Train ticket machine did not print all tickets..SO NOW BEEN PENALISED

[Greenback]

How is ID going to work when tickets are not associated with the passenger's name?

Thats' the major difference between air and rail travel. Unless we all have to supply API before we make a journey

I suspect there may be multiple reasons behind that. One obviously is fraud prevention. Secondly I can understand the industry not wanting to acknowledge it as an acceptable method otherwise loads of people will do that instead of collecting their tickets, opening up the potential for arguments onboard and exposing the whole industry to fraud risks. I suspect that in reality many guards will use their discretion if asked before boarding.

There simply is no perfect solution.

Agreed. Everyone can and should make their own decisions according tot he circumstances of the journey, but if you don't allow enough time, you are at risk of missing the train.

 

[radamfi]

I certainly see nothing wrong with printed e-tickets for walk on journeys. The only possible fraud is someone using the ticket for two return journeys in a day, and hardly anyone wants to do that.

 

[bb21]

I certainly see nothing wrong with printed e-tickets for walk on journeys. The only possible fraud is someone using the ticket for two return journeys in a day, and hardly anyone wants to do that.

That is not what we were talking about though, is it?

Booking confirmations are not e-tickets.

 

[radamfi]

That is not what we were talking about though, is it?

Booking confirmations are not e-tickets.

But if we allow e-tickets for all journeys then far fewer people will want or need to pick up tickets from the machine.

 

[bb21]

But if we allow e-tickets for all journeys then far fewer people will want or need to pick up tickets from the machine.

Then that is an entirely different discussion. It is certainly one possible improvement to the current system if implemented properly.

 

[Greenback]

We are talking about the here and now. Allowing e-tickets at some point in the future, whether in six weeks, six months or six years, isn't going to help people who have to pick up tickets now.

 

[CC 72100]

A few times a week I will get people leaving Paddington who say they had not got time to print their ticket - or it was too far to walk to print them. This is usually to destinations that have to wait at most for a 30 minute service.

Or maybe that didn't have one in the first place? (Yes, I'm cynical, I know!)

Bet you also get a few who think that the confirmation email, which says very clearly at the top "THIS IS NOT A TRAVEL TICKET" will suffice.

 

[jon0844]

I certainly see nothing wrong with printed e-tickets for walk on journeys. The only possible fraud is someone using the ticket for two return journeys in a day, and hardly anyone wants to do that.

If every member of railway staff that deals with tickets is given suitable hardware to read barcodes and then send back data immediately to block it (quick enough so it doesn't scan the identical copy the next passenger has in the same group, let alone on a later train) then, fine.

As it is, there are usually restricted routes for which these are valid and often tied to a particular train or seat. Even in Sweden, they've not always scanned the barcode but simply crossed our name off an old-school list on paper. Of course, the X2000 service is reservation only so it's a bit easier to do.

And if staff have connected terminals, they could check if tickets had been collected. If you didn't have time, you could even potentially get the tickets printed on the train at the first opportunity.

But we don't have that yet, so it's not possible. And I could very easily print off a ticket today, give it to my wife, then claim to have had trouble getting my ticket and show a booking reference. Heck, I could even fake a booking reference by just loading an email into any editor and changing the code. After all, the member of staff CANNOT check it as it stands.

I wouldn't do that. You wouldn't do that. But if it was possible to be allowed travel, PLENTY of people WOULD do that.

The issue is obviously cost, and ultimately we're working towards smartcards and that solves a lot of the issues we regularly discuss here. So do you bother with the printed barcodes, or m-tickets on a phone that might have a flat battery when needed, or just skip on to the next generation and hopefully get that right?

Perhaps in the short term, given paper tickets aren't going anywhere overnight even with smartcards, you could have more, smaller, machines that do nothing but print off pre-booked tickets? Perhaps even include scanners (ala petrol pumps for loyalty cards, or Amazon lockers for goods) to scan a code on your printed reservation or on-screen - to save having to enter the reference code. This will then enable people to collect tickets quicker, along with locking the tray until every ticket is collected (or flashing red while printing, and green when ready).

 

[radamfi]

If every member of railway staff that deals with tickets is given suitable hardware to read barcodes and then send back data immediately to block it (quick enough so it doesn't scan the identical copy the next passenger has in the same group, let alone on a later train) then, fine.

DB, NS and NMBS/SNCB all do e-tickets for most or all domestic and many international journeys. The tickets carry a barcode but NMBS/SNCB and NS rarely check it in my experience. It is not really a big deal as it is personalised with your name and can only be used on that day. There's not really a need for such high tech enforcement, as checking the barcode against the passenger name should be adequate. Certainly it is no problem for the railways concerned.

 

[bb21]

DB, NS and NMBS/SNCB all do e-tickets for most or all domestic and many international journeys. The tickets carry a barcode but NMBS/SNCB and NS rarely check it in my experience. It is not really a big deal as it is personalised with your name and can only be used on that day. There's not really a need for such high tech enforcement, as checking the barcode against the passenger name should be adequate. Certainly it is no problem for the railways concerned.

What other countries do cannot always be borrowed and implemented in this country as is. It probably isn't a big deal for NS and SNCB because their fares are low even for the longest possible journey. Do DB check these tickets vigorously? That would be a more compatible indication of how things should be done.

What are fare evasion levels like in other countries? Perhaps there is a different culture in those countries in that respect too? Do those countries allow break of journey? Are long-distance services reservation compulsory in DB land?

I certainly think if e-tickets were to be rolled out across board, enforcements on effective cancellation of flexible tickets would need to be stepped up.

 

[jon0844]

And how is the passenger name verified here? We don't have ID cards, and not everyone has a passport or driving licence.

Rail staff here don't have barcode readers, or carry paper lists. They could on a fairly contained Intercity service, and some do, but I've already mentioned the cost and the fact that printed tickets with barcodes aren't the long term future.

For many years, I've had loads of times a barcode can't be read and just allowed through on trust (not on the railway I might add, rather gigs, exhibitions etc). That's simply not a good solution as it WILL encourage abuse. I have no idea how much abuse goes on elsewhere in the world for that very reason, especially if they're not even regularly checked at all.

 

[radamfi]

Do DB check these tickets vigorously? That would be a more compatible indication of how things should be done.

DB do seem to spend more time checking them, but that may be because a lot of people have them. E-ticketing was so successful in Germany so they stopped machine pick-up. Obviously they also do "Handy-tickets" now (Handy is German for mobile)

In Belgium you can get a "Rail Pass", where you write the origin and destination on a piece of card, giving you 10 trips for about £60 so that is often cheaper than getting a e-ticket for a single trip. In the Netherlands of course the OV-Chipkaart is almost universal now. So e-tickets are only used at the margins in those two countries.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

And how is the passenger name verified here? We don't have ID cards, and not everyone has a passport or driving licence.

In Germany, for printed e-tickets and Handy tickets, you can choose from various options for identification. Bank card, ID card or railcard.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Are long-distance services reservation compulsory in DB land?

No, even ICE high speed trains are not reservation compulsory.

 

[Flamingo]

What about if the passenger has a refundable ticket, or bought it from (?) Southern that don't charge if the ticket is not physically printed out?

 

[infobleep]

Then we will be back down the path of "he could have given his ticket to a friend if we allowed people to travel with only their booking confirmation", etc.

I don't think there is a magic wand until things such as electronic ticketing becomes more wide-spread. Until then it is not possible to bypass the use of station facilities. I would advise anyone in those cases to leave ample time in case things go wrong (and they do from time to time because we don't live in an ideal world).

The fact is that passenger numbers are growing and ticket office staffing levels have been cut so the problem with queues would only get worse if nothing is done. I very rarely leave ticket collection to the day of travel if booked in advance these days for precisely that reason. Sometimes paying a few quid to go to the station the day before collecting all the tickets I need for the following day is worth the peace of mind imo.

I once almost missed a sleeper train with friends because I was having problems printing the tickets. In hindsight I was possibly entering in the wrong reference numbers. The lady had all our names and let us on. I was running late at Paddington because I'd got the times of my train to London wrong so I was in a rush.

What I should have done was collect my tickets in advance. However I wasn't aware at the time that if I choose Paddington as my station to collect the tickets, I could collect them from any machine. I don't think that is made clear enough to passengers.

I chose Paddington because I didn't want to hold tickets to far in advance in case I lost them.

 

[radamfi]

What about if the passenger has a refundable ticket, or bought it from (?) Southern that don't charge if the ticket is not physically printed out?

If you really want that facility, then you have to get a paper ticket. For example, NMBS/SNCB, unsurprisingly, doesn't allow refunds or changes to online tickets:

http://www.belgianrail.be/en/customer-service/FAQ/tickets.aspx

But with mobile tickets, you can buy just before boarding. In fact while you are on the platform waiting for the train (no barriers in Belgium). So there's no real need for refunds.

With smartcards of course, you only pay when you use it.

 

[Delta558]

A printed-off email, together with ID, is sufficient to get me on a Ryanair flight and into a football match at Wembley. I genuinely don't understand why it's not sufficient for the railways.

Both of the examples you have given are situations where there is a finite number of seats, also (I believe), each one of those seats is tied specifically to a ticket. Contrast that with a train, where you could have a little 2-car DMU trundling along and no restriction at all on the number of tickets which could potentially be sold for it. Furthermore, not all advance tickets have reservations; some reserve you on the train but with no seats, others will only reserve you for one portion of your journey. Much easier for somebody to travel on a booking confirmation after having passed the tickets to their friend - try that with Ryanair!

My company has a policy (because of the rural nature of some of our lines) of allowing people to travel on a booking confirmation to start their journey but they must collect their tickets at the first available opportunity. We are aware when specific TVMs are not working, in those cases we will advise accordingly. You wouldn't believe how annoyingly frequent it is, though, that when you explain to a passenger what they have to do they respond with "Oh no, I'll collect them at xxx station" which is invariably their destination station. So frequent, I'd say, that my attitude obviously changes from 'friendly' to 'firm' in the same way it does with our regular fare-dodgers. Probably, in many cases, unwarranted but it shows to me that there is something wrong with 'the system'.

 

[andrewkeith5]

I've noticed a bigger lag between printing each ticket seems to be more common lately. Perhaps this is related to ATOC moving the National Reservation System to another contractor recently?

The Southern machine I used last night seemed to take a lot longer than usual between prints too...to the extent that I was really wondering if it was doing anything at all...

 

[bnm]

I've noticed a bigger lag between printing each ticket seems to be more common lately. Perhaps this is related to ATOC moving the National Reservation System to another contractor recently?

What happened to the 10 year contract for NRS, between ATOC and Capgemini, signed in 2009?

Who is the new contractor and what were the reasons for ATOC dumping Capgemini?

 

[anme]

And how is the passenger name verified here? We don't have ID cards, and not everyone has a passport or driving licence.

Not everyone, but quite a lot of people do have suitable ID.

We shouldn't reject a new *additional* ticketing system just because it won't work for every single person in every possible circumstance. Rail companies sell tickets online, but not everyone has a credit or debit card, or an Internet connection. Even if a new system only helps a 10% of travellers, that's still a lot of people and it might justify investment.

I suspect the reason we haven't seen a similar system to the ones used by DB, NS, NMBS, etc is that, thanks to the fragmented nature of the privatised railway, it would be enormously difficult to introduce one in the UK.