Flowbird TVM usability: Railcards

[Adam Williams]

Do retail managers from train operating companies actually try and use the TVMs the company makes before they decide on the supplier?

I was using a Chiltern TVM yesterday and even just finding the 26-30 Railcard option is a real challenge amongst all the crap in the list.

I thought it was generally accepted in the retail world that you (sadly - this is the sort of thing there really needs to be better data for) do need to curate your own whitelist/allowlist of Railcards that you choose to expose. Some of the discounts in this list definitely should definitely not be publicly available for people to just apply on a whim.

TVM - Ticket vending machine

 

[Haywain]

Do retail managers from train operating companies actually try and use the TVMs the company makes before they decide on the supplier?

That depends on whether they were given the option by an incoming franchisee, or the machines had been purchased prior to the franchise award being finalised.

I thought it was generally accepted in the retail world that you (sadly - this is the sort of thing there really needs to be better data for) do need to curate your own whitelist/allowlist of Railcards that you choose to expose. Some of the discounts in this list definitely should definitely not be publicly available for people to just apply on a whim.

Agreed wholeheartedly. The data is full of rubbish though.

 

[Starmill]

Do retail managers from train operating companies actually try and use the TVMs the company makes before they decide on the supplier?

I was using a Chiltern TVM yesterday and even just finding the 26-30 Railcard option is a real challenge amongst all the crap in the list.

I thought it was generally accepted in the retail world that you (sadly - this is the sort of thing there really needs to be better data for) do need to curate your own whitelist/allowlist of Railcards that you choose to expose. Some of the discounts in this list definitely should definitely not be publicly available for people to just apply on a whim.

TVM - Ticket vending machine

It appears that the vast majority of those discounts wouldn't even be available for whatever ticket you were trying to buy? For many of those the machine won't even be capable of issuing the tickets to which those discounts could apply...

 

[CyrusWuff]

That depends on whether they were given the option by an incoming franchisee, or the machines had been purchased prior to the franchise award being finalised.

In the case of the Chiltern machines, it was a joint procurement with Northern (which was an Arriva TOC at the time.)

That doesn't excuse the lack of blacklisting for discounts that shouldn't be shown, however.

 

[Wallsendmag]

I’ve just had the same chat with the supplier a couple of weeks ago. For some reason all the available discounts were being displayed

 

[talldave]

Do retail managers from train operating companies actually try and use the TVMs the company makes before they decide on the supplier?

I was using a Chiltern TVM yesterday and even just finding the 26-30 Railcard option is a real challenge amongst all the crap in the list.

I thought it was generally accepted in the retail world that you (sadly - this is the sort of thing there really needs to be better data for) do need to curate your own whitelist/allowlist of Railcards that you choose to expose. Some of the discounts in this list definitely should definitely not be publicly available for people to just apply on a whim.

TVM - Ticket vending machine

Absolutely appalling . And of course should the unfortunate customer inadvertently make the wrong choice they could incur the wrath of the TOC's persecution department. And yes, I spelt that correctly!

 

[Adam Williams]

I’ve just had the same chat with the supplier a couple of weeks ago. For some reason all the available discounts were being displayed

Oh dear, so they do already know about it and it's still a problem. Certainly it's been like it for a long time at Chiltern stations, I only took video of it recently though.

I had a play yesterday to try and get some tickets issued. The majority of the selections do seemingly result in an "Unknown Railcard" error later on in the checkout flow (which begs the question of why they're displayed in the first place if it does have some list of "known" railcards), but I was able to find at least one entry which did yield a 75% discount and I thought was not supposed to be issued from self-service machines.

 

[DelW]

I've sometimes thought that, now the list of railcards is often longer than can be displayed in the available window, should they be displayed not in alphabetical order, but in order of popularity (i.e. frequency of selection)?

It would help with the OP's issue, and would benefit the majority of customers, at the cost of possibly making it more awkward for holders of less common cards.

 

[OscarH]

I've sometimes thought that, now the list of railcards is often longer than can be displayed in the available window, should they be displayed not in alphabetical order, but in order of popularity (i.e. frequency of selection)?

It would help with the OP's issue, and would benefit the majority of customers, at the cost of possibly making it more awkward for holders of less common cards.

The way a lot of online retailers do it is by having a "popular" and an "other" category, the popular category coming first. You can then order alphabetical within the categories for ease of finding things, but the really common ones are still at the top

 

[Egg Centric]

I've sometimes thought that, now the list of railcards is often longer than can be displayed in the available window, should they be displayed not in alphabetical order, but in order of popularity (i.e. frequency of selection)?

It would help with the OP's issue, and would benefit the majority of customers, at the cost of possibly making it more awkward for holders of less common cards.

I have a suggestion to swap the order of 16-17 and 16-25 cards, to prevent user of the latter inadvertently selecting the former and almost inevitably being PFd if caught. Although it's unclear how many of these accidents are actually accidental...

 

[Bletchleyite]

I have a suggestion to swap the order of 16-17 and 16-25 cards, to prevent user of the latter inadvertently selecting the former and almost inevitably being PFd if caught. Although it's unclear how many of these accidents are actually accidental...

I suspect precisely none of them.

 

[Egg Centric]

I suspect precisely none of them.

While something close to that (I'm sure you don't mean literally precisely none, given the millions of creative ways people manage to find to screw up) wouldn't exactly surprise me, I'm rather less cynical and personally guess at around 5-10% of it being genuine error. Swapping them around should eliminate the main cause of that error so it would imo be a useful experiment.

 

[Adam Williams]

Flowbird appear to have fixed this, now.

 

[swt_passenger]

I suspect precisely none of them.

I expect they’re only a distress selection when people can’t quickly find the Job Centre Card…

 

[CyrusWuff]

It seems a new version of the Flowbird TVM software is imminent. Two of the Chiltern machines at Marylebone have it installed, and I'm guessing the same applies to the LNER and Northern fleets.

Having had a play with it, key changes are:

• Ticket on Departure collection now asks for the collection reference first - Presumably it will then only ask for the payment card where the "Same Card" flag is set
• "Popular Railcard" picker instead of the previous list - Slightly annoyingly this is over two pages as there are a maximum of ten per page, yet there are twelve in Chiltern's list
• Boundary Zone tickets
• Sale and activation of Flexi Seasons

 

[Railguy1]

Did it fix the issue of the missing family and friends railcard at Harrow?

Chiltern tickets from Harrow-on-the-Hill

Hello, I’d like to purchase a day return, for myself and family, from Harrow-on-the-Hill to Great Missenden, using the direct Chiltern line train, applying my Family & Friends railcard. How do I do this? The only machines at the station are TfL, which as far as I’m aware do not allow purchase...

www.railforums.co.uk

 

[MikeWh]

• Ticket on Departure collection now asks for the collection reference first - Presumably it will then only ask for the payment card where the "Same Card" flag is set

That's a good move.

 

[Adam Williams]

Did it fix the issue of the missing family and friends railcard at Harrow?

Chiltern tickets from Harrow-on-the-Hill

Hello, I’d like to purchase a day return, for myself and family, from Harrow-on-the-Hill to Great Missenden, using the direct Chiltern line train, applying my Family & Friends railcard. How do I do this? The only machines at the station are TfL, which as far as I’m aware do not allow purchase...

www.railforums.co.uk

Weren't those Cubic TVMs?

 

[Wallsendmag]

LNER’s TVMs were all updated last week.

 

[Hadders]

LNER’s TVMs were all updated last week.

Are LNER's TVMs now offering the correct railcard discounts on Rovers and Rangers?

Annual Gold Card was missing from the Anglia Day Ranger and Thames Branches Day Ranger when I last checked a couple of weeks ago.

 

[CyrusWuff]

Weren't those Cubic TVMs?

They are. Though London Underground call them POMs (Passenger Operated Machines.)

 

[Wallsendmag]

Are LNER's TVMs now offering the correct railcard discounts on Rovers and Rangers?

Annual Gold Card was missing from the Anglia Day Ranger and Thames Branches Day Ranger when I last checked a couple of weeks ago.

No ideas I’m basking in the Portuguese sun currently, I think only the ToD changes have been applied so far the other changes are scheduled for next week I believe. I’d love some feedback on the Boundary Zone functionality it doesn’t seem the best way to do it to me .

 

[CyrusWuff]

No ideas I’m basking in the Portuguese sun currently, I think only the ToD changes have been applied so far the other changes are scheduled for next week I believe. I’d love some feedback on the Boundary Zone functionality it doesn’t seem the best way to do it to me .

Defaulting to having the station the TVM's installed at as the origin, rather than it being contextual, seems to be a bit of a flaw. Particularly for Chiltern, who have five stations in Zones 1-6 with TVMs installed.

Ideally, the station list should really be filtered to only include stations which have Boundary fares available to reduce customer frustration.

But I'm guessing the Flowbird software doesn't support that.

 

[Hadders]

I’d love some feedback on the Boundary Zone functionality it doesn’t seem the best way to do it to me .

I'll take a look when I pass through Kings Cross.

 

[MrJeeves]

Ideally, the station list should really be filtered to only include stations which have Boundary fares available to reduce customer frustration.

I've not seen the UI, but I think people might end up more confused if a station happens to not be listed when you search for it and there's no obvious reason for it.

 

[Paul Kelly]

I thought it was generally accepted in the retail world that you (sadly - this is the sort of thing there really needs to be better data for) do need to curate your own whitelist/allowlist of Railcards that you choose to expose.

Replying to an old post, but using the OJPEnabled flag in the IDMS railcard data would probably be better than nothing.

 

[Adam Williams]

Replying to an old post, but using the OJPEnabled flag in the IDMS railcard data would probably be better than nothing.

Yeah, it's a useful signal (despite all the disclaimers in the spec that suggest the various OJPEnabled flags are of no relevance or usefulness to TIS suppliers!)

 

[Wallsendmag]

I was away working elsewhere when the spec was drawn up so was surprised with the outcome. Although given who I was working for and my role there I’m surprised that I wasn’t even consulted.

 

[Mojo]

Weren't those Cubic TVMs?

Nether, the machines at Harrow-on-the-Hill are London Underground's Passenger Operated Machines which operate off bespoke hardware (largely from the late 1980s and early 1990s) and software.

 

[CyrusWuff]

I've not seen the UI, but I think people might end up more confused if a station happens to not be listed when you search for it and there's no obvious reason for it.

It's the standard Flowbird "Quick Tickets" UI (i.e. without the full journey planner) but with Boundary Zone 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 moved to the top of the station lists.

It falls down for stations in Zones 1-6 because the origin defaults to the station the TVM's installed at. As such, you have to start by changing the origin, but if you then set the destination as a station without Boundary fares defined it gives an error message. Not an ideal user experience either way, to be fair.

If you suppress stations with no BZ flows, customers will wonder why they're missing, but if you don't they'll wonder what the point is of showing them!