Passenger Vs social media staff when Guard didn't appear to issue tickets on a Northern train

Bletchleyite · 26 Jan 2020

js1000 said:
- M-tickets are open to abuse. See a conductor or random RPI at the destination & activate/buy ticket on phone to avoid a fine. Simple way around this would be to provide a QR code on a screen at the station on the platforms which will allow you 10 minutes to complete ticket purchase. This could change daily to prevent abuse.

This doesn't work if the RPIs are paying any attention whatsoever. All they need to do is check what time it was purchased/activated. If substantially after the departure time of the train they've got off from their origin, it's PF time, because it's then obvious what they've done.

- The TVMs interface and reliability are dire. Even Northern ticket office staff joke about how poor they are.

Yes, they're garbage.

- Too many RPIs and not enough drivers and guards. More cancellations naturally leads to more delay repay claims - the administration of which are a drag on TOC revenue.

I wouldn't say too many RPIs, I'd just say not enough other traincrew.

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robk23oxf · 26 Jan 2020

I once got a free journey from Kingham to Worcester Foregate Street. Kingham doesn't have a TVM, the ticket office was closed and the guard didn't come through the train on the journey. At Worcester I needed to buy a day ranger and I did ask for a anytime return from Kingham to Worcester but the lady in the office said don't worry about it and I was sold an off-peak single for the journey home later. I did ask GWR a while ago if they were going to install a TVM at Kingham but they're yet to get around to it.

Mag_seven · 27 Jan 2020

My own view is that if the RMT are going to insist on guards on trains so much so that they are prepared to strike to achieve that then in return these guards must become more visible and regularly check tickets and carry out customer care duties (e.g. providing information etc) as well as undertaking their door and safety critical duties. Sitting in the back cab with your feet up reading "The Sun" or whatever is not acceptable any more. That said in this specific case of Northern I can report that on my last three trips on that TOC the guard was through after every station checking if people "had the necessary" so well done to them.

johntea · 28 Jan 2020

What completely baffles me about Northern is if you're unlucky enough to end up at Leeds without a ticket particulary during the morning peak without having had the opportunity to purchase one for whatever reason expect a grilling by a gang of the contracted yellow coat gang as soon as you even think about approaching the fares window on Platform 1!

Meanwhile the actual fare dodgers have already left the station...

robbeech · 28 Jan 2020

johntea said:
What completely baffles me about Northern is if you're unlucky enough to end up at Leeds without a ticket particulary during the morning peak without having had the opportunity to purchase one for whatever reason expect a grilling by a gang of the contracted yellow coat gang as soon as you even think about approaching the fares window on Platform 1!

Meanwhile the actual fare dodgers have already left the station...

This is just the standard approach of easy pickings. No point chasing those who will do what they can to dodge the fare if you have people queuing up to be fleeced.

Mag_seven · 28 Jan 2020

johntea said:
Meanwhile the actual fare dodgers have already left the station...

But Leeds has barriers doesn't it?

paddington · 28 Jan 2020

NoMorePacers said:
In contrast, I have never been on a train out of Hull where the guard hasn’t done a ticket check at least once.

I have. Only been to Hull twice, tickets not checked on 2 of 3 trains departing (one to York and one to Scarborough). The York train was delayed about 20 mins and the guard actually made an announcement that she would not be checking or selling tickets

johntea · 28 Jan 2020

Mag_seven said:
But Leeds has barriers doesn't it?

It does, but tailgating is something I see on a daily basis and seems very hard to do much about with the limited gateline staff too busy assisting hundreds of other passengers trying to get their (valid!) tickets to work

Even then if you are just making a connection in Leeds and haven't bought a ticket you should be seeking to do so at that ticket window but I suspect you would get less hassle just jumping on your connecting train and sorting it with the conductor to be honest!

Railweigh · 28 Jan 2020

Surprising how all these people still don’t have mobile phones capable of buying tickets.

Bletchleyite · 28 Jan 2020

Railweigh said:
Surprising how all these people still don’t have mobile phones capable of buying tickets.

Even if they do they are not obliged to use them. There are many disadvantages of them. The passenger is, as things stand, entitled to choose which method of payment on the list accepted by the railway to use. If it isn't available before boarding, they may board and use it at the first opportunity, noting that the NRCoT seems clear that a theoretical opportunity that would cause a missed connection does not constitute an opportunity.

Karl · 28 Jan 2020

Railweigh said:
Surprising how all these people still don’t have mobile phones capable of buying tickets.

I'm 59 and still don't have any kind of mobile phone. Let alone a smart phone. Please let me pay by cash. It's easier for me.

Iskra · 28 Jan 2020

LowLevel said:
That's odd because I'm a guard on those trains and I come round for tickets every time I work them and judging by the number of onboard issued tickets I see as return portions so do plenty of others

I must remember to never, ever, ever do tickets out of Heckington in future!

What does affect ticket sales is the reduction in commission available to conductors. Introducing vending machines and online apps etc has significantly reduced this at some depots and few if any companies have said 'OK, we accept we are reducing your take home pay, how do we look at mitigating this?'.

Consequently I know some guards refuse to check tickets and only sell them to maximise their take home, refuse to use recall functions to print off pre purchased tickets because the company doesn't pay commission for that despite it taking the same amount of time as issuing a new ticket etc and some are just demoralised and don't bother at all.

You can't knock a 3 figure sum in some cases off monthly salaries without comment without expecting some kick back from those affected.

If I refused to do my job, I'd get sacked for it. Why is the railway different?

43066 · 28 Jan 2020

Refusing to do any job, in a railway context, goes as follows (for very good reason):

Control: “are you refusing to do X?”

Front line employee: “no, but doing X is unsafe for Y reason. Doing X would compromise [my safety/safety of the travelling public[delete as appropriate]].

Do you still want me to do it?”

Control: “Ummmm”

Iskra · 28 Jan 2020

43066 said:
Refusing to do any job, in a railway context, goes as follows (for very good reason):

Control: “are you refusing to do X?”

Front line employee: “no, but doing X is unsafe for Y reason. Doing X would compromise [my safety/safety of the travelling public[delete as appropriate]].

Do you still want me to do it?”

Control: “Ummmm”

LowLevel explained the reasons and they weren't safety related...

Falsely arguing 'safety' is unlikely to be a successful defence in a hearing.

43066 · 29 Jan 2020

Iskra said:
LowLevel explained the reasons and they weren't safety related...

Falsely arguing 'safety' is unlikely to be a successful defence in a hearing.

Trust me when I say there are ways and means of communicating issues to control, when you’re the only person on the ground, who actually knows what’s happening.

That’s why the goodwill of front line staff goes a very, very long way in this industry.

Rail My Way · 29 Jan 2020

Some services from Manchester Piccadilly stop so often the guard cannot even get through the first carriage to perform revenue duties before having to go back to complete door duties, the airport line from Slade lane junction is one route that springs to mind, five stops with two-minute gaps between them. Hadfield another, Rose hill and New Mills Central services mostly the same, very little opportunity to do revenue. No excuse to not be seen though!

Bletchleyite · 29 Jan 2020

Rail My Way said:
Some services from Manchester Piccadilly stop so often the guard cannot even get through the first carriage to perform revenue duties before having to go back to complete door duties, the airport line from Slade lane junction is one route that springs to mind, five stops with two-minute gaps between them. Hadfield another, Rose hill and New Mills Central services mostly the same, very little opportunity to do revenue. No excuse to not be seen though!

The speed of issue from their portable ticket machines doesn't help here - it is MUCH slower than SPORTIS was. Really, it would be worth putting some money into improving it as that would reduce lost revenue.

Rail My Way · 29 Jan 2020

There supposed to be coming with new machines but when? I have to say though a majority of passengers are very wise to the fact that the guard may not be able to get through the train, either sitting at the very front of only travelling for a few stops or getting on the front unit of a double that doesn't have a walkway between.

Plus the smart cards that they know will not get checked because of a lack of agreement for scanning them. To put that last point into prospective an Rpo in the last few weeks was on a Hadfield service and scanned all smart cards, discovering that more than a handful had only 'topped' their cards up to the first stop out of Piccadilly not to their final destination. He took circa £200 in revenue on just that one service.

woodhouse122 · 29 Jan 2020

NoMorePacers said:
In contrast, I have never been on a train out of Hull where the guard hasn’t done a ticket check at least once.

to be honest the hull guards are pretty strict ,last year i had one examining my north east rail rover by using a rubber to check weither i had used a erasable pen to write the date in the box ( which i did'nt by the way

) south yorkshire guards are much slacker .i had my valid travelmaster smart card scanned just twice in the past month

NoMorePacers · 29 Jan 2020

woodhouse122 said:
to be honest the hull guards are pretty strict ,last year i had one examining my north east rail rover by using a rubber to check weither i had used a erasable pen to write the date in the box ( which i did'nt by the way ) south yorkshire guards are much slacker .i had my valid travelmaster smart card scanned just twice in the past month

If you look at it from another perspective however, you could very well say this makes them some of the best guards. I do find them to be some of the best around myself (both Northern and TPE ones).

Bn2020 · 30 Jan 2020

The guy who sent the tweet presumably did so from his mobile. No excuses for him not to have a valid ticket, really.

Here in SWR land I believe the guards aren’t commercial. I have had the odd check, usually on the Portsmouth services. There does tend to be RPI inspectors at stations in the evening at my suburban station. Maybe once a fortnight or so.

Bletchleyite · 30 Jan 2020

Bn2020 said:
The guy who sent the tweet presumably did so from his mobile. No excuses for him not to have a valid ticket, really.

You are not required to use your phone to buy tickets. If Northern use m-tickets, which I half recall they do, you are best advised not to do so.

8J · 30 Jan 2020

Why should I use my data plan to buy a ticket or my device's storage space for an app.

This obsession with "you must use your phone if there is no ticket machine" is ridiculous.

duffield · 30 Jan 2020

8J said:
Why should I use my data plan to buy a ticket or my device's storage space for an app.

This obsession with "you must use your phone if there is no ticket machine" is ridiculous.

And there are other issues such as: a couple of days ago I managed to get my phone in a state where it needed a factory reset and due to those issues it was rendered almost impossible to do that reset;** I needed a second device to google the instructions and then it took about 30-60 minutes to get it reset and restored to its previous state (yay cloud backup/restore!). I wouldn't want to have to potentially go to court due to phone failure!
Yes, you *can* lose physical tickets etc. but it's *within your control* to keep it safely zipped up somewhere. It's not necessarily within your control if phone malfunctions at some random time!

I don't know if it exists yet but phones could do with a special storage area like a writable Rfid area which can be read - like an Rfid chip or smartcard -even if the phone has no power or is locked up, installing updates, whatever. I think NFC (near field communication) is supposed to the rough equivalent (my phone doesn't have this anyhow) but my understanding is that NFC needs power and a the phone OS to be running to work.

** For technical interest I'd managed to get it in a state where the app launcher continually crashed so the popups generated largely prevented screen touch from registering. I tried the shutdown/access boot menu/select restore path but despite carefully following the instructions I was unable to get the 'recovery' option to appear. I finally managed to get to the factory reset option in the settings option by repeated fast taps to get 'between' the pop-ups but I would have been completely out of luck trying to do this on a train in a reasonable time.

Statto · 30 Jan 2020

8J said:
Why should I use my data plan to buy a ticket or my device's storage space for an app.

This obsession with "you must use your phone if there is no ticket machine" is ridiculous.

Not only that there are reasons why some don't want to use their card, as might have a couple of bills due, & just enough money in the account to cover the bills, but have cash in hand to buy a ticket

johnr57 · 30 Jan 2020

8J said:
Why should I use my data plan to buy a ticket or my device's storage space for an app.

This obsession with "you must use your phone if there is no ticket machine" is ridiculous.

i which case one should really purchase a valid ticket prior to travelling by more conventional means rather than evading

Wychwood93 · 30 Jan 2020

Bn2020 said:
The guy who sent the tweet presumably did so from his mobile. No excuses for him not to have a valid ticket, really.

Here in SWR land I believe the guards aren’t commercial. I have had the odd check, usually on the Portsmouth services. There does tend to be RPI inspectors at stations in the evening at my suburban station. Maybe once a fortnight or so.

Outer SWR world sees most guards being commercial.

Bletchleyite · 30 Jan 2020

johnr57 said:
i which case one should really purchase a valid ticket prior to travelling by more conventional means rather than evading

You mean by turning up at the station with cash, obtaining a Promise to Pay and paying cash on board, like Northern say he should be able to do?

To call him a fare evader is (a) rubbish, and (b) potentially libel.

Bn2020 · 30 Jan 2020

Wychwood93 said:
Outer SWR world sees most guards being commercial.

No sooner had I posted when a full ticket check room place. Railcard included.

Bletchleyite said:
You mean by turning up at the station with cash, obtaining a Promise to Pay and paying cash on board, like Northern say he should be able to do?

To call him a fare evader is (a) rubbish, and (b) potentially libel.

No one is saying you HAVE to use data/storage/power, or calling anyone a fare evader. The option is there to buy mobile tickets. Or use a TVM, a staffed office or get a promise to pay. All I’m saying is that there are multiple options for buying tickets, the “closed office, broken TVM” isn’t necessarily valid.
The guy drew Northern’a attention to the fact that he had travelled twice that day without paying. He do don’t say anything about a promise to pay. In fairness the tone of the tweet implies he would pay if challenged.

setdown · 31 Jan 2020

Bletchleyite said:
You are not required to use your phone to buy tickets. If Northern use m-tickets, which I half recall they do, you are best advised not to do so.

Fortunately, the northern-only mobile tickets are sold in the format that can be added to Apple Wallet.

Passenger Vs social media staff when Guard didn't appear to issue tickets on a Northern train

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