My idea for compulsory e-tickets tickets before travel

Bletchleyite · 26 Jan 2020

Western Sunset said:
In the 1950s, the Talyllyn Railway had a carriage with a small ticket window in it. Here passengers could buy their ticket from the guard, whilst standing on the platform. Might affect station dwell times on NR though.....

Amsterdam trams used to have a bloke in a box selling tickets by the rear doors (you could also buy one from the driver). Very curious.

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Baxenden Bank · 26 Jan 2020

Bletchleyite said:
If it's in London probably just fine, I don't recall the last time I saw anyone paying for anything by cash when working at our Holborn office, and if you do offer cash you get looked at very strangely. Cash payment in London is increasingly rare. A pub tried it in Lancaster and went back to taking cash, but the North is much more of a cash culture than London is.

Indeed, the north/south divide on e-payment has been discussed before. I sit mid-way in the midlands. Our new pub landlord now accepts contactless, when the one customer tried it, everyone crowded round to watch. I jest slightly. Football fans who travel south to matches tell the same tale - of offering cash in pubs and getting funny looks.

As per the parallel thread running about e-tickets vs m-tickets. It would be helpful, certainly if making e-tickets compulsory, if there were a standard way of purchasing, storing, accessing and showing them. Travelling around the country and having different methods is going back to the old days of each town having their own standard time or currency!

Bletchleyite · 26 Jan 2020

Baxenden Bank said:
Indeed, the north/south divide on e-payment has been discussed before. I sit mid-way in the midlands. Our new pub landlord now accepts contactless, when the one customer tried it, everyone crowded round to watch. I jest slightly. Football fans who travel south to matches tell the same tale - of offering cash in pubs and getting funny looks.

It wasn't that long ago that cash was king in pubs in the South too - they'd mostly accept card (or at least any pub that did food would due to the larger sums involved), but there would be a sigh as they had to go and get the card machine. It's contactless that changed everything, because it's so much quicker than cash and doesn't require the bar staff to return to the customer to give change, and it also can't be pocketed by misbehaving staff. Indeed, most don't wait for authorisation before saying OK these days, and just shout them back to try again if for any reason it declined. (I actually saw this happen at a corner shop in MK about an hour ago!)

As per the parallel thread running about e-tickets vs m-tickets. It would be helpful, certainly if making e-tickets compulsory, if there were a standard way of purchasing, storing, accessing and showing them. Travelling around the country and having different methods is going back to the old days of each town having their own standard time or currency!

Avanti West Coast have as a franchise commitment a requirement to allow all tickets they sell to be amendable and refundable (if applicable) by all of their sales channels. If everyone was on the same standard e-ticket format (whether it happens to be printed on orange card, A4, a smartphone screen or tattooed onto a horse's backside, well maybe not the horse[1]) it seems entirely feasible that could be extended to "all railway sales channels" as they'd all be dealing in the same thing, and accounting could be automated compared with traditional paper tickets.

[1]

Man attempting to board Class 158 with a horse

yorksrob · 26 Jan 2020

Bletchleyite said:
That can be the same format, of course. To be an e-ticket it just needs the barcode. Why would anyone care if the credit-card sized bit of orange and green card they got from the TVM or ticket office had a barcode on it that just happened to actually be an e-ticket that they had to put onto the scanner instead of through the gate?

I'd expect to see this sooner rather than later, as maintaining magstripe-reading and writing technology is rather more expensive than simple printers and barcode scanners.

Different, perhaps. There certainly isn't a mistrust of technology in London like there often is in say rural Yorkshire and Lancashire.

Other that to children, I wonder how many cash tickets Bletchley sells each day from the ticket office and the TVM (one of the two takes cash)? Wouldn't surprise me if it was fewer than 10 (and it also wouldn't surprise me if almost all of them were to/from stations on the Marston Vale line). Whereas I'd imagine if you went to, I don't know, Shipley perhaps (picking a Yorkshire commuter station with entries/exits vaguely in the same sort of magnitude), I'd imagine it would be well into three figures.

The key thing is to be able to purchase it with cash. If you're travelling to the next stop and the fare's less than a fiver for example, a lot of people would prefer to use change.

Baxenden Bank · 26 Jan 2020

Bletchleyite said:
It wasn't that long ago that cash was king in pubs in the South too - they'd mostly accept card (or at least any pub that did food would due to the larger sums involved), but there would be a sigh as they had to go and get the card machine. It's contactless that changed everything, because it's so much quicker than cash and doesn't require the bar staff to return to the customer to give change, and it also can't be pocketed by misbehaving staff. Indeed, most don't wait for authorisation before saying OK these days, and just shout them back to try again if for any reason it declined. (I actually saw this happen at a corner shop in MK about an hour ago!)

Avanti West Coast have as a franchise commitment a requirement to allow all tickets they sell to be amendable and refundable (if applicable) by all of their sales channels. If everyone was on the same standard e-ticket format (whether it happens to be printed on orange card, A4, a smartphone screen or tattooed onto a horse's backside, well maybe not the horse[1]) it seems entirely feasible that could be extended to "all railway sales channels" as they'd all be dealing in the same thing, and accounting could be automated compared with traditional paper tickets.

[1]

Man attempting to board Class 158 with a horse

The picture is reminiscent of the film 'The Commitments' (I think it was). Conversation in a block of flats: You can't take that horse in the lift! I have to, there's no way he can get up the stairs.

yorkie · 26 Jan 2020

Snow1964 said:
E-tickets (unlike printed ones) are pretty useless if you don’t have a smartphone, or have a phone with no battery.

They are also useless to hand out to groups. If 3 of your work colleagues are getting a train to event, but might get different trains, you can give them physical tickets, but can’t hand over your multi buy e-ticket

I think you misunderstand e-tickets; they can be printed, and they are better for giving out to groups as you can send them electronically (if you wish) without having to meet the group members beforehand.

If you want a physical ticket, you can simply print them. They're also great for split-ticketing and make the process much easier; yesterday on XC I got one PDF with all my tickets on it, and just scrolled through each barcode in seconds, and the Delay Repay claim was easier than ever as a result.

I do like e-tickets but I oppose the suggestion to make them compulsory, as proposed in the opening post.

edwin_m · 26 Jan 2020

Mathew S said:
I think I would argue there should be one standard format, is the thing. To me, the best candidate for that is e-tickets, currently. Of course, as has been said elsewhere, there's no reason an 'e-ticket' can't be printed on a bit of a card if purchased face to face / at a TVM.

yorksrob said:
I think they probably ought to consolidate around two formats. A robust well understood electronic format that can be used by the tech-savvy part of society, and a more traditional type where anybody can rock up and tender cash for a traditional ticket. That way all bases are covered.

The term "E-ticket" actually encompasses two concepts (leaving aside the ones that aren't actually e-tickets at all). The first is a ticket that can be held on some electronic device, and the second is a ticket where the evidence of validity is a record in a database somewhere rather than a piece of cardboard. In fact the second meaning is the crucial one that enables the first but doesn't require it. Having the ticket as a database record allows the reference that identifies it to be held in a wide variety of formats.

Baxenden Bank said:
As per the parallel thread running about e-tickets vs m-tickets. It would be helpful, certainly if making e-tickets compulsory, if there were a standard way of purchasing, storing, accessing and showing them. Travelling around the country and having different methods is going back to the old days of each town having their own standard time or currency!

I'd say more the opposite. There is a wide variety of ways of purchasing, storing, and accessing and showing an e-ticket, so they can be purchased in many different ways and the user benefits from being able to hold them in various formats, email them and download a duplicate copy. But they are all part of a common system so all operators can deal with all those formats using a fairly simple scanner and a link to the central database. The problem here is the presence of m-tickets and frequent confusion between the two types. I've yet to see any reason why m-tickets are preferable to e-tickets, other than for an unscrupulous operator who wants to make a bit of money charging full fare for those who don't understand the rules or can't present the relevant working device.

At present cardboard tickets occupy a separate ecosystem. It's a shame that the scanner-enabled gates can't (I assume) also scan a barcode on a cardboard ticket inserted in the slot, as this will cause a lot of confusion if cardboard tickets transition to being printed versions of e-tickets.

yorksrob · 26 Jan 2020

edwin_m said:
The term "E-ticket" actually encompasses two concepts (leaving aside the ones that aren't actually e-tickets at all). The first is a ticket that can be held on some electronic device, and the second is a ticket where the evidence of validity is a record in a database somewhere rather than a piece of cardboard. In fact the second meaning is the crucial one that enables the first but doesn't require it. Having the ticket as a database record allows the reference that identifies it to be held in a wide variety of formats.

I think that's fine, so long as it doesn't require the purchaser to ownany specific computer or printing technology.

6Gman · 26 Jan 2020

Mathew S said:
That mechanism could be as simple as loading cash onto a contactless payment card, which can be obtained at the local post office/library/corner shop/other suitable venue - much needed support for those outlets then as well.

Long walk to the nearest post office/ library/ corner shop from Roman Bridge.

And hundreds (thousands?) of other stations.

6Gman · 26 Jan 2020

Incidentally, I don't think I have ever … ever bought a rail ticket on the national network that could have been bought on-line or at a TVM.

Staff privilege card you see ...

Booking Office or Guard - no problem. My iPhone doesn't seem to recognise it.

Bletchleyite · 26 Jan 2020

6Gman said:
Long walk to the nearest post office/ library/ corner shop from Roman Bridge.

And hundreds (thousands?) of other stations.

How many people are making a single journey from Roman Bridge without coming from home where they near-certainly have some sort of Internet access?

Bletchleyite · 26 Jan 2020

6Gman said:
Incidentally, I don't think I have ever … ever bought a rail ticket on the national network that could have been bought on-line or at a TVM.

Staff privilege card you see ...

Booking Office or Guard - no problem. My iPhone doesn't seem to recognise it.

So sort that out. The mind boggles as to why they can't be bought at all sales channels, perhaps in some kind of hidden menu.

6Gman · 26 Jan 2020

Bletchleyite said:
How many people are making a single journey from Roman Bridge without coming from home where they near-certainly have some sort of Internet access?

You know any Roman Bridge folk ?

8-)

Just let them buy a ticket from the Guard.

Mathew S · 26 Jan 2020

6Gman said:
Long walk to the nearest post office/ library/ corner shop from Roman Bridge.

And hundreds (thousands?) of other stations.

I did, in the same post you've partially quoted, point out that it wouldn't be practical for the most rural stations.

Snow1964 · 26 Jan 2020

Bletchleyite said:
E-tickets issue one barcode per person so as not to clog up barriers, don't they?

Assuming I'm correct and they do, you simply forward them their PDF and they use it as they wish. Actually easier than having to meet them to hand around physical tickets.

(Note I'm talking about proper e-tickets, not any misdescribed m-tickets or hybrids as some TOCs like to use)

If you can forward the PDFs, what’s to stop them being presented by 2 different people, and how would a ticket inspector know the first one might be copy and ticket had been bought for second person

Mathew S · 26 Jan 2020

Snow1964 said:
If you can forward the PDFs, what’s to stop them being presented by 2 different people, and how would a ticket inspector know the first one might be copy and ticket had been bought for second person

AIUI each time a ticket is scanned, the scan is recorded. This means that it would be obvious to a conductor / RPI / other that the ticket had already been scanned in a certain place at a certain time.

edwin_m · 26 Jan 2020

Mathew S said:
AIUI each time a ticket is scanned, the scan is recorded. This means that it would be obvious to a conductor / RPI / other that the ticket had already been scanned in a certain place at a certain time.

The important thing is that the barcode identifies a specific ticket, unlike the magstripe on a conventional ticket which only encodes the journey details. The scanners are linked back to the database so they can establish where that ticket was scanned previously and update the database with the new scan.

yorkie · 26 Jan 2020

Snow1964 said:
If you can forward the PDFs, what’s to stop them being presented by 2 different people, and how would a ticket inspector know the first one might be copy and ticket had been bought for second person

Information about where and when the ticket has been 'clipped' is recorded in a database. If two people were found presenting the same ticket, I would imagine that details of both passengers would need to be obtained so that the investigation could conclude which one was the rightful owner.

paul1609 · 26 Jan 2020

Bletchleyite said:
As I've said before I think ceasing cash acceptance other than at staffed stations or possibly Paytrain routes (where all sales would be on-board) would be a reasonable and sensible move provided there was an alternative i.e. PayPoints or similar. TVMs are far less likely to be vandalised or robbed if they don't contain any cash, and a 20 quid note in your wallet when boarding at stations with card only TVMs (plus potentially a Promise to Pay where applicable) is basically just a token to allow you to pay when challenged, very similar to the way people used to carry scratch-off Merseytravel Saveaways unscratched and just quickly scratch them off if they saw inspectors board.

However I don't think it's proportionate to require you to obtain a ticket in advance if the station has no facility at all.

All the marshlink halts have had card only TVMs for about 5 years now with fully TOD, in some cases the data link is via satellite. There really is no excuse for all stations not having it by now.

AnkleBoots · 26 Jan 2020

Bletchleyite said:
If it's in London probably just fine, I don't recall the last time I saw anyone paying for anything by cash when working at our Holborn office, and if you do offer cash you get looked at very strangely. Cash payment in London is increasingly rare.

There are plenty of places in London that only take cash. Takeaways in Chinatown. Toilet attendants in bars. Barbers. Independent cafes.

Also there are many tourists who have the habit of cash and for whom it is cheaper than incurring overseas card fees.

At Winter Wonderland I noticed that some kiosks were card-only and some were cash-only. So always better to carry both!

CockneySparrow · 27 Jan 2020

Wallsendmag said:
Not workable , there are some very remote stations without any kind of mobile signal

Imagine being on a train where the signal is poor and the passenger trying for 10 minutes to get the e ticket and the guard waiting next to them, wouldnt be ideal

yorkie · 27 Jan 2020

A reminder of the following recent threads:

Does anyone have any contributions which have not already been mentioned before? If so, please do post these.

Mathew S · 27 Jan 2020

CockneySparrow said:
Imagine being on a train where the signal is poor and the passenger trying for 10 minutes to get the e ticket and the guard waiting next to them, wouldnt be ideal

You do not need a mobile signal to use an e-ticket, that's part of the point. The customer downloads it onto their phone - it's just a pdf file. If the customer doesn't download it before the journey, well, that's not the member of staffs fault.

Additionally, in this day and age, there's no reason any station shouldn't have mobile connectivity.

Belperpete · 27 Jan 2020

Mathew S said:
Additionally, in this day and age, there's no reason any station shouldn't have mobile connectivity.

There was a separate thread about this, but by no means all the country has mobile coverage, and there are many stations/halts in very rural areas that don't have mobile connectivity.

E100 · 27 Jan 2020

I think a key issue I have is that this restricts choice. At a time where we should be encouraging ppl to travel by rail more, this doesn't really help.

philthetube · 27 Jan 2020

Sometimes because planning won't allow masts so apart from spending a fortune using a satellite based system not much to do about it.

35B · 27 Jan 2020

Bletchleyite said:
If it's in London probably just fine, I don't recall the last time I saw anyone paying for anything by cash when working at our Holborn office, and if you do offer cash you get looked at very strangely. Cash payment in London is increasingly rare. A pub tried it in Lancaster and went back to taking cash, but the North is much more of a cash culture than London is.

I also work in the Holborn area, and have no issues using cash when I choose. And when a local Sainsburys trialled app only payments, I just stopped shopping there.

Bletchleyite · 27 Jan 2020

35B said:
I also work in the Holborn area, and have no issues using cash when I choose. And when a local Sainsburys trialled app only payments, I just stopped shopping there.

I didn't say you would be unable to use cash, it was more that people looked surprised when I did use it.

I would probably avoid a shop requiring app payments. I'd rather use contactless.

35B · 27 Jan 2020

Bletchleyite said:
I didn't say you would be unable to use cash, it was more that people looked surprised when I did use it.

I would probably avoid a shop requiring app payments. I'd rather use contactless.

They don't even look surprised - and I work for a tech company.

My idea for compulsory e-tickets tickets before travel

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