Merseyrail customer issued £20 Penalty Fare due to there being no facility to print the ticket

[Skie]

• eTickets (QR codes provided as a PDF and Apple/Google wallet addable ticket) are accepted by Merseyrail and available for purchase in flows that use Merseyrail services
• Mobile tickets (the older version of electronic tickets which needed to be activated in an app first) aren't accepted or available and are being phased out as eTickets are meant to be entirely universal.
• ToD (Ticket [Printed] On Departure) isn't available at Merseyrail stations or machines

eTickets had a storied history of being available, then not, then available again over the past few years. But they're okay now, Merseyrail just don't have a way to check them properly other than via the Mk.1 Eyeball.

Really all they need to do is enable ToD to be printed at booking offices and update their signage to remind people to collect their tickets before travelling. Their booking office systems support it, it just seems they never wanted to do it for some reason.

 

[185143]

• eTickets (QR codes provided as a PDF and Apple/Google wallet addable ticket) are accepted by Merseyrail and available for purchase in flows that use Merseyrail services
• Mobile tickets (the older version of electronic tickets which needed to be activated in an app first) aren't accepted or available and are being phased out as eTickets are meant to be entirely universal.
• ToD (Ticket [Printed] On Departure) isn't available at Merseyrail stations or machines

eTickets had a storied history of being available, then not, then available again over the past few years. But they're okay now, Merseyrail just don't have a way to check them properly other than via the Mk.1 Eyeball.

Really all they need to do is enable ToD to be printed at booking offices and update their signage to remind people to collect their tickets before travelling. Their booking office systems support it, it just seems they never wanted to do it for some reason.

During the Lime Street blockade, staff at Central were gladly waving through etickets to pretty much anywhere, they were people who would normally have been travelling from Lime Street of course.

 

[Bletchleyite]

• eTickets (QR codes provided as a PDF and Apple/Google wallet addable ticket) are accepted by Merseyrail and available for purchase in flows that use Merseyrail services

Some flows, not anywhere near all.

 

[Foxcover]

• eTickets (QR codes provided as a PDF and Apple/Google wallet addable ticket) are accepted by Merseyrail and available for purchase in flows that use Merseyrail services

Which flows are these and which channels sell them?

I find that extending a journey booking (eg London or Manchester to Lime St) onto the Merseyrail network (eg Spital, Wirral line) always removes any online ticket options available when booking just to Lime St, and it defaults to ‘collection code and pickup’ only. Excepting of course eg Chester to Liverpool, where there are non-Merseyrail options.

If there is a way it would be very useful to know!

 

[Skie]

Which flows are these and which channels sell them?

I find that extending a journey booking (eg London or Manchester to Lime St) onto the Merseyrail network (eg Spital, Wirral line) always removes any online ticket options available when booking just to Lime St, and it defaults to ‘collection code and pickup’ only. Excepting of course eg Chester to Liverpool, where there are non-Merseyrail options.

If there is a way it would be very useful to know!

Anything using Evolvi as a backend should work. Try trip.com as it’s fast and shows eticket availability right on the results page.

Any named Merseyrail station or Liverpool Stations to Manchester, London Euston, Sheffield etc all dish out eTickets for both directions.
Journeys that touch the tube won’t offer them as TFL don’t accept them. I.e. Bootle to Brighton won’t offer them.

 

[Foxcover]

Anything using Evolvi as a backend should work. Try trip.com as it’s fast and shows eticket availability right on the results page.

Any named Merseyrail station or Liverpool Stations to Manchester, London Euston, Sheffield etc all dish out eTickets.
Journeys that touch the tube won’t offer them as TFL don’t accept them. I.e. Bootle to Brighton won’t offer them.

Thanks - much appreciated!

 

[scrapy]

• Mobile tickets (the older version of electronic tickets which needed to be activated in an app first) aren't accepted or available and are being phased out as eTickets are meant to be entirely universal.

The Northern App offers an M-ticket for an Anytime single Liverpool to Kirkham. As this is valid via Ormskirk (or Kirkby), presumably Merseyrail would have to accept it? They will presumably get some of the fare?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Anything using Evolvi as a backend should work. Try trip.com as it’s fast and shows eticket availability right on the results page.

Any named Merseyrail station or Liverpool Stations to Manchester, London Euston, Sheffield etc all dish out eTickets for both directions.
Journeys that touch the tube won’t offer them as TFL don’t accept them. I.e. Bootle to Brighton won’t offer them.

Trainline definitely does not offer one for Aughton Park to London Euston. The data is per flow/TOC, not per sales site, anyway, so if one site is offering them and one site is not, then the one that is is generally wrong to be doing so.

Liverpool Stations to Manchester/Euston/Sheffield etc is barely relevant to Merseyrail other than in disruption. The number of people in the course of normal operations who will take a slow trundle out to South Parkway/Hunts X and change to stopping services from there is going to be somewhere around 0.

The Northern App offers an M-ticket for an Anytime single Liverpool to Kirkham. As this is valid via Ormskirk (or Kirkby), presumably Merseyrail would have to accept it? They will presumably get some of the fare?

Yes, they would. But hardly anyone is going to do that journey via Ormskirk. Probably slightly more than the 0 in the above silly example, but very low - they will use the direct Northern service.

Trainline also won't issue a barcoded e-ticket for that journey if you select an itinerary via Ormskirk (that doesn't mean it is not valid, but does mean even fewer would do it than the low number who otherwise would!)

 

[Skie]

Trainline definitely does not offer one for Aughton Park to London Euston. The data is per flow/TOC, not per sales site, anyway, so if one site is offering them and one site is not, then the one that is is generally wrong to be doing so.

I think in this case it's Trainline not doing it properly. I've seen written confirmation from a senior manager in Merseyrail that eTickets are accepted by them and even their twitter account gets it right occasionally amongst the muddle with M-tickets and ToD. Evolvi actually pulled them from Merseyrail a few weeks after eTickets went live nationally but after a fair old bit of confusion it came back again. Theres definitely an arse missing an elbow somewhere in the mix.

Liverpool Stations to Manchester/Euston/Sheffield etc is barely relevant to Merseyrail other than in disruption. The number of people in the course of normal operations who will take a slow trundle out to South Parkway/Hunts X and change to stopping services from there is going to be somewhere around 0.

Handy when you have a PTE or Season ticket that covers the journey from North Liverpool to South Parkway but you want the choice of having the journey start/end at Lime Street rather than South Parkway. Not huge numbers, but not an unreasonably weird journey if you don't fancy walking between Central and Lime Street.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I think in this case it's Trainline not doing it properly. I've seen written confirmation from a senior manager in Merseyrail that eTickets are accepted by them and even their twitter account gets it right occasionally amongst the muddle with M-tickets and ToD. Evolvi actually pulled them from Merseyrail a few weeks after eTickets went live nationally but after a fair old bit of confusion it came back again. Theres definitely an arse missing an elbow somewhere in the mix.

That they accept them when they are issued for a flow where they can't stop them being issued is not the same as that they are supposed to be issued for journeys specifically involving their services. So I remain of the view that it is Evolvi that is wrong.

Handy when you have a PTE or Season ticket that covers the journey from North Liverpool to South Parkway but you want the choice of having the journey start/end at Lime Street rather than South Parkway. Not huge numbers, but not an unreasonably weird journey if you don't fancy walking between Central and Lime Street.

But then that doesn't involve using an e-ticket on Merseyrail.

 

[Wallsendmag]

Try our site (LNER.co.uk) if you want to know if an eTicket is available. Trainline have to manipulate the RCS feed to work with their sytem so it's not a clean feed. If the flow is available as an eTicket is up to the Flow owner whow should have consulted the station operator to make sure they have the correct equipment to handle the fulfilment type. The data is actually set up per ticket type so on some flows you may have a mixture of tickets where some are available as eTickets and some aren't.

 

[Skie]

Try our site (LNER.co.uk) if you want to know if an eTicket us available. Trainline have to manipulate the RCS feed to work with their sytem so it's not a clean feed.

Bingo. LNER.co.uk shows eTickets as available.

Never trust Trainline.

 

[SickyNicky]

Try our site (LNER.co.uk) if you want to know if an eTicket us available. Trainline have to manipulate the RCS feed to work with their sytem so it's not a clean feed. If the flow is available as an eTicket is up to the Flow owner whow should have consulted the station operator to make sure they have the correct equipment to handle the fulfilment type. The data is actually set up per ticket type so on some flows you may have a mixture of tickets where some are available as eTickets and some aren't.

Just to put it into perspective, the RCS flow file being referred to here is 7.4GB of pure fun!

I notice that TrainSplit also offer the e-ticket as well.

 

[Wallsendmag]

Just to put it into perspective, the RCS flow file being referred to here is 7.4GB of pure fun!

I notice that TrainSplit also offer the e-ticket as well.

I put a few extra flows in for Soham on Friday so it may be larger now.

 

[SickyNicky]

I put a few extra flows in for Soham on Friday so it may be larger now.

Yes. They were in Saturday's update file (1.8Mb long). Sunday's was 622KB. But the one on the 8th was 48Mb long - clearly you and your colleagues are quite active.

 

[Wallsendmag]

Yes. They were in Saturday's file (1.8Mb long). Sunday's was 622KB. But the one on the 8th was 48Mb long - clearly you and your colleagues are quite active.

There were new flow alerts sent out Thursday and Friday for both Soham and Oakhampton. Oakhampton doesn't affect us much though.

 

[alistairlees]

Anything using Evolvi as a backend should work. Try trip.com as it’s fast and shows eticket availability right on the results page.

Any named Merseyrail station or Liverpool Stations to Manchester, London Euston, Sheffield etc all dish out eTickets for both directions.
Journeys that touch the tube won’t offer them as TFL don’t accept them. I.e. Bootle to Brighton won’t offer them.

Does Trip.com use Evolvi though....?

 

[Skie]

Does Trip.com use Evolvi though....?

Yes, hence why I referred to it.

 

[Wolfie]

Thanks for this - I’ll follow this up in my online conversation with Merseyrail where they said I’d be fined at the other end, and report back! Hopefully it will change the view … and who knows, may just filter through to the gate lines and RPIs!

Suggest that you tell them that it will go to Court and DfT/your MP if they try to break the rules. Mickey Mouse local setups thinking that their petty rules contradict national legislation deserve a hard lesson.

 

[alistairlees]

Yes, hence why I referred to it.

As far as I am aware Trip.com built their own TIS integration about a year ago.

 

[Skie]

As far as I am aware Trip.com built their own TIS integration about a year ago.

Evolvis list may be out of date then. Either way this seems to have exposed The Trainline as unreliable when it comes to providing accurate ticketing. Hardly a surprise given their reputation.

 

[alistairlees]

Try our site (LNER.co.uk) if you want to know if an eTicket is available. Trainline have to manipulate the RCS feed to work with their sytem so it's not a clean feed. If the flow is available as an eTicket is up to the Flow owner whow should have consulted the station operator to make sure they have the correct equipment to handle the fulfilment type. The data is actually set up per ticket type so on some flows you may have a mixture of tickets where some are available as eTickets and some aren't.

Not quite. Trainline use their own data source, as it predates RCS (which everyone else uses). There are many omissions, in RCS, of valid flows that should be enabled for eTickets, but aren't. Equally, there are (or were) some flows in RCS that are enabled for eTickets, but were not supposed to have been (including many flows where travel on Merseyrail is unavoidable).

 

[scrapy]

Yes, they would. But hardly anyone is going to do that journey via Ormskirk. Probably slightly more than the 0 in the above silly example, but very low - they will use the direct Northern service.

Don't think it's as low as you make out. Northern effectively only have an hourly service between Liverpool and Wigan/Preston and hardly a day goes by without cancellations on that route. As soon as this occurs NRE offers Ormskirk as the fastest route

 

[Wallsendmag]

Not quite. Trainline use their own data source, as it predates RCS (which everyone else uses). There are many omissions, in RCS, of valid flows that should be enabled for eTickets, but aren't. Equally, there are (or were) some flows in RCS that are enabled for eTickets, but were not supposed to have been (including many flows where travel on Merseyrail is unavoidable).

As far as we’re concerned RCS is the one source of truth. It just gets far too complicated to think any other way.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Bingo. LNER.co.uk shows eTickets as available.

LNER does NOT offer e-tickets for:

Aughton Park to London Euston
Aughton Park to Liverpool

So my position is unchanged. Tickets from Liverpool Stations to non Merseyrail destinations that happen to be valid on Merseyrail do not count.

 

[Vespa]

All that money spent on new trains, platform upgrades and none on setting up TVMs, people are like water they'll take the easiest route, make it easier and simple to use when travelling on Merseyrail, more will use it, make it harder they'll go somewhere and complain to the media as we have seen.

Tomorrow I am going from Ellesmere Port to Warrington.

A mobile app does sell a mobile ticket (as it is designed to go via Ince) but of course the ticket is also valid via Hooton and Chester.

That might cause some fun if I get gripped on Merseyrail even though perfectly valid…..

Did you have any issues going through Merseyrail barrier ?

 

[alistairlees]

LNER does NOT offer e-tickets for:

Aughton Park to London Euston

Yes it does. I found both Advance fares and walk up fares from Aughton Park to London Euston offered as eTickets on lner.co.uk. I can see the same on other sites too, so I assume (without looking) that this is supported in the RCS feed.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Yes it does. I found both Advance fares and walk up fares from Aughton Park to London Euston offered as eTickets on lner.co.uk. I can see the same on other sites too, so I assume (without looking) that this is supported in the RCS feed.

Not for me it doesn't. What specific journeys?

 

[alistairlees]

Tuesday 16th November
07.31 Aughton Park to Liverpool Central
08.47 Liverpool Lime Street to London Euston
£150.80 Advance
£176.50 Anytimre Single

Both default to eTicket

 

[Mcr Warrior]

@Bletchleyite . Can you collect actual tickets from Aughton Park, if not, where's the nearest to the journey origin station that you can?