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Guard's ticket machine not working

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exbrel

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hi,
I've been using the railways for 60 odd yrs, but this is a first for a few years, I was on a East Midlands 2 car from Crewe to Derby when the guard welcomed all passengers, but said due to technical difficulties there would be no tickets available cause I can't get the machine working... that got me laughing for awhile. So when did touch screen machines come into service?
 
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tsr

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“Touchscreen” machines, as you put it, have been in use for decades - but new devices were rolled out a couple of years ago to replace the old Avantix PDA + printer + PIN pad system, which was a reasonable bespoke solution, but technically ancient and a bit of a problem when it came to securing suitable back office support contracts.

The new machines (of which several varieties are around at different TOCs) have different glitches, and there have certainly been teething problems. With a little maturity having come to such systems over the last few months, I wouldn’t say they are now much less reliable than the old Avantix system, but they are certainly more irritating to troubleshoot.

In particular they tend to be made up of standard consumer phones or tablets, which are physically quite tough, but locked down with dodgy bespoke software which gets updated with little apparent testing; consumer PIN pads which are the same as those used by mobile sellers in other industries, but which often have wireless pairing that fails to cooperate; and printers which are mostly OK but prone to breaking and which simply have a mind of their own at times.
 

Qwerty133

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Most TOCS also seem to have a small number of guards who must be extremely 'unlucky' in that the machine they have is never 'working'...
 
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I've had it before on Southeastern where the guard's Android handset is out of juice and he's had to go down the train and grab his power bank to get it to switch on. This was at around 10PM, so it's quite likely that these devices don't last a full day, especially if they're being used constantly. You'll also find that the lithium ion batteries will only hold about 80% of their original capacity after about a year of heavy usage - and that'll vary based-on who manufactured it and how frequently the battery is left at low charge. If you're frequently draining your battery to below 20%, you're looking at a drop of capacity a heck of a lot quicker.

If a small power bank became part of a guard's ticketing arsenal, that is a good solution. Unless the guard forgets to replenish his/her power bank.
 
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pompeyfan

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Most TOCS also seem to have a small number of guards who must be extremely 'unlucky' in that the machine they have is never 'working'...

It’s amazing how a machine can suddenly stop working a couple of stops before your home station/depot on the last run...

Talking of glitches, did any other TOC suffer from the Nottingham to Beeston printer glitch?
 

bunnahabhain

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Talking of glitches, did any other TOC suffer from the Nottingham to Beeston printer glitch?
I'm not aware of that one, but then I'm always doing revenue out of Nottingham anyway.

Regarding machine failures, battery life can be an issue especially when you find yourself trapped on a train for upwards of 5 hours with no ability to charge anything. I can count a fair few times I've had equipment failure during my career, it happens.
 

LowLevel

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There was an interesting issue whereby Robin Hood tickets wouldn't issue at all on portable machines following an update. The sale would go through, it would show printing on the screen.... and absolutely nothing from the printer. This is the kind of thing we are up against.
 

pompeyfan

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The issue was you’d do a ticket for say Southampton to Romsey or Portsmouth to Havant or any other local ticket, it would generate the correct fare and charge the customers card accordingly but the ticket would state Nottingham to Beeston.
 

tsr

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The issue was you’d do a ticket for say Southampton to Romsey or Portsmouth to Havant or any other local ticket, it would generate the correct fare and charge the customers card accordingly but the ticket would state Nottingham to Beeston.

There was an issue at one TOC where some machines repeatedly set their date to the October of the previous year without anybody telling them to...
 

talldave

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It's a problem that pervades the IT industry - and it's very often led by the customer wanting to save time and money!
It's also due to TOCs specifying things wrong. One of the faults I've spotted on TVMs has actually been programmed correctly by the TVM manufacturer- it's the TOC who have specified it to be wrong!! My cynical explanation being that the people responsible never have to buy tickets, so fail to spot their stupidity.
 

bunnahabhain

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The issue was you’d do a ticket for say Southampton to Romsey or Portsmouth to Havant or any other local ticket, it would generate the correct fare and charge the customers card accordingly but the ticket would state Nottingham to Beeston.
Oh right! I genuinely thought it was Guards not going down between NOT-BEE! :D
 

Monty

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My experience of Envoy (the replacement for Advantix at my TOC) equipment has been rather disappointing. The battery life seems to be very inconsistent but poor in general. I've sometimes had a PDA go flat after only a single trip to London, the Nottingham to Beeston glitch that Pompeyfan speaks of is very real, on top of that I've had several PDA's that will crash every time you edit a fare (apply a discount or change the date etc). There has also been regular issues at my depot with pairing equipment (PDA is 'paired' with a printer and a card reader) and availability of servicable equipment in general has also been low. All in in all its been rather embarrassing at times.
 

Matt_pool

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Northerns old machines used to be out of order way more than the news ones!

Old ones or new ones, can Northern guards even be bothered to use their ticket machines!?

Went to catch the train to Liverpool Lime Street last Saturday - ticket office was closed (nothing new there!) so I tried to use the new 'card only' ticket machine but kept on getting an error message. Tried to use the Northern app on my phone instead, but it had been playing up earlier and was still playing up.

By now the train was pulling into the platform and I didn't have time to get a 'promise to pay' slip from the ticket machine. So I got on the lovely, standing room only Pacer which had two female guards. I'm guessing one was getting trained, or could have just been hitching a lift, but neither of them came down the train to check or sell tickets. Maybe they didn't want to come down the train and pass the large group of lairy, drunk guys. I certainly didn't want to walk past (or through more like it!) these guys to buy a ticket from one of the two guards at the rear of the train.

We came into platform 6 at Lime Street which has no barriers, so I got a free ride. Not my fault, Northern lose out on the money!
 

clagmonster

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I got a free ride. Not my fault, Northern lose out on the money!
Was either booking office at Lime St open? If so, then yes, it is your fault you got a free ride. You should have paid at your destination.
 

6Gman

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Old ones or new ones, can Northern guards even be bothered to use their ticket machines!?

Went to catch the train to Liverpool Lime Street last Saturday - ticket office was closed (nothing new there!) so I tried to use the new 'card only' ticket machine but kept on getting an error message. Tried to use the Northern app on my phone instead, but it had been playing up earlier and was still playing up.

By now the train was pulling into the platform and I didn't have time to get a 'promise to pay' slip from the ticket machine. So I got on the lovely, standing room only Pacer which had two female guards. I'm guessing one was getting trained, or could have just been hitching a lift, but neither of them came down the train to check or sell tickets. Maybe they didn't want to come down the train and pass the large group of lairy, drunk guys. I certainly didn't want to walk past (or through more like it!) these guys to buy a ticket from one of the two guards at the rear of the train.

We came into platform 6 at Lime Street which has no barriers, so I got a free ride. Not my fault, Northern lose out on the money!

There is a booking office at Lime Street. Why not use that?
 

philthetube

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possibly this is pedantic, responses will be interesting but we often hear on this forum that youn are not required to delay your journey waiting for a ticket once your journey has commenced, while I would pay at the end I would not consider queing to do so if I had somewhere else I needed to be, or even if I thought I would have to wait for long in order to pay.
 

clagmonster

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The difference as I see it is that at an interchange, there is still at least a possibility of having a further opportunity to pay. At the destination there will be no further opportunity once you walk out.
 

Antman

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Happens quite often on Southeastern, the battery dies or maybe some other reason, pay at destination.
 
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exbrel

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because I boarded at Longport, and I was traveling on a Staff Travel Card, also regarding batteries running out of power the train was the 0605 first service of the day, that train couples onto another at Derby to go on to Nottingham, but I think it changes guard...
 

RichT54

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Guard's ticket machine not working again on Friday (the 09:10 Guildford to Reading service), so had to join the queue to pay at Reading once more.
 

185

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Most TOCS also seem to have a small number of guards who must be extremely 'unlucky' in that the machine they have is never 'working'...

Most TOCS also seem to have a small number of [ENTIRE DEPOTS] who must be extremely 'unlucky' in that the machine they have is never 'working'... :p
 

Mike11

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Could be a number of things:
Ran out of tickets
Connectivity
Batteries died
No change (easier to say machines not working
 

Belperpete

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The machines that TfW use seem to rely on the WiFi signal in the train. On my last trip, I found it impossible to connect to the WiFi, and three different guards unsuccessfully attempted to sell a ticket to someone sitting close by. It is also ludicrous that on a train liberally equipped with USB charging points for passengers, the guard has no means of recharging their machine.
 

Ken H

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I did a walk along the Stratford canal some years ago with the missus from Wooten Wawen to henley in arden. I didnt have any cash but wasnt bothered cos i had plastic.

no ticket office at Henley. no machine then

Guard came round. apologised for paying by card. he had an A4 form to fill in for the CC transaction cos his card reader on his machine was bust. issued tickets from his machine. transaction appeared on bank statement 2 days later.

But there were few people on the train.

central trains days i think.

Always have a paper backup.
 

js1000

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Broken ticket machines on board? Not that uncommon at all. Had numerous conductors announce over the tannoy that no tickets would be available for purchase on board today over the past few years.
 
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