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.
Is there a reason why when buying a paper season ticket it doesn't show your photocard ID on the screen but displays it as if it was a password?
I'm not sure that a random string of numbers and letters is particularly identifying personal data to someone standing over your shoulder!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!
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.That sounds decidedly like a GDPR thing...
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
An "I know what I want" button would be brilliant!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.
In terms of buying a ticket, as others have said there are probably a few too many clicks in the process, but it certainly doesn't take the 10 minutes claimed up thread. I've bought a couple in the last week and the process generally takes around a minute, a little too long in honesty but not as bad as some are making out. However ticket collection is fast, I regularly see people picking them up in under 30 seconds so if you wife is concerned that buying at the TVM might cause her problems I'd certainly recommend buying online. She might even save a bit more depending on which booking site she uses!
The old 1d platform ticket machine at Poynton is not in use.
Oh Dear! Where is this please, to save me checking many many machines.
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.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.
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.
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.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?