Purchasing of Monthly Tickets

[mfc3024]

I have a quick question regarding the purchase of season tickets.

This morning I had to renew my monthly ticket from Airbles (which is an unmanned station in Motherwell) to Glasgow. As I can't buy a monthly ticket on the train, I had to go to Motherwell.

This is not a huge inconvenience but it got me thinking as to why can I buy daily tickets and weekly tickets on the train but not monthly tickets? It does seem odd.

Does anyone know the answer to why train staff can sell weekly tickets but not monthly tickets?

 

[londonboi198o5]

I don't know if its the same in glasgow as london but a mnthly season ticket requires a photocard to be produced with the ticket and the ticket normally has the photocard number/letter typed on the top right of the ticket. This is normally typed rather thand written to stop fraudulant use ie people writting in numbers themselfs.

 

[hairyhandedfool]

Weekly tickets also require a photocard, but monthly and longer tickets require a record to be kept, in case of loss, thief, etc, where a replacement may be needed. The records are kept on one of many central databases (dependant on TOC) and station ticket office machines automatically update them, on-train ticket machines can't do this and so cannot sell them.

 

[pemma]

You can buy longer season tickets online from selected retailers e.g. http://www.southernrailway.com/tickets-and-fares/season-tickets/ but you need to get a photocard from a ticket office if you don't already have one.

 

[yorkie]

Don't forget you can get the price of the ticket to Motherwell today taken off the cost of your Season ticket (sorry if you're already aware of this, though someone else may read this who isn't)

 

[mfc3024]

Thanks for the replies - it does make sense if the details are retained on a database.

 

[SETCommuter]

On Southeastern, according to the guards it's because the TOC doesn't want to pay the commission (5%) of a monthly.

 

[reb0118]

On Southeastern, according to the guards it's because the TOC doesn't want to pay the commission (5%) of a monthly.

I believe that to be true elsewhere also. Another point is staff safety as there is a potential to be carrying large amounts of cash if monthlies are sold onboard. I realise most season sale would be via debit/credit card which brings us on to another problem ~ many monthlies would be above the on train floor limit and would require authorisation via the helpline. This can be a time consuming process esp. on a stopper or where there is no or poor mobile signal.