Electronic tickets

[Reorte]

22 hours ago, AMJ said:

Northern definitely get commission on sales of tickets. On a day as spare a friend often stands near a ticket barrier selling the passenger who needs one to get out of the station a ticket. Easy money during the rush hour!

Northern were doing that at Stockport even before barriers were put in, they'd set up a table at the bottom of the subway stairs to sell tickets to people getting off the train. That was fair enough too IMO since often there hadn't been a chance to buy one earlier.

[Reorte]

9 hours ago, laurenceb said:

As I understand it E-tickets are dyanamic in that the validation code changes to prevent copying so an e-mailed copy would show an invalid code

 

You can't rely on that working. It might get around a casual attempt to forward on the email but it's pretty easy to just save whatever you've got on a screen (less so on a phone than on a computer I guess) and reproduce it as many times as you like. There's no practical of stopping someone doing whatever they want once they've got something on their computer, the most you can do is make it a little awkward.

[The Stationmaster]

On 01/07/2019 at 15:25, njee20 said:

You realise the specific issue here was that her ticket had been checked (and approved) by gate line staff... if the staff at Temple Meads had said “sorry, you need the actual ticket”, the subsequent altercation with the CrossCountry staff wouldn’t have happened. 

 

On 01/07/2019 at 16:53, royaloak said:

So once again its the staffs fault.

As I said some good way back in this thread - with a further explanation going beyond 'blaming' the staff at BTM.  It can be very tempting, especially with some kinds of passengers (such as a nice lady who might well have been getting a bit anxious) to try to be 'accommodating' to help them out and get them on their way.  I've seen it happen - and teh consequences - on more than a few occasions over the years.  But there are (still) ways & means of doing it but they do take a little bit of time and if you aren't able to do that you can be storing up potential problems fir the passenger.

 

The other thing is the level of training. I'm the first ti admit I haven't much idea about what E-Tickets look like and some station staff might not be much bettrer than me and might not be aware of potential fiddles.  Whereas some ticket examining types are 100%+ up to speed on such things.  So no the barrier staff at Btl TM shoudl not have doen what they did and they veru definitely should not have done it in teh way they did it.  But the important question is were they sufficiently trained to know any different ?

On 01/07/2019 at 21:44, njee20 said:

Well that's what you said, yes.

 

It's up to the staff to tell the customer they're not carrying a valid ticket. Two accepted it, one rejected it (overly aggresively, hence the story). If the staff did their job and said "sorry, this ticket isn't valid", then it wouldn't have been a story, although I imagine she'd have been peeved.

I quite agree BUT, and it is a critical 'but', we don't know why they accepted it when it obviously was invalid.  So were they not trained, did they not have the necessary ticket reader to check the ticket and so on (for instance I don't know if the barriers at Temple Meads have yet been modified to cater for E-Tickets).  But if a barrier reader rejected the ticket, and that was an unusual event, the staff should have known what to do.

[kevinlms]

On 02/07/2019 at 03:01, JJGraphics said:

 

The point, as others have said, is that you can print your ticket and present that and there is nothing to stop a ticket being printed multiple times.

 

It is the system that is a fault in not being able to validate a ticket immediately as is done in other countries.

 

John

Something seriously wrong with the system, if it can be so simply & cheaply reproduced. It might be OK, if a passenger could print off 2 copies to carry with them, to have one in a pocket and another in the wallet/handbag, in case one gets lost/damaged. But if potentially a whole trainful can carry copies of the same ticket, is nonsense, as well as fraud.

[Reorte]

25 minutes ago, kevinlms said:

Something seriously wrong with the system, if it can be so simply & cheaply reproduced. It might be OK, if a passenger could print off 2 copies to carry with them, to have one in a pocket and another in the wallet/handbag, in case one gets lost/damaged. But if potentially a whole trainful can carry copies of the same ticket, is nonsense, as well as fraud.

 

If the ticket is scanned I'd hope the machine would at least be able to recognise the same ticket appearing at the same time on the same train. A ticket that's valid on any train that day, with a variety of TOCs would be more likely to be open to abuse though.

Edited July 3, 2019 by Reorte

[caradoc]

In my experience barrier staff, being often the most (or indeed only) visible staff on or near the platforms frequently become embroiled in all sorts of complicated passenger enquiries, greatly reducing the time they can spend checking tickets which do not operate the barriers (if in fact that was the case here). And like Stationmaster I have no idea what an e-ticket, or a screenshot of one, looks like; When buying tickets on behalf of my Mum I get paper ones delivered to her house, so that we have the security of getting them well before the day of travel. It does cost a couple of quid extra, but given that (for example) she got a First Class single from Birmingham to Glasgow for £46 (reduced to £23 after a 50% refund for the train being 40 minutes late !) that is not a great concern.

 

[njee20]

2 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

we don't know why they accepted it when it obviously was invalid.  So were they not trained, did they not have the necessary ticket reader to check the ticket and so on (for instance I don't know if the barriers at Temple Meads have yet been modified to cater for E-Tickets).  But if a barrier reader rejected the ticket, and that was an unusual event, the staff should have known what to do.

None of that is really relevant. They’re all reasons why they may have accepted it incorrectly (and perfectly valid ones), but that doesn’t change the fact that the staff should have rejected it in the first instance.

[The Stationmaster]

1 hour ago, njee20 said:

None of that is really relevant. They’re all reasons why they may have accepted it incorrectly (and perfectly valid ones), but that doesn’t change the fact that the staff should have rejected it in the first instance.

Why don't you read what I wrote - all of it.  We know the problem occurred because barrier staff (and a subsequent on-train check) let her go - that is blindingly obvious,  But to keep saying that solves absolutely nothing at all - it is merely repeating what happened.  What should be looked for are the reasons why it happened and what needs to be done to stop it happening again (potentially with somebody else subsequently suffering grief).

 

To me I would have thought establishing the reason is far more important than, yet again, saying the barrier staff got it wrong.  But then having had years of seeing similar things and BR trying to prevent them recurring (usually, but not entirely, successfully) I suppose it should not be surprising that I am more interest in the solutions to the problem rather than simply repeating what happened.  Same really in any sort of process or procedure I suppose - if people get things wrong they need guidance and or training,  as long as they are prepared to accept it.  However sometimes the problem can be that they won't accept it and others can finish up suffering.

 

[jjb1970]

In any incident it is not really the what but the why which is most important to analysing what went wrong and implementing improvements. 

[njee20]

Totally agree with all of that, but my point was simply that having fully justified reasons why something occurred doesn’t change the fact it occurred.

[talisman56]

After many issues with eTickets trying to get in and around Bristol with the First Bus app, I trust eTickets about as far as I can throw the phone. Order on line and collect from the station is my preferred way...

[brushman47544]

On 30/06/2019 at 18:51, andyman7 said:

The phone  doesn't need to be online. The advantage (when it all works properly) is that you buy your ticket on your phone and it's there. No need to collect. It shouldn't be the only way to buy, but frankly if you're under 35 these days you'll wonder why you can't buy your ticket this way when you do everything else on your phone.  

 

True the phone doesn’t need to be online but it does need to have battery life left. A very long journey, or serious delays, could see the phone battery die. At that point you have no evidence of buying a ticket unless you can charge the phone. I personally wouldn’t risk an e-ticket that I didn’t then print under any circumstances.

[justin1985]

On 02/07/2019 at 09:55, Reorte said:

 

You can't rely on that working. It might get around a casual attempt to forward on the email but it's pretty easy to just save whatever you've got on a screen (less so on a phone than on a computer I guess) and reproduce it as many times as you like. There's no practical of stopping someone doing whatever they want once they've got something on their computer, the most you can do is make it a little awkward.

 

Have you actually seen one of these tickets in use?

 

The GreaterAnglia e-tickets in their own app (which I'm pretty sure is simply a re-branded Trainline app, minus the service charges) can show either a QR code barcode, which staff can scan, or if they don't have a scanner, it can show a text "ticket" which includes an animated coloured bar with three coloured boxes and the current date and time moving back and forth across it - the colour of the boxes changes each day. This is designed to stop exactly the kind of thing that the woman reportedly did - its patently obvious if you show staff a screenshot rather than the app itself, because it won't be animating. FirstBus's mTicket system works exactly the same way.

 

If the ticket inspector has a scanner (most do on GA) then presumably it is verifying the ticket - it would make sense if its checking whether it was also scanned more than a certain amount of time ago etc.

 

The other point is that you can download a ticket to your device at any time once you've bought it, and you don't need a working connection after that. But you have to activate the ticket before you travel, to reveal the code or "live" ticket. Once activated, it seems to stay active for the rest of the day, but the ticket inspector can see both the time it was bought, and the time it was activated. 

 

Open Return return portions, for example, have to be activated on the day you're actually travelling, so you can't use them more than once. The ticket inspectors can see the time purchased and time activated, so if you buy it quick and immediately activate it, when you see them get on the train, they can see this. I imagine if you're in a penalty fare area, they'd be within their rights to pull you up on this! 

 

Others have explained that the PDF (and/or print at home) version is watermarked with your personal details. I haven't used this option in the UK though (but have done in Germany, Sweden, Belgium, etc, and it always works the same way with watermarked ticket verifiable against ID). 

 

For me the big advantage is that I can buy an Advance ticket a short time before travelling, and not have to worry about stopping to collect paper copies from a ticket machine. My most frequent journey is Thameslink across London using Contactless, then a Greater Anglia mainline service for which I can usually get a dead cheap Advance ticket, so e-tickets give me a seamless way to do this without having to factor in time to collect tickets.

 

J

 

 

[Reorte]

2 hours ago, justin1985 said:

 

Have you actually seen one of these tickets in use?

 

The GreaterAnglia e-tickets in their own app (which I'm pretty sure is simply a re-branded Trainline app, minus the service charges) can show either a QR code barcode, which staff can scan, or if they don't have a scanner, it can show a text "ticket" which includes an animated coloured bar with three coloured boxes and the current date and time moving back and forth across it - the colour of the boxes changes each day. This is designed to stop exactly the kind of thing that the woman reportedly did - its patently obvious if you show staff a screenshot rather than the app itself, because it won't be animating. FirstBus's mTicket system works exactly the same way.

 

If the ticket inspector has a scanner (most do on GA) then presumably it is verifying the ticket - it would make sense if its checking whether it was also scanned more than a certain amount of time ago etc.

 

The other point is that you can download a ticket to your device at any time once you've bought it, and you don't need a working connection after that. But you have to activate the ticket before you travel, to reveal the code or "live" ticket. Once activated, it seems to stay active for the rest of the day, but the ticket inspector can see both the time it was bought, and the time it was activated. 

 

Open Return return portions, for example, have to be activated on the day you're actually travelling, so you can't use them more than once. The ticket inspectors can see the time purchased and time activated, so if you buy it quick and immediately activate it, when you see them get on the train, they can see this. I imagine if you're in a penalty fare area, they'd be within their rights to pull you up on this! 

 

 

As long as you find out the colour of the boxes for the day that can be duplicated too, surprised some dodgy so-and-so hasn't chucked up an app (although I have to admit I thought we were talking about printed tickets rather than on a phone). Still doesn't sound at all impossible to get around, unless they're crosschecking all the codes there and then to pick up duplicates. Of course it might simply be too much hassle for more than one or two people to bother trying to duplicate tickets this way.

 

Quote

Others have explained that the PDF (and/or print at home) version is watermarked with your personal details. I haven't used this option in the UK though (but have done in Germany, Sweden, Belgium, etc, and it always works the same way with watermarked ticket verifiable against ID).

I don't recall a printout insisting I bring ID (although I'm trying to think whether I've ever even printed out a ticket now that I think about it). A bit of playing around in Photoshop should get past the watermark I guess.

[Hesperus]

It sounds like it would be simpler for staff and passengers if there was a standard format for the e-tickets but I don't suppose that would fit with the markets will decide mentality of the DaFT.

 

The idea that you can abuse the open return part of tickets is nothing new.  Many people who travel the same route on a regular basis have bought open returns from each direction and used them for months with impunity.  If the railway doesn't check the tickets you've just spent significant amounts of money on purchasing then people will be tempted to buy less of them.  I've heard plenty of people complain that they wasted money buying a ticket when they leave the station with it still unchecked.

[Mallard60022]

On ‎30‎/‎06‎/‎2019 at 17:47, Phil Parker said:

Remind me what the advantage of an e-ticket is? Never seen the point of them. There's no mobile signal in great chunks of the line between Birmingham and London (yay for 21st century Britain), one of my more regular journeys, so paper wins every time. 

On a Javelin from Ashford Int'l to St P the other day the Ticket Checker/ Guard or what ever they are called these days, started checking on the train that had come from Margate (no checks until this stop) a young woman had her ticket on her phone and the kindly checker said there was no WiFi so he couldn't read it but saw she had some sort of reference (?) and just made a joke about why do they sell these damn things for routes that have no WiFi (or something like that). No hassle and she wasn't trying it on as far as we could tell.

P

[Mallard60022]

On ‎01‎/‎07‎/‎2019 at 10:55, melmoth said:

 

You have completely missed the point I was making, which as it was quite a brief point, might be better made with further elucidation.

 

1. On the one hand, we are presented, via a newspaper article, with the spectacle of someone who has paid for a digital ticket being chased for proof of payment beyond what most of us would consider to be reasonable.

2. On the other hand, your first post seemed to suggest that at least one loophole exists regarding digital ticketing, and that loophole is widely known among a particular set of passengers and is being frequently exploited. 

3. My point - and perhaps I should have explained it more clearly, or at greater length - was that if there are such known loopholes in the digital ticketing system and they are being used to defraud a TOC, is it any wonder that those appointed to chase up suspected fraud (not the on-train inspectors) behave in a more gung-ho manner than we might reasonably think of as necessary?

 

I note your assumption regarding my character  - an impressive effort based on one line of text - and invite you to withdraw it.

I see you too are 'having problems' with this member!

Phil

[Mallard60022]

On ‎01‎/‎07‎/‎2019 at 18:04, JJGraphics said:

 

A lot of these collection companies as just a load of scumbags out to make money, mostly from vulnerable or gullible people.

Especially (allegedly) the Parking Eye mob.

 

[Grovenor]

I don't see how many on here are concluding that the lady should have been refused travel at BTM, the original article seems quite confused as to the acceptability of a screen shot. Tickets I have had, as the attached example just say "Use this ticket on your phone or print it", since it came to me by email to my computer I printed it rather than to struggle to access my emails on the phone. But there is nothing to indicate that a screenshot is any more or less acceptable than the original pdf on the screen. Also there is nothing on the ticket or on the other emails about needing to carry any ID. IMHO the inspector who claimed the ticket to be invalid, or the system designers who don't make clear how the ticket should be used, caused the problem, not the lady, or the staff who let her through earlier.

Adult1 - OUT 15Jun19.pdf

Edited July 6, 2019 by Grovenor

[Mallard60022]

16 minutes ago, Grovenor said:

 don't see how many on here are concluding that the lady should have been refused travel at BTM, the original article seems quite confused as to the acceptability of a screen shot. Tickets I have had, as the attached example just say "Use this ticket on your phone or print it", since it came to me by email to my computer I printed it rather than to struggle to access my emails on the phone. But there is nothing to indicate that a screenshot is any more or less acceptable than the original pdf on the screen. Also there is nothing on the ticket or on the other emails about needing to carry any ID. IMHO the inspector who claimed the ticket to be invalid, or the system designers who don't make clear how the ticket should be used, caused the problem, not the lady, or the staff who let her through earlier.

Adult1 - OUT 15Jun19.pdf 220.36 kB · 0 downloads

Exactly., and succinctly put. The thread is almost consuming it's own head really so perhaps it should die here?

P

Edited July 6, 2019 by Mallard60022

[jpendle]

Just to derail the thread a little, and, as I may well end up with an e ticket on my next trip back to the UK.

 

Why do people keep banging on about the availablility of Wifi on the train so that an eticket can be used?????

 

My airline e- boarding pass is downloaded to my phone by the airline app when I check in. From that point on I do NOT need Wifi or a cell signal or any form of connectivity to the internet in order to display my boarding pass to airline or security staff.

 

Is this not the case with an e-ticket for a train journey?

 

Thanks,

 

John P

[njee20]

Because people want an excuse to dismiss technology! It is exactly the same with train e-tickets.  

[Mallard60022]

14 minutes ago, jpendle said:

Just to derail the thread a little, and, as I may well end up with an e ticket on my next trip back to the UK.

 

Why do people keep banging on about the availablility of Wifi on the train so that an eticket can be used?????

 

My airline e- boarding pass is downloaded to my phone by the airline app when I check in. From that point on I do NOT need Wifi or a cell signal or any form of connectivity to the internet in order to display my boarding pass to airline or security staff.

 

Is this not the case with an e-ticket for a train journey?

 

Thanks,

 

John P

No idea mate but that's what the Inspector was saying to the lady on the javelin I was travelling on on Monday, so I wasn't really banging on about it. I just don't haver a f#####g clue what it's all about as I am a paper ticket dinosaur.

Maybe the Inspector needs the WiFi for his reader thingy machine to work? Tell me when you find out if you would.

Such fun

P

Edited July 6, 2019 by Mallard60022

[PaulCheffus]

On 06/07/2019 at 01:22, Reorte said:

I don't recall a printout insisting I bring ID (although I'm trying to think whether I've ever even printed out a ticket now that I think about it). A bit of playing around in Photoshop should get past the watermark I guess.

Hi

 

I’ve got a pair of tickets printed at home for travel in August that say exactly that.

 

Cheers

 

Paul 

[Reorte]

On 06/07/2019 at 21:46, njee20 said:

Because people want an excuse to dismiss technology! It is exactly the same with train e-tickets.  

 

A natural thing to want to do when it gets used to do things that worked well enough without it. Technology for the sake of it, which a great many modern applications of it really are no matter what its enthusiasts claim, always leaves me rolling my eyes.