E-Tickets on dead phones - a possible solution?

[Bletchleyite]

Also I'm chuckling at the idea that "about 50" seems to be the cut off for an elderly person.

Yes, this is bizarre. Your 40s and 50s are middle age. Indeed the 60s are probably also middle age these days with improved health and longevity. I don't think I'll consider myself elderly until my 70s.

 

[trainophile]

The over 50s thing was because I perhaps mistakenly thought that would be about right for people who grew up with computers from childhood. Nothing to do with middle age/old age. Yes I am of an older persuasion, and have only really used trains regularly for 15 or so years, but transitioning from the orange paper tickets that have been part of my life for a long time is proving a bit challenging. I really must drag myself into the 21st century!

 

[Deafdoggie]

This thread is raising a few chuckles at the lengths people go to to say e-tickets are dreadful. Then they say how they do use them.

 

[trainophile]

This thread is raising a few chuckles at the lengths people go to to say e-tickets are dreadful. Then they say how they do use them.

Ouch! To be fair I don't think I've said they are dreadful, just that I have a preference for the old style.

 

[AlterEgo]

The over 50s thing was because I perhaps mistakenly thought that would be about right for people who grew up with computers from childhood.

I am probably about the youngest age who can remember life without widespread mobile phones and the internet, and I'm 37. I hand wrote all my school exams up to age 18, and nearly all of my school work in big exercise books, save for a few big assignments which had to be "word processed". Back when I was about 14 there were no smart phones - the iPhone would be released when I was 21! - no internet on the move, you had to call your friends' parents' land lines to ask if they were meeting up or spend 10p to SMS them (if they even had a mobile - maybe a third of my friends at that age didn't). There was no social media then - MySpace wouldn't even launch until I'd left school. I went to university open days when I was aged 16 and 17 and buying tickets online was extremely rare. I bought my tickets with my bank card at the ticket office.

My parents are in their 70s but they worked with computers and like most people their age are very au fait with them.

People who are, say, 49, were born in 1975. They didn't grow up with computers.

 

[jon0844]

I had a Tandy TRS-80 computer, followed by a Commodore 64 in the early 1980s. I set up a website in 1993, and had been running a bulletin board since the early 1990s.

It clearly wasn't as common as now, but computers were around for people born in the 1970s. It's just that in most schools, you had a computer room and didn't have every class with them, or people bringing their own laptops.

...but getting back on topic, the likely reason e-tickets are so popular is because people have been used to getting barcode type tickets for many, many years now (well over ten years) for events and other forms of travel, like flying, so the railway hasn't introduced some fancy, confusing and complicated system - it has simply offered what people are used to.

 

[trainophile]

Last time I flew you still had to print out your boarding pass. Have they got scannable ones now?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Last time I flew you still had to print out your boarding pass. Have they got scannable ones now?

Generally you can choose a PDF to print or something to show on your phone (typically either in-app or Apple/Google Wallet). This has been so for 10+ years now with most airlines.

I've just come across a new one in Apple Wallet for an upcoming gig - it looks like a Wallet pass but has no barcode, instead it communicates by NFC (i.e. bring it up and tap the phone on a reader). Might be an interesting option for the railway to look at to speed passage through gatelines.

 

[Haywain]

Last time I flew you still had to print out your boarding pass. Have they got scannable ones now?

Last time I flew I had the boarding pass on my phone.

 

[kkong]

you had to call your friends' parents' land lines to ask if they were meeting up or spend 10p to SMS them (if they even had a mobile - maybe a third of my friends at that age didn't).

And, for a long time, this only worked if they were on the same cellular network as you!

Last time I flew you still had to print out your boarding pass. Have they got scannable ones now?

Yes, this is almost universal in the UK now.

But there are still many airports / countries / airlines where electronic boarding passes cannot be used.

Most recently, I experienced this at Agadir (Morocco) a few months back. Physical rubber stamps on paper only.

 

[AlbertBeale]

These might be true of the grandparents of us middle aged people.

It isn't true of our parents. They're the "silver surfer" generation, they know how to use computers and smartphones for basic daily purposes and they absolutely have bank accounts. Who doesn't have a bank account in 2024? You can't collect your pension in cash any more.

Are you perhaps yourself towards the upper end of middle age and thus thinking of a generation that, sadly, is mostly no longer with us?

But let's say you're over 50 yourself and are lucky enough to still have grandparents aged well over 100 who don't have a bank account and pay their rent in cash (does any landlord accept cash now?) - you can indeed, as you say, print it out for them.

Yes.

 

[Wallsendmag]

Not for away supporters at Premier League matches!

Supposedly they are but I haven't had one yet

 

[Haywain]

Supposedly they are but I haven't had one yet

Not offered at any of the 18 I visited during the season.

 

[Richardr]

Not for away supporters at Premier League matches!

The odd one is - Villa away was the first one I had.

 

[TUC]

I am probably about the youngest age who can remember life without widespread mobile phones and the internet, and I'm 37. I hand wrote all my school exams up to age 18, and nearly all of my school work in big exercise books, save for a few big assignments which had to be "word processed". Back when I was about 14 there were no smart phones - the iPhone would be released when I was 21! - no internet on the move, you had to call your friends' parents' land lines to ask if they were meeting up or spend 10p to SMS them (if they even had a mobile - maybe a third of my friends at that age didn't). There was no social media then - MySpace wouldn't even launch until I'd left school. I went to university open days when I was aged 16 and 17 and buying tickets online was extremely rare. I bought my tickets with my bank card at the ticket office.

My parents are in their 70s but they worked with computers and like most people their age are very au fait with them.

People who are, say, 49, were born in 1975. They didn't grow up with computers.

They didn't grow up with computers, but many have long since become familiar with them. I did my degree in the early 90s, and all essays had to be typed, so I learned to use the Apple Macs provided for students in the university library. We got our first home PC in 1995.

 

[Haywain]

The odd one is - Villa away was the first one I had.

Not for us this season.

 

[Wallsendmag]

Not for us this season.

Spurs( which I countdown get to due to a dewirement ) was supposed to be all mobile tickets but mine still wasn’t