Ticket Barrier Blues

[Ianmel1969]

Can anybody tell me why when I put my tickets through a ticket barrier it pretty much always denies me entry and tells me to seek attention? I buy tickets online and collect from a ticket machine. I also have a railcard. It gets a bit infuriating, especially if the train is tight and staff are not that close or dealing with other passengers.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

@Ianmel1969. It seems to depend. Are you experiencing problems at a particular station, or using certain tickets?

 

[alex17595]

Do you put the tickets in your phone case? This can mess up the magnetic strip.

 

[LowLevel]

They might have the gates set to reject railcard discounted tickets for checking.

 

[Ianmel1969]

Just to add, it happened at three different stations on my journey yesterday, the first barrier literally seconds after collecting from machine. Just bog standard off peak returns. I think Low Levels idea seems possible, that the barriers are set to reject railcard discount tickets. I keep rail tickets well away from my mobile in a wallet.

 

[Lytham Local]

Get that a lot with day rangers where they won't work on barriers in Liverpool or Wigan Wallgate but quite happily work in Leeds and Manchester Oxford Road.

 

[Deafdoggie]

I suspect they'll work at Birmingham New Street! Anything seems to work there.

 

[Llanigraham]

I suspect they'll work at Birmingham New Street! Anything seems to work there.

And yet I've regularly had tickets with a DSB (Disabled Rail Card) note rejected there.

 

[Last Hurrah]

Don’t put tickets in the same pocket as keys . . .

Learnt that lesson the hard way with a 3 day pass for the Paris Metro denying me access to a station - problem made worse as I had to find a station with a manned ticket office to get a replacement pass

Guy behind the glass fronted ticket office asked, “keys with ticket” ? Oui I replied, he raised his eyebrows, shook his head & leant back in his chair

 

[sibbahz]

Don’t put tickets in the same pocket as keys . . .

Learnt that lesson the hard way with a 3 day pass for the Paris Metro denying me access to a station - problem made worse as I had to find a station with a manned ticket office to get a replacement pass

Guy behind the glass fronted ticket office asked, “keys with ticket” ? Oui I replied, he raised his eyebrows, shook his head & leant back in his chair

This also happened to me in Paris. My partner had to go through and find staff inside the barriers to let me in, then I couldn't get out of the station the other end as there were no staff there. Ended up giving up and vaulting the barrier to get out, as could not even see a help point.

Same thing happened to everyone I was with in Barcelona on different days, the 4 day tourist passes failed after a few days. Had to keep pressing call points to get staff to come and replace them. Mine was the only one of four out of those which still worked on the last day!

I find Thameslink's barriers regularly seem to refuse network railcard/two together railcard tickets and display the "seek assistance" message. Awkwardly, it happened to me at Brighton when I was using a two together railcard just after my partner got through successfully so I had to point at her on the other side of the gateline when showing staff the railcard.

 

[jeremyjh]

… I also have a railcard. …

Almost certainly this - it's an opportunity for a human to see the railcard. And yes, it's infuriating and clunky.

 

[Mojo]

On the gates themselves there will be a display which will have a two or three digit code; you can compare that to these lists to see the problem.

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/passenger_oriented_display_error/response/161338/attach/3/POD%20Codes.pdf?cookie_passthrough=1

Railway station barrier error codes

A list of UK railway station ticket barrier error codes

www.railwaycodes.org.uk

 

[snalty]

I had this at the Thameslink barriers at St Pancras the other day. I did have a railcard but annoyingly didn't see the reason code!

 

[plugwash]

Can anybody tell me why when I put my tickets through a ticket barrier it pretty much always denies me entry and tells me to seek attention? I buy tickets online and collect from a ticket machine. I also have a railcard. It gets a bit infuriating, especially if the train is tight and staff are not that close or dealing with other passengers.

There are many reasons a ticket can be rejected,

1. The magstripe may have never been written properly in the first place.
2. The magstripe may have become demagnetised. A lot of phones seem to have pretty strong magnets in them now and I understand these can demagnetise tickets.
3. Some gate-lines reject all railcard tickets, theoretically so staff can check the railcards though whether they actually do is another matter.
4. Some gate-lines have over-simplified peak/off-peak rules.
5. More unusual tickets may simply not be recognised by the gate at all. This is particularly an issue with rovers or when breaking your journey.

There is a 2 digit "reason code" displayed when the ticket is rejected, if you can see what that code is then it may give more clues as to what is going on.

Also my understanding is that on many gates the logic for e-tickets is completely seperate from that for magstripes. So if e-tickets are available for your journey it may be worth trying them.

 

[route101]

I get it with rovers, don't think I have ever got through a barrier with a rover.

 

[Lewisham2221]

I get it with rovers, don't think I have ever got through a barrier with a rover.

It certainly seems to be a station by station thing with rovers, some do, some don't.

What's really annoying is when you know from previous (very recent) experience that your ticket won't work the barrier, so you head to the manual gate which the gateline assistant is already holding open for someone else and they just look at you and your ticket and patronisingly point and nod towards the barriers, completely deny your claim that it won't work, take the ticket from you and try to put it through the barrier themselves, only to be denied, and then just reply with "Oh, you're right." before eventually handing back your ticket and opening the gate (which they were holding open at the start of the whole exchange) just causing unnecessary delay.

 

[Bevan Price]

I suspect they'll work at Birmingham New Street! Anything seems to work there.

Not always. Once, with a West Midlands Day Ranger, barriers let me out to do a bit of shopping - but would not let me back in. I have also encountered problems at Birmingham Moor Street.

A question for someone "in the know".
Yes, barriers stop some criminal fraud - but they have to be manned when they are closed, and they probaly cost a fortune to install. Do "barrier costs" cover the amount of revenue that would be lost by fraudulent travel?

 

[father_jack]

I get it with rovers, don't think I have ever got through a barrier with a rover.

There's only so much "memory" in the gate systems and rovers don't work as normal day tickets do.

 

[Horizon22]

Can anybody tell me why when I put my tickets through a ticket barrier it pretty much always denies me entry and tells me to seek attention? I buy tickets online and collect from a ticket machine. I also have a railcard. It gets a bit infuriating, especially if the train is tight and staff are not that close or dealing with other passengers.

I imagine this is the main cause in order to (theoretically) allow staff to check ticket validity and your railcard. Are you going through lots of different stations or only tending to use a few?

 

[satisnek]

I suspect they'll work at Birmingham New Street! Anything seems to work there.

I've had problems with my regular run (Snow Hill lines - Derby route) in the past, but I think it has been fixed now. And possibly more so at Snow Hill than New Street.

Worse than this is the bus/rail Derbyshire Wayfarer (as purchased on a bus) which doesn't have a scanny thing to work the barriers in the first place! But the gateline staff at Derby have happily let me through

 

[DelW]

I imagine this is the main cause in order to (theoretically) allow staff to check ticket validity and your railcard. Are you going through lots of different stations or only tending to use a few?

"Theoretically" being the operative word. I've quite often had to get a manual check when my ticket has been rejected by a gateline. The majority of my tickets in the last decade have been valid only with a railcard, and yet I can't recall ever having been asked to show that. (It's always in my ticket wallet, but I have to take the ticket out of that to feed it through the gate reader).

Travelling back through London a couple of weeks ago, my ticket worked the Underground barriers at Euston and Waterloo, then was rejected at Waterloo mainline, but worked again on exit at my home station. That sort of random rejection seems to happen quite regularly.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Worse than this is the bus/rail Derbyshire Wayfarer (as purchased on a bus) which doesn't have a scanny thing to work the barriers in the first place! But the gateline staff at Derby have happily let me through

Rail-issued "Derbyshire Wayfarer" tickets (issued on CCST - no Aztec code) certainly work the barriers at Derby.

 

[Parham Wood]

There's only so much "memory" in the gate systems and rovers don't work as normal day tickets do.

Memory is cheap these days so presumably lack of foresight when designed and installed.

 

[D6975]

I get it with rovers, don't think I have ever got through a barrier with a rover.

I have always had this too, until my recent NE rover which operated the barriers at Leeds.

 

[Ianigsy]

I had a few rejections at the weekend- a single from Newton-le-Willows to Birkenhead North was rejected at Lime Street high level (forgot to make a note of the code) and a Birkenhead North-Liverpool return failed each way with an 07 error.

As this means ticket unreadable, I’m guessing there was a problem with either the machine or the stock at the ticket office. For reference, I keep my phone in my jacket pocket and travel tickets in my wallet!

 

[Craig1122]

Travelling back through London a couple of weeks ago, my ticket worked the Underground barriers at Euston and Waterloo, then was rejected at Waterloo mainline, but worked again on exit at my home station. That sort of random rejection seems to happen quite regularly.

Travelling with a Network Card was always fine through Waterloo but has changed recently. I never get rejected entering with a non discounted ticket but now always get rejected with the Railcard discount on it. So clearly a change to the barrier settings. Staff never ask for the Railcard and usually don't even check the ticket so it's a complete waste of everyone's time.

 

[Recessio]

I've been having my tickets consistently rejected at Guildford and Waterloo. A staff member said it was due to checking railcards (I have a 16-25).

A question for someone "in the know".
Yes, barriers stop some criminal fraud - but they have to be manned when they are closed, and they probaly cost a fortune to install. Do "barrier costs" cover the amount of revenue that would be lost by fraudulent travel?

I'm sure somewhere there must be figures from before and after TfL took over the Silverlink Metro (now Overground) which used to have a reputation as the "free train", which you could compare versus the installation and staffing costs. (Although on TfL as all stations are manned, the staffing cost is already factored in). More recently there's been a reported increase in people using ungated stations one stop up from Abbey Wood on SouthEastern Metro, now that Abbey Wood has barriers for Elizabeth line.

 

[JGurney]

I have had this pretty frequently when changing at London termini, most commonly at Victoria when changing between Southern and Southeastern services or at Waterloo to/from Waterloo East.

 

[jeremyjh]

Memory is cheap these days so presumably lack of foresight when designed and installed.

The age of the system, the age of the ticketing standard and the original specification/purpose of the system would all be relevant considerations here.

 

[33117]

Manchester Piccadilly - The barriers there seem fine with railcard discounted tickets as I've got a disabled one.

However, they don't seem to like through ticketing, tickets with barcodes you have to hold them actually on the glass rather than a bit above otherwise the scanners can't read them.