Using The Key as a inboundary Travelcard?

[Joshua_Harman]

Quick question - using the Key as a Travelcard, do you still have to watch the maximum journey times for each sector or are you able to roam at will once inside the barriers?

No.

In my experience if you take your time making a journey your history at the end of the day will just say " (Start Station)to unknown unknown to (End Station)" The only way you can be penalised is if you enter then exit at the same station the gates wont let you back in for about 10 minutes, and you need to either jump on a bus to clear it or show the gate staff, most staff will look at the enter and exit error message on the gate, and let you in , but some are funny about it.

 

[Feuillesmortes]

ITSO cards *should* be interchangeable, and tickets can be added to the card of any train company - for example, you can use your EMR smartcard to buy a ticket at an LNER Travel Centre even if the ticket is for travel on GWR services. However, it may be that an app is tied down to cards issued by the train company in question, and not all apps will allow a ticket to be loaded to a card by NFC. I hope this helps a bit.

Thank you it does. I already have a StagecoachSmart ITSO so I will experiment with different TOC apps.

 

[E759]

Quick question - using the Key as a Travelcard, do you still have to watch the maximum journey times for each sector or are you able to roam at will once inside the barriers?

Travelcard is a ticket. That ticket comes with certain validity, eg Zones and date. You load a Travelcard ticket onto Key. The medium, ITSO, doesn’t change the ticket validity. The barriers read the card and find a ticket.

Maximum journey time is a PAYGO concept so doesn’t apply to a Travelcard ticket.

GTRs PAYGO product, KeyGo, is not compatible with TFL and can only be used on GTR routes.

 

[Feuillesmortes]

Travelcard is a ticket. That ticket comes with certain validity, eg Zones and date. You load a Travelcard ticket onto Key. The medium, ITSO, doesn’t change the ticket validity. The barriers read the card and find a ticket.

Maximum journey time is a PAYGO concept so doesn’t apply to a Travelcard ticket.

GTRs PAYGO product, KeyGo, is not compatible with TFL and can only be used on GTR routes.

So the Key is a smartcard marketed in the greater London area which can be loaded with products including outboundary Travelcards purchased from various TOCs and buses nationwide (but some TOC apps might prevent their products being loaded to it as they prefer their own smartcards).

And Keygo is a pay-as-you-go product specifically for GTR routes which can only be loaded to a Key smartcard.

Is this more or less right?

 

[E759]

So the Key is a smartcard marketed in the greater London area which can be loaded with products including outboundary Travelcards purchased from various TOCs and buses nationwide (but some TOC apps might prevent their products being loaded to it as they prefer their own smartcards).

And Keygo is a pay-as-you-go product specifically for GTR routes which can only be loaded to a Key smartcard.

Is this more or less right?

GTR primarily market Key for use on GTR routes. They don’t as I recall make many suggestions of compatibility with any of their competitors. And why would they, as a Private company do that?

The ability to load Outboundary Travelcards on Key came many years after Key was introduced. It remains effectively hidden from everyone used to the web, smart phones and e-tickets as they only way to buy the Travelcard is from a TVM. [Never tried a Booking Office.] GTR want you to use their TVM so again, no marketing to say use our competitors TVM.

KeyGo is GTRs PAYGO Product for GTR routes only as you say. You need a Key smart card, a Key account, a KeyGo account, an authorised bank account and where applicable a verified Railcard (upload an image and wait for approval). Tap in and and Tap out and at the end of the day it should work out the cheapest tickets for the journeys you have made.

Remember, ITSO simple the need to explain how it works should never arise!

in all seriousnes, the fact that the TOC and Bus companies are all private companies trying to protect their own turf is one of the many reasons for the failure of ITSO.

 

[Haywain]

only way to buy the Travelcard is from a TVM. [Never tried a Booking Office.]

They can also be purchased at ticket offices.

 

[Wallsendmag]

Sorry, but just at the moment you won't find one, because that is an inboundary Travelcard which TOCs are not (yet) permitted to sell to smartcards.

I believe 1-6 are fine you just cant have less than 1-6

 

[Hadders]

Am I able to purchase a Super Off Peak Day Travelcard from Stevenage to London Zones 1-6 with Annual Gold Card and load it onto a smartcard? As far as I am aware I can't do this but happy to be corrected.

 

[Wallsendmag]

Am I able to purchase a Super Off Peak Day Travelcard from Stevenage to London Zones 1-6 with Annual Gold Card and load it onto a smartcard? As far as I am aware I can't do this but happy to be corrected.

Doesn't look like GTR have enabled that on Smartcards

 

[infobleep]

GTR primarily market Key for use on GTR routes. They don’t as I recall make many suggestions of compatibility with any of their competitors. And why would they, as a Private company do that?

The ability to load Outboundary Travelcards on Key came many years after Key was introduced. It remains effectively hidden from everyone used to the web, smart phones and e-tickets as they only way to buy the Travelcard is from a TVM. [Never tried a Booking Office.] GTR want you to use their TVM so again, no marketing to say use our competitors TVM.

KeyGo is GTRs PAYGO Product for GTR routes only as you say. You need a Key smart card, a Key account, a KeyGo account, an authorised bank account and where applicable a verified Railcard (upload an image and wait for approval). Tap in and and Tap out and at the end of the day it should work out the cheapest tickets for the journeys you have made.

Remember, ITSO simple the need to explain how it works should never arise!

in all seriousnes, the fact that the TOC and Bus companies are all private companies trying to protect their own turf is one of the many reasons for the failure of ITSO.

I live in Guildford and hear adverts on LBC for KeyGo, on my smart speaker.

Inimmakdatw think, top up, tap in and go to Guildford and find you can't tap out.

Doesn't look like GTR have enabled that on Smartcards

I have a let smart card which I use to use for
buses in Brighton.

Nowadays I just use plusbus.

I also have a smartcard for South Western Railway but I find the app for getting tickets to be useless and at the time the only way to buy tickets was using the TMV so the excitement wore off and I went back to paper tickets and etickets.

 

[Haywain]

Am I able to purchase a Super Off Peak Day Travelcard from Stevenage to London Zones 1-6 with Annual Gold Card and load it onto a smartcard? As far as I am aware I can't do this but happy to be corrected.

That's a curious one. Although a fare is shown in BRFares.com for the smartcard versions of the Super Off Peak Travelcards, they don't appear in our ticket issuing system as something we can sell, and they don't seem to have any fulfilment method set for them.

 

[miklcct]

I am now confused. Can I buy a smartcard ticket on any train company's app, load it through NFC using the same app onto a smartcard of any train company?

 

[Wallsendmag]

I am now confused. Can I buy a smartcard ticket on any train company's app, load it through NFC using the same app onto a smartcard of any train company?

Not all TOC apps have the ability to load cards, so no

 

[OscarH]

That's a curious one. Although a fare is shown in BRFares.com for the smartcard versions of the Super Off Peak Travelcards, they don't appear in our ticket issuing system as something we can sell, and they don't seem to have any fulfilment method set for them.

I'm guessing this is the 0BX fare? According to RCS its fulfillable for TOCs only and only on smartcard. I would guess the reason it doesn't show up as sellable for you is its also limited to Web TIS's only (though that is a guess)

On a related note I've never understood why GTR still have the separate smartcard fares instead of just having the normal fares fulfillable to smartcard

 

[johncrossley]

I am now confused. Can I buy a smartcard ticket on any train company's app, load it through NFC using the same app onto a smartcard of any train company?

As mentioned above, I couldn't add the GTR smartcard to the EMR app. Just order the EMR smartcard and use the EMR app. It seems the best option for both Travelcards on smartcard and e-Tickets, unless someone knows any better?

 

[Wallsendmag]

On a related note I've never understood why GTR still have the separate smartcard fares instead of just having the normal fares fulfillable to smartcard

Thats a right pain for us at Kings Cross. We're trying to swap customers onto Smartcards when they come in for encodes but the two ticket types makes it just a little awkward

 

[MrJeeves]

Super Off-Peak Day Travelcard doesn't seem to be available for my route. Which for me makes Key useless.

I thought I'd chip in here (albeit very late).

Super Off-peak Travelcards aren't available for the Key smartcard on any route due to a "limitation". There's no smartcard fare for Super Off-peak available which can actually be sold (0BX exists, but can't actually be sold by anyone), while there is a fare for super paper and off-peak smartcards.

I've spoken extensively with GTR about this and there seems to be no plans to provide a super off-peak travelcard at all which can be sold at TVMs or ticket offices.

Furthermore, ticket offices cannot even load any travelcard onto the Key in my experience, or at least staff are not trained correctly on how to do so. If someone were to provide them with the fare code, it could be possible, but even then, when visiting Brighton, the fare appeared but when they went to try and load it, it would disappear as an available option. (Though, they may have been attempting to do it with a super off-peak instead.)

 

[Haywain]

Furthermore, ticket offices cannot even load any travelcard onto the Key in my experience, or at least staff are not trained correctly on how to do so. If someone were to provide them with the fare code, it could be possible, but even then, when visiting Brighton, the fare appeared but when they went to try and load it, it would disappear as an available option. (Though, they may have been attempting to do it with a super off-peak instead.)

This could be because GTR has chosen to set up every smartcard ticket option as a different ticket type to the ‘normal’ versions of the same tickets. I have observed that staff can struggle to find them because of this.

 

[lkpridgeon]

They appear to have jumped the gun somewhat on offering that, as it hasn’t yet been approved by TfL to our knowledge.

Why would that be the case, SWR have allowed loading the same ticket to an ITSO card up until mid last year via their app (but dropped temporarily due to issues) and have done for years. From experience they allow the loading of travelcards and nearly all day tickets for flows within their smartcard area (Surbiton being one of them). So I don't see why EMR wouldn't be allowed to do so too?

https://www.southwesternrailway.com/train-tickets/smart-ticketing/touch-smartcard

You can buy tickets for your smartcard on our website or mobile app and collect them on smartcard readers at stations.

If you’re on an Android device with NFC or iPhone with iOS 13 or later, you can buy tickets from our app and add tickets straight from your smart device onto your SWR Touch Smartcard.

 

[E759]

I recently sent a simple request to GTR asking if the [Outboundary] Super Off Peak One Day Travelcard could be made available on Key and if not to explain why not. GTR responded by sending me a list of ticket types available on Key ... which doesn't include One Day Travelcards at all! I've no appetite for taking this further as the paper ticket remains the quicker ticket to purchase.

It is possible to get a Super Off Peak One Day Travelcard on KeyGo, albeit that is of course a retrospective cheapest fare fulfilment. Nice they get this one right but having to regularly request refunds for journeys outside London where the wrong fare has been used doesn't inspire confidence.

 

[717001]

I recently sent a simple request to GTR asking if the [Outboundary] Super Off Peak One Day Travelcard could be made available on Key and if not to explain why not. GTR responded by sending me a list of ticket types available on Key ... which doesn't include One Day Travelcards at all! I've no appetite for taking this further as the paper ticket remains the quicker ticket to purchase.

It is possible to get a Super Off Peak One Day Travelcard on KeyGo, albeit that is of course a retrospective cheapest fare fulfilment. Nice they get this one right but having to regularly request refunds for journeys outside London where the wrong fare has been used doesn't inspire confidence.

KeyGo doesn’t work on TfL services and Super Off-peak GTR tickets are not available on the Key unfortunately.

 

[MrJeeves]

Nice they get this one right but having to regularly request refunds for journeys outside London where the wrong fare has been used doesn't inspire confidence.

I've honestly not had any keyGo issues so far, except my tap-in at Brighton appearing a day late, and me manually completing my journey, resulting in an extra tap in showing after the late touch in was added to my account.

Called GTR's Key team on the phone and had the explanation for the incomplete journey noted and received an email a week or so later saying I wouldn't be charged any fare as it was an issue their end.



I am still frustrated that the WebTIS is the only thing that can issue SOP day travelcards, yet even spoofing HTTP requests to try and trick it into selling one to you complains that it is an invalid fare ID.

 

[OscarH]

I've honestly not had any keyGo issues so far, except my tap-in at Brighton appearing a day late, and me manually completing my journey, resulting in an extra tap in showing after the late touch in was added to my account.

Called GTR's Key team on the phone and had the explanation for the incomplete journey noted and received an email a week or so later saying I wouldn't be charged any fare as it was an issue their end.

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Interestingly, I had a similar thing at Littlehampton, where for a couple of weeks the barriers were turned off (not just left open), so I used the standalone validator which didn't register to the tap to the backend for a few days, but in my case it simply silently replaced the manual completion in my account with the actual tap data, I wonder what the rules are for it to properly consolidate a late tap registering and a manual completion

 

[MrJeeves]

Interestingly, I had a similar thing at Littlehampton, where for a couple of weeks the barriers were turned off (not just left open), so I used the standalone validator which didn't register to the tap to the backend for a few days, but in my case it simply silently replaced the manual completion in my account with the actual tap data, I wonder what the rules are for it to properly consolidate a late tap registering and a manual completion

I very much got the time for my manual tap in wrong by about 20 mins.

This was the actual gateline at Brighton, so maybe they're more forgiving for the standalone readers compared to the standard gatelines?

 

[OscarH]

I very much got the time for my manual tap in wrong by about 20 mins.

This was the actual gateline at Brighton, so maybe they're more forgiving for the standalone readers compared to the standard gatelines?

Possible the standalone's are more forgiving yeah, I think I put the times in within 5 minutes of the actual tap, so could be that too