New Ticket Design Launched

[Peter Mugridge]

I am wondering why the Underground roundel appears on it as well? Is that part of the standard background on those or has someone loaded the machine with the wrong ticket stock?

 

[Haywain]

I am wondering why the Underground roundel appears on it as well? Is that part of the standard background on those or has someone loaded the machine with the wrong ticket stock?

That is standard ticket stock as used by London Overground. It would only be surprising if the tickets have been collected from an outlet operated by another TOC.

 

[infobleep]

I'd hate to know how expensive expensive is!

My uneducated random guess is £21 million.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

That is standard ticket stock as used by London Overground. It would only be surprising if the tickets have been collected from an outlet operated by another TOC.

Well... to be fair Furrball hasn't said which station they were printed at has he?

 

[Paul Kelly]

Well... to be fair Furrball hasn't said which station they were printed at has he?

Kentish Town West, if the NLC code on the ticket is to be believed.

 

[hassaanhc]

The print quality of SWT's new ticket machines is excellent. They use a large, easy to read font.

 

[crehld]

The print quality of SWT's new ticket machines is excellent. They use a large, easy to read font.

Parkeon machines, the same as the ones used over much of the Northern network. I agree their implementation of the new design is excellent. It really does show the new design is better and far clearer than the old design, providing the machine printing the tickets implements it as intended.

 

[suzanneparis]

BUT...

As always they say things like see restrictions.... blah blah.

That doesn't help people who don't understand the seemingly infinite variety of tickets available and what trains you can and cannot use them on.

A bigger ticket that includes information such as: valid on all weekend trains and weekday trains between 11am-4pm and 8pm-11.30pm. Or whatever.

Give travellers the information they need.

And don't tell me that you should ask the guard because by then you are at the station. And don't tell me to ask the ticket office staff - I have had contradictory replies. Including the infamous 'we think it's ok but the onboard staff may NOT accept it' !!

Many train passengers are not au fait with all the minutiae of the regs and indeed some rail staff aren't.

Printing the info on the ticket would solve these problems.

 

[najaB]

Printing the info on the ticket would solve these problems.

For some routes there isn't enough room unless you want tickets the size of an sheet of A3 paper. And even then...

 

[AlterEgo]

BUT...

As always they say things like see restrictions.... blah blah.

That doesn't help people who don't understand the seemingly infinite variety of tickets available and what trains you can and cannot use them on.

A bigger ticket that includes information such as: valid on all weekend trains and weekday trains between 11am-4pm and 8pm-11.30pm. Or whatever.

Give travellers the information they need.

And don't tell me that you should ask the guard because by then you are at the station. And don't tell me to ask the ticket office staff - I have had contradictory replies. Including the infamous 'we think it's ok but the onboard staff may NOT accept it' !!

Many train passengers are not au fait with all the minutiae of the regs and indeed some rail staff aren't.

Printing the info on the ticket would solve these problems.

The problem is the restrictions are very long and textual so this is impractical.

See:
http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/9a

Just one example.

 

[suzanneparis]

If they are that long and textual then they are arguably too complex for most of the public. And anyway it wouldn't always be the case. On most of the journeys I make the restrictions would be more or less are I wrote above.

 

[najaB]

And anyway it wouldn't always be the case. On most of the journeys I make the restrictions would be more or less are I wrote above.

With respect, the ticket design hasn't been selected based your travel patterns. It was chosen to keep the design consistent between journeys that have simple (or no) restrictions and those that have many.

 

[skyhigh]

That does look great - I picked up some tickets from a Virgin EC machine today and they were almost unreadable. The text also overlapped, meaning that the time and date of my advance ticket wasn't actually printed on it... you would have thought they'd have got it a bit better by now :roll:

 

[AlterEgo]

If they are that long and textual then they are arguably too complex for most of the public. And anyway it wouldn't always be the case. On most of the journeys I make the restrictions would be more or less are I wrote above.

Ticket restrictions are complex, but mainly because there are so many exceptions to the rules (see my link above).

Now, for a really simple restriction, see:

http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/2v

Problem is, that makes many journeys more expensive, because it's not catering to exceptions. That above restriction, 2v, is applied to a large number of CrossCountry journeys, where setting off before 0930 would be a practical necessity.

Simpler, or dearer. What's it to be?

 

[najaB]

Problem is, that makes many journeys more expensive, because it's not catering to exceptions. That above restriction, 2v, is applied to a large number of CrossCountry journeys, where setting off before 0930 would be a practical necessity.

Simpler, or dearer. What's it to be?

An example of this - I needed to go from Dundee to Swansea for a meeting. No problem: catch the Sleeper, change at Crewe, be there by 10am. Except that this flow is priced by XC and requires an Anytime ticket to get the first train off the Sleeper - or I'd have to wait at Crewe from 5:40 to 9:30 to be able to use an Off-Peak ticket.

 

[Master29]

I like the idea of having the seat reservation on the ticket itself. Surely, one wonders why this was never done earlier.

 

[jon0844]

Ticket restrictions are complex, but mainly because there are so many exceptions to the rules (see my link above).

Now, for a really simple restriction, see:

http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/2v

Problem is, that makes many journeys more expensive, because it's not catering to exceptions. That above restriction, 2v, is applied to a large number of CrossCountry journeys, where setting off before 0930 would be a practical necessity.

Simpler, or dearer. What's it to be?

We really needed new printers that not only print the new design well, but could print on the back. As I've said before, if you made it so the back had important information, you'd then be able to more easily convince advertisers to put an ad in the corner/edge/bottom or whatever.. so it could even make some money.

For each restriction, you could have key notes perhaps. I think summarising the restrictions, or that there are easements, would be better than just a code to check up online.

I assume what most companies would rather people do is just buy the nice easy anytime any permitted tickets, and be turned off buying the cheaper ones if they're not sure. So, giving better access to information at the point of sale is maybe not something anyone would want to do or encourage.

I mean, nobody will stand at a TVM looking up the restrictions on their phone.. and we all know how poor the TVMs are themselves at showing the restrictions. Do they even show the code so you could look up the extra information?

Anyway, we didn't get double sided printers so none of my suggestions are going to happen.

 

[PermitToTravel]

They can show the full restriction text, although I think it's often an old version

 

[jon0844]

They can show the full restriction text, although I think it's often an old version

I find the text truncated and formatted terribly. And that's even without invalid tickets offered as I recently discovered.

You really need to know what ticket(s) you want before even going near to a TVM in my opinion. You'll likely get little to no useful info if you're not sure. If you are, you might get enough info to confirm you're buying the right thing.

But this is about the ticket design and to get back on topic, we have a problem with many existing printers just not producing properly legible tickets.

I also found that the tickets with Aztec codes move around the key information into yet another layout. How can rail staff quickly check all this?

 

[crehld]

For some routes there isn't enough room unless you want tickets the size of an sheet of A3 paper. And even then...

That's why I think stating the web address to point people to the restrictions is a happy medium, especially when coupled with clearly communicating the restrictions at the point of sale (yes, we all know they are often not).

Suzanneparis does make a good point, however, that by the time you ask the guard chances are you're already on the train, but which point you're already travelling and it's too late.

 

[crehld]

I like the idea of having the seat reservation on the ticket itself. Surely, one wonders why this was never done earlier.

Unfortunately they've tweeked the design again, meaning if you have two reservations they no longer print on the ticket (see attached), thus defeating the whole point of the exercise.

People keep moaning the text is too small, but quite frankly it is no smaller than the smallest text on the traditional ticket design, and if you can't read the text on the ticket when held in your hand it's probably a sign you should go and visit your optician.

 

[hairyhandedfool]

....People keep moaning the text is too small, but quite frankly it is no smaller than the smallest text on the traditional ticket design, and if you can't read the text on the ticket when held in your hand it's probably a sign you should go and visit your optician.

The text I typically find too small is only really of use to a ticket office or Guard, ticket number, issuing location, etc, right pain in the rear for Excess Fares and Refunds, especially if the ticket doesn't print properly too. Can you guess what the main reasons for me coming into contact with these tickets are?

 

[Bungle73]

Can I just say that I think the new design is terrible. It looks like it was designed on the back of a fag packet. And the worst thing is they don't even print out properly! You get words printed on top of other words! :roll:

I can't see what was wrong with the old design. Time for ATOC to have a re-think I think.

 

[najaB]

And the worst thing is they don't even print out properly! You get words printed on top of other words! :roll:

It depends on the printer. See here.

 

[Hadders]

I had a strange one earlier this week. I booked a journey via our corporate travel provider (who use Evolvi) and picked the tickets up from our TVM style kiosk at work.

It was an Advance single from Stevenage to Leeds which printed in the new style, including the seat reservation on the one coupon. My return was the on-line off peak single which printed in the old style with a separate seat reservation coupon.

All booked in one transaction, one collection reference yet two different styles of ticket.

 

[Wallsendmag]

I had a strange one earlier this week. I booked a journey via our corporate travel provider (who use Evolvi) and picked the tickets up from our TVM style kiosk at work.

It was an Advance single from Stevenage to Leeds which printed in the new style, including the seat reservation on the one coupon. My return was the on-line off peak single which printed in the old style with a separate seat reservation coupon.

All booked in one transaction, one collection reference yet two different styles of ticket.

Flexible tickets don't have the reservation printed on the ticket coupon, because the reservation is optional it will always be on an additional coupon.

 

[Hadders]

Flexible tickets don't have the reservation printed on the ticket coupon, because the reservation is optional it will always be on an additional coupon.

Ok, I get that but surely the ticket could've been in the new style (actually I'm pleased it was 't as I prefer the old style!)

 

[jon0844]

I'm amazed this thread is now so old and STILL the industry hasn't fully adopted the new design OR addressed the various issues.

How many tickets are issued every single day with illegible text because of overprinting? Tickets with lots of gaps top and bottom as if the designer wasn't aware where the orange band starts and ends?

And a lack of consistency, as in there being multiple designs now. One ticket with a Aztec code having a different layout again, which must give staff nightmares when trying to check key information in a fraction of a second.

Why isn't ATOC/National Rail informing customers about the new tickets at stations, on machines, on its own website?

 

[Mojo]

I'm a bit concerned that some ticket machines are printing the 'D' on tickets that are not Railcard discounted, but discounted in some other way. Given that this is usually given to mean a Railcard, I should hope I do not have a dispute with someone checking tickets and be expected to hand over my non-existent Railcard.

I have bought two tickets using the Virgin Red App discount now, printed on two separate machines, both had 'D' printed in the top corner. One printed on an S&B and one on a Shere machine. I'm not quite sure the purpose of printing this, given the fact the ticket is discounted is of no relevance to the person checking tickets, nor the customer.

 

[grumblingalong]

I'm a bit concerned that some ticket machines are printing the 'D' on tickets that are not Railcard discounted, but discounted in some other way. Given that this is usually given to mean a Railcard, I should hope I do not have a dispute with someone checking tickets and be expected to hand over my non-existent Railcard.

I have bought two tickets using the Virgin Red App discount now, printed on two separate machines, both had 'D' printed in the top corner. One printed on an S&B and one on a Shere machine. I'm not quite sure the purpose of printing this, given the fact the ticket is discounted is of no relevance to the person checking tickets, nor the customer.

Most of us check by the listed railcard, for me the D either goes unnoticed or after I've noted the listed railcard.