Questions for people who have used e-tickets

[yorkie]

I like them, they don't need a battery and I always print two off, one and a spare and take a photo of it.

I dont have to worry about losing the Orange ticket.

I agree that a big bonus of e-tickets is that you don't have to worry about losing an orange (other colours are available!) CCST (credit card sized ticket).

If someone only has one electronic device and no access to a printer, I can see why they'd be reluctant.

But any such concerns would disappear if the rail industry replaced CCST ticket vending machines with ones that could print physical copies of e-tickets!

... a move to universal application is some distance away !

The point is that we do actually have a universal standard now (finally!) however some TOCs refuse to move to it, and no-one seems able to force them.

That's not the fault of the technology!

Personally I'm happiest with a card ticket (or on bogroll paper if necessary) which tells me what it is at a glance.

e-tickets tell you what they are at a glance too.

 

[Wallsendmag]

Absolutely. Last I heard TPE and Grand Central are doing this (possibly more)

Don't worry there are many more

 

[LOL The Irony]

The standard card ticket is much better than all the other alternatives.

 

[Wallsendmag]

Isn't the answer to that to put the Travelcard on a smartcard? Possibly with a barcode printed on for the out-boundary part.

You would think so wouldn't you but that isn't without it's problems

 

[Wallsendmag]

The standard card ticket is much better than all the other alternatives.

No it really isn't

 

[LOL The Irony]

No it really isn't

As far as I'm concerned, it is.

 

[yorksrob]

The standard card ticket is much better than all the other alternatives.

In terms of ease of use, I agree wholeheartedly.

Even today, I've been stood behind people fiddling with their phones to show something to the chap at the barrier, while my tangerine ticket has got me through straight away.

It's like some sort of priority service scheme

 

[LOL The Irony]

In terms of ease of use, I agree wholeheartedly.

Even today, I've been stood behind people fiddling with their phones to show something to the chap at the barrier, while my tangerine ticket has got me through straight away.

It's like some sort of priority service scheme

I have to faff about with my phone because the QR scanners don't like how dark my phone's brightness is.

 

[yorksrob]

I have to faff about with my phone because the QR scanners don't like how dark my phone's brightness is.

Sounds like a proper rigmorole !

 

[Adsy125]

I have to faff about with my phone because the QR scanners don't like how dark my phone's brightness is.

A decent e-ticket app should automatically adjust brightness to an appropriate level. I don't know if there are any that do though.

 

[Vespa]

A decent e-ticket app should automatically adjust brightness to an appropriate level. I don't know if there are any that do though.

Just screenshot it and print it off, the QR will be the same.

 

[Wallsendmag]

Just screenshot it and print it off, the QR will be the same.

Thats the whole point no need to screenshot they can be printed as delivered.

 

[Bungle965]

A decent e-ticket app should automatically adjust brightness to an appropriate level. I don't know if there are any that do though.

Trainline automatically do it on some phones.
Sam

 

[Saperstein]

A decent e-ticket app should automatically adjust brightness to an appropriate level. I don't know if there are any that do though.

Not for rail tickets but the Tesco Clubcard iOS app has the right idea.

If the q code won’t scan there is a link that says “it did not scan”, press that and another q code is shown and brightness is increased to about 70-80% if that doesn’t work one can scroll across to a normal barcode.

Message Ends
Saperstein.

 

[Wallsendmag]

A decent e-ticket app should automatically adjust brightness to an appropriate level. I don't know if there are any that do though.

How many times??????? There is no e-Ticket app that's the whole point, you don't need an app. An e-Ticket is either shown in your Apple/Google wallet, shown on a PDF or on an email.

 

[Adsy125]

How many times??????? There is no e-Ticket app that's the whole point, you don't need an app. An e-Ticket is either shown in your Apple/Google wallet, shown on a PDF or on an email.

I understand that, but apps which are capable of displaying e-tickets, such as Trainline or Google Pay, should be able to increase brightness to avoid the problem I was originally talking about. I know that Google Pay definitely increases brightness, although unfortunately only LNER offer it as far as I'm aware.

 

[paul1609]

I agree that a big bonus of e-tickets is that you don't have to worry about losing an orange (other colours are available!) CCST (credit card sized ticket).

If someone only has one electronic device and no access to a printer, I can see why they'd be reluctant.

But any such concerns would disappear if the rail industry replaced CCST ticket vending machines with ones that could print physical copies of e-tickets!

The point is that we do actually have a universal standard now (finally!) however some TOCs refuse to move to it, and no-one seems able to force them.

That's not the fault of the technology!

e-tickets tell you what they are at a glance too.

Surely the industry standard is the Paper ticket with Mag strip?
Then in terms of income the next most used medium is ITSO/Oyster/ Contactless

The fact that some regional express and local operators in the North of England who have a very small proportion of income on a national scale have introduced a new standard is largely irrelevant in the South East.
Its far from a universal standard when its not offered for the majority of journeys nationally.

 

[edwin_m]

You would think so wouldn't you but that isn't without it's problems

Interested to know what these problems might be [with issuing out-boundary Travelcards as smartcards].

Surely the industry standard is the Paper ticket with Mag strip?
Then in terms of income the next most used medium is ITSO/Oyster/ Contactless

The fact that some regional express and local operators in the North of England who have a very small proportion of income on a national scale have introduced a new standard is largely irrelevant in the South East.
Its far from a universal standard when its not offered for the majority of journeys nationally.

I guess there are several reasons some of the industry wants to move to e-tickets:

• Reduction in potential for fraud with magstripe tickets, as it's probably relatively easy to get hold of blanks and clone a magstripe.
• Simplification of ticket gates - no moving parts if they only read barcodes and smartcards.
• Cost saving of not having to provide cardboard tickets - especially as a fully smartcard-based alternative would need a chip on even the cheapest ticket.

There are arguably benefits for the passenger too, as discussed on other posts. There's nothing wrong in principle with trying to move on and get benefits from new technology - although (as also mentioned in other posts) there are obviously some practical problems at present.

The fly in the ointment (Oysterment?) currently is TfL. The three benefits above also apply to them, but probably not so much as a large proportion of their passengers use Oyster or contactless, and they don't have the money currently to upgrade their gates. In the end I think everyone will move to a system that recognizes contactless, smartcards and barcodes - but the question is how long that will take.

 

[Hadders]

I’ve made a number of long distance journeys recently.

Based on my casual observation during ticket checks in the carriages I’ve travelled in the overwhelming majority of passengers are using e-tickets. CCST are in the minority.

I’d have thought it won’t be long before ToD prints the barcode onto the orange CCST rather than encoding the magstripe.

That just leaves cross London journeys and outboundary travelcards to solve.

 

[alistairlees]

Across the country as a whole CCST (orange "magstripe") tickets have accounted for fewer than half of all tickets issued for a while now. 'Smart' tickets - which include ITSO smartcard (both pre-paid and PAYG), Oyster / Contactless, and barcode (eTicket and m-ticket, as well as those issued on-train) - account for the rest.

 

[LOL The Irony]

Across the country as a whole CCST (orange "magstripe") tickets have accounted for fewer than half of all tickets issued for a while now. 'Smart' tickets - which include ITSO smartcard (both pre-paid and PAYG), Oyster / Contactless, and barcode (eTicket and m-ticket, as well as those issued on-train) - account for the rest.

Well that appears to be in line with the poll.

 

[paul1609]

I’ve made a number of long distance journeys recently.

Based on my casual observation during ticket checks in the carriages I’ve travelled in the overwhelming majority of passengers are using e-tickets. CCST are in the minority.

I’d have thought it won’t be long before ToD prints the barcode onto the orange CCST rather than encoding the magstripe.

That just leaves cross London journeys and outboundary travelcards to solve.

That depends whereabouts in the country you are travelling. Southeastern (by revenue a bigger TOC than LNER) and London Overground (by revenue a bigger TOC than Transpennine) don't issue e tickets at all.
TGSN (the biggest TOC by revenue) have I think 4 barriers out of 20 ish that accept e tickets at Brighton.

 

[Hadders]

That depends whereabouts in the country you are travelling. Southeastern (by revenue a bigger TOC than LNER) and London Overground (by revenue a bigger TOC than Transpennine) don't issue e tickets at all.
TGSN (the biggest TOC by revenue) have I think 4 barriers out of 20 ish that accept e tickets at Brighton.

This was long distance travel with GWR.

I’d expect London & South East TOCs to move towards predominantly Contactless and smartcards. E-tickets for longer journeys with these TOCs will be a problem until TfL acceptance is resolved.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I’d expect London & South East TOCs to move towards predominantly Contactless and smartcards. E-tickets for longer journeys with these TOCs will be a problem until TfL acceptance is resolved.

I can see outboundary Day Travelcards going away. They are the one awkward thing in the whole scheme of things[1], and their purpose is reduced now people can use Oyster or contactless - the main point was to save people stopping to buy another ticket.

[1] Season tickets can be dealt with with smartcards and cross London transfers by fitting barcode readers at only about 20 stations.

 

[Hadders]

I can see outboundary Day Travelcards going away.

That would be a massive price increase for many travellers.

 

[sheff1]

e-tickets tell you what they are at a glance too.

Except when they don't. Travelling back from Manchester earlier this week there was a lengthy (5 mins at least) exchange between the guard and couple opposite who were travelling with e-tickets. The couple said they had a ticket each, the guard said the phone only showed one. There was much scrolling backwards and forwards, the phone being passed between the two passengers and the guard, followed by suggestion from the guard that they needed to buy one new ticket. Eventually, the conclusion was that there were, indeed, two tickets on the phone and no further purchase was necessary. If paper tickets had been held it would have been immediately obvious whether one or two had been handed over for inspection.

Even today, I've been stood behind people fiddling with their phones to show something to the chap at the barrier, while my tangerine ticket has got me through straight away.
It's like some sort of priority service scheme

After I arrived at Piccadilly on the very same trip there was a queue of people waiting to show their phone to the gate checker who was pointing a device at each one to verify it (something I had not seen there before). Meanwhile I, and others with a paper ticket, quickly exited past the other gate checker who glanced at our tickets and waved us through.

 

[yorkie]

I believe many of the people who chose the ' I prefer orange paper tickets' response have actually chosen that option mistakenly and have actually not used e-tickets, which was the first option of the poll. Some of those have got confused between m-tickets and e-tickets.

Except when they don't. Travelling back from Manchester earlier this week there was a lengthy (5 mins at least) exchange between the guard and couple opposite who were travelling with e-tickets. The couple said they had a ticket each, the guard said the phone only showed one. There was much scrolling backwards and forwards, the phone being passed between the two passengers and the guard, followed by suggestion from the guard that they needed to buy one new ticket. Eventually, the conclusion was that there were, indeed, two tickets on the phone and no further purchase was necessary. If paper tickets had been held it would have been immediately obvious whether one or two had been handed over for inspection.

How odd; do you have any more detail about why this happened? Was this one ticket for two people?

If it was two tickets then a misunderstanding could easily be avoided if both parties communicated effectively.

If it was one ticket covering multiple people then having a paper ticket is no guarantee that staff will immediately recognise the number of people covered by one ticket though; some paper tickets are issued on one coupon for multiple people and the same issues can arise.

After I arrived at Piccadilly on the very same trip there was a queue of people waiting to show their phone to the gate checker who was pointing a device at each one to verify it (something I had not seen there before). Meanwhile I, and others with a paper ticket, quickly exited past the other gate checker who glanced at our tickets and waved us through.

After I arrived at Birmingham Moor Street on my recent trip there was a queue of people waiting to show their paper ticket to the gate checker (something I had seen before as I was in the queue along with a load of other forum members a few weeks prior). Meanwhile I, and others with e-tickets, quickly exited through the gates.

 

[jfollows]

I believe many of the people who chose the ' I prefer orange paper tickets' response have actually chosen that option mistakenly and have actually not used e-tickets, which was the first option of the poll. Some of those have got confused between m-tickets and e-tickets.

Come off it!

I wasn't mistaken, but you seem to be saying that some of the people who voted in your poll were, and therefore the results of the poll aren't valid but should be skewed more towards the result that you want to see?

It's a generalisation on your part, but it's still a bit insulting to imply that I might have been mistaken in my response, when I wasn't in any way mistaken. I prefer orange paper tickets.

 

[sheff1]

How odd; do you have any more detail about why this happened? Was this one ticket for two people?.

No more detail I'm afraid, although I am pretty sure it was two tickets.

 

[yorkie]

Come off it!

Are you saying I am making that up? I've spoken to a few people who were confused. I blame the rail industry for this; even today some TOCs refer to m-tickets as e-tickets.

I wasn't mistaken, but you seem to be saying that some of the people who voted in your poll were, and therefore the results of the poll aren't valid but should be skewed more towards the result that you want to see?

What result do you think I want to see?

It's a generalisation on your part, but it's still a bit insulting to imply that I might have been mistaken in my response, when I wasn't in any way mistaken.

I do not see how it is "insulting" to state that some people have been mistaken (which I know for a fact); there have been many threads where people have got confused. I have made my feelings very clear on the matter.

See:
https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/e-tickets-and-m-tickets.188129/
https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...y-be-abolished-in-favour-of-e-tickets.185253/
https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/e-tickets-mobile-phones-only.195265/
(and many more threads on the matter)

I believe some TOCs have acted, and some continue to act, in a way that causes unnecessary FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) over the e-ticket standard. They are causing a lot of confusion and are putting people off e-tickets. It's an absurd situation and someone should do something about it.

I prefer orange paper tickets.

Understood, but are you able to elaborate on what bad experience(s) you had with an e-ticket?