Ticket Machine Working?

[NARobertson]

Most threads on this site assume that ticket machines either work or that they do not. However, there are intermediate cases where a machine has limited functionality or might appear to have broken down. This morning when at Worle station (near Weston-Super-Mare) I noticed that a workman had the ticket machine opened up. I said to him that for weeks that the opening page, the quick selection page for the most common destinations, had not worked. He said the A-Z station finder still worked, I knew that. About six weeks ago, on trying to use this machine I found it had an error message. It said that money needed to be removed from the cash dispenser. That was obviously wrong since the cash outlet has always been taped over. On prodding the machine I found that the quick selection page was missing but that the A to Z finder was still there. But Weston-Super-Mare proved to have one character too many for the finder. Apart from this, reflections on the screen (this machine is out in the open and it is the only machine at this station) made the screen difficult to read and use, especially with long destination names. I bought a ticket on a train and when I got to Weston I reported this faulty ticket machine to a ticket clerk. Since then I notice that this fault has not been rectified until today. Perhaps with the decimation of commuting from Worle the GWR finds it uneconomic to keep such machines fully functional. I have since then exclusively bought my tickets in advance at main-line stations with ticket offices. But I imagine that such a machine will cause long queues when everyone who uses them has to use the A to Z finder. I wonder if RPOs are aware of such problems; somehow I imagine that they are not and that they might give passengers who did not have time to get a ticket, or who assumed this machine did not work, a negative experience, when in fact most of the blame lay with the GWR. Given the six weeks it has taken to fix this problem, it seems that it has not occurred to anyone at GWR that some passengers might find themselves in considerable difficulties through this machine that works, but not properly,

Neil Robertson

 

[mikeg]

This is more common than the railway gives credit for. Tpe tvms are particularly bad for running so slowly so as to be unusable, to the point where if they haven't been used for some time on the first attempt they'll time out on themselves whilst loading either the destination list or the fare list for a given destination. Of course such machines will be shewn as working on any remote status check.
They are so unreliable they should not be considered any opportunity to purchase in any way shape or form.

 

[NARobertson]

The machine at Worle does not, as far as I know, have that particular problem. However, two traffic lights at pedestrian crossings I use on my way to the station have short memories. If they have not been used for a while, they take about two to three minutes before the 'green man' comes but if someone has just used them they work again within about half a minute.

Regarding the problems with the ticket machine at Worle station there is an irony in the situation here. Various GWR staff get on trains here (house prices and rents are markedly lower than in Bristol) but they travel free and so do not ever use the ticket machine. So they are blissfully ignorant about the bad reflections on the screen and other difficulties of using this machine.

Neil Robertson

 

[robbeech]

A TVM that isn't working as it should is "not working". If you cannot get it to issue a ticket for your chosen payment method (that it is supposed to accept) then it is not working. So many TVMs have touchscreens that are several post codes out of calibration, it causes people to select the wrong tickets and if they're not looking it can go unnoticed and they can end up with an invalid ticket. If TVMs were a safety critical computer the designers and manufacturers would be in prison. It baffles me just how grossly unreliable they are in the grand scheme of things. The number of issues with them that don't flag as a "fault" and the amounts of faults they have rendering them unusable that do not flag as unusable is unacceptably large. I suspect the cheapest bidder did quite will out of it, and despite this they were likely ripped off.

Some machines handle faults (and self report thereof) much better than others.

Northern machines (big touch screen ones). Touch screen can completely fail, green light, no message. Screen can be completely smashed, black, shards of glass everywhere, still reports as working fine. However the EMR machines will report the fault somehow ( i don't know how it works) if one fails to PRINT a ticket. It doesn't however flag if it fails to DROP the ticket after printing.

As far as local machines to me. The machine at Whitwell has (pre March 2020) been out of order to some degree around 50% of the time i've tried to use it, even if it has just been payment method limitations. Langwith is usually offline so limited in what it can sell. Worksop has several but there is often one out of order but this doesn't matter so much. Kiveton Park was unusable for several months due to the sun shining on it burning something. Northern claimed it was fine despite it being completely unreadable. It then got smashed up and was replaced a couple of weeks later.


If i go to use a TVM that is out of order i always take a photo, or video if appropriate even though i shouldn't have to prove innocence. I've had to show an RPI a photo once before so this was useful.
If i pass a TVM that is out of order that i'm not using myself i'll often take a picture anyway. If a thread appears on here or on social media later that day from someone who has been issued a penalty fare when they boarded from that station then it might help. This has never happened but who knows, one day it might prove useful. As of the other day, it wasn't working again.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

However, two traffic lights at pedestrian crossings I use on my way to the station have short memories. If they have not been used for a while, they take about two to three minutes before the 'green man' comes but if someone has just used them they work again within about half a minute.

Without dragging the thread too far off topic, I've often found pedestrian crossings to work the other way round. If they've not been used for some time, they seem to activate to stop the traffic almost straightaway, but if they've been used more recently than that, you then seemingly have to wait quite a bit longer.

 

[RPI]

Most threads on this site assume that ticket machines either work or that they do not. However, there are intermediate cases where a machine has limited functionality or might appear to have broken down. This morning when at Worle station (near Weston-Super-Mare) I noticed that a workman had the ticket machine opened up. I said to him that for weeks that the opening page, the quick selection page for the most common destinations, had not worked. He said the A-Z station finder still worked, I knew that. About six weeks ago, on trying to use this machine I found it had an error message. It said that money needed to be removed from the cash dispenser. That was obviously wrong since the cash outlet has always been taped over. On prodding the machine I found that the quick selection page was missing but that the A to Z finder was still there. But Weston-Super-Mare proved to have one character too many for the finder. Apart from this, reflections on the screen (this machine is out in the open and it is the only machine at this station) made the screen difficult to read and use, especially with long destination names. I bought a ticket on a train and when I got to Weston I reported this faulty ticket machine to a ticket clerk. Since then I notice that this fault has not been rectified until today. Perhaps with the decimation of commuting from Worle the GWR finds it uneconomic to keep such machines fully functional. I have since then exclusively bought my tickets in advance at main-line stations with ticket offices. But I imagine that such a machine will cause long queues when everyone who uses them has to use the A to Z finder. I wonder if RPOs are aware of such problems; somehow I imagine that they are not and that they might give passengers who did not have time to get a ticket, or who assumed this machine did not work, a negative experience, when in fact most of the blame lay with the GWR. Given the six weeks it has taken to fix this problem, it seems that it has not occurred to anyone at GWR that some passengers might find themselves in considerable difficulties through this machine that works, but not properly,

Neil Robertson

Worle is slightly outside of my "patch", however, I do work along that line occasionally and certainly most staff are aware of the reflection issues at Worle (well, I'm aware and I probably only go that way a few times a year!)

 

[plugwash]

I recall, before the pandemic being at cheadle hulme while the waiting room was being refurbished and the ticket machine on platform 1 was behind a construction barrier, It was probably working fine, but not much use to passengers.

There is another ticket machine on the other side of the station, but good luck finding it if you don't already know it's there (it's not signposted and it's not on the NRE station map) and the ticket office is only part time. There is also a ticket office in the middle of the station (which is signposted), but it's part time.

 

[Cdd89]

Miscalibrated displays are a really common issue and a bit of a grey area. If the offset is consistent, a person who knows what they are doing can use the machine, but equally I think it should be legitimate to regard the machine as broken and not use it. Frequently such machines are usable in terms of big buttons but not usable in terms of the keyboard for ToD collection.

Here is the relevant section of the NRCoT:

6.1. You must have a valid Ticket to travel before you board a train where there was the opportunity to buy one unless one of the following circumstances applies:
6.1.1. At the station where you start your journey, there is no means of purchasing a Ticket, either because there is no Ticket office open
or self-service Ticket machine in working order; and where notices indicate that Penalty Fares may apply from that station, you purchase a Permit to Travel if there is a working Permit to Travel issuing machine at the station where you start your journey – see Condition 10 for more information about Penalty Fares; or
[…]
6.1.3. You have a disability and Ticket purchasing arrangements at the station you are departing from are not suitably accessible.

“Working order” is not defined (does that mean “fully working order?”) but it seems reasonable to say it’s not working if, due to a fault, it won’t issue the ticket you want. It doesn’t seem reasonable (to me) that one should have to try all possible ways of purchasing a ticket in the UI, though it probably is reasonable to expect people to try another machine if more than one is present. Your only obligation then is to use a PERTIS machine toward partial payment, if one exists. It doesn’t appear that there is an obligation to make a partial purchase on a TVM (if that’s even possible).

6.1.3 is potentially relevant too in the case of malfunctioning machines. That could cover all sorts of things that are more subjective such as hard to read displays.

Then there are machines that accept cash, won’t accept a (valid) coin or banknote. How many extra coins/notes should one have, and how much time spent re-inserting notes, before concluding that the machine cannot issue a ticket via the chosen method of payment?

 

[Haywain]

However, two traffic lights at pedestrian crossings I use on my way to the station have short memories. If they have not been used for a while, they take about two to three minutes before the 'green man' comes but if someone has just used them they work again within about half a minute.

This sounds like the typical operation of a Puffin crossing working as designed - which can be deeply frustrating.

 

[FenMan]

The ex-ScotRail TVMs installed at various North Downs Line stations do not offer any Super or Weekend Off Peak Day Return fares priced by SWR for journeys such as Blackwater to Southampton or Portsmouth.

Unknowing passengers have been overpaying for years.

 

[plugwash]

though it probably is reasonable to expect people to try another machine if more than one is present.

Is it reasonable to expect people to try another machine if it's on the other side of the station and there are no maps or signposts to indicate it's location.

 

[py_megapixel]

Is it reasonable to expect people to try another machine if it's on the other side of the station and there are no maps or signposts to indicate it's location.

In the specific case of CHU, isn't the other ticket machine round a corner from the car park, behind the lift-shaft as you look at it from P1? Or have they moved it since I was last there?
If so, how on earth could anyone be expected to know it was there at all unless they had come in from the car park side?