Northern issue penalty fares after ticket office left unmanned

[Bletchleyite]

Vending machines should allow you to buy a ticket from anywhere to anywhere. I.e. at your last station enter the start location and pay for the journey.

Several TOCs, LNR/WMT included, have set their TVMs up to issue from any station of your choosing. This is therefore Northern's active decision, and is yet another piece of poor customer service on their part.

Yes, you could use it to take part in "dumbbelling", i.e. buying tickets just for the first and last bit, but you could do that online too.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Correct , you are completely correct. However the tocs should make it easy to pay , not hard and then throw the book at the people with no excuse.

In the Manchester area they just need to look at Metrolink to see how to do a strict liability buy before you board system - it isn't hard.

 

[sprunt]

What do people do when they say, go abroad then? Does no one use their initiative then? I am amazed by this.

In all seriousness a little bit of common sense which we all(obviously not in this thread) apply in our lives applies the same wherever we are in a strange town or city both here or abroad

He tried to buy a ticket at the office which was closed at a time when it was advertised as open. He went to the platform where he couldn't see a TVM, and he couldn't see the one on the other platform because it was obscured by a train. Many people in this thread have expressed agreement that that style of TVM is easily mistaken for something else anyway and that Northern stations frequently have poor signage. The signage is particularly germane because when I go abroad, looking at the signs is exactly what I do. When he finally saw it, by all accounts a significant walk away, it was too late and he'd have missed his train. He got on, intending to pay when he could. He got fined. And it's him that's lacking in common sense. Of course.

 

[Bantamzen]

At unstaffed stations, the railway needs to be designed so that there is no need to "ask someone else"(who may of course not provide a reliable answer) in order not to end up accused of a criminal offence. That you think that is acceptable really speaks volumes.

Yes it does doesn't it? It says that I do not think it unreasonable for people to use a bit of initiative and ask when they are uncertain about something. Its how a functioning society works.

As someone mentioned up thread you could plaster signs everywhere and some people would still ignore them, which leads me to ask that viral question are there signs at Wavertree indicating where the TVM is? I know there is certainly one on the single platform at Baildon, at the entrance furthest from the machine, so it is something Northern are addressing at some stations it seems.

 

[Clip]

He tried to buy a ticket at the office which was closed at a time when it was advertised as open. He went to the platform where he couldn't see a TVM, and he couldn't see the one on the other platform because it was obscured by a train. Many people in this thread have expressed agreement that that style of TVM is easily mistaken for something else anyway and that Northern stations frequently have poor signage. The signage is particularly germane because when I go abroad, looking at the signs is exactly what I do. When he finally saw it, by all accounts a significant walk away, it was too late and he'd have missed his train. He got on, intending to pay when he could. He got fined. And it's him that's lacking in common sense. Of course.

I fear you have misread the story as he didnt see it at all.

so I neither saw it or knew it was there.

Glad you can read many foreign language signs when you are abroad - I totally struggled to do so when in Bangkok as they didnt have anything in English so im pleased you know Thai and other such languages so well.

 

[Gareth Marston]

Yes it does doesn't it? It says that I do not think it unreasonable for people to use a bit of initiative and ask when they are uncertain about something. Its how a functioning society works.

As someone mentioned up thread you could plaster signs everywhere and some people would still ignore them, which leads me to ask that viral question are there signs at Wavertree indicating where the TVM is? I know there is certainly one on the single platform at Baildon, at the entrance furthest from the machine, so it is something Northern are addressing at some stations it seems.

Signage will get you so far but-

https://literacytrust.org.uk/parents-and-families/adult-literacy/

Around 15 per cent, or 5.1 million adults in England, can be described as 'functionally illiterate.' They would not pass an English GCSE and have literacy levels at or below those expected of an 11-year-old. They can understand short straightforward texts on familiar topics accurately and independently, and obtain information from everyday sources, but reading information from unfamiliar sources, or on unfamiliar topics, could cause problems.

Others will choose (often subconsciously) to ignore or not absorb what is on offer. Take the CIS Screens they say where the train is for and its calling pattern and when it will arrive many a time i will be by the booking office door with a train on the platform outside and all the other people waiting are boarding it but one passenger will come towards me unsure of whether its going to Shrewsbury even though every train does and everybody else waiting has already got on it. Often I recognize them has having been waiting on the platform a long time before the trains due and having been using their mobile phones/headphones- they must "zone out" and the appearance of 92 metres and many tons of train they have been waiting for initially confuses them.

 

[sprunt]

It says that I do not think it unreasonable for people to use a bit of initiative and ask when they are uncertain about something.

Yet again: why is it reasonable for catching a train to be an initiative test?

Is it unreasonable to expect a ticket office to be open during the advertised ticket office opening hours?

 

[Clip]

Yet again: why is it reasonable for catching a train to be an initiative test?

Is it unreasonable to expect a ticket office to be open during the advertised ticket office opening hours?

No but it is unreasonable to think that nothing may happen to a human and their needs whilst they are at work. But using your initiative has nothing to do with any of that.

 

[najaB]

Is it unreasonable to expect a ticket office to be open during the advertised ticket office opening hours?

No. It isn't unreasonable. But the reasonableness test works both ways: it's not unreasonable for the office to occasionally be closed for short periods and for passengers to either wait for it to reopen (if convenient) or to find and make use of other facilities.

 

[AlterEgo]

Yet again: why is it reasonable for catching a train to be an initiative test?

Is it unreasonable to expect a ticket office to be open during the advertised ticket office opening hours?

Thank you for getting to the crux of the issue.

Getting on a train should be easy and passenger ticketing should be simple and intuitive. Glancing at the TVM with the big screen, I'd have to admit at first glance it looks like an advertising hoarding or super-help point, like a wayfinding device used in shopping malls.

I agree with posters who say Northern need to put, in big typeface, not on the screen, the motif "TICKETS".

 

[Bantamzen]

Signage will get you so far but-

https://literacytrust.org.uk/parents-and-families/adult-literacy/


Others will choose (often subconsciously) to ignore or not absorb what is on offer. Take the CIS Screens they say where the train is for and its calling pattern and when it will arrive many a time i will be by the booking office door with a train on the platform outside and all the other people waiting are boarding it but one passenger will come towards me unsure of whether its going to Shrewsbury even though every train does and everybody else waiting has already got on it. Often I recognize them has having been waiting on the platform a long time before the trains due and having been using their mobile phones/headphones- they must "zone out" and the appearance of 92 metres and many tons of train they have been waiting for initially confuses them.

It doesn't surprise me, people seem to generally pay less and less attention to their surroundings these days, although the earlier poster's colleague who thought a TVM was a door is a new one on me.

Yet again: why is it reasonable for catching a train to be an initiative test?

Is it unreasonable to expect a ticket office to be open during the advertised ticket office opening hours?

Initiative is, or at least should be part of normal life. We do it all the time, but these days some feel the need to be led by the hand through situations that vary from their normal life.

Thank you for getting to the crux of the issue.

Getting on a train should be easy and passenger ticketing should be simple and intuitive. Glancing at the TVM with the big screen, I'd have to admit at first glance it looks like an advertising hoarding or super-help point, like a wayfinding device used in shopping malls.

I agree with posters who say Northern need to put, in big typeface, not on the screen, the motif "TICKETS".

And funnily enough too the overwhelming majority do manage to get on trains easily. But I would have no problem with Northern putting up big signs above their TVMs to make sure nobody could have an excuse, though there will always be some, always.

 

[35B]

Signage will get you so far but-

https://literacytrust.org.uk/parents-and-families/adult-literacy/


Others will choose (often subconsciously) to ignore or not absorb what is on offer. Take the CIS Screens they say where the train is for and its calling pattern and when it will arrive many a time i will be by the booking office door with a train on the platform outside and all the other people waiting are boarding it but one passenger will come towards me unsure of whether its going to Shrewsbury even though every train does and everybody else waiting has already got on it. Often I recognize them has having been waiting on the platform a long time before the trains due and having been using their mobile phones/headphones- they must "zone out" and the appearance of 92 metres and many tons of train they have been waiting for initially confuses them.

Which is precisely why it is not acceptable for the railway to put would be customers through some kind of initiative test to buy their tickets.

 

[Bletchleyite]

No. It isn't unreasonable. But the reasonableness test works both ways: it's not unreasonable for the office to occasionally be closed for short periods and for passengers to either wait for it to reopen (if convenient) or to find and make use of other facilities.

I would agree with the following exceptions:-

1. It is not acceptable for passengers to have to miss their train due to the unavailability of a ticketing facility. Suitable alternative arrangements are needed, be that a TVM or the Metrolink approach of "phone customer services for a reference number for a free journey" (which has the advantage of ensuring the issue will be reported very quickly).

2. If a given ticketing facility is out of order, it should display information on whether there is an alternative, what to do if not, and if so where it is located in a way that would be understood by someone who has never used a train in their life before.

Neither of these is costly nor difficult to achieve.

 

[AlterEgo]

And funnily enough too the overwhelming majority do manage to get on trains easily. But I would have no problem with Northern putting up big signs above their TVMs to make sure nobody could have an excuse, though there will always be some, always.

It's not about excuses; the system they've gone for is not intuitive. Many people don't instinctively recognise that installation as a ticket machine. It should be completely obvious at a glance what the purpose of the machine is, given that failing to use it could lead to a court date.

I don't think it is much to ask.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It's not about excuses; the system they've gone for is not intuitive. Many people don't instinctively recognise that installation as a ticket machine. It should be completely obvious at a glance what the purpose of the machine is, given that failing to use it could lead to a court date.

I don't think it is much to ask.

I wholly agree. Being accused of a criminal offence is a serious enough thing (given the effects it can have on later life) that everything needs to be done to ensure even the most unfamiliar or stupid person is not able to fall victim to it unintentionally, just as per the requirements for matters of health and safety. Clear signage is not difficult and is not expensive.

 

[Haywain]

Being accused of a criminal offence is a serious enough thing

Being issued a penalty fare is not the same as being accused of a criminal offence.

 

[Bantamzen]

It's not about excuses; the system they've gone for is not intuitive. Many people don't instinctively recognise that installation as a ticket machine. It should be completely obvious at a glance what the purpose of the machine is, given that failing to use it could lead to a court date.

I don't think it is much to ask.

But most do and for those that don't a closer inspection should suffice. Sorry but its really not that difficult.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Being issued a penalty fare is not the same as being accused of a criminal offence.

A Penalty Fare is not the only option, and it is quite possible that in some cases Northern will still choose to pursue prosecution.

However, it isn't acceptable to be charged a PF through ignorance due to poor information either.

 

[Bletchleyite]

But most do and for those that don't a closer inspection should suffice. Sorry but its really not that difficult.

So? It should be impossible to be in that position through a misunderstanding, as it is *very* easy for the TOC to simply provide appropriate signage.

I really hope you do not work for a TOC in relation to these matters.

 

[najaB]

It's entirely unreasonable that a direct consequence of the office being closed when it should be open is that someone gets fined.

I agree that as a direct consequence it would be unreasonable. However in the case we're discussing there was a TVM available so ticketless travel wasn't an unavoidable inevitability.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I agree that as a direct consequence it would be unreasonable. However in the case we're discussing there was a TVM available so ticketless travel wasn't an unavoidable inevitability.

Not unavoidable, but it wouldn't be hard to have a sticker on each TVM and on the ticket office window stating where the other facilities on the station are, complete with a little map, together with a clear sign saying "Tickets" on top of each facility visible from all possible angles. Why would you not do that?

 

[WelshBluebird]

Or as I have said a number of times on this thread now, at least instead of having a sign sign that says "use the nearest ticket machine", have one that says "the ticket machine located on platform x at this station". It really isn't that hard!

 

[najaB]

Not unavoidable, but it wouldn't be hard to have a sticker on each TVM and on the ticket office window stating where the other facilities on the station are, complete with a little map, together with a clear sign saying "Tickets" on top of each facility visible from all possible angles. Why would you not do that?

Or as I have said a number of times on this thread now, at least instead of having a sign sign that says "use the nearest ticket machine", have one that says "the ticket machine located on platform x at this station". It really isn't that hard!

You both make valid points.

 

[Bantamzen]

So? It should be impossible to be in that position through a misunderstanding, as it is *very* easy for the TOC to simply provide appropriate signage.

I really hope you do not work for a TOC in relation to these matters.

I don't work for a TOC. But it did make me laugh on a forum that can't agree about the best colour for seats, interiors and liveries. A Rail UK decision on adiquate signage for TVMs would take months if not years, and everyone would still be arguing.

 

[pemma]

I don't work for a TOC. But it did make me laugh on a forum that can't agree about the best colour for seats, interiors and liveries. A Rail UK decision on adiquate signage for TVMs would take months if not years, and everyone would still be arguing.

Signage shouldn't be a matter of opinion but what is known to work best. TOCs don't need to do research on best colours, fonts and sizes to use as years of research has already been done on the topic. The only variable remains exact placement of signage with the layouts of different stations being different.

People have different opinions on seat, wall and floor covers. If we didn't you could go in to B&Q and ask for some 'bathroom paint' as everyone would want their bathrooms the same colour so there would be no need for stores to stock multiple colours intended for the bathroom.

 

[Bantamzen]

Signage shouldn't be a matter of opinion but what is known to work best. TOCs don't need to do research on best colours, fonts and sizes to use as years of research has already been done on the topic. The only variable remains exact placement of signage with the layouts of different stations being different.

People have different opinions on seat, wall and floor covers. If we didn't you could go in to B&Q and ask for some 'bathroom paint' as everyone would want their bathrooms the same colour so there would be no need for stores to stock multiple colours intended for the bathroom.

It was meant in jest...

 

[rs101]

The ticket machine is obviously very new, given that it's not listed on any official website, so surely Northern should be actively promoting it at the station? Greater Anglia did when they installed an additional machine at my nearest station, even though you have to walk past it to get to the ticket office..

I agree that as a direct consequence it would be unreasonable. However in the case we're discussing there was a TVM available so ticketless travel wasn't an unavoidable inevitability.

A ticket machine which :-

1. Doesn't exist according to Northern Rail's own website.
2. Has no obvious signage to indicate what it is, especially when viewed from a distance (let alone from any position other than directly in front of it).

Or as I have said a number of times on this thread now, at least instead of having a sign sign that says "use the nearest ticket machine", have one that says "the ticket machine located on platform x at this station". It really isn't that hard!

That would be far too sensible.

 

[AlterEgo]

But most do and for those that don't a closer inspection should suffice. Sorry but its really not that difficult.

You clearly don’t work in system or website design. It doesn’t matter how difficult *you* think it is. What matters is how users perceive things, how they expect things to appear, and so on - regardless of whether that’s reasonable on their behalf or not.

Whoever has designed those machines has failed to account for how users perceive these things on the ground.

 

[AlterEgo]

I don't work for a TOC. But it did make me laugh on a forum that can't agree about the best colour for seats, interiors and liveries. A Rail UK decision on adiquate signage for TVMs would take months if not years, and everyone would still be arguing.

Of course the other side of the coin is when people fold their arms and say “it’s not that hard, come on” and think the TOC has acquitted themselves superbly and it’s all the passenger’s fault.

That attitude wouldn’t really pass muster anywhere that mattered.

 

[Bantamzen]

You clearly don’t work in system or website design. It doesn’t matter how difficult *you* think it is. What matters is how users perceive things, how they expect things to appear, and so on - regardless of whether that’s reasonable on their behalf or not.

Whoever has designed those machines has failed to account for how users perceive these things on the ground.

Actually I do, and work closely with potential users when designing UIs. Some here may feel that the designers have built is not adiquate on the basis or some people struggling with them. But countless users have managed, many using stations previously without any ticketing facilities. I am part of my local R.U.G. and they for one would not recognise the level of issues as described here.

That’s not to say there are not issues with the UI, indeed I myself raised one with the use of WY MCards which they tackled. And there are other things that don't work so well, such as the most popular tickets at busy stations with multiple destinations served. But most people seem to cope with finding them and using them.