New Ticket Design Launched

[andrewkeith5]

The first version of my post, until I edited it, I suggested the whole wording be extended to the right, using the long 'railcard' name - until I remembered the space was there on the right for Aztec codes.



Perhaps they could use a short version such as 'Senior Card' or 'Network Card' (for examples) and still get the whole message across. Also would '&' be ok rather than 'with'?



So using my example photo below,

Adult Standard Class

with Senior Railcard

could become

Adult Standard Class & Senior Card



At least SWT seem to have avoided overwriting and they have missed the orange borders...

Grammatically it should be with, but the one character difference shouldn't be a problem if the printer is setup properly.

 

[talldave]

I presume you haven't seen the part of the ticket where the railcard is referenced using its full name? The D exists to indicate that the ticket has been discounted in some way...

I'll get my coat......:cry:

 

[trainophile]

Grammatically it should be with, but the one character difference shouldn't be a problem if the printer is setup properly.

I don't see that it needs either with or &.

Adult Standard Class (is Class required?)
Senior Card

 

[Dent]

Adult Standard Class (is Class required?)
Senior Card

Class is required, as without it "Standard" could mean anything.

"Adult", on the other hand, is not really required. As long as child tickets are marked as such, any other ticket is an adult ticket my default. "Child" could be written in place of the railcard (where a child ticket is also railcard discounted this could be combined in one line.)

 

[trainophile]

Bit of a thread bump, but another probably silly question...

I've just bought an Anytime Day Return for Cleethorpes to Grimsby, and I did reserve seats on the trains I will most likely travel on (would hate to have to stand for seven minutes!). However, the station where I am collecting my tickets has changed over to new style tickets, so the selected seat reservations will appear on the travel ticket.

I'm not sure how long I will spend in Grimsby, so if I decide to take a different service on the day, would it raise any eyebrows that the ticket I present would be showing a different timed train?

I'm sure it's valid, as it's Anytime, but might the reservation time cause confusion if the guard was very observant?

 

[najaB]

I'm sure it's valid, as it's Anytime, but might the reservation time cause confusion if the guard was very observant?

You are correct, it is perfectly valid.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The reservations will not appear on the travel ticket if it is an Anytime or Off Peak. Only for Advances.

 

[button_boxer]

However, the station where I am collecting my tickets has changed over to new style tickets, so the selected seat reservations will appear on the travel ticket.

Will it? I thought it was only Advances that put the reservations on the same coupon, I may be imagining things but I'm sure last time I got a new-style walk up it printed the reservation separately.

 

[trainophile]

Oh! Thanks everyone. I almost never buy anything other than Advances, so I wasn't familiar with what comes out of the machine for other types of ticket . That's fine then.

 

[hassaanhc]

Can still get old-style tickets at London Liverpool Street using the machines branded for Stansted Express (not sure about the others there, or the ticket office).

 

[cool110]

The last time I got a walk up ticket with reservations I got the ticket in new style and the reservations in old style.

 

[F Great Eastern]

Having just got my first new design tickets, I have to say that they are awful. If I look at the proposed design we ended up getting versus the ones in the first page of this thread which were very clear, these are completely the opposite.

It's much harder to find the information that you need to find, and as someone said to me a few days ago, the text is so small that some people have had problems reading them which was never the case with the traditional type.

However looking back at this thread it seems that when paired with a decent quality printer they actually look easily readable and crisp and more in line with the first post in this thread, Unfortunately on the crap quality printers that are easily outnumbering the newer, better quality ones they are abysmal and not really fit for purpose.

There is no way this should have been rolled out until the machines were capable of actually printing small text clearly were installed, else a load of small text which is barely readable is the only thing these tickets bring.

 

[Class 92]

One of the guards on a Southeastern service yesterday was trying to excess a single to a return but was finding it really difficult to read the ticket number.

 

[F Great Eastern]

My one for GA has 7 lines (2 slightly bigger with to/from) of text from the top of the yellow part to 2/3 of the way down the yellow bit, the bottom third of it is totally blank despite the tiny font the four lines above it is in.

A photo doesn't really do it justice since it makes it look easier to read than it actually is. The guy at the ticket barrier (I had heavy luggage) who I showed the ticket to had to hold it pretty close to his eyes just to read it.

 

[cav1975]

Collected my first tickets of the new design from the ticket machine at Rainham Kent yesterday - advances to & from Wolverhampton. Three separate pieces of information are printed on top of one another on both of the tickets. These are the type of railcard, the cross London + marker and something about Virgin trains that I can't make out.

I contacted SouthEastern through their pilot feedback scheme and got the reply below, so they do appear to have recognised the problem.

"The issue has been raised to ATOC, the organisation that represents all British train companies and I've been told that there will be changes to the new ticket design. I don't know what those changes will be, at present, but they will be more user friendly."

 

[sarahj]

One of the guards on a Southeastern service yesterday was trying to excess a single to a return but was finding it really difficult to read the ticket number.

I agree, I was doing a zero fare excess on one yesterday and the ticket number is tiny, and since I also have to note the ticket number for my own records, all a pain in the bum.

TBH. I hate them, harder to read, harder to find the info you need when checking. On the old ones, everything was clear, easy to read at speed. A change not for the better.

 

[crehld]

Collected my first tickets of the new design from the ticket machine at Rainham Kent yesterday - advances to & from Wolverhampton. Three separate pieces of information are printed on top of one another on both of the tickets. These are the type of railcard, the cross London + marker and something about Virgin trains that I can't make out.

I meanwhile picked up several today in the new format. Some were anytime day singles, some where advances, some had cross-London markers on. No overlapping text and all of the information is clearly legible even when the arm is outstretched. Most of the issues are down to how TVM manufacturers have implemented the new design, rather than the design itself. The Parkeon machines used by Northern have it pretty much spot on. Compare that to an example I picked up from an SWT TVM at Portsmouth Harbour last month, where the ticket was illegible!

 

[swt_passenger]

I noticed that on a new format ticket to Portsmouth Stns it now prints out the destination in full "Portsmouth and Southsea OR Portsmouth Harbour".

Has any one seen a ticket where they have attempted to print the members of a large station fares group?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Not seen it yet. I believe ATOC were talking a while ago about getting rid of "STNS" in favour of listing the stations, this might be a first example.

As regards new format - I've had a few now and it does reduce the number of bits of card being carried round - and also reduces the chance of people ending up with incomplete Advance tickets - you've either got the whole thing or you've got none of it so know to query it.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

The Parkeon machines used by Northern have it pretty much spot on. Compare that to an example I picked up from an SWT TVM at Portsmouth Harbour last month, where the ticket was illegible!

The Parkeon machines seem to have a higher resolution printer than other types which does do a better job of printing most things.

Shame about the UI which looks straight out of the 1970s with the IBM system font-a-like!

 

[CyrusWuff]

Collected my first tickets of the new design from the ticket machine at Rainham Kent yesterday - advances to & from Wolverhampton. Three separate pieces of information are printed on top of one another on both of the tickets. These are the type of railcard, the cross London + marker and something about Virgin trains that I can't make out.

It's definitely down to the machine that issues the ticket, as I sold a ticket for a similar journey earlier in the week and my TIS managed to avoid overprinting. Not sure how it would have come out on the TVMs mind you.

 

[crehld]

Not seen it yet. I believe ATOC were talking a while ago about getting rid of "STNS" in favour of listing the stations, this might be a first example.

I also picked up some tickets marked to "Glasgow Central or Queen St" yesterday.

It's definitely down to the machine that issues the ticket.

Indeed. Compare the two attached examples. One is from a Northern Parkeon machine and I think it implements the design as intended; it is clear and legible and looks neat and tidy too. Compare that the the example issued by SWT which is an absolute mess; busy, cluttered and very difficult to read.

 

[TEW]

I noticed that on a new format ticket to Portsmouth Stns it now prints out the destination in full "Portsmouth and Southsea OR Portsmouth Harbour".

Has any one seen a ticket where they have attempted to print the members of a large station fares group?

I've seen a ticket with 'Worcester Shrub Hill or Worcester Foregate' on so clearly it had ran out of room to print it all.

 

[swt_passenger]

I've seen a ticket with 'Worcester Shrub Hill or Worcester Foregate' on so clearly it had ran out of room to print it all.

When I asked about 'larger' I was actually thinking of fares groups with more than a couple of member stations, such as Birmingham, Liverpool, or Manchester.

Has anyone seen recent examples of how (or if) they print these groups out?

 

[jon0844]

Have they made up their mind on the symbols and letters for discounts? Namely a dot, or the letter D?

It seems that staff looking at tickets and wanting to do so as quickly as possible now only really get to see that there's a discount of some sort - without being able to easily see what discount/railcard it is.

Now we know that in many cases it doesn't matter as the discount is the same, but it seems odd when there are other cases where it does.

I'd have thought there was enough room with the ticket design to have actually put more letters to state the railcard, just like old tickets. No text = no discount.

 

[Hassocks5489]

I noticed that on a new format ticket to Portsmouth Stns it now prints out the destination in full "Portsmouth and Southsea OR Portsmouth Harbour".

Has any one seen a ticket where they have attempted to print the members of a large station fares group?

These are the ones I have seen so far:

• Bedford or Bedford St Johns
• Colchester or Colchester Town (*)
• Dorchester South or West
• East or West Croydon (*)
• Edenbridge or Edenbridge Town (*)
• Farnborough Main or North (*)
• Folkestone Central or West
• Hertford East or North (*)
• Maidstone East, West or Barracks (*)
• Penge East or West
• Portsmouth&Southsea or Harbour
• Reading or Reading West
• Southend Central or Victoria (*)
• Wakefield Westgate or Kirkgate
• Worcester Shrub Hill or Foregate St (*)

For those marked (*), I have also seen examples with "XXXX Stations". In some cases, e.g. the Croydon group, some locations still print "XXXX Stations" and some use the new rendering.

On the Worcester group, I have seen a Cubic FasTIS with "Worcester Shrub Hill or Foregate St" on which the "St" completely replaces the first three characters of the date field - so the top line looks like this:

Worcester Shrub Hill or Foregate StJnr-16

Not very helpful! S&B tickets, in contrast, just print "Worcester Shrub Hill or Foregate" (sic).


For the Birmingham, Bradford, Canterbury, Dorking, Falkirk, Manchester, Newark, West Hampstead and Wigan station groups, I have only seen "XXXX Stations" so far. I'd be interested to see/have reports of any changes in those.

 

[transportphoto]

Do LOROL ticket machines now use this new format? I know most of their ticket offices do, just wanted to check ticket machines. What about Thameslink / Great Northern Machines in the London area?

TP

 

[Starmill]

Virgin Trains East Coast are doing an excellent job of overprinting using the old design of tickets now. I've got a Travelcard with a start date of D6-FBY-16 and a discount indicator of 16-2

 

[jon0844]

Didn't you know there are now 214 days in February? And 16-2 refers to the odds on you getting grief from an RPI.

 

[RochdalePioneers]

Don't complain to VTEC though. Overprinting illegible conditions and missing stuff you might get grilled over are all entirely correct and normal. Any suggestions to the contrary such as the NR guide to tickets or NFM only refer to themselves and not actual tickets.

 

[maniacmartin]

Virgin Trains East Coast are doing an excellent job of overprinting using the old design of tickets now. I've got a Travelcard with a start date of D6-FBY-16 and a discount indicator of 16-2

Are you sure it wasn't a mechanical problem such as the ticket slipping in the printer? If all the errors are in the same vertical column that can happen