-
Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!
Fares repressed by Ticket Vending Machines
- Thread starter Oscar
- Start date
- Status
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R
RailUK Forums
Smethwickian
Member
Definitely 'route Chiltern only' and printed as such. I know these exist mainly for web bookings of Chiltern advances, but as each fare is identical apart from the route description to the 'rte High Wycombe', it's odd to be sold them at Birmingham New Street, deliberately excluding the route from there to Banbury.
Once again, we see two different styles of TVM and two different interfaces. Great for the technophobe that just about manages to use one and then encounters another and goes back to square one... all while there's a queue building behind which I bet would actually play a part in someone buying the wrong thing by not taking the time to check (if a machine could even provide more useful information than loads of shortened words to fit an arbitrary limit).
It isn't just foreign visitors, or the people who don't use computers, as my mum who is pretty tech savvy has made two mistakes over the years;
1) Bought a first class ticket by mistake, having misread 'First' when travelling on First Capital Connect. An RPI brought this to her attention when checking, and wondering why she hadn't sat in first class.
2) Bought a ticket from Cheshunt to London Terminals to get to Euston, assuming the plural meant ANY London terminal station.
I'm sure people make mistakes every day, but many might simply buy a ticket that cost more than they needed to and don't get into any trouble - yet that doesn't make it any more acceptable.
Seeing a TVM with some 30-odd options is pathetic. While I'd like to see a TVM selling every ticket you can get from a window (or online) including buying ahead, or starting from another station (but marking clearly what station the ticket was sold at and when, for people who might try and defraud by dumbbelling) but present the information in a user friendly format.
If I was designed a TVM from scratch today, I'd be seeking input from designers of UIs - whether that be from Google, Apple or whoever. I'd then consider having the first option being to buy a ticket via a wizard, or an 'advanced' option for regulars that know what they want. I'd even suggest having shortcut codes that regulars can input to get to the exact same ticket again (and printing that code on the ticket somewhere).
Then the TVM would begin by asking the simple questions to drill down the list of choices to only those relevant, such as the day you're travelling, coming back (if you're coming back), any railcard you own and specific operators (or fully flexible).
I don't know the best order to that (and that would be best decided via testing different options with focus groups, existing rail users etc) but I'd then suggest having a screen that contains most of the chosen information on the one display - with options to edit individual options without clicking back and no doubt losing everything. If you want to change your railcard or return date, must you go back and re-enter your destination, for example?
If you then had your ticketing app on your phone, you'd now have the option of pre-selecting your ticket in advance of getting to the machine and then entering the code to get that very ticket. Clever, huh? Going forward, you'd ditch the code and touch your NFC phone against the machine... possibly then paying on the machine and transferring a ticket back to your smartcard.
The current software looks like it is designed by committee (just as Motorola phone software used to be - remember the software on their phones before Android?), ticking all the boxes on what it had to do (maybe with a few things inserted here and there during upgrades) but never once caring about the user experience as it wasn't part of the remit.
It isn't just foreign visitors, or the people who don't use computers, as my mum who is pretty tech savvy has made two mistakes over the years;
1) Bought a first class ticket by mistake, having misread 'First' when travelling on First Capital Connect. An RPI brought this to her attention when checking, and wondering why she hadn't sat in first class.
2) Bought a ticket from Cheshunt to London Terminals to get to Euston, assuming the plural meant ANY London terminal station.
I'm sure people make mistakes every day, but many might simply buy a ticket that cost more than they needed to and don't get into any trouble - yet that doesn't make it any more acceptable.
Seeing a TVM with some 30-odd options is pathetic. While I'd like to see a TVM selling every ticket you can get from a window (or online) including buying ahead, or starting from another station (but marking clearly what station the ticket was sold at and when, for people who might try and defraud by dumbbelling) but present the information in a user friendly format.
If I was designed a TVM from scratch today, I'd be seeking input from designers of UIs - whether that be from Google, Apple or whoever. I'd then consider having the first option being to buy a ticket via a wizard, or an 'advanced' option for regulars that know what they want. I'd even suggest having shortcut codes that regulars can input to get to the exact same ticket again (and printing that code on the ticket somewhere).
Then the TVM would begin by asking the simple questions to drill down the list of choices to only those relevant, such as the day you're travelling, coming back (if you're coming back), any railcard you own and specific operators (or fully flexible).
I don't know the best order to that (and that would be best decided via testing different options with focus groups, existing rail users etc) but I'd then suggest having a screen that contains most of the chosen information on the one display - with options to edit individual options without clicking back and no doubt losing everything. If you want to change your railcard or return date, must you go back and re-enter your destination, for example?
If you then had your ticketing app on your phone, you'd now have the option of pre-selecting your ticket in advance of getting to the machine and then entering the code to get that very ticket. Clever, huh? Going forward, you'd ditch the code and touch your NFC phone against the machine... possibly then paying on the machine and transferring a ticket back to your smartcard.
The current software looks like it is designed by committee (just as Motorola phone software used to be - remember the software on their phones before Android?), ticking all the boxes on what it had to do (maybe with a few things inserted here and there during upgrades) but never once caring about the user experience as it wasn't part of the remit.
Last edited:
RJ
Established Member
You can't have it both ways - it either has to be simple and easy to use, or complex.
Where I was working, the departure boards showed the time and ultimate destination in large letters at the top, then "Calling at," with intermediate calling points shown underneath in smaller letters. The amount of people asking for help because they "didn't think to read anything below the destination" was shocking. Normally people with reservations to somewhere before the final destination of the service.
These are the kind of challenges that software designers have to deal with. Short of having a screen that doesn't have any text on it, how are the people who make the decision not to read carefully supposed to be catered for?
Where I was working, the departure boards showed the time and ultimate destination in large letters at the top, then "Calling at," with intermediate calling points shown underneath in smaller letters. The amount of people asking for help because they "didn't think to read anything below the destination" was shocking. Normally people with reservations to somewhere before the final destination of the service.
These are the kind of challenges that software designers have to deal with. Short of having a screen that doesn't have any text on it, how are the people who make the decision not to read carefully supposed to be catered for?
Apple and others prove that you don't have to make something really dumb to be easy to use. I think that's a common misconception that is why we have loads of things with terrible interfaces.
Sky has always adopted this approach with its EPG, yet the end result is something that lacks functionality and still has loads of inconsistencies because they are very bad at asking for, receiving and acting upon feedback (to the level where they only noticed some major bugs weeks before the launch of the new-look EPG and had to pull it for some 7-8 months - as they'd not bothered to properly manage any beta testing programme). It's better now, but still has a long way to go. Other interfaces are far superior - still being intuitive but much more powerful (such as TiVo).
OS X was always a lot easier than Windows XP or Vista (arguably Windows 7 is a lot better, and Windows 8 will be better still) but didn't lack functionality.
It's all about the design and key objectives from the outset. Nobody has thought about this on TVMs from what I can see, and the software was probably created to do a job with even the people that worked on it no doubt admitting it's pretty poor.
At the end of the day, a TVM has a very poor UI overlaid on a complex ticketing system underneath. And, one thing that IS good about Sky is that no matter who makes the receiver, the software is the same (even if the interfaces with the hardware behind are totally different). That means a customer simply learns to use their Sky remote and can swap and change boxes without any differences at all.
At the very least, let's get the industry using the same interface regardless of who makes the ticket machine itself.
Sky has always adopted this approach with its EPG, yet the end result is something that lacks functionality and still has loads of inconsistencies because they are very bad at asking for, receiving and acting upon feedback (to the level where they only noticed some major bugs weeks before the launch of the new-look EPG and had to pull it for some 7-8 months - as they'd not bothered to properly manage any beta testing programme). It's better now, but still has a long way to go. Other interfaces are far superior - still being intuitive but much more powerful (such as TiVo).
OS X was always a lot easier than Windows XP or Vista (arguably Windows 7 is a lot better, and Windows 8 will be better still) but didn't lack functionality.
It's all about the design and key objectives from the outset. Nobody has thought about this on TVMs from what I can see, and the software was probably created to do a job with even the people that worked on it no doubt admitting it's pretty poor.
At the end of the day, a TVM has a very poor UI overlaid on a complex ticketing system underneath. And, one thing that IS good about Sky is that no matter who makes the receiver, the software is the same (even if the interfaces with the hardware behind are totally different). That means a customer simply learns to use their Sky remote and can swap and change boxes without any differences at all.
At the very least, let's get the industry using the same interface regardless of who makes the ticket machine itself.
Last edited:
Glad you agree
I use print at home for nearly all my frequent travels in Germany & Sweden. In the UK I must usually 'clog up' the TVMs, which seems to annoy you so much.
You might be pleased to know that today I only had 5 different reference numbers to collect tickets against. Of course, one return ticket with one reference would have been quicker, but then I would have paid over twice the amount I actually paid for my journey.
>>>
Going back to the screen shots a few posts ago - how on earth is a normal passenger supposed to understand what some of those abbreviations mean ?
The machine that offers which route is getting somewhere, but why does it still need to show the compressed text made so simply to fit on a ticket? Is the screen subject to the same restrictions? Of course not.*
Clearly it is because it is just pulling the same text from a database, which is a very lazy but quick way of doing this, but it should be offering more detailed information.. possibly even with a logo of the operator for recognition.
Even here, 'Any permitted' is too short and could be expanded to make it clearer that it means any operator, but still with certain limitations that might need to be explained.
Why does the software need to be so generic when it could actually list all the operators that serve the chosen route (assuming you've already chosen your destination by then). If you listed the price of a ticket next each option, you'd even have a bit more competition by being able to make a decision on whether to fix yourself to one operator or go for the flexible option. If there was an any permitted super off-peak option on a weekend that was cheaper than all, pop up a box to say that (even if you can then press 'ignore' should you really, really want an operator specific ticket).
I hope ATOC reads this thread as it does others and actually decides on day to do something on the woeful state of our TVMs in certain locations (i.e. those with multiple routes/operators).
And who the hell is LER?
* Incidentally, on one of the TVMs at Hatfield, there's another problem where some text is too long and runs over the background/logo (can't remember exactly) which must also mean it fails on 'accessibility' issues.
Clearly it is because it is just pulling the same text from a database, which is a very lazy but quick way of doing this, but it should be offering more detailed information.. possibly even with a logo of the operator for recognition.
Even here, 'Any permitted' is too short and could be expanded to make it clearer that it means any operator, but still with certain limitations that might need to be explained.
Why does the software need to be so generic when it could actually list all the operators that serve the chosen route (assuming you've already chosen your destination by then). If you listed the price of a ticket next each option, you'd even have a bit more competition by being able to make a decision on whether to fix yourself to one operator or go for the flexible option. If there was an any permitted super off-peak option on a weekend that was cheaper than all, pop up a box to say that (even if you can then press 'ignore' should you really, really want an operator specific ticket).
I hope ATOC reads this thread as it does others and actually decides on day to do something on the woeful state of our TVMs in certain locations (i.e. those with multiple routes/operators).
And who the hell is LER?
* Incidentally, on one of the TVMs at Hatfield, there's another problem where some text is too long and runs over the background/logo (can't remember exactly) which must also mean it fails on 'accessibility' issues.
Paul Kelly
Verified Rep - BR Fares
London Eastern Railway Ltd. - official name of the former franchise holder that latterly traded as National Express East Anglia. I too am baffled as to why that should appear in the ticket machines though - maybe it was a preventative measure taken before they were sure what Abellio were going to call the new franchise and nobody bothered to update it?
Had they called the franchise Abellio Anglia or similar it would be less confusing. Alas not. I agree with jonmorris0844's points above. Being able to browse fares on a phone or website with all the time in the world, then it giving you a code you type into the TVM to bring up a complex fare for travel today wouldn't be too difficult.
The code could just be start station, end station and ticket type concatenated, without the need for any extra database.
Regarding RJ's problem of someone slowly printing loads of tickets (on a different thread), each with their own reference numbers, I presume the reason it has to ask for reference numbers, is that the full credit card number is not stored, but just a hash, which may have hash collisions with other cardholders.
It would be nice if, when you bought more tickets online from the same engine*, it added these tickets onto the end of an existing reference number for tickets you already have that are uncollected. You'd then only have one number to key in for journeys booked at different times.
*webtis/trainline. Since you have to login to these sites as a registered user when buying, it knows you are the same cardholder.
The code could just be start station, end station and ticket type concatenated, without the need for any extra database.
Regarding RJ's problem of someone slowly printing loads of tickets (on a different thread), each with their own reference numbers, I presume the reason it has to ask for reference numbers, is that the full credit card number is not stored, but just a hash, which may have hash collisions with other cardholders.
It would be nice if, when you bought more tickets online from the same engine*, it added these tickets onto the end of an existing reference number for tickets you already have that are uncollected. You'd then only have one number to key in for journeys booked at different times.
*webtis/trainline. Since you have to login to these sites as a registered user when buying, it knows you are the same cardholder.
- Status