Ticket collection for regular travelers

[leshuttle]

Out of interest are there any stats on the proportion of customers who now buy tickets online for collection for simple A-B journeys such as heading into town for shopping/etc?

I only ask as somebody without a car and living in a well served rail-hub; trains are my primary way to get around for leisure journeys typically 5-30 miles, 2-3 times a week. Often I book online to collect Nectar points and get precisely the ticket I require.

Doing this regularly one of the minor annoyances is how cumbersome it seems to note down/read off an email/app and tap in a reference number each time at TVMs and select the ticket to print. Might there be ways this process could be simplified for regular users to verify and print any tickets on their account/associated to the card?

Obviously a nationwide rollout of smart-ticketing might offer a simpler alternative but that's probably quite a few years away.

 

[matthewluck]

I have no idea on stats, but would assume a minority would buy online for such journeys.

To me it does make sense to book online for simple journeys. Cashback from one of the Cashback sites and Nectar points if booking with TPE or Virgin. I agree that it can be a bit cumbersome and this is reduced slightly by saving card and address details, typing those in usually takes some time.

I think Southern allow refunds on certain types of uncollected tickets also.

 

[StarCrossing]

I also do this. In my case it's due to there being shorter queues at the collection-only ticket machines at my local station than than queues for the other machines and ticket counters.

I've never found typing in the code to be cumbersome, but it annoys me a little when I do a few bookings at the same time and I have to re-insert my card for each one.

 

[talldave]

I also do this. In my case it's due to there being shorter queues at the collection-only ticket machines at my local station than than queues for the other machines and ticket counters.

I've never found typing in the code to be cumbersome, but it annoys me a little when I do a few bookings at the same time and I have to re-insert my card for each one.

That depends on the quality of the touchscreen on the TVM. In my experience, unless the machine is new, they range from crap to atrocious. Bring back the days when you inserted your credit/debit card and it retrieved your booking automatically!

 

[Bletchleyite]

That depends on the quality of the touchscreen on the TVM. In my experience, unless the machine is new, they range from crap to atrocious. Bring back the days when you inserted your credit/debit card and it retrieved your booking automatically!

If the card is to be required, an improvement would be to have a shortened 4-digit PIN that needs entering, with the full booking reference only needed in the event the card is not present.

 

[AndrewB]

That depends on the quality of the touchscreen on the TVM. In my experience, unless the machine is new, they range from crap to atrocious. Bring back the days when you inserted your credit/debit card and it retrieved your booking automatically!

So it's not just me. I kept getting the wrong letter yesterday. And you always seem to get a bad one when in a hurry.

 

[Stats]

Perhaps a solution could be if there was a QR code on the email confirmation or in an app that could be scanned, or a record of your booking is stored in an app and with near field communication on your mobile the TVM will recognise the booking and print the tickets.

 

[talldave]

Perhaps a solution could be if there was a QR code on the email confirmation or in an app that could be scanned, or a record of your booking is stored in an app and with near field communication on your mobile the TVM will recognise the booking and print the tickets.

This is the rail industry we're talking about?!!! They struggle with the technology they already have, never mind extending their incompetence to other areas. That said, I did once travel on the Gatwick Express showing an http 404 error instead of an e-ticket!

Look at Southern's recent destruction of their once decent ticketing website. All very graphical and trendy - pointlessly keeping up with the tablet/iphone generation - but they omitted to send the bloody booking reference in the confirmation email. Utter incompetence - but par for the course for the idiots running GTR. They've lost me as a customer and hopefully many others too.