Why don't e-tickets offer compostage?

[All Line Rover]

PDF e-tickets are excellent for passengers with their convenience and flexibility. No need to queue to collect them, accessible from any electronic device, able to be backed up as many times as needed (including by printing a copy) and easy to forward to another passenger if purchased on their behalf.

On the other hand, they can be fraudulently reused if they are not scanned by a guard or ticket machine (which, in my experience of long-distance journeys across the UK, happens the majority of the time).

Additionally, for honest passengers - particularly those, like myself, who travel often and sporadically - using an e-ticket for period returns (valid for one calendar month) makes it easy to forget whether the return portion has already been used. Even if the e-ticket is scanned, there is no mark on the e-ticket to say it has been used.

Why, then, doesn't the rail industry require compostage for e-tickets? It would solve both of the above issues. If e-tickets included a URL which passengers were required to tap/access before commencing their journey to "register" their ticket, this would ensure that the ticket could only be used/registered once and would allow the rail industry to tell the passenger if the ticket has already been used. The ability to break a journey could be retained, by allowing passengers the option to specify an intermediate station as the next destination in their journey.

Thoughts?

 

[mikeg]

How would this work with split ticketing? I'd be dead against this. High risk stations have these things called ticket gates which will generate a scan anyway.

 

[bakerstreet]

I can see the point here but I’d be concerned about yet another layer of (prosecutable?) confusion.

Would it become a strict liability criminal offence not to compostage?

Or would it be optional - ie to resolve your specific confusion over which ticket you have already used.

Will every station require compostage facilities or would you need a smart phone with signal to compostage where there are no gates/readers?

Would both pax and staff have a clear understanding of how this works or will staff make up alternative regulations/ pax just be confused.

Do we need more ways for already confused passengers to fall foul of complex ticketing with serious legal consequences from a prosecuting body some are already concerned about?

Ok for countries where this is the long held convention but to add on to such a mess of ticketing which seems to being made more not less messy I would rather not have this.

 

[yorkie]

I strongly object to compostage being a requirement; it would criminalise even more passengers and create additional burdens and complications to the ticketing system.

However I do agree customers should be able to view their scan history; did you see this thread from 2023?

It was briefly possible to see whether a ticket had been scanned, but RDG put a stop to it.
See:

Website with in-depth technical description of Aztec (barcode) tickets

I stumbled upon this website today. I have to admit, I didn't understand a lot of the technical aspects of the site, but I thought if it would be of interest to anyone in the world, they would be member of this forum! "But what data is inside the barcode of a mobile ticket, and how do they...

www.railforums.co.uk

I certainly think that should be accessible to the ticket holder from the sales site used to purchase the ticket. If the railway intends to use it against someone, then they should be able to see it. It's only a quirk of how it is stored in two separate databases that prevents a subject access request being used to get it.

Train companies won't want people to view their scan history as this data can currently be used as evidence against passengers and it may reduce the ability of companies to maximise the value of our of court settlements when people are suspected of fraudulent use of tickets.

Arguably customers do have the right to this data under GDPR however, at present, this entails a manual request to the data protection officer of the relevant company/companies who may hold the data.

If a lot of people were to make such requests, this could effectively force the rail industry to make it more freely available.

 

[redreni]

I can see the point of this, but it sounds very fiddly and inconvenient and appears to rely on people having an internet connection at the point where they decide to start, break or resume a journey.

The issue you identify in your first post (tickets not scanned on long distance journeys) might reflect the experience of somebody who gets out and about all around the network, including the lesser used services, but I'm pretty sure the stations and routes that generate most of the revenue do have revenue protection in place in one form or another. And most people aren't travelling on flexible anytime or off-peak tickets (and many of those that are aren't paying for it themselves, so have no incentive to dodge the fare). You can't re-use advances.

If I'm wrong and these tickets aren't being checked, I'd see checking them as a good solution for this. If there are no ticket checks happening at all, then obviously there will be a significant risk of revenue loss regardless of what the rules are.

I'm also wondering what the re-use case is for the average traveller? I suppose if somebody travels regularly from an ungated station near London (say Cookham) to Exeter and buys an anytime or off-peak return, then if the return portion isn't scanned, the next time they travel they could just buy a single and re-use the return potion of the first ticket to come back. But they'd have to have avoided passing through any gates either at their origin or at interchange points, as well as not have the guard scan their ticket. Are there really that many journeys taken by large numbers of people where this would happen?

 

[yorkie]

I was nearly charged about 80 euros by TrenItalia for not composting an e-ticket earlier this year.

I had previously purchased such a ticket last year when compostage was not required. It has put me off using trains in Italy and travel to Italy (I much prefer visiting places like the Czech Republic, and buying a 'One ticket' which isn't a concept that exists in more backwards-thinking countries such as Italy, Spain & France).

Fortunately, the Trenitalia inspector who was being a jobsworth towards me was overruled by a more senior colleague.

Any attempt to introduce compostage in the UK must be strongly resisted.

 

[gordonthemoron]

Presumably this is why LNER want to replace period returns with single tickets?

 

[yorkie]

Presumably this is why LNER want to replace period returns with single tickets?

It will probably be their main reason; as well as being able to use single leg pricing as an excuse to increase the cost (but that's another story!)

Of course what TOCs say publicly is often very different to what they are really thinking

 

[Belperpete]

Surely if you have come back, then the return portion has been used? Okay, perhaps if you have come back a different way, then you might still have the return portion unused, but this surely is not a very frequent occurrence.

E tickets are not available for almost all the journeys I make, and knowing whether you have used a ticket or not is not a problem with old fashioned card tickets.

 

[xotGD]

Perhaps simply deleting the pdf from your phone on completion of the journey is the easier way to avoid this dilemma?

And am I the only person who has never heard of the term "compostage" meaning validate?

 

[Haywain]

Whilst I would like to be able to see scan records for eTickets out of curiosity, I think needing to do so to establish whether the return portion of a ticket has been used is a very niche requirement.

 

[OscarH]

E tickets are not available for almost all the journeys I make, and knowing whether you have used a ticket or not is not a problem with old fashioned card tickets

The problem is the same with CCST unless you're at one of the gates that happens to swallow tickets, or it's marked with a biro? Both of which are fairly rare in my experience

 

[yorkie]

E tickets are not available for almost all the journeys I make, and knowing whether you have used a ticket or not is not a problem with old fashioned card tickets.

It's not fundamentally different; if it has been used it's no longer valid (notwithstanding it may be partially used and the journey broken and resumed en-route)

The advantage for TOCs with barcode tickets is that only they have a record regarding whether the ticket has been checked (unless the passenger makes their own record or puts in a request), wheras for paper tickets the customer can see any such record as it is marked on the physical ticket.

Old fashioned card tickets are being phased out anyway; many ticket issuing systems now issue barcode tickets on flimsy paper; this has been documented in other threads.

 

[Watershed]

Surely if you have come back, then the return portion has been used? Okay, perhaps if you have come back a different way, then you might still have the return portion unused, but this surely is not a very frequent occurrence.

E tickets are not available for almost all the journeys I make, and knowing whether you have used a ticket or not is not a problem with old fashioned card tickets.

If you make a variety of journeys using different period return tickets, and break your journey en-route, it can be very tricky to keep track of what use you have made of each ticket.

Obviously not a scenario that applies to everyone but it is certainly one I can envisage applying to a certain proportion of Railforum users...

 

[signed]

If both stations are barriered, I don't see why that's needed

Just have an app (either the TOC's or something akin to NR Smartcard Manager) that can allow to track the usage of a ticket

 

[Krokodil]

I'm also wondering what the re-use case is for the average traveller? I suppose if somebody travels regularly from an ungated station near London (say Cookham) to Exeter and buys an anytime or off-peak return, then if the return portion isn't scanned, the next time they travel they could just buy a single and re-use the return potion of the first ticket to come back. But they'd have to have avoided passing through any gates either at their origin or at interchange points, as well as not have the guard scan their ticket. Are there really that many journeys taken by large numbers of people where this would happen?

Open return re-use is a massive issue. It seems to be particularly endemic with international students who are living in major cities and commuting quite long distances (often two hours each way) to provincial universities. No idea why they don't just rent locally.

Sometimes you'd scan a paper roll ticket or an e-ticket and it comes up with a dozen previous journeys (charge anew; confiscate paper roll and report e-tickets to Digital Fraud team). Sometimes it's CCSTs where you're being presented with a return portion of a ticket only bought ten minutes ago so clearly the outward portion has not been used (mark date in a pen that won't wipe off).

Before anyone mentions breaks of journey, the restriction codes on almost all of the journeys I have in mind prohibit BoJ. Even if they didn't, this lot are going through to the destination.

Of course as we crack down on one form of evasion, they try others. Short-faring (you either need a good memory for who should be getting off or you can try to make your inspections at unpredictable points in the journey) or the classic tricks of pretending to sleep or hiding in the toilet.

International students do crop up in the disputes section regularly so it's not just my area that's seeing this.

 

[cheekybifta]

If e-tickets included a URL which passengers were required to tap/access before commencing their journey to "register" their ticket, this would ensure that the ticket could only be used/registered once and would allow the rail industry to tell the passenger if the ticket has already been used. The ability to break a journey could be retained, by allowing passengers the option to specify an intermediate station as the next destination in their journey.

Thoughts?

You would lose the current ability to decide if/when/where to break your journey after you've already boarded.

 

[Adam Williams]

And am I the only person who has never heard of the term "compostage" meaning validate?

It's a weird French word. It's not valid in English.

 

[Tazi Hupefi]

There is one TOC (at least) currently considering "Comfort Checkin" - same concept as DB.

You essentially check-in yourself and aren't disturbed by the conductor etc during your journey, and it also gives you access to the onboard menu, personalised train running, connections etc.

I believe they're looking at putting unique barcodes at each seat that you'd scan as part of this, as well as some sort of connection to the reservation system.

 

[Haywain]

There is one TOC (at least) currently considering "Comfort Checkin" - same concept as DB.

You essentially check-in yourself and aren't disturbed by the conductor etc during your journey, and it also gives you access to the onboard menu, personalised train running, connections etc.

I believe they're looking at putting unique barcodes at each seat that you'd scan as part of this, as well as some sort of connection to the reservation system.

That, however, wouldn't be a compulsory requirement (as it was explained in a meeting I attended some time ago) and would be related to the ticket held.

 

[Tazi Hupefi]

There is one TOC (at least) currently considering "Comfort Checkin" - same concept as DB.

You essentially check-in yourself and aren't disturbed by the conductor etc during your journey, and it also gives you access to the onboard menu, personalised train running, connections etc.

I believe they're looking at putting unique barcodes at each seat that you'd scan as part of this, as well as some sort of connection to the reservation system.

Precisely, it's intended as a benefit for the customer, virtual travel companion and remaining undisturbed during their journey.

 

[Bungle965]

That, however, wouldn't be a compulsory requirement (as it was explained in a meeting I attended some time ago) and would be related to the ticket held.

Presumably if the customer held a Railcard that again wouldn't be eligible and would still have to be checked?

 

[Haywain]

Presumably if the customer held a Railcard that again wouldn't be eligible and would still have to be checked?

I have no idea. At the time it was discussed it was little more than an outline of an idea, with an overview of how DB do it.

 

[redreni]

Open return re-use is a massive issue. [...]

Yes, but for the purposes of this thread we are concerned only with the re-use of open returns where they weren't scanned the first time they were used, surely? Because the measure proposed by the OP might conceivably help address that. Always assuming the cases you're talking about are all cases of re-use, as distinct from piecemeal use.

I would also to like ask (without pretending to know the answer) whether you think these international students and others would believe they could get away with re-using the return portion of an open return ticket if somebody had stamped it, punched a hole in it, or scribbled something on it to indicate it was used?

Assuming the point is to get people to comply, rather than to hope they don't comply and then extract a lot of revenue from them through penalty fares or prosecutions or settlements made under threat of prosecution, surely it would be helpful to make the process of marking a ticket as used transparent to the passenger? Being cagey about how much the railway knows from scan data is anti-passenger, in my view.

I think most non-expert, non-nerdy passengers would instinctively appreciate, for example, that if you have a ticket from A to C and you are on a train that runs direct from A to C, but you want to break your journey at intermediate station B, then if your ticket is checked between A and B you need to explain, before you hand it over, that you're only going as far as B at the moment. Otherwise, the ticket's going to be stamped and it will look like it's been wholly used. At which point every guard or RPI I've ever encountered would take out a biro and mark the ticket as used from A to B. I'm not sure what provision is made for this scenario with e-tickets? I certainly wouldn't object to the facility for partial compostage to be provided as per the OP's first post, provided it wasn't mandatory.

That way, the vast majority of passengers who are going between the named stations on their tickets without breaking their journey wouldn't be inconvenienced or caught out, but those who want to break their journey would have a ready way of putting it on record that (in the example above) they were only going as far as B, so any scan by a guard or RPI between A and B would not be seen as affecting the ticket's future validity for travel between B and C.

 

[renegademaster]

Everyone would just go back to do the old paper anytime return trick

 

[redreni]

Everyone would just go back to do the old paper anytime return trick

It only works on credit card sized tickets, though, and they're becoming less and less common. There's no right to insist on one - if the ticket is issued on bog roll stock with a barcode, that's just how it comes. And I think people are thinking ahead to a time when most TVMs printing tickets bought online will issue them with a barcode rather than a mag stripe.

 

[renegademaster]

becoming less and less common

Nearly all stations in the Southeast are CCST only it's hardly like the dodo

 

[nwales58]

Could we call it 'validation' or some other term that is clear in english please.

 

[redreni]

Nearly all stations in the Southeast are CCST only it's hardly like the dodo

They used to be standard everywhere and now they're not, therefore they're already less common than once they were. And there are plans to phase them out completely.

How long that might take is debatable, with the need to issue a lot of cross-London tickets being a major disincentive for TOCs in the Network SE area to switch over (though that hasn't stopped SWR), but I don't think 'less and less common' is unfair.

I'm fairly sure the OP was thinking ahead to when paper tickets are no longer an option - I certainly was in my replies.

 

[Haywain]

How long that might take is debatable, with the need to issue a lot of cross-London tickets being a major disincentive for TOCs in the Network SE area to switch over (though that hasn't stopped SWR), but I don't think 'less and less common' is unfair.

And even in the south-east there are huge numbers of journeys being undertaken by people using eTickets and smartcards, so the statement is valid even there.