Error codes 11 and 54 on zone 1-6 Day Travelcard

[AnkleBoots]

Purchased on Saturday but dated as Sunday, I had a paper Day Travelcard which I first tried to use on Sunday at 2am, it was refused by an Underground barrier with error 11 (Out of Date).

Later I was using bus and rail without a problem.

In the early evening, I had error code 54 (cancelled ticket) when trying to use on Underground again.

Although staff let me through each time, is there a way to avoid this kind of problem in future?

 

[alexx]

A day for travel purposes runs for 24 hours from 4.30am, therefore your ticket for Sunday wasn’t valid at 2am as it was still technically Saturday...

 

[yorkie]

A day for travel purposes runs for 24 hours from 4.30am, therefore your ticket for Sunday wasn’t valid at 2am as it was still technically Saturday...

This is incorrect.

Purchased on Saturday but dated as Sunday, I had a paper Day Travelcard which I first tried to use on Sunday at 2am, it was refused by an Underground barrier with error 11 (Out of Date).

Later I was using bus and rail without a problem.

In the early evening, I had error code 54 (cancelled ticket) when trying to use on Underground again.

Although staff let me through each time, is there a way to avoid this kind of problem in future?

I understand this is because the LU gates consider the date to still be the previous date, but under National Rail conditions a ticket is valid from midnight until 0429 the following day. I do not think it would be an easy fix.

 

[alexx]

This is incorrect.

Well that’ll teach me to try and be helpful. Care to correct me?

 

[yorkie]

Here is where the rule is documented:
https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/times_fares/ticket_types/46575.aspx

• Anytime Day Travelcards are valid for travel at any time of day and until 04:29 the following morning...
  
• Off-Peak Day Travelcards are valid for travel from 09:30 Monday to Friday, any time at weekends and on public holidays, and until 04:29 the following morning...

The National Rail day starts at midnight.

 

[bluegoblin7]

As stated above, this is incorrect; a day begins at 0000 and runs until 0429 the following day (both give or take a minute, I confess my ticketing knowledge has started to lapse since leaving stations).

I believe the OP's issue is due to Night Tube-induced anomalies - to allow fares capping etc to work correctly overnight the machines don't always function correctly with paper tickets, and I believe that they cannot be purchased at all before 0430 for similar reasons. Using a pre-purchased ticket, as in this case, will result in LU gates cancelling the ticket if it is used early (unlike most NR gates they can read and write).

I had thought they'd changed the Night Tube anomalies but, as mentioned, it's been quite some time now (two and a half years) since I've dealt with tickets so I am a little rusty.

 

[AnkleBoots]

My ticket was a £8.60 Network Railcard-discounted 1-6 Travelcard.

I suspect more people would do this on Sat/Sun if they knew that it holds two advantages over Oyster/contactless
a. they can use it between midnight and 04.29
b. Network Railcard discount is possible

 

[AnkleBoots]

I had the same issue again last weekend and a TfL member of staff was (politely) adamant about the 4.30am start, and told me to go check the Internet.

So I did, and Wikipedia says this:

The Anytime Travelcard can be used at any time from 04:30 on the day it becomes valid; and the cheaper Off-Peak Travelcard cannot be used from 04.30 to 09.30 on weekdays.

Does anyone have posting privileges on Wikipedia to be able to amend this?

 

[yorkie]

Anyone can edit Wikipedia; it's not a primary source.

I wouldn't trust a member of London Underground gateline staff on ticketing matters either! Given the salary and job spec, you ought to be able to, but I know from experience that you just can't rely on them to be knowledgeable on ticketing matters and I'm not surprised when they make things up.

 

[AnkleBoots]

under National Rail conditions a ticket is valid from midnight until 0429 the following day. I do not think it would be an easy fix.

Could it be inferred that a Travelcard bought from TFL has a different start time to one bought from a rail company?

 

[transmanche]

Could it be inferred that a Travelcard bought from TFL has a different start time to one bought from a rail company?

TfL Conditions of Carriage state:

Day Travelcard
Off-Peak tickets can be used from 0930 on Mondays to Fridays (from 0001 on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays) on the day of validity and for any journey that starts before 0430 the following day.

Source: TfL Conditions of Carriage

 

[AnkleBoots]

Thank you that's very helpful. If I encounter the same member of staff again I will invite him to check page 29 of the Conditions of Carriage.

 

[Mojo]

Could it be inferred that a Travelcard bought from TFL has a different start time to one bought from a rail company?

TfL retail outlets are not open overnight and therefore cannot sell Travelcards overnight. You can however buy tickets from the ticket machines at London Underground stations however as far as I can remember, London Underground machines do not sell one day Travelcards between midnight and 04.29 hrs. If you buy a single ticket at say 01.04 hrs it will be printed with the (de jure) date before at a time of 2504.

Unless you are talking about TfL Rail (soon to be Crossrail/Elizabeth line) in which case these use machines based upon standard National Rail technology and therefore consider that the date changes at midnight, so any tickets purchased between 00.00 hrs and 04.29 hrs will be printed for the (de facto) day after.

 

[AnkleBoots]

TfL retail outlets are not open overnight and therefore cannot sell Travelcards overnight. You can however buy tickets from the ticket machines at London Underground stations however as far as I can remember, London Underground machines do not sell one day Travelcards between midnight and 04.29 hrs. If you buy a single ticket at say 01.04 hrs it will be printed with the (de jure) date before at a time of 2504.

Unless you are talking about TfL Rail (soon to be Crossrail/Elizabeth line) in which case these use machines based upon standard National Rail technology and therefore consider that the date changes at midnight, so any tickets purchased between 00.00 hrs and 04.29 hrs will be printed for the (de facto) day after.

Thank you for this.
I was talking about London Underground stations rather than Tfl Rail.

I think that Travelcards can be bought in advance from TfL ticket machines and from TfL shops so there may be people other than me trying to use them after midnight!

 

[AnkleBoots]

It was error 54 that caused my discussion with the member of staff (as with that error code there is a slight suggestion that the passenger might have been trying to be dishonest).

For future journeys I will try to corrupt the magnetic strip (error code 09) for less hassle. If anyone has ideas on how to do that I'd be interested to know.

 

[londonboi198o5]

The codes used on LUL barriers have been there since they more or less got the gates. with the introduction of night tube this was always going to be a problem as for years the tube shut at 0100 and reopened at 0445. Therefore the website has not been updated to reflect night tube with regards to ticket times and dates as well as the UTS gates.

 

[Mojo]

I think that Travelcards can be bought in advance from TfL ticket machines and from TfL shops so there may be people other than me trying to use them after midnight!

I don’t know if TfL still have any ticket machines (I remember seeing some on the Mainline concourse at Victoria by the temporary visitor information centre which has since closed. I might pop by later and see if they are still there). London Underground passenger operated machines will only allow you to buy a ticket for today or tomorrow, so I wonder if you now can buy tickets after midnight. The exception is at LU stations that used to be Silverlink as these do not have the standard LU machines.

 

[furlong]

It is valid and staff should know that but always ask to be let through manually as due to some technical limitations of the software the barriers will invalidate the ticket if you attempt to put it through before the previous LUL day has ended. This issue was raised when the night tube was announced and the answer that came back was that they could not justify spending the money to fix the computer system for what they considered would be a rare situation.

 

[furlong]

Here was the Q&A about this:

Q. Will ticket gates stop falsely rejecting NR tickets (eg travelcards) that are valid from midnight (not 4.30am)?
Are all the various types of National Rail paper tickets included in the testing mentioned on this website that's been happening for Oyster and contactless payments?
For example, a one day travelcard from a National Rail station dated Tuesday should be accepted from 00.01 that day, even though the Underground day remains Monday until 04.30. (Tickets are valid for 28 1/2 hours.)
Have the ticket gates been updated to address this yet?

A. No changes have been made to the magnetic ticketing system; therefore the requirement will remain for station staff to assist customers with certain National Rail issued magnetic tickets in the period of time when the National Rail and LUL travel days do not align. The low level of National Rail tickets we expect to see at this time makes any fix uneconomic. The hours of National Rail operation are not changing and therefore we don't believe that this problem will be exacerbated. However, we are supporting train operators to develop more extensive smart ticketing which will help address the problem

 

[furlong]

(I'm speculating here, but unfortunately I think the current software cannot distinguish your use of the ticket from a publicised fraud that was perpetuated against LUL several years ago, and so your ticket gets marked as always requiring a manual inspection to make sure it is valid and not one of the fraudulent ones.)