Do you have to touch in and out with a smart card season ticket.

[DDB]

Quick question do you have to touch in and out with a season ticket on a smart card?

My reason for the query

I commute using a Nottingham Robin hood multi modal season ticket combined with an ordinary rail season ticket from the boundary station.

I used to commute to an unbarried station using a paper season ticket and so although I regularly needed to show it to a guard I didn't ever need to take it out of its wallet and pass it through barriers.

I've changed my route (and done a season ticket changover) to a barried station and it is a pain having to keep getting the paper ticket out to pass it through the barrier and my experience is they tend to wear out.

Therefore when it is time to renew I was thinking of switching to smart card. However I will never touch in or out at the boundary station of the robin hood card. Will this cause problems? It will be a full annual ticket rather than a flexible so no need to 'activate' certain days.

Thanks in advance

 

[Somewhere]

No idea. Might be different for different areas. In London, you only have to touch in and out if you are going to go outside the area covered by any season ticket loaded (or are using pay as you go)

 

[kacper]

The mainline one doesn't have to be tapped if it's a full annual ticket, that's only required for "Flexi season" tickets which need to be tapped to mark them as used

 

[Wallsendmag]

No is the simple answer

The mainline one doesn't have to be tapped if it's a full annual ticket, that's only required for "Flexi season" tickets which need to be tapped to mark them as used

Sorry that’s incorrect they need to be activated each time they are used but you don’t need to tap in or out unless there are gates

 

[Haywain]

you don’t need to tap in or out unless there are gates

And if there are gates to tap in that will deal with the activation at the same time.

 

[Andrew1395]

I travel from a station without gates but oyster validators. My destination has gates. With my season I never tap in on the way to work and never tap out on my return. My smart season I simply use as a gate pass at the station with gates.

 

[Dan A]

You aren't required to touch in and touch out with a traditional season ticket loaded onto an ITSO smartcard, you can just use it as you would have used a paper ticket previously.

You DO need to 'activate' a FlexiSeason though - either through the apps (by scanning your card on your phone and pressing the activate button), or by swiping the validators or gates on the platform as you start your first trip that day.

Sidenote for other situations, I would recommend touching in and out anyway where you can. Each validation is tracked in the back office, so when it comes to claiming for Delay Repay, you may get the money back quicker. Certainly been the case in my experience on GTR and GA.

How that works with Robin Hood I don't know 100%, but I'd imagine it'd work the same way. May be worth an email to NCC.