Ticket machines - tell me about the problems you've faced.

[ATW Alex 101]

The merseyrail ones are crap, you have to put your finger through the screen to select anything and they aren't even updated with stations like Ebbsfleet, Buckshaw and Fishguard and whatever its called.

 

[SussexMan]

I use Southern machines and it always "scares" me when I pick up an Advance Ticket as it says on the screen as you are picking them up "Valid for Travel: date" and puts the date you are collecting them not the date they are really valid for travel. Really had me worried the first time. The screen displays for 2 - 3 seconds and then changes to say "Take Tickets" or something.

 

[Mojo]

And they don't take Scottish outside of Scotland. A nightmare when my dad works in Glasgow 5 days a week

Despite numerous people saying this, I've never had any trouble spending a Scottish note. If you are really having problems though, try putting them in a supermarket self service checkout.

 

[jon0844]

I use Southern machines and it always "scares" me when I pick up an Advance Ticket as it says on the screen as you are picking them up "Valid for Travel: date" and puts the date you are collecting them not the date they are really valid for travel. Really had me worried the first time. The screen displays for 2 - 3 seconds and then changes to say "Take Tickets" or something.

I do wonder if companies ever do any user testing before they release things to the public.

Let's get a company that designs user interfaces to step up and show the TOCs how to do things properly!

Sent from my XT890 using Tapatalk 2

 

[wintonian]

Despite numerous people saying this, I've never had any trouble spending a Scottish note. If you are really having problems though, try putting them in a supermarket self service checkout.

Neither have I, Northern Irish ones on the other hand can be a PITA to spend away from the likes of Wetherspoons, Tesco, John Lewis etc.

I once filled up a self service machine in a Tesco with Northern Irish notes cause I was peed of with it- I now refuse to use the dam things.

Sometimes I wonder if there is some politics going on here but maybe I'm just being paranoid.

 

[Eagle]

As well as nonresponsive screens you occasionally get ones that are incorrectly calibrated. I remember using one (can't remember where) where to enter the booking code I had to press the letter down and to the left of the one I actually wanted to type to make it work. Was quite a mental exercise.

 

[Charlie2555]

The ticket machine at my local station is very good, only problem I have is the touch screen is really insensitive (it might just be after using my phone delicately!) and you don't press right on the button you want, you have to press a few centimetres above! In Berlin I had a few problems with their U-Bahn machines as some didn't accept notes- I got my money from cash machines so I had to go and buy some useless item from the local shop! Prague Metro machines were very difficult to use with very odd types of tickets dispensed, all in Czech!

 

[Eagle]

Try putting them in a supermarket self service checkout.

I usually just fill those with all the handfuls of coppers I've accumulated. The ones with a coin bin rather than a slot are the most fun (until you jam them).

 

[wintonian]

The ticket machine at my local station is very good, only problem I have is the touch screen is really insensitive (it might just be after using my phone delicately!) and you don't press right on the button you want, you have to press a few centimetres above! In Berlin I had a few problems with their U-Bahn machines as some didn't accept notes- I got my money from cash machines so I had to go and buy some useless item from the local shop! Prague Metro machines were very difficult to use with very odd types of tickets dispensed, all in Czech!

Having never actually stopped of at you local station, is it one of those outside ones with the plastic film over the screen?

If so those are the ones I mean when I say you need to almost thump them and would agree that the calibration is sometimes a bit out.

The inside ones without the film seem fine and well calibrated to me.

 

[Inspector999]

Not quite an annoying ticket machine but I recently moved to Snodland in Kent. No ticket machine here, just a permit to travel machine. Duly set forth on my first journey from their to Maidstone west on a Sunday afternoon. Now the rules say pay as much as you can. I didn't have a clue what the fare was so I paid a quid.

Got to Maidstone - no fare collected on the train, no sign of the guard and the booking office is closed but there is a ticket machine. £3.30 OP return and £3.20 single. So what's a law abiding traveller to do for the return journey? - I don't really want to pay £4.20 (£3.20 single + the £1 already paid) for a £3.30 return do I?

But I did and then thought I would claim a refund from Southeastern for not bothering to be good enough to allow me to buy a ticket at my originating station. I'm sure the admin cost of refunding me 90 pence would far exceed the £3.30 that they should have had off me in the first place.

In the end I decided 90 pence wasn't worth my time.

I'm sure on the books no ticket machine = no running costs; but fare evasion seems rife on this line (the guard stands no chance with stations every 3 minutes); and it's hardly surprising with no ticket issuing facility and the permit to travel machines out of order 75% of the time.

So no chance to buy your ticket be fore you board the train, the risk of missed connections if you can't get one on the train and then have to go the office at Strood or Maidstone East and worst of all no prospect of buying a ticket on the internet and picking it up on departure - so no possibility of a last minute Advance fare being bought the day before as you have to allow for postage. Quite shabby treatment for any location but for a town with a population of almost 10000 absolutely shameful.

But this leads me to the question - what is the smallest place with a full service machine and what is the largest place without ticket selling facilities?

And on a slightly different angle - 21 years ago I was in Annecy in France. The machine there would sell me any local or inter city journey, including reservations (with the usual choices to make) and it would do it in English! Seems we have a bit of catching up to do.

 

[Inspector999]

I recall being in Annecy in France over 20 years ago. Sets of Machine there to cover local and long distance journeys. The Intercity machines included full journey information and reservations. And all available in ENGLISH!!

I wonder what a Frenchman would make of the offerings available at modest rural towns in the UK some 20 year later - I think we may need to do some catching up. I live in Snodland - population almost 10000 and nothing more that a permit to travel machine which is almost always off line!

 

[Perns1972]

Some machines not allowing me to buy tickets from another station annoys me - this is the kind of thing that ticket offices and staff are brilliant at.

Not being able to purchase extensions to my season ticket are a pain and not being able to buy a ticket to the the boundary of a zone are a problem for me.

Does anyone know whether ticket machines from TOCS with competing routes, so the same city-to-city/town-to-town journey but on different TOCs trains or different lines (London to Brum/Marylebone or Euston or London to Peterborough EastCoast or FCC) offer both route/TOC options?

Is this something they are obliged to do?

 

[island]

The machines will offer both options but TVMs are not required to be impartial, so they may show one fare on the "front page" and only offer the other if you type in the destination. I believe this might be the case at Southern TVMs at Brighton, for example, where they display Any Permitted tickets to London as a quick option, whereas you would need to type in the destination to get the cheaper FCC ONLY option.

 

[jon0844]

If more and more TVMs are going to take over as stations are closed/unstaffed, then surely we need the impartiality rules to apply to them?

 

[Zoe]

It can be a bit frustrating that the machines won't issue off peak tickets (for travel off peak) until the end of the peak period. If there is a ticket office, the staff can issue an off peak ticket during the peak for travel after the peak has ended. You can have the situation where the peak ends at 0930 and the first off peak train is at 0932 leaving little time to get a ticket.

 

[Wyvern]

The TVM at Belper faces south so has the sun on it most of the day. Add many years worth of finger grease and its impossible to see anything. I complained to EMT at the beginning of the month when I had to go back after dark to collect ,my tickets.

Yesterday it was just as bad and luckily we stilll have conductor/guards on EMT and most of them are helpful and will sell a ticket (I ask them before boarding)

Even so I was working out a choice email to send to EMT only to find when I got home they had finally replied promising to do something about it.

I now wait in hope.

 

[jon0844]

It can be a bit frustrating that the machines won't issue off peak tickets (for travel off peak) until the end of the peak period. If there is a ticket office, the staff can issue an off peak ticket during the peak for travel after the peak has ended. You can have the situation where the peak ends at 0930 and the first off peak train is at 0932 leaving little time to get a ticket.

What annoys me is that TVMs don't issue certain tickets to prevent fraud, like doughnutting or people perhaps buying a child ticket when they're actually 35 years old.. or whatever.

So the law abiding person ends up suffering, like the many examples on here, to protect against fraud - when the roving revenue protection teams could and would pick up these people and should be able to deal with them as appropriate.

Given fraudsters can simply buy tickets online and collect, it effectively means they could still buy invalid tickets - but we still can't turn up at a station and buy an extension or split tickets.

But, hey, the industry knows best!

And as for dodgy screens. FCC had a press release a year or two ago to say it was changing screens - but perhaps the simple answer is a screen more akin to that used on a cash machine. By being polarised, you can avoid glare and also offer some privacy at the same time.

Seems to me that there are loads of problems with some (TVMs)

• TVM positioning, to protect from the elements
• Screen type (resistive/capacitive/usable in wet or damp conditions/visbility in sunlight)
• Poor user interface (software designed by committee without proper user testing)
• Poorly positioned Chip & Pin machine (making it hard for some people to bend down to read/use because they're designed for wheelchair users or midgets)
• Different software on different TVMs by different manufacturers (hardly good for people who aren't tech savvy and learn one system and then encounter another)

 

[Zoe]

Did the old Network SouthEast ticket machines used to be set so off peak tickets could not be issued before a certain time?

 

[maniacmartin]

It can be a bit frustrating that the machines won't issue off peak tickets (for travel off peak) until the end of the peak period. If there is a ticket office, the staff can issue an off peak ticket during the peak for travel after the peak has ended. You can have the situation where the peak ends at 0930 and the first off peak train is at 0932 leaving little time to get a ticket.

I wonder how well a claim that the full range of tickets was not available would go down. If the station has no ticket office and its not possible to walk to a distant platform or there are more passengers wanting to buy a ticket than can do so in 2 minutes, then there might be no way to buy an offpeak ticket and board a 0932 train

 

[table38]

We have the same problem at Stalybridge because the TVM won't sell Evening Rangers. (See multiple previous rants on here )

 

[wintonian]

We have the same problem at Stalybridge because the TVM won't sell Evening Rangers. (See multiple previous rants on here )

If the TVM won't sell the ticket you want to buy can you not buy on-board? Or do you mean you would prefer to buy from the TVM?

 

[table38]

If the TVM won't sell the ticket you want to buy can you not buy on-board? Or do you mean you would prefer to buy from the TVM?

Oh, don't get me started on that, I'd be here for hours

 

[jon0844]

I now use carnet tickets, despite the other hassles (see other threads). TVMs don't sell them.

Can I travel without buying a ticket and ask to buy a carnet pack from an RPI? Not bloody likely!

 

[island]

We have the same problem at Stalybridge because the TVM won't sell Evening Rangers. (See multiple previous rants on here )

If the TVM won't sell the ticket you want to buy can you not buy on-board? Or do you mean you would prefer to buy from the TVM?

I now use carnet tickets, despite the other hassles (see other threads). TVMs don't sell them.

Can I travel without buying a ticket and ask to buy a carnet pack from an RPI? Not bloody likely!

The rule is that if one wishes to use a ticket not available from the TVM, one must purchase a ticket from the TVM covering part of the journey and then part-exchange it for the desired ticket with the guard/at the destination/etc.

This is not always practical.

 

[Deerfold]

Get given a £20 for tickets and food, £2.50 ticket. Excellent if you like pockets full of £1 coins....

And they don't take Scottish outside of Scotland. A nightmare when my dad works in Glasgow 5 days a week

That's a shame - and no good reason for it - I quite happily put a Scottish £20 note into a self service till at Waterloo Sainsbury's this week.

 

[island]

Scottish notes are not legal tender anywhere, not even Scotland (which is bordering on irrelevant given the definition of legal tender, but anyhow). Some retailers will accept them for value, but with a few exceptions, they are not obliged to.

National Rail booking offices, on the other hand, are supposed to accept all Scottish and Northern Irish banknotes, but not Channel Islands ones.

 

[Deerfold]

Scottish notes are not legal tender anywhere, not even Scotland (which is bordering on irrelevant given the definition of legal tender, but anyhow). Some retailers will accept them for value, but with a few exceptions, they are not obliged to.

National Rail booking offices, on the other hand, are supposed to accept all Scottish and Northern Irish banknotes, but not Channel Islands ones.

From my time working in various shops I saw Scottish notes from time to time but don't remember ever coming across an Irish one - I know I'd have certainly had to double check it with someone and can understand some staff would probably not want that hassle so wouldn't take them.

Had a fun touchscreen a while back where on the keyboard for collecting tickets i had to press the button one to the left and one down from the one I actually wanted.

 

[bicbasher]

Scheidt & Bachmann Ticket XPress TVM's on Southeastern in London don't accept Oyster PAYG payments under £5, but the same machines at Greater Anglia do.

Otherwise, it's the usual of coins not being accepted, or having to put them in two or three times for them to be recognised.

I'm not a big fan of putting cash into the slot either, I'd rather take a chance using a card.

 

[route:oxford]

Biggest problem is that they are all designed for wheelchair users.

Yes, make sure the majority of machines are "universal" - but in major stations please install machines suitable for people who are taller than 150cm.

The other problem is that they are so slow at issuing tickets - they seem to operate at a quarter of the speed that they did 15-20 years ago when impact printers were the norm.

 

[island]

I agree with all that. It took me three minutes to collect 33 coupons from KGX the other day, and that's a dual-printer machine.