How do you get a 'promise to pay' ticket?

[Bantamzen]

So, uhm. If someone doesn't have a (credit/debit) card to pay with, they just need to bring a (smart) card with them so they can pay with cash?

Why not? It is simply an electronic replacement for a paper based Promise to Pay. It would save money and the environment in the future, and the card doesn't just have to be for P2Ps, it could carry a cash amount loadable at ticket offices / Pay Points or even via NFC capable smartphones (as with some bus operators), and tickets bought online.

 

[Clip]

Don't get me wrong, I think that the Promise to Pay ticket system is a good one, but in my opinion it has been shoddily implemented. Really.

Ask yourself, if you wanted to buy a West Yorkshire Day Rover and pay by credit card, not a "niche" thing to do by any means, what is the actual wording of instructions on the TVM that you would be expected to follow? And, if you do manage work it out (i.e. lie to the machine) and get one, what is the wording of the text on the P2P ticket?

Buyers of WY Day Rovers, whether wanting to pay by cash or card, should have an obvious method of getting a P2P ticket, otherwise pay-when-challenged fare dodgers will soon cotton on to the get-out-of-jail-free excuse of "I wanted to buy a Day Rover but the machine wouldn't let me".

If people wanted to pay by card then they will be fine should the TVM sell them.

I dont know how many of these tickets are sold - do you? If its not a lot then it really is a 'niche' product as most rover and rangers are.

The method on how to obtain a promise to pay have been outlined many times and even Northern have tweeted which has been posted in here that they are to get a promise to pay and let the guard sell them the ticket they want - im unsure how this is a difficult concept to you.

And just to reiterate from yoru other post on this matter - TVMs have never been able to sell priv tickets nor take RTVs for tickets either so i have absolutely no idea why you would bring them into the equation as some sort of reasoned argument against the promise to pay.

 

[dtaylor84]

Why not?

Well, what if someone doesn't have a card?

It is simply an electronic replacement for a paper based Promise to Pay. It would save money and the environment in the future, and the card doesn't just have to be for P2Ps, it could carry a cash amount loadable at ticket offices / Pay Points or even via NFC capable smartphones (as with some bus operators), and tickets bought online.

It isn't a very useful replacement though. Instead of just having cash the user now needs to have a card as well, which is the problem the Promise to Pay was supposed to solve! And, as you go on to say, such a system would be much more useful if you turned it in to an actual smartcard-based ticketing system. At which point you could forget the promise to pay feature...

 

[Bantamzen]

Well, what if someone doesn't have a card?

As I suggested in my earlier post, there would still be the option to get a paper Promise To Pay.

It isn't a very useful replacement though. Instead of just having cash the user now needs to have a card as well, which is the problem the Promise to Pay was supposed to solve! And, as you go on to say, such a system would be much more useful if you turned it in to an actual smartcard-based ticketing system. At which point you could forget the promise to pay feature...

I'd see it as a provisional option whilst the full range of smartcard features were rolled out, at which point it wouldn't be needed any more. Most people now have various cards for different functions, from bank and credit credit cards through to loyalty cards. Having a TOC, or better still nation-wide smartcard wouldn't be much of a culture shock for most people, and so long as it was relatively easy enough to top them up, or load pre-bought tickets onto them then there's really no excuse for them not to be a serious consideration going forward.