e-tickets and TfW ticket gates

[Welshman]

Mrs W. travelled from Rhyl on the 0653 Avanti service this morning, using an e-ticket bought from the Avanti website. She found, not for the first time with this type of ticket at this location and with this train, that the gate would not accept her ticket, even though it was accepting traditional tickets. On letting her through, the member of the gateline staff said it won't till 9am. This seemed an odd thing to say. I can understand it not accepting e-tickets at all, as the TfW website does not offer them [only traditional tod and their app]. Was he pulling her leg, or could there be some substance in what he said?

I may be well off into the realms of imagination now, but if what he said is true, could it be that Avanti will only pay for their use for a limited period of time? Seems strange.

 

[Alex27]

I'm assuming the ticket was either an advance or an anytime ticket, which would make what they said strange, however most gatelines I've come across aren't particularly clever and will only let through off-peak tickets after a set time (usually just before the last off-peak service departs that station), meaning that any valid off-peak tickets need to be let through manually prior to that point. I assume that this may have been what they were getting at, but why in regards to what I assume was not an off-peak ticket I haven't a clue

 

[Scott1]

It's an issue with the gate line. They have limited memory so not all ticket types have been programmed in, this especially effects QR style tickets, for example e tickets. Where the gate doesn't have a full set of rules programmed for the ticket types it defaults to treating them as off peak, or rejecting them entirely. Hence the staff member saying it would work after half nine, the default off peak time, even though given they accepted the ticket to exit that's not the correct time restriction for the ticket type.

 

[Haywain]

It's an issue with the gate line. They have limited memory so not all ticket types have been programmed in, this especially effects QR style tickets, for example e tickets. Where the gate doesn't have a full set of rules programmed for the ticket types it defaults to treating them as off peak, or rejecting them entirely. Hence the staff member saying it would work after half nine, the default off peak time, even though given they accepted the ticket to exit that's not the correct time restriction for the ticket type.

It could be the limited memory capacity but, having written logic for Cubic gates, my money would be on lazy programming.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

I'm assuming the ticket was either an advance or an anytime ticket, which would make what they said strange, however most gatelines I've come across aren't particularly clever and will only let through off-peak tickets after a set time (usually just before the last off-peak service departs that station), meaning that any valid off-peak tickets need to be let through manually prior to that point. I assume that this may have been what they were getting at, but why in regards to what I assume was not an off-peak ticket I haven't a clue

And yet many TfW Off-Peak Return fares are now restriction 8A, meaning valid on any train but without break of journey.
They are sometimes the only return fares available, the alternative usually being an Anytime Day Return - neither has time restrictions.

 

[Welshman]

Thank you to the four of you for your suggestions.

It was an "Avanti only" Off-Peak return to Manchester Piccadilly via Crewe, although valid on the 0653.
Whereas the gate will accept "traditional" TfW off-peak tickets to Manchester, which are valid at any time, it seems like lazy programming regarding e-tickets, leading the gate to think it was not valid until 9.30am.

 

[RPI]

There was an issue with gatelines that barcode tickets were all being flagged as off-peak with the exception of anytime tickets, the problem was that it was impossible to differentiate between the different off-peak times, we even had the issue on Saturdays and Sundays where there were no peak times! Cubic did do an upgrade and the issue seems to have been sorted on GWR at least as we did a trial using a new server at Reading last year, cubic are I believe rolling it out everywhere eventually.
It also eradicated issues such as break of journey tickets not working.

 

[Wallsendmag]

There was an issue with gatelines that barcode tickets were all being flagged as off-peak with the exception of anytime tickets, the problem was that it was impossible to differentiate between the different off-peak times, we even had the issue on Saturdays and Sundays where there were no peak times! Cubic did do an upgrade and the issue seems to have been sorted on GWR at least as we did a trial using a new server at Reading last year, cubic are I believe rolling it out everywhere eventually.
It also eradicated issues such as break of journey tickets not working.

Cough should have bought S&B cough cough

 

[RPI]

Cough should have bought S&B cough cough

Do S&B make gates? To be fair, most of our gatelines have been in since about 2006/7 lol

 

[Wallsendmag]

Do S&B make gates? To be fair, most of our gatelines have been in since about 2006/7 lol

Oh yes don’t they look nice

 

[RPI]

Oh yes don’t they look nice

Yes, look even nicer when they're not open all day