Greater Anglia App Debacle

[F Great Eastern]

Greater Anglia have updated their app in the last few days which clearly hasn't been tested and I saw some very angry exchanges between revenue protection and customers.

Essentially the main problem is that tickets bought on the old app are not appearing to transfer correctly and the return leg of many tickets is showing as the same direction as the outward leg,

There's also issues with advances that are not showing the time that they are valid for on the app and some tickets that cannot be retrieved at all whilst new bookings from the majority of stations are now not able to be used as e-tickets suddenly.

There's also problems with train running information that is not up to date or plain wrong and live departures is only giving times from terminuses on a lot of searches, reports of issues with barcodes not scanning and trains showing as early that are late.

In short, avoid updating if possible.

Any recommendations on what passengers should do if they end up without a valid ticket because of the app bug?

 

[F Great Eastern]

Apparently they are looking into it, although that doesn't fix the fact that many people are having issues with not having valid tickets and the fact staff on the front line do not appear to know.

 

[Gareth Marston]

aah the benefits of the digital railway...

 

[F Great Eastern]

The old app in all fairness wasn't anything fancy but at least it worked, the new app looks like nobody tested it at all and isn't fit for purpose.

 

[westv]

Did they get advice from VTEC for their update!

 

[F Great Eastern]

It's a nightmare, breaking e-tickets to the point that the return leg is showing the same to and from as the outward leg and advances not showing the time they are valid is essentially making the tickets not valid on the services they were booked on.

Abellios response so far on twitter seems to be that they are looking into it and when I called them they said pretty much the same thing, that's not a lot of help to customers who are trying to explain to gate staff and revenue protection that this ticket is actually a London to Ipswich advance for example even though it says Ipswich to London.....

 

[F Great Eastern]

Saw another argument tonight with someone who was accused of not having a valid ticket for their journey.

I've got to use an advance tomorrow as off my usual commute and my return journey is showing the same to and from as my outbound ticket and also I have lost my seat reservations as well, going to be fun since I'm not going to pay again no matter what any RPI says.

 

[sheff1]

aah the benefits of the digital railway...

Quite. It would appear these Apps ("the answer to all ticketing problems on the railway") are going to be as shambolic as the smartcards which were the previous answer to all ticketing problems on the railway.

I've got to use an advance tomorrow as off my usual commute and my return journey is showing the same to and from as my outbound ticket and also I have lost my seat reservations as well, going to be fun since I'm not going to pay again no matter what any RPI says.

Good for you. These "the TOC has screwed up but the passenger is to blame" merchants should not be accommodated.

 

[F Great Eastern]

Quite. It would appear these Apps ("the answer to all ticketing problems on the railway") are going to be as shambolic as the smartcards which were the previous answer to all ticketing problems on the railway.

Good for you. These "the TOC has screwed up but the passenger is to blame" merchants should not be accommodated.

In all fairness I never had an issue with the old app, yes it was basic and nothing flashy but at least it always worked properly and didn't leave me with a problem of not having a valid ticket when I bought a ticket via it.