Why I prefer to use a ticket office and obtain a physical ticket

[OscarH]

In what way are they problematic? I have an electronic railcard and have no difficulty. Why would I want to rely on piece of cardboard or plastic which I may or may not have with me at a given time and, if I chose to always have with me, would be just more clutter in my wallet?

I pay for my shopping in supermarkets by phone, my Clubcard and similar items are on my phone. I access my bank account by phone. If I use a bus my ticket is on my phone. Why would I uniquely want a piece of card or plastic for a railcard?

For me its the fact they're like m-Tickets, rather than e-Tickets. If you got a PDF and you could add it to Google Pay I'd probably choose it rather than a plastic one, but unfortunately while Railcards are stuck in an unreliable app, and have silly restrictions like it having to be opened with an internet connection every 72 hours they're just not suitable for me. Particularly because of the risk of prosecution associated with not being able to show a railcard, if I can't have an offline format which isn't reliant on a 3rd party service then I'm not going to choose the digital option until I'm forced to (or the unlikely event it gets fixed).

Whether the trade off is worth it is personal opinion, as someone who always carries a wallet (for backup/cards that can't be used with GPay) then the benefit of having the railcard on my phone doesn't outweigh the risk especially without the inconvinience of it being in a different app to my tickets, but for someone who prefers not to carry a wallet then I can see it being a different matter

 

[Spamcan81]

I don’t understand this obsession with wanting all tickets to be digital and dissing those who prefer paper tickets.
I’m a “silver surfer” who’s fully conversant with electronic tickets etc. but prefers to use a manned ticket office whenever possible. I much prefer dealing with a human being than a soulless machine.

 

[jfollows]

I don’t understand this obsession with wanting all tickets to be digital and dissing those who prefer paper tickets.
I’m a “silver surfer” who’s fully conversant with electronic tickets etc. but prefers to use a manned ticket office whenever possible. I much prefer dealing with a human being than a soulless machine.

I'm probably being very boring and repeating myself, sorry, but I completely agree with you.
I resigned from a job in 2008 because it became one in which I was expected to spend most of my time working from home, and I got a new job with a view of the WCML (just south of Warrington) and people to talk to.
This week I have resigned from voluntary roles with a charity because they've moved to using "Zoom" and "Teams" and so on for their meetings. This was fine during the worst of Covid-19 but I'm not prepared to continue doing it.
Not a problem with the technology or my ability to use it, I just don't like it.

 

[sor]

That sounds like the sort of reassurance that BT gave about telephone boxes when mobile phone ownership reduced their profits from them. How many mugs are going tobelieve the same sort of argument about the ability to use the only form of transaction that they have, i.e. cash, when making essential rail journeys.

IIRC the number of phone boxes was regulated, the requirement was that BT maintain some presence though could reduce duplication (eg one box per village instead of several). The further decline was due to increased mobile use + offering a carrot in the form of a beefed up broadband rollout, and if you asked people whether they wanted a phone box they've never used or better internet then the result would be obvious. They must still maintain them in certain places (poor mobile signal, accident hotspot, high usage etc), and that's similar to where we'd probably be with ticket offices in time.

In what way are they problematic? I have an electronic railcard and have no difficulty. Why would I want to rely on piece of cardboard or plastic which I may or may not have with me at a given time and, if I chose to always have with me, would be just more clutter in my wallet?

I pay for my shopping in supermarkets by phone, my Clubcard and similar items are on my phone. I access my bank account by phone. If I use a bus my ticket is on my phone. Why would I uniquely want a piece of card or plastic for a railcard?

Up thread I posted about my own issues with it (and since its the 26-30 I had no choice in the matter). The things you mention all have physical alternatives that have no reliance on a charged & working mobile phone. No such alternative for the 26-30 railcard, though there still is for the rest of them. Given the rather harsh rules in place then the current situation is rather unfair for passengers

 

[miklcct]

Just to add to this why people like to speak to someone in person and purchase a ticket at the station, I just purchased a ticket for Wednesday via GN/Thameslink website. The process was fairly straight forward, until payment was complete and my e-ticket sent to the email address associated with my paypal account. The file format the ticket is sent as is a PKPASS format. Nothing on my windows 10 PC would open it natively so I've had to google the file format to find and install an application to open them and print off a hard copy. Seems this is aimed at Apple products, mainly iphones.... Why they simply couldn't email the e-ticket as a PDF the same way Trainline sent the tickets through the time mentioned in my post above I don't know. For some this experience is off putting and steers people away form purchasing online.

User error.... found the option in the email to open as pdf....!

I have no problem obtaining e-tickets in PDF format bought from Southern.

 

[ashkeba]

I don’t understand this obsession with wanting all tickets to be digital and dissing those who prefer paper tickets.
I’m a “silver surfer” who’s fully conversant with electronic tickets etc. but prefers to use a manned ticket office whenever possible. I much prefer dealing with a human being than a soulless machine.

The trouble with ticket offices is sometimes you get a kind soul and other times you get a different sort of "'soul". And also the queues, always when you have least time to spare!

I prefer etickets because I have lost CCST and not noticed until challenged (about 20 years ago: the RMT-pin-wearing guard allowed me to buy a straight £5 replacement single probably because I had other tickets for earlier parts of the jorney and had only lost one) but I have never lost a phone without knowing about it, plus I can keep copies of etickets on another device or printout as backups.

 

[Bletchleyite]

In what way are they problematic? I have an electronic railcard and have no difficulty. Why would I want to rely on piece of cardboard or plastic which I may or may not have with me at a given time and, if I chose to always have with me, would be just more clutter in my wallet?

The implementation is faulty. Even an m-ticket, once downloaded to a phone, stays there until you use it or remove it. The Railcard apps require, for no logical reason, a periodic "check-in" with the server, and if that server fails (which happens frequently) can just disappear. As the railway these days is near zero-tolerance when it comes to enforcement, that isn't acceptable to me.

As soon as the implementation is fixed to at least m-ticket standards (but ideally e-ticket, so I can just have it as a barcoded PKPASS on my iPhone) I'll get one.

I'm fine with e-tickets and use them whenever they are offered, though one thing I'd like to see change is to add the ability to verify them online yourself and see what "clips" they have so as to ensure you don't accidentally use a ticket you've used and forgotten you have. I've even used m-tickets though they're not my preference. (Odd one: Bletchley to Wylde Green Super Off Peak yesterday wasn't e-ticketable, which is odd as all other non-Travelcard LNR flows I've encountered are).

I pay for my shopping in supermarkets by phone, my Clubcard and similar items are on my phone. I access my bank account by phone. If I use a bus my ticket is on my phone. Why would I uniquely want a piece of card or plastic for a railcard?

It's still a little unwise to carry ONLY your phone and no backup method of payment, even if it's a card from a different bank slipped into your phone case (some newer cases have a foil pocket to stop it being picked up when paying contactless). Google/Apple Pay do very occasionally fail when using the associated card works fine straight afterwards. It doesn't happen often, but one failure is enough to leave you stuck a long way from home. And there are still places that take card but not Apple/Google Pay, e.g. the M6 Toll (though that really needs upgrading to "freeflow" with payment either online or via a terminal at service stations - the latter could even allow cash acceptance to be reinstated via purchasing a voucher at WH Smugg's Voucher Shop at the services). I'd just sign up an account with my debit card as I have for Dartford even though I hardly ever use it!

For me, every time I leave the house (unless just going for a local walk/run with no intention of spending anything), keys wallet phone. My Network Railcard lives in my wallet, so I can't forget it. Is the opposition for this due to the recent trend for wearing very tight jeans and chinos so a real need to cut down the thickness of a wallet? (I don't have the body for that!)

 

[jfollows]

The implementation is faulty. Even an m-ticket, once downloaded to a phone, stays there until you use it or remove it. The Railcard apps require, for no logical reason, a periodic "check-in" with the server, and if that server fails (which happens frequently) can just disappear. As the railway these days is near zero-tolerance when it comes to enforcement, that isn't acceptable to me.

Thank you, I knew that bad things could happen to digital railcards but this helps explain why also.
I mean, if I had to "validate" my plastic railcards every few weeks it'd be silly wouldn't it? But it's as if this were the case for the digital variety. I'll reconsider my opposition to them when this silliness goes away!

 

[Watershed]

The Railcard apps require, for no logical reason, a periodic "check-in" with the server, and if that server fails (which happens frequently) can just disappear.

The reason is ostensibly to allow for a mechanism of removing a Railcard from a device, even if it goes "incommunicado".

But that seems an awfully cack-handed way of handling that situation; if e-ticket PDFs can be shared through email/WhatsApp etc. then why should Railcards be treated differently? Unlike e-tickets, they are unambiguously tied to the holder - there's a name and photo!

It's an implementation that harkens back to the days of m-tickets and which, frankly, needs a complete rethink.

 

[sor]

Thank you, I knew that bad things could happen to digital railcards but this helps explain why also.
I mean, if I had to "validate" my plastic railcards every few weeks it'd be silly wouldn't it? But it's as if this were the case for the digital variety. I'll reconsider my opposition to them when this silliness goes away!

The apps seem especially pointless when both Apple and Google have virtual wallets designed for storing this stuff. if it can be trusted with an airline boarding pass (£x000s theoretically) or a gift card (again, £x000s if you chose to load it up) then I'm sure a personalised £30 railcard is nothing. That, *as an option*, plus printable PDF like an e ticket would seem to be the better way to scrap plastic cards.

 

[Bletchleyite]

An airline boarding pass is worth nothing on its own. The thing that "protects" the flight and ensures nobody else uses it is your passport or ID card, particularly now they are generally associated to a specific passport number AND name due to Advance Passenger Information requirements.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 1 Aug 2022 ==

The reason is ostensibly to allow for a mechanism of removing a Railcard from a device, even if it goes "incommunicado".

But that seems an awfully cack-handed way of handling that situation; if e-ticket PDFs can be shared through email/WhatsApp etc. then why should Railcards be treated differently? Unlike e-tickets, they are unambiguously tied to the holder - there's a name and photo!

It's an implementation that harkens back to the days of m-tickets and which, frankly, needs a complete rethink.

If their designers/developers had bothered to, as you say, think, then they'd have designed the system so a Railcard was only removed from a device if actually blacklisted (i.e. a successful connection to the server, send the card number, get back "yes, it is blacklisted"), not if the connection failed in some way. Yes, someone could put their phone in flight mode to keep it that way, but who's going to carry a second phone permanently on flight mode for that purpose? This design comes from the sort of views that put the railway off e-ticketing for so long.

Edit: hmm, you can block an app from Internet access, I can see the gap there. But again would most people think to do that? And you could still do something like a window of doing the check, e.g. if the app wasn't able to connect for a whole month then blacklist at the end of that month rather than relying on one connection.

 

[TUC]

I don’t understand this obsession with wanting all tickets to be digital and dissing those who prefer paper tickets.
I’m a “silver surfer” who’s fully conversant with electronic tickets etc. but prefers to use a manned ticket office whenever possible. I much prefer dealing with a human being than a soulless machine.

I much prefer being able to search at leisure for different ticketing options, and being able to buy them inline freely, without worrying about someone challenging what is a perfectly legal ticket/routing.

 

[philthetube]

The people who do not/cannot use e tickets are likely to be the same ones as those who would not post on a forum so posts on here are by no means representative.

The generation not happy with tech are generally those who retired before the arrival of smart phones and wide internet use.

Usually those over 80

 

[Bletchleyite]

The people who do not/cannot use e tickets are likely to be the same ones as those who would not post on a forum so posts on here are by no means representative.

The generation not happy with tech are generally those who retired before the arrival of smart phones and wide internet use.

Usually those over 80

And as I mentioned as those people age fewer and fewer of them will be in a position to travel without assistance. And eventually there'll be none left at all.

The current generation of highly mobile pensioners are Boomers like my parents, most of whom have at least basic technical competence - you'll not find many of them going to a travel agency for their sleasyJet or Eireflop flight.

Older people are more likely to want to print e-tickets than use them on a phone, but printers are about £50, so they'll just buy one. The strength of the format is that you can present it as you wish.

 

[philthetube]

And as I mentioned as those people age fewer and fewer of them will be in a position to travel without assistance. And eventually there'll be none left at all.

The current generation of highly mobile pensioners are Boomers like my parents, most of whom have at least basic technical competence - you'll not find many of them going to a travel agency for their sleasyJet or Eireflop flight.

Older people are more likely to want to print e-tickets than use them on a phone, but printers are about £50, so they'll just buy one. The strength of the format is that you can present it as you wish.

agreed, but we have a bit to go yet before this happens.

The other issue I see is that the ticketing system has along way to go before e tickets become the only option, leaving aside LUL there are loads of posts on here concerning tickets which cannot be bought as E tickets.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 1 Aug 2022 ==

This is probably a case where you need to get the relevant reservations from a ticket office.

just noticed this on as a case in point. from this thread. Euston to Tyndrum Lower/Upper Tyndrum with a 2 Together Railcard

 

[Haywain]

just noticed this on as a case in point. from this thread. Euston to Tyndrum Lower/Upper Tyndrum with a 2 Together Railcard

That's a very unusual case and it appears that buying the tickets, and getting the reservations online, isn't out of the question. But as most people have much simpler travel requirements it is far from representative.

 

[Philip]

Do these online ticket systems suggest purchasing a family railcard (in clear terms) for someone who is booking tickets and is eligible for one, when the cost of the tickets without a railcard is more than the railcard and discounted tickets put together? Or a 2 together railcard for that matter?

I'm asking whether this is the case now, not what could be made available online in the future.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Do these online ticket systems suggest purchasing a family railcard (in clear terms) for someone who is booking tickets and is eligible for one, when the cost of the tickets without a railcard is more than the railcard and discounted tickets put together? Or a 2 together railcard for that matter?

I'm asking whether this is the case now, not what could be made available online in the future.

Most booking offices don't either, so it's irrelevant. Professional booking offices which give quality advice rather than the easiest answer are in my experience a small minority.

That's what they should be, but they aren't.

 

[philthetube]

That's a very unusual case and it appears that buying the tickets, and getting the reservations online, isn't out of the question. But as most people have much simpler travel requirements it is far from representative.

Agreed, but if I trawl through the forum I can find plenty more, I had just noticed this one when reading this thread.

 

[Bletchleyite]

That's a very unusual case and it appears that buying the tickets, and getting the reservations online, isn't out of the question. But as most people have much simpler travel requirements it is far from representative.

And the vast, vast majority of booking office staff would just come out with "the computer says no". The quality of advice obtained on here is vastly better than that obtained at most booking offices, particularly the likes of Merseyrail ones which have difficulty with even the simplest stuff at times.

They SHOULD be a source of knowledgeable professional advice but most are nothing of the sort.

 

[ashkeba]

And you could still do something like a window of doing the check, e.g. if the app wasn't able to connect for a whole month then blacklist at the end of that month rather than relying on one connection.

I believe from the FAQ and a brief test of someone else's that this is indeed how it works, except that the card is disabled after 24 hours unable to connect, rather than a month. So just check your railcard copies the evening (less than 24h before the end of your journey) you will rely on them and take action if one is disabled. They seem not quite as bad as m-tickets for paranoid checking, but I agree with others that it could be done better.

Where app railcards win is speed of issuing. No need to wait for the post and lose days of validity. No need to wait for the ticket office to open (and be willing to issue!) and queue up.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I believe from the FAQ and a brief test of someone else's that this is indeed how it works, except that the card is disabled after 24 hours unable to connect, rather than a month. So just check your railcard copies the evening (less than 24h before the end of your journey) you will rely on them and take action if one is disabled. They seem not quite as bad as m-tickets for paranoid checking, but I agree with others that it could be done better.

Where app railcards win is speed of issuing. No need to wait for the post and lose days of validity. No need to wait for the ticket office to open (and be willing to issue!) and queue up.

You don't lose days of validity for a postal Railcard. The first one gets a few extra days on the validity to cover it, and when you renew you can do that up to a month before expiry.

It's only a nuisance if you forgot you needed one for a journey in the next few days, but most "individual" Railcard holders just keep one active all the time.

So all they need to do to fix this to any useful extent is to see what their longest downtime has been, triple it and set that as the timeout. Fixed! I bet it's one line of code.

 

[Philip]

Most booking offices don't either, so it's irrelevant. Professional booking offices which give quality advice rather than the easiest answer are in my experience a small minority.

That's what they should be, but they aren't.

Yes they do. Perhaps you have experienced some which don't, but the majority of booking offices do give this kind of advice to help save passengers money.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Yes they do. Perhaps you have experienced some which don't, but I the majority of booking offices do give this kind of advice to help save passengers money.

I have not had good service at a booking office for as long as I can remember. Even the old guy at Aughton Park when I was a kid was friendly, but he was really utterly clueless, e.g. a request for a ticket to London valid via the Chiltern Line got the classic Merseyrail bone-idle "you'll need to ask Lime St for that", and when I did I was told there was no such thing (false) and to rebook at Birmingham (also false).

I've also had "helpful" advice that's made a mess of what we were trying to do. For example a while back I sent one of our Scout leaders to the booking office at Bletchley while I was faffing sorting out what the kids were doing (probably should have done it the other way) with a written request for a very specific set of GroupSave tickets (back when they were neither sold online or at TVMs and offered child discounts). The booking office found a "better idea", which unfortunately was bad advice and resulted in us needing to swap our planned groups around. Unfortunately by then there wasn't time to go back, refund them and get the correct ones.

In the end they're undertrained (you almost need a degree to understand the ticketing system, and so that's what a ticketing professional should effectively have unless that gets fixed) and far too many are just bone-idle to boot, such as the useless idiot at City Thameslink who didn't even know the restrictions of an Off Peak Single for a direct journey from that station and refused to look them up.

 

[ashkeba]

You don't lose days of validity for a postal Railcard. The first one gets a few extra days on the validity to cover it, and when you renew you can do that up to a month before expiry.

It's only a nuisance if you forgot you needed one for a journey in the next few days, but most "individual" Railcard holders just keep one active all the time.

The "few extra days" was not usually sufficient to cover the time it took to arrive by post. Maybe for you big city types the post is fast enough. And I used to not directly renew because I was often out of the country on annual leave when they expired, so what point having a UK railcard then? I am surprised if most people get continuous ones and do not time their expiry for when they do not need one.

After one of the recent travel-discourage times, I did indeed forget I needed to renew for a journey, which is why I went electronic.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The "few extra days" was not usually sufficient to cover the time it took to arrive by post. Maybe for you big city types the post is fast enough.

There have been odd postal delay issues due to COVID, but generally speaking, unless you're Highlands and Islands, post arrives the next working day, even second class.

 

[Haywain]

Agreed, but if I trawl through the forum I can find plenty more, I had just noticed this one when reading this thread.

And the cases on this forum are far from typical of what the majority of rail travellers want.

 

[AlterEgo]

What I am unhappy with is paying my money for your old fashioned life choices. Cash processing is expensive and fraught with risk of theft. Are you happy to pay extra to fully cover the cost of the sale of paper tickets for cash from a booking office? If so I am happy for their provision to continue.

Yes this really is the solution. Paper tickets use, well, paper, laminate and carbon, and should be subject to a nominal fee of 20p in the same way we have a surcharge plastic bags now. Took a couple of years but I now take reusable bags everywhere.

 

[Bread & cheese]

I don't buy tickets in advance of travel.
The tickets I buy are reasonably-priced day returns or period returns, and advance singles wouldn't work out cheaper.
If there's serious disruption on the day I've planned a journey, I'll postpone the journey. (If I'm going away, I'm staying with family or friends. We can be flexible about times or days of travel.)
So not buying in advance doesn't cost me anything, and it avoids buying and then having to get refunds.

So I'm at the station buying a ticket.
I could buy an e-ticket online. But there isn't a quiet haven at the station to do this task, which it important to get right. Also, I wouldn't be able to print out the e-ticket as a backup.
If the ticket I want is available from the TVM on smartcard, I could use the TVM. But not all my journeys are available on smartcard.
If I used the TVM to buy a credit-card-sized ticket, then there is the possibility of the dreaded error message appearing on the screen, to the effect that part of the ticket could not be printed, please go to the ticket office. So it is wise to be prepared to photograph the screen in case this happens. Which makes using the TVM a bit of a faff.
(If a single cannot be printed, you don't get charged. If half a return is printed, you get charged for the return, and have to go to the ticket office to pay for a new ticket and get a refund on the partly-printed ticket.)
(If single-leg pricing was in operation, then I'd be fine with buying a single each way.)

So all in all it's actually easier just to go to the ticket window and buy there.

Also, I buy my railcard at the station. You get the railcard straight away, it lasts perfectly well as long as you keep it from heat and light, you avoid the reported problems with online purchase, and there is back-up in the form of the railcard receipt (though with a £10 charge for a replacement).

 

[ashkeba]

I have not had good service at a booking office for as long as I can remember.

Me neither, at least for anything complicated. I've been told tickets don't exist despite being able to buy them from another ticket office run by another TOC two stations away. Usually certain routings or super-off-peaks when they started, but I do remember once being told that some fairly new station (probably Kenilworth?) did not exist and I needed Coventry PlusBus.

More definitely, the Rail Delivery Group Mystery Shopper Ticket Office survey has had as many as 1 in 25 ticket offices fail to sell accurately in some years, although other years it has been half that. Either way, that's still a lot of passengers who will have had poor service, some of them will realise it at some point and some of them will take the ticket office out of the process if they can.