Dr Hoo
Established Member
And here’s me thinking that it was a new initiative to help passengers who were bent double anyway, putting their coffee cup on the ground in the absence of a shelf.
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Northern Ticket Machine Update Issues
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A friend was using the TVM at Navigation Rd (near Altrincham on the Stockport - Chester line) - he reports:
I was collecting tickets for journeys I’m making later this week. So, since no one else was around I thought I’d try the “Promise to Pay” option again; it is not good…
The first screen you get is the “Choose one of the quick selections” – I was offered Halifax or Leeds
So, on the same screen I chose “Find other selections”
A new screen comes up the selections are worse, I now had Leeds, Dewsbury, Walsden (Not Walkden, I don’t even know where this is, presumably near Leeds) or London Terminals. It obviously thinks Navigation Road is in West Yorkshire.
So, I then manually input a destination and chose to put in MAN, which slightly confusingly offered me a selection of Manchester Piccadilly, Man OX RD, Man Victoria, Deansgate or All Manchester stations. I chose the All option.
It then asked me when I was travelling, “Now” or “Later” were the only options available but others were greyed out. I chose later and you go to a digital clock which you must then input whether you are Leaving After or Arriving By – the digital clock is on a +/- system. I’d lost the will to live by now and gave up. There could have been more questions, I’d not stated if I wanted a return or how many tickets, if I had a railcard, if I was a child, etc., etc.
Whatever you do make sure you have a plastic card with you.
To be serious, is it beyond the will of Northern to have the first screen give you (say) … Piccadilly, Stockport, Knutsford, Delamere and Chester? With the second screen giving you (say) Altrincham, Hale, Northwich, Euston.
Why can’t the P2P ticket be a single selection which just shows the station you are leaving from and the time of you acquired the ticket? If you had a family of 4 it could take you 15 minutes to sort the current system out.
Why it has to be so difficult and is not user friendly.
I was collecting tickets for journeys I’m making later this week. So, since no one else was around I thought I’d try the “Promise to Pay” option again; it is not good…
The first screen you get is the “Choose one of the quick selections” – I was offered Halifax or Leeds
So, on the same screen I chose “Find other selections”
A new screen comes up the selections are worse, I now had Leeds, Dewsbury, Walsden (Not Walkden, I don’t even know where this is, presumably near Leeds) or London Terminals. It obviously thinks Navigation Road is in West Yorkshire.
So, I then manually input a destination and chose to put in MAN, which slightly confusingly offered me a selection of Manchester Piccadilly, Man OX RD, Man Victoria, Deansgate or All Manchester stations. I chose the All option.
It then asked me when I was travelling, “Now” or “Later” were the only options available but others were greyed out. I chose later and you go to a digital clock which you must then input whether you are Leaving After or Arriving By – the digital clock is on a +/- system. I’d lost the will to live by now and gave up. There could have been more questions, I’d not stated if I wanted a return or how many tickets, if I had a railcard, if I was a child, etc., etc.
Whatever you do make sure you have a plastic card with you.
To be serious, is it beyond the will of Northern to have the first screen give you (say) … Piccadilly, Stockport, Knutsford, Delamere and Chester? With the second screen giving you (say) Altrincham, Hale, Northwich, Euston.
Why can’t the P2P ticket be a single selection which just shows the station you are leaving from and the time of you acquired the ticket? If you had a family of 4 it could take you 15 minutes to sort the current system out.
Why it has to be so difficult and is not user friendly.
exesoundtech
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That sounds decidedly like a GDPR thing...
I'm not sure that a random string of numbers and letters is particularly identifying personal data to someone standing over your shoulder!
exesoundtech
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Working in a GDPR affected business, our advice is that so long as the data personally identifies you it comes under GDPR. How *easy* that identification is doesn’t matter. Or at least it doesn’t matter until proven one way or the other in a court of law, and most businesses don’t fancy taking the risk of being the test case...!
It always used to be displayed on screen and if the person behind really wanted to see your photocard number they could just look at it in your hand.
exesoundtech
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Welcome to the weird and wacky world of the unintended consequences of GDPR and there being no case law yet!
The annoying thing is they cannot actually do anything with the number apart for potentially get your name if a member of staff actually registered the photocard to someone (but they can already see this on the photocard over your shoulder!)Welcome to the weird and wacky world of the unintended consequences of GDPR and there being no case law yet!
At Dore & Totley the regulars just press anything knowing it doesn't actually print anything about the journey on the ticket anyway. The one off travellers generally just give up and get on the train and ask the conductor.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
FWIW that style of planner based machine has been in use on DB for years (like since the early 2000s) and people seem to cope with them there. Maybe they do need an "I know what I want" button or something.
My last two journeys again the ticket machine was refusing to sell tickets for the imminent departure. I've seen other customers take a photo of the screen then get on the train and show the photo as proof the ticket machine wasn't working and just pay the conductor like we always used to.
In the morning - wanting a ticket for the 0828 at 0825 - first train offered 0956.
Last night - wanting a ticket for the 1958 - first train offered 2048.
Its also confusing on a big screen that when you press on the destination field you can't type into that field, actually a separate list comes up on the other side of the screen but only selected destinations, you then have to press 'other destinations'....
Over complicated, won't sell tickets for immediate travel, not fit for purpose.
In the morning - wanting a ticket for the 0828 at 0825 - first train offered 0956.
Last night - wanting a ticket for the 1958 - first train offered 2048.
Its also confusing on a big screen that when you press on the destination field you can't type into that field, actually a separate list comes up on the other side of the screen but only selected destinations, you then have to press 'other destinations'....
Over complicated, won't sell tickets for immediate travel, not fit for purpose.
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The two issues I have is such a process is way too slow for someone arriving at the last minute and wanting to quickly buy a ticket for the train about to depart and that the actual menu system is complicated and unclear.
Leaving aside things such as collecting online bookings and smart ticketing, the opening menu should be
1) buy to travel now
2) buy to travel later today
3) buy to travel in the future
With option 1 it should then simply present a list of popular destinations plus a button the same size for 'other'. Once destination selected offer the full ticket range available for immediate travel with clear explanations of any restrictions or flexibilities on the button. You can then simply choose that ticket and pay.
Option 2 - select origin (default set to station the machine is located at), select destination, select times, choose ticket, pay. Each of these steps should be on separate screens with big buttons and simple instructions.
Option 3 - same as option 2 but with an extra step to choose the date.
Another thing to look at is sometimes the touch screen doesn't work properly, you hit a button and a little cursor lights up but nothing happens.
An "I know what I want" button would be brilliant!
CheshireCrusty
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- 6 Feb 2014
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- 88
Many thanks - reassuring!
Yes - I thought it was an old platform ticket machine. I remember them well - which says something about my age!
Oh Dear! Where is this please, to save me checking many many machines.
It’s umop apisdn
When collecting tickets for multiple journeys and multiple passengers, shouldn't the tickets print with different ticket numbers? The Northern machines at Piccadilly have just printed me 8 tickets + collection receipt all with the same ticket number. Is this normal?
Gentle request that we move on from ergonomic factors of ticket machines in this thread. @northernman has kindly agreed to feed that back to the relevant people so I don't think anything is added by continuing to go on about it.
It is, however, an interesting topic but one which very much needs to be continued in a thread dedicated to the ergonomics of ticket machines in general rather than this one specifically about the software of Northern's TVMs.
It is, however, an interesting topic but one which very much needs to be continued in a thread dedicated to the ergonomics of ticket machines in general rather than this one specifically about the software of Northern's TVMs.
Ant158
Member
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- 5 Apr 2013
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- 171
Noticed all the Ribble Valley line stations have machines now, except Whalley. Have noticed that it looks like it will be going inside the small shelter on Platform 1. Can get a bit cramped in there on a wet morning.
Any ideas when this machine will appear? Considering this line is supposedly a penalty fare line and the guard often doesnt get down the train before Blackburn with its unwelcoming yellow subway army.
Any ideas when this machine will appear? Considering this line is supposedly a penalty fare line and the guard often doesnt get down the train before Blackburn with its unwelcoming yellow subway army.
Dore & Totley
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- 3 Dec 2017
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First try of the new software at Dore today. Just a day return to Sheffield for my son and I. The first thing that struck me was the sheer non-responsiveness of the screen. When I pushed the screen it seemed to want to bring up a cursor rather than just interact with the screen area selected. I really had to thump the screen at some points. Each selection took a minimum of four to five presses to get what I wanted. I could not get Sheffield to select on the quick destination screen so had to through the whole process. Luckily, thanks to this thread I knew just to pick any trains but the selection processes seemed very long winded. Luckily my train was running late so got them in time.
Yesterday at Blackrod regular users ended up basically 'serving' people at the ticket machine as people kept being confused by it only showing cancelled trains and having to select trains. Several people trying to 'promise to pay' first went through the 'buy tickets' (or whatever it's called) button which then takes time to select trains for them to find out that they couldn't 'promise to pay'. People who arrived 10 minutes before the train was due were still waiting for the machine at the scheduled departure time - fortunately the train was late.
There really needs to be a 'plan my journey' & an 'I know what I want' button to allow people to plan a journey if they wish but also to allow people to just buy a ticket. Promise to pay needs to be more visible.
a_c_skinner
Established Member
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It isn't good. I'm clever, well educated, understand railways and computer literate (three out of four isn't bad) and buying two off peak returns with railcards takes ages. I am getting better at it, but show up early is the message. I've got the app as a fall back but I'm not going to buy a return to Euston on the app. I just don't trust my luck that much.
thejuggler
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I have now had a response to my complaint about the new interface leading to long queues and apparently it is to benefit me, so that's OK.
My issue over the new TVM software leading me to be in a position of potentially receiving a penalty charge was, as expected, completely ignored.
My issue over the new TVM software leading me to be in a position of potentially receiving a penalty charge was, as expected, completely ignored.
One thing the new interface has improved is that - for those TOCs with a 23:59 cutoff for Advances - if you're buying a ticket before midnight for a train leaving early in the morning, it'll offer an Advance where appropriate.
Whilst a Ticket Office (if it's open) should do the same, I suspect a significant proportion of staff wouldn't think to check, which is a training issue.
Whilst a Ticket Office (if it's open) should do the same, I suspect a significant proportion of staff wouldn't think to check, which is a training issue.
Thing is, all the functionality the machine offers is actually an improvement - the ability to check train times before buying a ticket, to buy tickets in advance, to get advance purchase deals, to load tickets onto smart cards and the rest - so no complaints in that respect.
The issues all surround the user interface - it is over complicated, unclear and long winded - plus of course the touch screen doesn't always work quite right! Incidentally I don't recall the touch screen being an issue with the old software so maybe a calibration issue?
The requirement to journey plan for any ticket not on the popular products is a problem when trains are close to departure and not showing on the journey planner as a result. In most cases when buying a ticket for immediate travel the walk up ticket type is flexible for any train so this just introduces unnecessary complexity and confusion. For such purchases it would be much simpler for a description of any restrictions to display next to the ticket name/price.
I noticed a few Virgin Trains staff seemed to be constantly recalibrating the two Northern machines at Piccadilly the other day and when they weren't doing that they were basically serving passengers using the machines.
johnnychips
Established Member
When I was in Italy a couple of years ago, there was almost always a group of boys - never girls - about 12-15 years old at main stations who would offer to help buy your ticket from the complex Trenitalia machines. They had expert knowledge of routes and tickets, were invariably efficient and honest, and did all this in the expectation of a €1 or €2 tip.
Because of the decline of the traditional jobs for teenagers like paper and milk rounds, maybe this is something Northern should encourage.
Because of the decline of the traditional jobs for teenagers like paper and milk rounds, maybe this is something Northern should encourage.
ant_bingley
Member
I used the machine at Steeton & Silsden for the first time yesterday, and my 2 x singles to Shipley with a Two Together Rail Card for immediate travel seemed to take more presses than it should. (but I got there in the end and there wasn't a queue)
Deffo a thumbs up from me for a "I know what I want" button!
Deffo a thumbs up from me for a "I know what I want" button!
Re. these new Northern ticket machine interfaces: why on earth do you need a postcode for buying a season ticket? All you need is the photocard ID - that and no more.
I put my postcode in and it doesn't recognise it. I ask the guy at the ticket office and he says it's a widely reported but they don't know why either and have no way of "fixing" it.
Not to mention more buttons, more typing, more delays for passengers waiting in the queue. It's just nonsense.
At what stage do Passenger Focus / Railway Ombudsman get involved to look at the new interface and report back passenger feedback go enact improvements?
I put my postcode in and it doesn't recognise it. I ask the guy at the ticket office and he says it's a widely reported but they don't know why either and have no way of "fixing" it.
Not to mention more buttons, more typing, more delays for passengers waiting in the queue. It's just nonsense.
At what stage do Passenger Focus / Railway Ombudsman get involved to look at the new interface and report back passenger feedback go enact improvements?
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