) are really, really easy to use, and Apple's "walled garden" makes falling foul of malware very, very unlikely. If someone can use the TV remote they can use one. They just need help to do so.

 

[AlterEgo]

I believe that in Czechia all you have to do is show the reservation code which could just be scribbled on a piece of paper - I think linked to your name and with a requirement to show appropriate ID.

Same in Italy - I think the conductor has a list of codes along with a passenger manifest, if I recall?

 

[AdamWW]

Are you seriously suggesting that you should have to carry ID to travel by train? If that's what you're saying then any discussion about CCST v etickets becomes insignificant.

No, I'm not.

It is common to have to show some kind of ID to use an e-ticket (DB for example have pretty strict requirements - they say they don't even accept driving licenses).

But even for UK rail travel where ID doesn't seem to be required, then giving the option to just quote a reservation code and show ID doesn't take anything away and would be practical for the vast majority of people - how many people travel without even a credit card with their name on? You don't have to print anything, don't have to have a working phone, all you need is a pen/pencil and a bit of paper and the credit cards/driving license/bus pass/season ticket photocard you were carrying around anyway.

An ideal system for fraudsters too. Make up a reservation code and how will that be checked ?

Because when it's looked up the made up code either doesn't exist or corresponds to someone else's name.

 

[Bletchleyite]

But even for UK rail travel where ID doesn't seem to be required, then giving the option to just quote a reservation code and show ID doesn't take anything away and would be practical for the vast majority of people - how many people travel without even a credit card with their name on? You don't have to print anything, don't have to have a working phone, all you need is a pen/pencil and a bit of paper and the credit cards/driving license/bus pass/season ticket photocard you were carrying around anyway.

I've said before that offering the option to make a ticket named has a lot of advantages, e.g. if you've lost it you could just present ID and get a reprint. People could choose between named which offers that protection, and non-named which would be transferrable but not offer it.

 

[AdamWW]

Same in Italy - I think the conductor has a list of codes along with a passenger manifest, if I recall?

I presume these are reservation required services where this works fine, just as with the Megabus example above where the driver has a list of codes valid for that journey.

But (as in the UK) CD sell e-tickets valid for any service on a given day so it will need something a bit more sophisticated.

 

[skyhigh]

I've said before that offering the option to make a ticket named has a lot of advantages, e.g. if you've lost it you could just present ID and get a reprint.

This is something which I think SNCF does pretty well. You can buy tickets from a staffed office, TVM, online, app or by phone. You get a transaction reference and name on the ticket. You can easily add the ticket to their app to display however you've bought it, or you can turn up at a TVM and print off a copy (on till roll) simply by quoting the reference and passenger surname. Alternatively if you prefer you can print it at home.

Obviously you have to carry ID with this system though, so as you say a hybrid where it's possible to opt in and carry ID, or opt out and leave the benefits seems like a good idea to me.

 

[AdamWW]

This is something which I think SNCF does pretty well. You can buy tickets from a staffed office, TVM, online, app or by phone. You get a transaction reference and name on the ticket. You can easily add the ticket to their app to display however you've bought it, or you can turn up at a TVM and print off a copy (on till roll) simply by quoting the reference and passenger surname. Alternatively if you prefer you can print it at home.

Obviously you have to carry ID with this system though, so as you say a hybrid where it's possible to opt in and carry ID, or opt out and leave the benefits seems like a good idea to me.

I have a vague memory of booking TGV tickets a few years ago and SNCF saying something along the lines that so long as you could remember your name and where you were going they'd be able to find your ticket for you if necessary.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I have a vague memory of booking TGV tickets a few years ago and SNCF saying something along the lines that so long as you could remember your name and where you were going they'd be able to find your ticket for you if necessary.

Bit easier with compulsory reservations, though. I suspect there is probably more than one of my real name making a journey from Manchester to London within the next month, for instance, but there being two on one train is fairly low likelihood.

CR of course have downsides, and that's one that's had its own thread in the past, but the ease of doing things like this without it being a massive fraud target is definitely one upside of them.

 

[skyhigh]

Bit easier with compulsory reservations, though. I suspect there is probably more than one of my real name making a journey from Manchester to London within the next month, for instance, but there being two on one train is fairly low likelihood.

As far as I'm aware you just need to provide 3 of the 4 to locate your ticket:
Train number/time
Date of journey
Name
Booking Reference

I phoned to get a FIP reservation but didn't get the email because they'd misspelt my name. With the date, booking reference and train number I was able to locate the ticket via the app. It's really not a bad system.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

The solution to fears isn't to accept them, it's to help people get over them, and if the issue is the cost of equipment to help provide it.

iPads (specifically) are really, really easy to use, and Apple's "walled garden" makes falling foul of malware very, very unlikely. If someone can use the TV remote they can use one. They just need help to do so.

Two of my five neighbours, both elderly ladies in their 80s, have a total hatred of all modern technology. To use the example of a TV remote in that scenario in their case is to totally not comprehend their feelings.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Two of my five neighbours, both elderly ladies in their 80s, have a total hatred of all modern technology. To use the example of a TV remote in that scenario in their case is to totally not comprehend their feelings.

That's a choice. Choice does not have to be accommodated. Though perhaps travel agents could provide, at a price and for-profit, a facility to book train tickets for those who really hate technology, just as they might for an easyJet or Ryanair flight which everyone else books online.

My view has always been that providing for a disability is important, but providing for personal whims, life choices and dislikes very much is not, unless commercially expedient to do so.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

That's a choice. Choice does not have to be accommodated. Though perhaps travel agents could provide, at a price and for-profit, a facility to book train tickets for those who really hate technology, just as they might for an easyJet or Ryanair flight which everyone else books online.

My view has always been that providing for a disability is important, but providing for personal whims, life choices and dislikes very much is not, unless commercially expedient to do so.

You speak as someone who cannot see matters as seen by octogenarians. When you too reach that age, could you say that your mental faculties will still be as good as they are now?

I am only 77 years of age, but I will be honest in admitting that I am not the same person now as I was prior to retirement in 2010 as Senior Head of Projects. My stroke consultant is always at pains to impress upon me at our annual consultation of how the brain reacts differently with the oncoming of old age. Both my twin sons have also impressed this fact to me.

 

[Bletchleyite]

You speak as someone who cannot see matters as seen by octogenarians. When you too reach that age, could you say that your mental faculties will still be as good as they are now?

They almost certainly won't be, but that's why I've suggested an iPad as an intuitive device rather than a Windows PC. For someone in that position I'd suggest an iPad (specifically, not Android which is that little bit more computer-like) with a pay monthly data SIM with a decent allowance on it - no need to faff about wifi etc then, just use it.

Doesn't I suppose make it easy to do e-tickets due to being too big for the scanners, but would work with ToD.

There's a significant difference between "I hate all that modern new fangled rubbish, I refuse to use it" and "I'm having genuine trouble with this, can you help me?"

 

[RT4038]

Ask Megabus as that is exactly how they do it.

1. All of their tickets are valid on a particular trip only.
2. As passengers board, the driver checks them off a passenger manifest.
3. One member of staff concerned with max 80 tickets. No correct ticket - no travel.
3. This still doesn't stop some clever people trying to board with a made up number, or two passengers trying to board (front and back of queue) using the same number and hoping the driver thinks he made a mistake in ticking off the manifest.

Compare this with trains, where only comparatively few tickets are valid on one train only, where staff are not checking each passenger before they board, checking 500 passengers. Not practicable. Too slow a system and too wide open for train use.

 

[Alex365Dash]

I prefer to use ticket offices as they're the only places that I can use the compensation that GTR provides me (RTVs) when they feel BACS is too taxing of a process.

Last time GTR gave me a cashable RTV in place of a bank transfer or cheque as compensation, the first thing I did was to go to the GTR ticket office at Emsworth (after some to-ing and fro-ing about the Warblington "ticket office" not actually having the facilities of a ticket office and being just for passenger information) to get the value of the voucher back onto my card!

Really, they should go to actually being able to send bank transfers, or at minimum, a cheque. If they do have to provide a non-cashable voucher, it should be an eVoucher.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

They almost certainly won't be, but that's why I've suggested an iPad as an intuitive device rather than a Windows PC. For someone in that position I'd suggest an iPad (specifically, not Android which is that little bit more computer-like) with a pay monthly data SIM with a decent allowance on it - no need to faff about wifi etc then, just use it.

Doesn't I suppose make it easy to do e-tickets due to being too big for the scanners, but would work with ToD.

There's a significant difference between "I hate all that modern new fangled rubbish, I refuse to use it" and "I'm having genuine trouble with this, can you help me?"

I have visited both of the elderly ladies in question just now who were having lunch together and have put your views to them. With regards to the purchase of train tickets, they are both of the opinion that the railway station booking office at Wilmslow station had catered for their train travel years for a great number of years where the member of staff did all the work involved in producing train journey tickets which allowed for the price discount of their Senior Citizen Railcards. For which they then paid cash. Both these two ladies have no living relatives who could purchase train tickets on their behalf and if the only option for obtaining rail tickets, was the use of machines, rail travel would become a thing of the past for both of them.

One, a former headmistress, more vociferous than the other, said the onset of onus on customers in retail supermarkets to do the work of employees at self-checkouts was a sad reflection on society today. She had impressed that feeling very strongly to the store manager of the local Waitrose supermarket. She despaired on hearing that railway booking offices might well soon be a thing of the past and said it was a sign of the times when "the younger element" just blindly accepted the whims of multi-national companies into accepting the use of smart phones and the associated annual costs involved in telephony packages from companies such as EE, Tesco.etc.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I have visited both of the elderly ladies in question just now who were having lunch together and have put your views to them. With regards to the purchase of train tickets, they are both of the opinion that the railway station booking office at Wilmslow station had catered for their train travel years for a great number of years where the member of staff did all the work involved in producing train journey tickets which allowed for the price discount of their Senior Citizen Railcards. For which they then paid cash. Both these two ladies have no living relatives who could purchase train tickets on their behalf and if the only option for obtaining rail tickets, was the use of machines, rail travel would become a thing of the past for both of them.

One, a former headmistress, more vociferous than the other, said the onset of onus on customers in retail supermarkets to do the work of employees at self-checkouts was a sad reflection on society today. She had impressed that feeling very strongly to the store manager of the local Waitrose supermarket. She despaired on hearing that railway booking offices might well soon be a thing of the past and said it was a sign of the times when "the younger element" just blindly accepted the whims of multi-national companies into accepting the use of smart phones and the associated annual costs involved in telephony packages from companies such as EE, Tesco.etc.

I believe the phrase for that is "cutting off your nose to spite your face", or alternatively "curmudgeonliness", and I have little sympathy for it. Sure, they might prefer to use the booking office, but why do something as silly as reduce the travel you enjoy because you have to press a few buttons on a screen?

The reason "the younger element" (I'm 43) "accept" the use of smartphones is because they enhance our lives by providing great convenience. Perhaps if they tried one they'd love it. Again I'd recommend Apple kit for simplicity for non-techie people - a lot of such people have very bad experiences with budget Android phones and tablets and are put off that way. It costs more, but there's a decent used and refurbished market.

And I also prefer self-checkout. They allow more capacity in smaller space and there's not the pressure to "keep up" with the checkout operator in packing your bags, so you can spend the time to pack them in a sensible order and save time on arriving home. They sometimes are additional, anyway, providing greater convenience by shortening the queue even for those who don't want to use them* - my local Co-op has two self checkouts and two staffed tills, when previously it only had two staffed tills.

* Whining about "why did they build the M6 Toll, I would never pay to go on that" is similar - it improved the situation in Birmingham by taking traffic away from there, so even benefits the people who don't use it. HS2 is similar with regard to the south WCML.

 

[AM9]

She despaired on hearing that railway booking offices might well soon be a thing of the past and said it was a sign of the times when "the younger element" just blindly accepted the whims of multi-national companies into accepting the use of smart phones and the associated annual costs involved in telephony packages from companies such as EE, Tesco.etc.

That does raise the question about young people who either can't or don't spend most of their waking hours staring at a phone screen (and there are some). Do they feel that it is reasonable to disenfranchise them because they have a life that doesn't invlove a smartphone?

 

[Bletchleyite]

That does raise the question about young people who either can't or don't spend most of their waking hours staring at a phone screen (and there are some). Do they feel that it is reasonable to disenfranchise them because they have a life that doesn't invlove a smartphone?

It's not necessary to "spend most of your waking hours" staring at a phone screen in order to own one and use it for things where it provides great convenience, such as managing your diary, messaging people, buying train tickets and the likes.

And once again there is presently no proposal to remove TVMs. There may be fewer of them as they are used less these days but they aren't going away any time soon.

 

[AM9]

It's not necessary to "spend most of your waking hours" staring at a phone screen in order to own one and use it for things where it provides great convenience, such as managing your diary, messaging people, buying train tickets and the likes.

I didn't say that it was necessary to do su, merely commenting on a subsection of society that walks around with their face in a phone to the disregard of anybody walking near them. The number of times that it is left to me to dodge out of the way of a person who doen't even raise their eyes to look where they are walking is ridiculous. Their device trumps commmon sense.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I believe the phrase for that is "cutting off your nose to spite your face", or alternatively "curmudgeonliness", and I have little sympathy for it. Sure, they might prefer to use the booking office, but why do something as silly as reduce the travel you enjoy because you have to press a few buttons on a screen?

The reason "the younger element" (I'm 43) "accept" the use of smartphones is because they enhance our lives by providing great convenience. Perhaps if they tried one they'd love it. Again I'd recommend Apple kit for simplicity for non-techie people - a lot of such people have very bad experiences with budget Android phones and tablets and are put off that way. It costs more, but there's a decent used and refurbished market.

And I also prefer self-checkout. They allow more capacity in smaller space and there's not the pressure to "keep up" with the checkout operator in packing your bags, so you can spend the time to pack them in a sensible order and save time on arriving home.

All that you say above is to see life from the view of a 43-year-old, whereas one of those two ladies is almost twice your age. With regards to your lack of empathy, I do feel is that you betray the "callousness of youth" taken a decade further on. Both my twin sons are a few years older than you, both in senior positions in differing organisations, but both were brought up to respect the views of a generation much in advance of theirs and to show both kindness and understanding in their dealings with very old people. A lesson that your parents should have impressed upon you many years ago.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I didn't say that it was necessary to do su, merely commenting on a subsection of society that walks around with their face in a phone to the disregard of anybody walking near them. The number of times that it is left to me to dodge out of the way of a person who doen't even raise their eyes to look where they are walking is ridiculous. Their device trumps commmon sense.

I agree with this but don't see what it has to do with someone owning one and using it responsibly. Being a pretty hefty bloke I take great pleasure in walking directly towards such people and watching them get scared at the last second and dive out of the way! (Of course being ready to dive out the way myself if necessary; I don't want to assault anyone).

All that you say above is to see life from the view of a 43-year-old, whereas one of those two ladies is almost twice your age. With regards to your lack of empathy, I do feel is that you betray the "callousness of youth" taken a decade further on. Both my twin sons are a few years older than you, both in senior positions in differing organisations, but both were brought up to respect the views of a generation much in advance of theirs and to show both kindness and understanding in their dealings with very old people. A lesson that your parents should have impressed upon you many years ago.

43 is old enough to have experienced change in society that one doesn't like as well as change that one does. Thus, I stand by my point. If you think that's callousness rather than realism, then it's your right to think that, but society has neither moral nor legal duty to avoid change simply because some won't like it, though providing means of adjusting to that change is a very good thing indeed, e.g. local libraries providing training sessions in computer and smartphone use for those who didn't grow up with them, and potentially providing them for free to those of limited means to avoid poverty creating a digital divide.

In the end, "can't" deserves effort, "won't" deserves nothing.