I have a few gaps in my understanding about terms of the new Northern Trains Flexi ticket.
Using the example of a non-stop route between suburb and city location, in this case Burley Park and Leeds, a 10 day Flexi season ticket gives unlimited travel between the two stations for £35.10 (rather than buying ten peak returns at £3.90, valid for a single journey in each direction).
Due to the flexible nature of the ticket, and need to start it at the beginning of a day's use, unless all validators are malfunctioning you'd have no excuse to not tap in at Burley Park. You'd then be required to tap out to exit the barriers at Leeds.
Assuming an average office work day, you'd then tap in at the Leeds barriers (though of course by this point to confirm validity, rather than trigger another day's ticket) and according to the terms are told you "must" tap out at the end of your journey.
Why might this be required?
Getting off at Burley Park with a paper ticket, you would have it available should revenue protection wish to inspect it. They would also be able to read a valid Flexi season.
If you were to fraudulently travel on to Headingley you would: a) be at risk of revenue protection inspecting your paper or smart ticket, and b) presumably if this failed to happen, not be thick enough to tap out at Headingley.
If you were to somehow travel all the way to another station with barriers (like Harrogate) you would likewise come unstuck regardless of paper or smart ticket.
According to the Northern Trains site:
"You must tap-in and tap-out at the ticket barrier or a platform validator at either end of your journey to activate your ticket. Failure to do so could result in a penalty fare. A customer boarding a train without tapping in first is considered to not have a valid ticket."
Also, how does missing a tap out affect the 'unlimited' aspect of travel? For example, tap in on way to work, exit Leeds barriers, after work re-enter barriers, forget to tap out because you're in a rush to cook dinner, tap back in as you head into town for the cinema, try to exit the barriers in Leeds. Will they open? Does the cinema trip 'tap in' appear as a (late) 'tap out' and cause the Leeds barrier a headache or once validated in the morning, will your smart ticket cause it to happily open and close until 4am?
My theory is that by simply making it the default that you MUST tap in and out, it removes any confusion that you must validate the Flexi at the very first point of that day's travel. Especially that use of the word "activate".
Going back to a thought from the beginning of this mental exercise, say all the Burley Park validators were vandalised overnight. Can the guard validate people's smart flexis with their handheld device? Or if all Burley Park validators appear 'Offline', can the Leeds barriers be made to simultaneously activate the flexis and then open?
But on a more practical note; how come none of the ticket validators, barriers or TVMs appear to have any way to show you how many of your 10 tickets are left, let alone the expiry date of them, as you tap in and out?!
Would this not be slightly useful?
