Thameslink double charging keycard holder

[21C101]

Posting on behalf of a relation.

Relation leaving London at approx 3.30 AM on overnight train to Bedford and tapping in on Keycard.

This train is all stations and (very) slow

Keycard has started tapping them out, guessing (correctly) the tap out station about 20 minutes to an hour before they arrive then treating their actual tap out 20 minutes to an hour later as separate journey in which they tapped tap out without tapping in and charging a £50 penalty fare.

They have phoned up but had no confidence the person on the end (who ssid they would refer it) had any idea what they are doing.

This is an utter disgrace and I am wondering if they have done a software upgrade that is not working properly.

 

[CyrusWuff]

I suspect this may be due to the railway ticketing day ending at 0429, which normally wouldn't be a problem...but there are always edge cases like this.

From the keyGo back office perspective they've likely got an unfinished journey on Day 1 and an unstarted one on Day 2.

Hopefully someone at GTR will be in a position to look at what's happened and resolve it.

 

[21C101]

I suspect this may be due to the railway ticketing day ending at 0429, which normally wouldn't be a problem...but there are always edge cases like this.

From the keyGo back office perspective they've likely got an unfinished journey on Day 1 and an unstarted one on Day 2.

Hopefully someone at GTR will be in a position to look at what's happened and resolve it.

Thanks

 

[Mcr Warrior]

I suspect this may be due to the railway ticketing day ending at 0429, which normally wouldn't be a problem...but there are always edge cases like this.

From the keyGo back office perspective they've likely got an unfinished journey on Day 1 and an unstarted one on Day 2.

Indeed. If the Thameslink train in question is the 0241 Northbound departure from Three Bridges which calls 0336 at London Blackfriars (0344 from London St. Pancras), then it won't arrive into Bedford until 0459.

 

[21C101]

Indeed. If the Thameslink train in question is the 0241 Northbound departure from Three Bridges which calls 0336 at London Blackfriars (0344 from London St. Pancras), then it won't arrive into Bedford until 0459.

Thats the one.

Upshot is that said person drove into London last night for work instead and it went well.
M1/A41 are a quick route at those times (and parking no issue then either).

This could therefore be an expensive mistake by GTR.

 

[Richardr]

I had this as well a couple of years ago where my journey crossed the day break on Thameslink. It took a couple of goes [via email and phone in my case] to get Thameslink to sort it out.

See https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...slink-on-single-key-smartcard-journey.226255/

 

[superkopite]

This could therefore be an expensive mistake by GTR.

How so?

 

[Deerfold]

How so?

Presumably because the relative is going to stop travelling with them.

 

[21C101]

Presumably because the relative is going to stop travelling with them.

Correct. Having now driven in, much prefers this (at least in good weather) and the journey home is actually quicker (even with 20mph limits on the Finchley Road) than the all stations including Kentish Town overnight train.

After a further lengthy phone call on Friday, got a reply today that was quite apologetic.

Basically he made a journey into London at 20.xx. Returned at 03.xx which counts as previous day for return journey.

However tap out was not until after 04.30 so the system couldn't hande it and autofilled a tap out at 4.30. So when he tapped out about 20 minutes later it decided he had made another journey without tapping in and tapped out only so charged him £50.

This has now been cancelled. A shame because up to now keycard has worked quite well and even auto applied delay charges for late trains.

But once a warm car and empty M1 at night has been tried, it proved very alluring.

Daytime working would be another matter.

I had this as well a couple of years ago where my journey crossed the day break on Thameslink. It took a couple of goes [via email and phone in my case] to get Thameslink to sort it out.

See https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...slink-on-single-key-smartcard-journey.226255/

It was really hard work getting the guy on the other end of the phone to stop trying listen long enough to make the point. Eventually "Yes we now about that days so called unfinished journey". Look at the previous days journey". Oh I'm putting you on hold for a minute"....

Suspect they are beseiged with people claiming they tapped in when they didn't and read a largely prepared script and stonewall any attempt to interrupt.

Which isn't a good idea if your system can't cope with overnight trains and you run an hourly sevice overnight (at least when they can find enough crew).

 

[talldave]

I suspect this may be due to the railway ticketing day ending at 0429, which normally wouldn't be a problem...but there are always edge cases like this.

From the keyGo back office perspective they've likely got an unfinished journey on Day 1 and an unstarted one on Day 2.

Hopefully someone at GTR will be in a position to look at what's happened and resolve it.

But surely a journey starting at 3am should be considered as wholly belonging to that day, with 25.5 hours of "ticketing day" of its own?

This error seems to mimic the one for station car parking where paying for a day's parking at 3am will get you just 1.5hrs coverage until 04.30am, followed by a penalty/parking charge notice for parking without paying.

It's astounding that such simple things are implemented wrong and never fixed.

 

[uglymonkey]

Especially when technology and its "answers" are supposed to be the be all and end all of all our problems sorted

 

[Haywain]

But surely a journey starting at 3am should be considered as wholly belonging to that day, with 25.5 hours of "ticketing day" of its own?

This error seems to mimic the one for station car parking where paying for a day's parking at 3am will get you just 1.5hrs coverage until 04.30am, followed by a penalty/parking charge notice for parking without paying.

It's astounding that such simple things are implemented wrong and never fixed.

KeyGo can only be used for day tickets, and the day has to end somewhere for transactions to be processed. I think the case under discussion here is an edge case in the extremely few users will be travelling across that time break.

 

[PeterC]

But surely a journey starting at 3am should be considered as wholly belonging to that day, with 25.5 hours of "ticketing day" of its own?

Overlapping the ticketing day would bring in other anomalies over break of journey and capping. These would be easier to resolve by changing the Keygo T&Cs but there would be people complaining that it was "unfair".

 

[talldave]

KeyGo can only be used for day tickets, and the day has to end somewhere for transactions to be processed. I think the case under discussion here is an edge case in the extremely few users will be travelling across that time break.

I appreciate that, but I thought the reason for the 04.30 day end was to allow for completion of a journey started the day before (because trains don't all stop before midnight)? But behind that understanding was an assumption that the railway has a ticketing day of 28.5hrs - midnight on day 1 through to 04:30 on day 2?

It's insane to consider a journey starting after midnight as having started the day before. And since everything is processed in software it's simple to define timing boundaries wherever they need to be.

 

[MrJeeves]

It's insane to consider a journey starting after midnight as having started the day before.

0429, in the case of keyGo.

And since everything is processed in software it's simple to define timing boundaries wherever they need to be.

It's harder than you'd think, though. If a journey crosses the 0000 boundary, it needs to try to work out whether you're better off paying for it as part of the previous day or the next day, and that could differ based on your travel patterns on those days.

I think this scenario was unfortunate, and I'm confident you'll be reimbursed by GTR like I have been many times with keyGo. Usually it'll take a week for the correct team to review the journeys and refund your payment method.

 

[Richardr]

I appreciate that, but I thought the reason for the 04.30 day end was to allow for completion of a journey started the day before (because trains don't all stop before midnight)? But behind that understanding was an assumption that the railway has a ticketing day of 28.5hrs - midnight on day 1 through to 04:30 on day 2?

It's insane to consider a journey starting after midnight as having started the day before. And since everything is processed in software it's simple to define timing boundaries wherever they need to be.

Especially at the weekends, trains around midnight and for the next hour out of London are packed in my experience. People on them should be allocated a super off peak return [apologize if my ticket terminology is wrong]. If I understand what you are proposing, instead they should be allocated two singles, almost doubling the cost as the journeys start technically in two separate days?

 

[Taunton]

KeyGo can only be used for day tickets, and the day has to end somewhere for transactions to be processed. I think the case under discussion here is an edge case in the extremely few users will be travelling across that time break.

Saying people get overcharged unknown to them, because there aren't very many such situations, and/or it's too difficult to program, is not really on. Is it? This should have failed the software QA test before it was brought in.

Presumably it's been like this since the system was introduced. One that has some hard stop at 4.30am should never have been the basis for a 24 hour railway.

 

[superkopite]

Presumably because the relative is going to stop travelling with them.

Hardly an expensive mistake by GTR, they won't even notice

 

[talldave]

Especially at the weekends, trains around midnight and for the next hour out of London are packed in my experience. People on them should be allocated a super off peak return [apologize if my ticket terminology is wrong]. If I understand what you are proposing, instead they should be allocated two singles, almost doubling the cost as the journeys start technically in two separate days?

No I'm not. We weren't talking about returns, as far as I understand it.

0429, in the case of keyGo.


It's harder than you'd think, though. If a journey crosses the 0000 boundary, it needs to try to work out whether you're better off paying for it as part of the previous day or the next day, and that could differ based on your travel patterns on those days.

But the journey started at 3am - that's the point, surely? The system seems to be broken for journeys starting between midnight and 04:29.

As @Taunton says, this isn't really on. It appears to have been specified to be c**p and then coded to be so too. Or, just perhaps, it wasn't specified because nobody starts travelling between midnight and 04:29, do they?!!

 

[Somewhere]

KeyGo can only be used for day tickets, and the day has to end somewhere for transactions to be processed. I think the case under discussion here is an edge case in the extremely few users will be travelling across that time break.

They need to reprogramme the computer then, rather than just accepting its 'no' response

 

[Fermiboson]

Date and time systems can be notoriously difficult to program so having this bug in and of itself is not necessarily a great fault - but given they have encountered this a couple of years ago, they should surely have put someone on the issue. £50 is not a trivial amount to have missing from your bank account, even temporarily.

 

[21C101]

Date and time systems can be notoriously difficult to program so having this bug in and of itself is not necessarily a great fault - but given they have encountered this a couple of years ago, they should surely have put someone on the issue. £50 is not a trivial amount to have missing from your bank account, even temporarily.

Even if the bug isn't fixable flagging any journey compelting between 04.30 and 07.00 with no touch in for internal review ought to be do-able. As should breifing the call centre staff that there is a problem so don't assume someone tapping out at that time with a journey shown as no tap in is trying it on.

No I'm not. We weren't talking about returns, as far as I understand it.

Yes we were. Said person had travelled in on Thursday evening and got 03.44 from St Pancras to Bedford on Friday morning.

 

[Haywain]

Yes we were. Said person had travelled in on Thursday evening and got 03.44 from St Pancras to Bedford on Friday morning.

I can't see that there would be any significant difference in what happened if it were a single journey, as it still appears to cross the time boundary for the end of the day.

 

[21C101]

I can't see that there would be any significant difference in what happened if it were a single journey, as it still appears to cross the time boundary for the end of the day.

Agreed.

 

[talldave]

Even if the bug isn't fixable flagging any journey compelting between 04.30 and 07.00 with no touch in for internal review ought to be do-able. As should breifing the call centre staff that there is a problem so don't assume someone tapping out at that time with a journey shown as no tap in is trying it on.


Yes we were. Said person had travelled in on Thursday evening and got 03.44 from St Pancras to Bedford on Friday morning.

Apologies for my misunderstanding. Since they didn't complete their journey before 04.29, their travel was spread over 2 days, so were they expecting to be charged a non "day" return fare?

The slight complication with KeyGo is that you're not buying a ticket in advance, you're travelling and only being charged something after the journey's completed.

Although it's probably now OT for this thread, I still think the nationalrail website implies that the rail ticket "day" starts at 00:00.01 and runs until 04:29:59 the following day.

 

[Haywain]

Since they didn't complete their journey before 04.29, their travel was spread over 2 days, so were they expecting to be charged a non "day" return fare?

KeyGo doesn't deal in period return fares, it would be singles instead.

I still think the nationalrail website implies that the rail ticket "day" starts at 00:00.01 and runs until 04:29:59 the following day.

The question remains of exactly when the KeyGo day starts and ends. My guess would be that it changes over at 04.30, but I'm not about to set out for a journey in the small hours to find out!
However, the lesson from this is that KeyGo is not suitable for all situations, and this thread highlights one of them.

 

[Ediswan]

Today I receieved an email about the introduction of KeyGo weekly capping. A 'week' is defined thus:

Only journeys made within the same week (04.30 Monday – 04.29 the following Monday) will be eligible for weekly capping.

 

[Somewhere]

Today I receieved an email about the introduction of KeyGo weekly capping. A 'week' is defined thus:

If they cannot cope with daily journeys, how are they going to cope with weekly journeys?
Especially when it includes journeys that pass through 04.29?

 

[talldave]

New KeyGo T's & C's published to go with weekly capping:

https://www.thameslinkrailway.com/-/media/goahead/gtr-all-shared-pdfs-and-documents/key-documents/keygo-conditions-of-use-v11.pdf

At least it clarifies the Rail Day as 04:30 - 04:29. But a shame they didn't proof read them before publication.

 

[Somewhere]

So its easier to change the T&Cs rather than fix the problem!