Rover Tickets and barriers

[ashworth]

Are automatic barriers at stations programmed yet to take rover tickets?

Last summer I used a 7 Day NW Rover each day travelling out and return from Blackpool North. The then, newly installed, barriers at Blackpool North would not accept my ticket. Is it likely that I will find the same situation when I do the same again later this month?

The reason I ask this is because last year I found some of the staff at Blackpool North quite unco-operative last year. When after the first day I found that my ticket would not operate the barrier and I tried to explain the situation on the following days, some of them refused to listen to me and insisted that I tried to put it through the automatic barrier even when I had told them it won't accept it.
I was always quite pleasant to them and tried to explain and even laugh about it but at the end of the week was greeted with 'Thank goodness it's your last day' and i think he meant it!

 

[anthony263]

I have found that the ticket bariers at Cardiff central to not like the valley lines day rovers. One good point though is at least the staff actually know about the valley lines day rover ticket and can find it easily unlike some other rovers i have bought over the years

 

[mathmo]

Not a rover, but I was pleasantly surprised to find the barriers at Slough accepted my Henley to London ticket yesterday (valid as break of journey but I wasn't expecting it!).

I think the answer is that it depends on how well the barriers have been programmed so varies from station to station.

 

[Crossover]

They appear not to be - on a Cheshire Day Rover earlier in the year, Chester wouldn't accept it and I'm sure there was a point we had to be let through one of the Liverpool undergrund stations as the barriers there didn't accept either

 

[First class]

Merseyrail's barriers are in the process of being updated to allow BoJ. However, I have heard that when they are, any railcards/discounted tickets, e.g. CHILD, PRIV etc will be rejected and made to go through the manual gate to be checked by staff.

 

[The Fish]

True indeed but fully trained staff on any (indeed all) barriers will be aware of rovers and their boundaries, one would think...!

 

[Sir_Clagalot]

Last time I used a Freedom of Scotland I had to go through the manual gate as the barrier wouldnt accept it.

 

[krus_aragon]

The 'Taith' zonal day tickets for North Wales aren't accepted by the (few) barriers we have, either.

 

[ashworth]

Perhaps by now, a year later, the staff at Blackpool North might have accepted the fact that passengers cannot get through the barrier with a 7 Day NW Rover.
Last year it became such a pain each day when some of them were treating me like an awkward pasenger that was refusing to use the barriers. I kept telling them that it wouldn't work but they insisted I tried it!

 

[37372]

Blackpool barrier staff are apparently well known to be generally unpleasant and unhelpful anyway.

 

[eos]

I used Blackpool north barriers last year with a ticket from Preston, the one that included train fare and trams for the day. Not wanting to see it swallowed up by these Dalek mutations I showed it to the staff, who told me to try it in the machine . Amazingly it worked and gave me the ticket back, so they are programmed for some 'Rover/Ranger ' tickets.

 

[mrcheek]

I was astounded when the barriers at St Pancras accepted my ALR. I dont think any other barriers worked during the whole 2 weeks.

 

[Sleepy]

I was astounded when the barriers at St Pancras accepted my ALR. I dont think any other barriers worked during the whole 2 weeks.

was it issued at St Pancras or perhaps they are set up to accept anything as fairly new !:roll:

 

[HSTChris]

On the subject of barriers at St. Pancras, I was confused by them the other week. I had a Day Travelcard. They let me out of the Low Level Station, but not back in again? How strange.

 

[Mike395]

Had a similar experience at Wimbledon, maybe its to stop you passing the ticket to someone else when youre done with it?

 

[tbtc]

This is a danger when people talk about the wonderful world of "e tickets"...

 

[MCR247]

On the subject of barriers at St. Pancras, I was confused by them the other week. I had a Day Travelcard. They let me out of the Low Level Station, but not back in again? How strange.

Had a similar experience at Wimbledon, maybe its to stop you passing the ticket to someone else when youre done with it?

Well in New York, they let in in/out, but you cant go back in/out for like ten minutes or something I think

 

[boing_uk]

The reason I ask this is because last year I found some of the staff at Blackpool North quite unco-operative last year. When after the first day I found that my ticket would not operate the barrier and I tried to explain the situation on the following days, some of them refused to listen to me and insisted that I tried to put it through the automatic barrier even when I had told them it won't accept it.

Wasn't a scottish fellow was it?

I have an annual Goldcard season ticket and for many many months the ticket barrier wouldn't accept it. Most of the staff recognised me after a while but one of them (the scottish fellow) kept making me try it in the barrier and would insist on inspecting it every time, every damned morning.

Apparently it was "so the barrier would log it" was the excuse given.

Fortunately now the barriers accept the ticket. But it was a serious annoyance of downright jobsworthness. The rest of the barrier staff are, I find, quite nice and chatty.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Well in New York, they let in in/out, but you cant go back in/out for like ten minutes or something I think

Yeah I've had that with barriers before. Walked in without checking the departure boards, found there was a 10min delay on the service arriving (so fifteen - twenty minutes on the service departing after turnaround) so went back out for a cig, but the barrier wouldn't let me.

Which to me seems a bit odd, but no doubt there is a sound decision behind it.

 

[dmacw]

I had an All Line Rover in March this year and I can only recall the barriers at Leeds and Norwich letting me through. However, I'm sure i've read elsewhere these barriers would let you through with anything that had a magnetic srip on it e.g. reservation

 

[philjo]

I think there is a timeout to stop you passing used travelcards etc on to someone else, so they won't work in the barriers for a period of time (I think 30 minutes)
my season tickets had this recently - I just missed a train so tried to leave the platform to visit sainsbury's next door whilst waiting 30 mins for the next train - it didn't work in the barriers to go out again or to come in for a second time.
it was fine again the next morning.



Barriers at FCC stations never seem to accept advance purchase tickets - I have never got these to work at my station.
Welwyn Garden City station barriers will not allow tickets through for a break in journey - e.g. Hitchin-Potters Bar (even season tickets). -if you need to change trains southbound you need to go through 2 sets of barriers to change platforms & waiting for someone to let you through often means a missed connection as you only have 2 minutes to change platforms via the footbridge.

 

[156499]

I can't stand they barriers, at Glasgow Queen ST. the guy tells me to put the ticket through "i've already done it" the guy: "do it again" I put it through..... ERROR code comes up and then he gets someone over to inspect it.....

New starts to the railways honestly......

 

[will1337]

Yeah I'd say maybe 5% of barriers are happy with Ranger/Rover tickets in my experience, which must be the ones which let anything through. I don't know if someone's forgotten to program them in or if it's deliberate to prevent misuse somehow.

 

[glynn80]

I can't stand they barriers, at Glasgow Queen ST. the guy tells me to put the ticket through "i've already done it" the guy: "do it again" I put it through..... ERROR code comes up and then he gets someone over to inspect it.....

New starts to the railways honestly......

This procedure is often carried out so the member of staff can view for themselves the reason the barrier has rejected the ticket. The barrier displays a unique code for each scenario a ticket is rejected under.

For example, if the "Off Route" code was displayed, it would automatically inform the barrier operator that the ticket was not valid for travel through that particular station and thus a new ticket would have to be purchased.

 

[yorkie]

But the barriers are not programmed with the Routeing Guide, so it doesn't tell them much. Neither are barrier staff trained, so they have no real choice but to accept many tickets, which is how it should be. Guards should not be over-ruled by untrained people who may even work for another company or, in many cases, some random contractor!

 

[glynn80]

But the barriers are not programmed with the Routeing Guide, so it doesn't tell them much.

Source?

Logic states that the barriers must have some elements of the routeing guide programmed into them, otherwise what stops the barrier at GLQ accepting a ticket obviously not valid, such as a London to Manchester ticket?

 

[dan_atki]

Logic states that the barriers must have some elements of the routeing guide programmed into them, otherwise what stops the barrier at GLQ accepting a ticket obviously not valid, such as a London to Manchester ticket?

I always assumed the information was coded onto the ticket's magnetic strip (including stations at which the barriers should open*). As this can only hold a limited amount of data, this is (I assume) why break of journey often doesn't work the barriers.

*The TfL (well, then Underground) roundel appears within the ticket number and office/machine number to indicate the machine issuing the ticket had been programmed to encode LU barrier info into the ticket.

 

[glynn80]

The very limited data I can find within the realms of the internet lead me to believe that the gates are linked to other rail systems.

This document produced by ATOC (http://www.atoc.org/rsp/_downloads/standards/rspa2000.pdf) states that:

Fundamental to TIS Accreditation is the data interchange with a number of systems run by or on behalf of RSP or other rail industry organisations that support ticketing and settlement. These consist of the following:

• 
  [*]Querying of fare and timetable data via an RSP data feed for the purpose of journey planning or direct fare lookup
  [*]Querying and updating NRS for determining the availability of and booking quota managed products such as seat, cycle or berth reservations
  [*]Creation of Lennon settlement data via the SDCI+ interface
  [*]Creation and update of CTR data via the RJIS interface to record sales and issues where the indirect fulfilment method is ToD
  [*]Interaction of ticket media with gates, validators, POSTS and other rail systems

 

[yorkie]

This sort of info is not documented!

But I've heard from various sources that barriers are programmed with ticket flows to accept. A barrier knows what station it is, so it accepts those tickets. Some TOCs take the time and effort to tell barriers to accept loads of other combinations of tickets in case people break their journey, other TOCs do not take much effort to do this. There is a lot of evidence to suggest this is the case.

 

[glynn80]

There is a lot of evidence to suggest this is the case.

Again if I may ask, source?

I have posted above that ATOC do require their gates to be linked to "rail systems", one of these I would suspect would be RJIS and with RJIS containing all the routeing parameters, the barriers would have this information at their disposal.

Certainly the above specifications ATOC have disproved the theory that all the information is held within the magnetic strip on the ticket.

 

[yorkie]

Again if I may ask, source?.

http://groups.google.com/group/uk.r...?lnk=gst&q=barriers+rejected#6c4c900304b3a51a

"I used a Z12 Day Travelcard at the first station out of Fenchurch St
and it was rejected by the barriers, so I had to use the manual gate.
Of course anyone else going to Fenchurch St area from this station
would use DLR and so the barriers at the station (can't remember the
name, sorry) have been set to reject the Z12 tickets"


http://groups.google.com/group/uk.r...?lnk=gst&q=barriers+rejected#34ecfdab60a8c06b

"
>> Again, the ticket failed to open the barriers at London Bridge,
>> but the staff let me through. This is a <SWT station> - London
>> Terminals ticket, which is valid to London Bridge via Waterloo East.

>Unless Connex program their barriers otherwise, they will not accept a
>ticket from an SWT destination. Madness, I agree but I've had some fun
>at Reading with my gate pass, too. "

I could be copying & pasting examples all day but will that be enough?
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Certainly the above specifications ATOC have disproved the theory that all the information is held within the magnetic strip on the ticket.

I'm not sure what that theory was, and what was defined as "all the information".

I obviously don't know what information is held on the ticket, but I suspect very little, such as origin, destination, date etc.

The barriers at some stations appear to accept tickets for certain origins/destinations but it appears down to the programming of the barriers rather than any link to the Routeing Guide.

It is perhaps feasible that new barriers are being linked to some implementation of the RG.