How do smart cards handle mutiple tickets to the same dsstination?

[infobleep]

Sometimes when travelling I might end up with multiple return halves of an off-peak return, if I'm finishing my journey short and it's a regular journey or I get a lift in one direction.

How does a smart card handle these situations?

 

[Wallsendmag]

Only day tickets and seasons should be available unless you’re in Scotland

 

[infobleep]

Only day tickets and seasons should be available unless you’re in Scotland

Thanks I hadn't realised that. So in some respects, e-tickets are smarter than smart cards

 

[Haywain]

Thanks I hadn't realised that. So in some respects, e-tickets are smarter than smart cards

Not smarter, just different. With a smartcard you are asking the system to detect your intentions but with an eTicket you are telling it your intention by only ‘showing’ one ticket. If you had 3 similar return portions of tickets on a smartcard how could the system know which one to mark as used?

 

[andythebrave]

Not smarter, just different. With a smartcard you are asking the system to detect your intentions but with an eTicket you are telling it your intention by only ‘showing’ one ticket. If you had 3 similar return portions of tickets on a smartcard how could the system know which one to mark as used?

.....

 

[Journeyman]

Sometimes when travelling I might end up with multiple return halves of an off-peak return, if I'm finishing my journey short and it's a regular journey or I get a lift in one direction.

How does a smart card handle these situations?

Badly.

 

[Haywain]

Perhaps the one with the earliest expiry date in the same vein as clubcard vouchers.

But they may be from different places that means you don’t want them used in that sequence.

 

[Bill57p9]

Perhaps the one with the earliest expiry date in the same vein as clubcard vouchers.

Whilst that might sound reasonable enough, there are several interesting edge cases, such as:

• Earliest expiry date is anytime but a later expiry is off peak
• Two outstanding return portions on the same route but with different stations, such as London to Didcot and Swindon, and then the passenger alights at Reading

And we haven't mentioned split tickets yet.

 

[Wallsendmag]

Barcode is a much better option for long distance travel. All formats have their place and trying to standardise on one will ensure a poorer experience .

 

[infobleep]

Barcode is a much better option for long distance travel. All formats have their place and trying to standardise on one will ensure a poorer experience .

How long is a journey for it to be long distance? Does the fact a period return exists make a journey long distance by default?

There are plenty of journeys that take 2 hours in the south-east for which barcodes are not available. Yet TOCs are promoting why one should be using a smartcard.

Not smarter, just different. With a smartcard, you are asking the system to detect your intentions but with an eTicket you are telling it your intention by only ‘showing’ one ticket. If you had 3 similar return portions of tickets on a smartcard how could the system know which one to mark as used?

That makes sense. Given they are heavily promoted, more so than e-tickets on the radio asserts I hear (South Western Railway), it got me wondering.