Metrolink penalty for failing to tap out

[TheManOnThe172]

The Manchester Evening News has an article about passengers who fail to tap out on the Metrolink network. Currently this applies to over 7% of journeys, presumably because of the lack of barriers to prompt tapping out.

It appears that an incomplete journey is charged at £4.60 - and that this is charged even when the passenger has already reached the daily cap.

So, a journey that is going to cost £0 wherever you go on the network will cost £4.60 because the system doesn't know where you got off?

Is this simply because of badly-written software? Or has someone actually decided that this is a sensible way to treat their passengers?

 

[Gaelan]

It appears that an incomplete journey is charged at £4.60 - and that this is charged even when the passenger has already reached the daily cap.

I believe TfL does the same thing, but I can't speak to the reasoning. It doesn't make sense as a punitive measure, as the customer doesn't gain anything by failing to tap out even if it is capped.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I would agree that I have never understood why an incomplete journey on any system doesn't contribute to a cap, though obviously it could only contribute to the highest one because they don't know you didn't travel from Zone 9 / whatever Metrolink's equivalent is. I wonder in TfL's case if it's to penalise people who might have come from outside the Zones and not paid for part of their journey? Metrolink isn't in that situation, though.

 

[island]

In the case of TfL it usually makes some sense as one might have travelled to a higher zone and not tapped out there. I can’t see the same being the case for Metrolink.

 

[Puffing Devil]

In the case of TfL it usually makes some sense as one might have travelled to a higher zone and not tapped out there. I can’t see the same being the case for Metrolink.

Metrolink has zones as well now.

Metrolink fare zones

Metrolink has 4 fare zones. Purchase a ticket for all the zones you will travel through.

tfgm.com

 

[TheManOnThe172]

Metrolink has zones as well now.

Metrolink fare zones

Metrolink has 4 fare zones. Purchase a ticket for all the zones you will travel through.

tfgm.com

Fair enough - so the obvious rule would be that an incomplete journey will cost you up to £4.60, but that it would never take your total expenditure above the all-zones cap.

Yet their website says:

The most you will pay for a week is £31, if you travel in all zones.
… as long as you remember to touch-in and touch-out at the start and end of each journey, you won’t pay any more!

So a clear indication that you WILL pay more than the all-zones weekly cap if any of your journeys are incomplete.

Still sounds either incompetent or nasty to me.

 

[Puffing Devil]

It sounds like a way of encouraging people to use the system properly to get the correct fare for their journey. It's a mini penalty fare.

An alternative view is that nefarious individuals may "touch out" when getting off a tram in the presence of RPIs, even though they have not touched in.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It sounds like a way of encouraging people to use the system properly to get the correct fare for their journey. It's a mini penalty fare.

An alternative view is that nefarious individuals may "touch out" when getting off a tram in the presence of RPIs, even though they have not touched in.

I can see a lot of sense in differentiating these, applying a penalty for touching out if you didn't touch in (or if caught), but simply charging for the longest possible journey (and cap) if you touch in but not out.

 

[pokemonsuper9]

If anyone gets a fee for not tapping in/out while they're at the Z1-4 cap it should appealable and repaid.
I don't think it works like this tho but that'd be ideal.

 

[185]

A suggestion was made at the time of the implementation of the contactless payment system, to TfGMs project manager (LB). Several people suggested the siting of the Vix device posts should be in the middle of the entry ramp, one directly facing passengers leaving, one facing those entering, with enough space for a wheelchair+1ft minimum either side.

With the post dead centre facing you, it would be difficult to miss.

This was totally ignored and TfGM bosses went ahead and placed them side on, often halfway along platforms hidden behind TVMs. Some of us consider TfGM managers just don't like being told they're detached from the real world outside, and often wrong.

In fairness, those TfGM staff working on the helpline do override many tap-out fails.

 

[erk]

I can see a lot of sense in differentiating these, applying a penalty for touching out if you didn't touch in (or if caught), but simply charging for the longest possible journey (and cap) if you touch in but not out.

Can the Metrolink system distingiuish between a touch-in and a touch-out? If you only tap one reader, at the end of a journey won't it register a journey starting there and never finishing?

 

[pokemonsuper9]

Can the Metrolink system distingiuish between a touch-in and a touch-out? If you only tap one reader, at the end of a journey won't it register a journey starting there and never finishing?

yes it'd do that, since there's no specific readers