3rd faulty season ticket in 2 months

[leejayd]

In the past 2 months I've had to replace my season ticket 3 times as it stops working at machines (bought from Chester st). The season ticket is kept in a wallet the same as during past 2 years. Nothing has changed on my side so the quality of the tickets must have dropped.

I wouldn't mind so much except getting a replacement ticket involves filling in a form and waiting for around 10 minutes at a ticket desk.

Compare this to my Oyster card which I've had for 3 years and not once had a fault with it.

Isn't it time we had durable smart tickets in the North?

 

[Chrisgr31]

3 in 2 months? In the first 2 months of this year my season ticket was replaced 8 times. Fortunately I have now swapped it on the Southerns smart card product.

However never had a form to fill in for a replacement, just took it to the tticket office and instant swap done.

 

[Andrewlong]

Are you keeping your season ticket in a wallet near to objects with a magnet strip such as a credit/debit card? Or is there a magnetic buckle/clasp on your wallet?

I had same problem and now keep my wallet and season ticket holder in separate pockets. However if as a traveller you are regularly putting a ticket through a card reader - the risk of a mis-read does go up.

We need a contactless solution. There are card readers at stations along the Reading to Waterloo line but no news about when we are getting this change.

 

[leejayd]

It's stored in a ticket wallet far away from my wallet.

I've never had problems in the past. We have no option for smart cards unfortunately.

I think the reason I have to fill in a form is because the ticket office is managed by Arriva but the ticket is for a Northern Rail journey.

I guess they need a record to limit fraudulent activity,

Oh well. Not a lot I can do.

 

[Rail Ranger]

When you say it "stops working at machines" do you mean it doesn't work the ticket barriers at stations? Could you not simply show it to the member of staff at the manned barrier?

 

[Fincra5]

If you keep the ticket near a mobile phone you are done for. The microwaves from the Phone scramble the magnetic ticket strip.

 

[WillPS]

If you keep the ticket near a mobile phone you are done for. The microwaves from the Phone scramble the magnetic ticket strip.

I'm not sure that's true: http://members.questline.com/Article.aspx?articleID=17783&accountID=1285&nl=10213

I know that relates to more sturdy plastic cards, but the theory is the same.

 

[craigwilson]

Are you keeping your season ticket in a wallet near to objects with a magnet strip such as a credit/debit card? Or is there a magnetic buckle/clasp on your wallet?

The first one should not be a problem - these things are designed to be put in wallets. I'd suggest that the problem is more that the magnetic strip on a paper ticket is fundamentally not that physically robust.

 

[leejayd]

Yes, the ticket fails to work at the gate - which to be honest can be a bit disconcerting at peak when surrounded by fellow passengers.

I try and leave the manned gate for the people that need it plus at Chester there's normally a sea of passengers arriving as I depart.

If tocs secure sales with electronic gates I don't have any objection as long as they give me a robust ticket/card/token to access the service I've paid for.

I can understand a failure now and again but 3 in 2 months is a joke.

 

[SPADTrap]

When you say it "stops working at machines" do you mean it doesn't work the ticket barriers at stations? Could you not simply show it to the member of staff at the manned barrier?

Out of interest, what else could it mean?

 

[Bushy]

I keep my season in a wallet with a number of other cards and smart cards in the pocket with my phone against it, and have rarely had problems, other than the ticket becoming visually unreadable due to wear putting through the ATGs. A colleague put his Blackberry with his ticket and it immediately corrupted the magnetic strip. The standard wallet for the Blackberry had a magnetic clasp which switched the phone into standby when the case was closed.

Regards

Bushy

 

[philjo]

I had to have my ticket reprinted last week for the same reason. no forms required - the ticket office just reprinted it = took less than 30 seconds at the ticket office.
I have never had to have mine replaced for a faulty magnetic strip before but a couple of times it had to be reprinted becauses the ink had faded so by month 10/11 it was very hard to read.
a friend of mine has had his ticket stop workign on the barriers several times, on one occasion about 30 minutes after it was issued! It turned out to be his work security pass was causing the problems (it is a proximity card)

 

[Chrisgr31]

The standard wallet for the Blackberry had a magnetic clasp which switched the phone into standby when the case was closed.

Its a common feature on many phone cases now, and can scramble the ticket. It is very easy to accidentially pit the phone in the same pocket as the ticket.

 

[thelem]

When you say it "stops working at machines" do you mean it doesn't work the ticket barriers at stations? Could you not simply show it to the member of staff at the manned barrier?

At many stations these will often have a queue, or if the gates are recently installed the member of staff will still attempt to put the ticket through the gate anyway. It's not the end of the world, but it is annoying.

 

[Hyphen]

If you keep the ticket near a mobile phone you are done for. The microwaves from the Phone scramble the magnetic ticket strip.

If anything with a phone, it would be the magnet in the speaker (or any magnetic cases) which would wipe the strip. Radio waves don't really do that.

It turned out to be his work security pass was causing the problems (it is a proximity card)

I'm going to go ahead and say it certainly wasn't his work security pass, unless it had a whacking great magnet (or even a little one) in it. Proximity (RFID) cards are unpowered RF devices, which can't possibly have wiped the ticket. When held in proximity to a reader, the card receives wireless power from it, just enough to fire up the onboard chip and begin broadcasting data. Even if the ticket were present when the card was active, it wouldn't have wiped it.

 

[edwin_m]

Some years back I spent a few days working at an office where the entry key was essentially a magnet. Took me a while to work out why I had to go to the hotel reception several times to swap my room key card!

 

[Greenback]

I've been buying annual seasons for years, and it's always been a bit of a lottery as to how long they will last. A couple of times it's been fading that has required my ticket to be replaced after 10 months, another time I've had the ticket fail in the first month and then had the same problem with the replacement. Usually it lasts a minimum of six months, though. It's annoying but it's not anything new, and it's still better than having to queue up every week or every month to buy a new ticket.

 

[LexyBoy]

My belief is that different types/installations of ticket barriers affect the strip differently. Until the barriers were installed at Didcot my ticket (passing through Reading's barriers twice a day) always lasted the full year. Since they were installed, it's a month or two between replacements.

 

[Pugwash]

About time an oyster style system was set up across the rail network.

There are immense savings in analysing the data for possible fraud and reduced costs in just not having paper tickets as well as a ticket machine knowing what possible discounts to give knowing what discount you have yp rail card, gold card etc etc

 

[LexyBoy]

Unfortunately there is also a huge opportunity to reduce flexibility, introduce extra restrictions and increase fares, which is why I and others are skeptical about smartcards. People do make mistakes fairly regularly with Oyster as well, it's not trouble-free.

The way are being introduced seems pretty poor as well: if the aim is to have a simple, national system then why is it being left to individual TOCs to sort out a solution in their area?

 

[Paul180]

They was some one in front of me having to replace a season ticket he got on Friday because it would not work the barriers when he got to london, and the person in the ticket office said he should not keep his ticket in the same wallet as his oyster card because it can wipe it, I had a joke with him later and we both think it's highly unlikely as we have both have done this for a number of years.

 

[infobleep]

My season ticket often fails. It is in the same pocket as my wallet. That doesn't have magnet but there is metal and my Oyster cards. In my other pocket is my phone, and that casing does have a magnet in one place. Sometimes I accidentally put my season ticket in that pocket but I've not noticed it fail after doing so.

I would prefer my ticket to fail than you move any of my other objects elsewhere. If I put them elsewhere I have more chance of losing them. If I put my season ticket elsewhere then that too could get lost. A lost season ticket costs me an administration charge, where as a failed ticket costs me nothing except my time.

I'm also not keen on smart cards because they have more restrictions than paper tickets. For example the requirement to touch in and out, which then impacts on split ticketing, especially when one is a season ticket.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk