YorkRailFan
On Moderation
It is 2024, why on Earth is Merseyrail not accepting digital tickets? What happens if the Ticket office at your departure station is closed? What about if you don't have printer at home? This feels ridiculous.
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Merseyrail mandates that Trainline tickets must be printed out
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Adam Williams
Established Member
Merseyrail's dumb tweet said:
What if I buy my E-Ticket from a TOC, is that okay then?
Yeah, it is. I'm not convinced anything will change anytime soon though. They need to be dragged kicking and screaming into $currentYear.
Kilopylae
Member
Is this something they can legally do?
Nym
Established Member
Maybe if we just had a national ticketing system rather than the fragmented mess that we’re heading into / have now…?
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Yes, because e-tickets aren't* sold for their services, and so they are just ToDs, and ToDs must be collected before travel.
* There are an odd few tickets that are valid on their services and may be e-ticketed, eg onward use of a Liverpool Stations ticket or a small
number of tickets for routes in common with Northern/TfW/WMT eg South Parkway to Liverpool Stations - if they are they must accept them, and I've heard nothing to suggest they don't.
Wallsendmag
Established Member
eTickets shouldn't be enabled for Merseyrail destinations, I'm convinced Merseyrail will be the last bastion of CCSTWhat if I buy my E-Ticket from a TOC, is that okay then?
Yeah, it is. I'm not convinced anything will change anytime soon though. They need to be dragged kicking and screaming into $currentYear.
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Gaelan
Member
The community note is of course itself misleading, as it fails to distinguish between TOD references and eTickets, both of which a layperson could reasonably regard as a day ticket.
Did I imagine getting Day Saver as an e-ticket that I just showed to staff as I travelled on my phone? Honestly what an utter farce of an operation Merseyrail are in this regard. "Don't accept digital tickets" and yet retail "digital tickets" themselves via their own sales channel!
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Yes, they sell that nonsense ticket (5p cheaper than a proper Saveaway) in their own e-ticket format online.
Adam Williams
Established Member
When we talk about "fares simplification", this is the sort of thing that needs to be simplified away. Not off-peak tickets.
northwichcat
Established Member
Given how many passengers from Wales use the Chester-Liverpool service, I think there's a lot of passengers who have tickets that are valid either on Merseyrail or on an alternative operator.
How do you define Merseyrail destinations?
If I select Liverpool Central to Chester should I not be offered an e-ticket but if I select Liverpool Lime Street to Chester should I be offered an e-ticket for any operator that's not valid on Merseyrail?
Strangely just before seeing this thread I received a survey email from Northern which had a leading question asking why I had used a TVM in the last 6 months and not used the app to get an e-ticket instead!
Yet the merseyrail only ticket sells far far more than the saveaway, I’d guess at least by 2/1.
Also with the fare increases there’s a bit more of a difference.
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35p cheaper now.
50p on the kids and 16-18 one. Loads of people buy day savers, they’re really popular for off peak regulars, why spend more if you’re not using it.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
I'd pay that for insurance against yet another 777 sitting down so I could take the bus...
Absolutely. Urban systems should not have mode specific fares or tickets.
Wallsendmag
Established Member
I define it as a station on the NRE site that has Merseyrail as the operator
It’s a good shout but the busiest merseyrail stations by far are the ones (underground excepted) on the periphery which have sketchy and lengthy times, Kirkby, Crosby, Hunts Cross, Ormskirk, Maghull and Waterloo.
nwales58
Member
I'm getting on a bit and easily confused, so help me out please.
As others have pointed out, e-tickets seem to be enabled for Bangor or Llandudno Junction to Liverpool. So I buy one from any online retailer.
When I get on a yellow train at Chester, am I then warned that I need to print my ticket? If so, I go to Chester's ticket office and what do they do? Tell me to go to the ticket retailer? What do they do? Fortunately there is a grey and red train I could use instead.
Or is there no warning so when I meet a Merseyrail barrier I'm told my ticket is not valid. What happens then? Penalty Fare? What if I refuse to pay because my ticket is valid? What if I pay then complain?
And what about my even more easily confused mother in law who can't understand why the ticket which worked last month is now not valid and never travels by train again (actually happened over a Cross Country fiasco).
As others have pointed out, e-tickets seem to be enabled for Bangor or Llandudno Junction to Liverpool. So I buy one from any online retailer.
When I get on a yellow train at Chester, am I then warned that I need to print my ticket? If so, I go to Chester's ticket office and what do they do? Tell me to go to the ticket retailer? What do they do? Fortunately there is a grey and red train I could use instead.
Or is there no warning so when I meet a Merseyrail barrier I'm told my ticket is not valid. What happens then? Penalty Fare? What if I refuse to pay because my ticket is valid? What if I pay then complain?
And what about my even more easily confused mother in law who can't understand why the ticket which worked last month is now not valid and never travels by train again (actually happened over a Cross Country fiasco).
Day Savers are less than the price of a point to point return from my parents’ local station in Birkenhead to West Kirby, but more than a return to New Brighton.
When Northern had their last flash sale, I used one in conjunction with a Leeds-Chester £1 single to go over to Birkenhead for about £8 at most.
I would have more patience with Merseyrail if they made more than a token effort to staff the ticket offices which are supposed to be part of the reason why they didn’t want to accept e-tickets in the first place.
alistairlees
Established Member
- Joined
- 29 Dec 2016
- Messages
- 3,737
I think Merseyrail is going to be in a lot of bother shortly
DanNCL
Established Member
They’ve now been community noted on Twitter/X.
Merseyrail are the second TOC in as many months to be community noted as LNER were community noted when they tried claiming that axing off peak fares was an improvement.
Edit: community note currently hidden.
Merseyrail are the second TOC in as many months to be community noted as LNER were community noted when they tried claiming that axing off peak fares was an improvement.
Edit: community note currently hidden.
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Merseyrail don’t actually mean that they don’t accept e-tickets, necessarily.
They mean that almost all tickets purchased online for use on their services won’t be e-tickets, because they’ve arranged it so that those tickets can’t be issued as e-tickets. Those tickets are paper tickets bought from an online retailer and must be collected (from a Merseyrail ticket office, or from a ticket machine at a non-Merseyrail station). The problem is that people expect the email and details they’re sent when they buy those tickets to count as the actual ticket and travel without collecting the paper tickets. Merseyrail’s position - which is correct given the ticketing rules - is that the confirmation email, collection code, etc is not a ticket and someone travelling having not collects the ticket is travelling without a ticket even if they’ve paid for one, and can be issued a Penalty Fare or prosecuted.
Ticket retailers do point this out as part of the purchase process and in the email, but e-tickets are so widespread and commonplace now, and showing confirmation emails etc is a significant part of modern life, so a significant number of passengers don’t stop to consider that there may be an old/out of date process for obtaining Merseyrail tickets. (I think it might be better if these tickets couldn’t be sold for collection either, and had to be purchased on the day from a machine or ticket office, to be honest).
Staffed to the bare minimum.
If that is correct, why are they so terrible at basic communication?
That aside, it's the case generally that an email and collection code do not constitute a ticket, so it's hard to see anything different for Merseyrail there.
They manage to conflate 2 ticket types (Normal CCST delivered via ToD and E-Tickets) in one stupid message that also contradicts their own selling of a digital ticket. And then the Community Note refers to E-Tickets but might make it look like unprinted ToD tickets should also be accepted. And then NREnquiries wades in and further confuses things by word salading the entire issue.
E-Tickets aren't allowed but smart card on Merseyrail are fine...... I don't get it.
nwales58
Member
When will someone get a grip on all this un-thought out misleading use of pseudo-official but unofficial social media communication?
Probably never.
Soon AI trained on this crap will be giving authoritatively wrong answers.
We're doomed.
This is an industry bound together by regulations and contracts yet people just make things up.
Adam Williams
Established Member
Something I hadn't noticed earlier, but has this statement come from Merseyrail, or from Trainline? It appears to use Trainline's mark, brand colours and a font that's quite similar to Lineto's Circular.
There have certainly been cases in the press and on social media of penalty fares and prosecutions being carried out over "digital tickets" being used on Merseyrail, however it has been hard to determine whether this was people attempting to travel on a booking confirmation rather than an actual e-ticket.
You are correct in stating that it would be a breach of the conditions of carriage and probably general consumer law. Theoretically e-tickets should not be able to be issued to any Merseyrail station since their barriers do not read them, that being said, occasionally there are bugs in the system and one is issued anyways rather than a TOD. I actually happen to have an e-ticket to the Liverpool Stations group for Monday next week so we'll see how it goes!
This seems to also prompt concerns as Merseyrail sell a PDF daysaver on their own website (linked here https://www.merseyrail.org/tickets-passes/daily-travel/day-saver/) which I used last year. The PDF ticket I recieved says:
You are correct in stating that it would be a breach of the conditions of carriage and probably general consumer law. Theoretically e-tickets should not be able to be issued to any Merseyrail station since their barriers do not read them, that being said, occasionally there are bugs in the system and one is issued anyways rather than a TOD. I actually happen to have an e-ticket to the Liverpool Stations group for Monday next week so we'll see how it goes!
This seems to also prompt concerns as Merseyrail sell a PDF daysaver on their own website (linked here https://www.merseyrail.org/tickets-passes/daily-travel/day-saver/) which I used last year. The PDF ticket I recieved says:
With no mention of needing to be printed! That being said I had no issue with it on the day and the staff pretty much waved me right through.