Is there going to be a UK train ticket redesign?

[Eagle]

Didn't think of that.

Neither did I until you mentioned it; I was going on the fact that it might belie tickets that don't correspond with the actual journeys taken (for instance someone on XC who has a ticket from Bristol to Taunton, but the ticket was somehow printed in Birmingham two hours before departure from Bristol...).

 

[Goatboy]

it might belie tickets that don't correspond with the actual journeys taken (for instance someone on XC who has a ticket from Bristol to Taunton, but the ticket was somehow printed in Birmingham two hours before departure from Bristol...).

I see no reason why somebody couldn't be on an XC train with a ticket from Bristol to Taunton that was printed 2 hours previously in Birmingham?

 

[Eagle]

I see no reason why somebody couldn't be on an XC train with a ticket from Bristol to Taunton that was printed 2 hours previously in Birmingham?

Because it implies that they got on the train at Birmingham, not Bristol. (Travel time between the two is 1h40, so it can't be any other train that they took.) And potentially that they don't have a ticket for the bit before Bristol.

Of course they might have some kind of split tickets, but surely they'd still have the other one on them...

 

[Roverman]

Its rare but could happen though. When my mother was travelling into London from Sussex for her hospital appointments I was ordering and collecting the train tickets for her as she prefers me to deal with computers rather than her. As I live in Stafford I was collecting the tickets up here and taking them down with me if I was going with her or handing them to my sister if she was attending, naturally there was a larger time lag than 2 hours!

 

[Eagle]

naturally there was a larger time lag than 2 hours!

That's the point. It's the time difference that's incriminating (if the tickets had been printed in Birmingham six hours earlier, nothing unremarkable).

 

[Welshman]

Larger stock was discontinued a few years back, mainly because it doesn't fit in ticket barriers.

Eurostar still uses the larger stock for its Lndn Estar [CIV] tickets. As I've reported on another thread, we were issued them as recently as this October for a journey from North Wales to St Pancras, when going forward to Paris by Eurostar.

The Virgin conductor commented he hadn't seen them for some time, but preferred them, as all the information is on the one ticket.

 

[hairyhandedfool]

One thing I'd add is to the text at the bottom with the date and time of printing, put the location too, probably as a three-letter code (and yes I know that this information is already contained in numerical form, but my way is at least vaguely human-readable). It could theoretically help spot fare dodgers and such.

The date and time of issue is printed at the bottom of every ticket I issue and I imagine that is common for all users of FasTis, if not other machines. The problem with putting the three letter code for the issuing station on the ticket is that, afaik, not all tickets are issued at stations (though those issued on the day of travel would be). Also, some of the codes are not that obvious (WAE, SLD, HLN, BKQ, etc).

 

[Waverley125]

Eurostar still uses the larger stock for its Lndn Estar [CIV] tickets. As I've reported on another thread, we were issued them as recently as this October for a journey from North Wales to St Pancras, when going forward to Paris by Eurostar.

The Virgin conductor commented he hadn't seen them for some time, but preferred them, as all the information is on the one ticket.

This. Much as the orange tickets are good for short journeys, when I'm doing a long return journey, with multiple changes & seat reservations, latge-form tickets are much better.

 

[Roverman]

I vaguely recall taking a journey from Brighton to Birmingham about 8 years ago via London and being issued with non standard tickets for the 'train' part and a standard ticket just for the barriers on LU. Never happened since. Any ideas what that was about?

 

[yorksrob]

This. Much as the orange tickets are good for short journeys, when I'm doing a long return journey, with multiple changes & seat reservations, latge-form tickets are much better.

At least even with a succession of small orange tickets and reservations, they would still fit in my ticket wallet and in my pocket. With the airline style tickets they either had to go in the bag (which I might not take everywhere) or in my jacket breast pocket (which I might not be wearing all the time etc).

 

[Stats]

A Northumbria University student won a design competition with a redesigned rail ticket which ATOC used in focus groups.

http://www.northumbria.ac.uk/browse/ne/uninews/designticket

 

[F1Ken]

A Northumbria University student won a design competition with a redesigned rail ticket which ATOC used in focus groups.

http://www.northumbria.ac.uk/browse/ne/uninews/designticket

Looking at the picture all I can say is. Oh dear! Get some ex British rail branding bloke into do it. If they radically change it I will only eat old British Rail sandwiches I saved for protest reasons!

Ken

 

[LexyBoy]

A Northumbria University student won a design competition with a redesigned rail ticket which ATOC used in focus groups.

http://www.northumbria.ac.uk/browse/ne/uninews/designticket

It's clearly a design student's ticket. Not that there's anything wrong with that - he wasn't designing it to a specific (realistic) brief I assume. And it certainly looks nice, but some of the information omitted really does need to be there. It also appears that the routeing (including the fictional EC Only SSR) is printed in a much less obvious place than the other information deemed "essential". It would also obviously require new printers to be introduced, but this could be done incrementally.

Lovely, clear ticket designs seem to work well for Advance tickets, where there's no flexibility, but less so for other tickets where the time and route restrictions cannot be crammed into a credit sized piece of paper. Advance tickets are also the ones that people seem to have most problems with (even for those familiar with rail travel, the many coupons required for a return journey can be annoying at least). As I've said before, I'd be happy to see a return of airline style tickets wherever possible - TVMs would still have to dispense on ordinary stock. Automatic barriers can't check Advance tickets properly anyway so forcing staff to check it is no bad thing.

I am quite tempted to have a go at designing some tickets myself though Would probably do one "ideal world" version and one which could be printed using current printers.

 

[tankmc]

Doubt they will, its heading to wards e-tickets anyway so its pointless spending money on changing the current paper tickets.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

It's clearly a design student's ticket. Not that there's anything wrong with that - he wasn't designing it to a specific (realistic) brief I assume. And it certainly looks nice, but some of the information omitted really does need to be there. It also appears that the routeing (including the fictional EC Only SSR) is printed in a much less obvious place than the other information deemed "essential". It would also obviously require new printers to be introduced, but this could be done incrementally.

Lovely, clear ticket designs seem to work well for Advance tickets, where there's no flexibility, but less so for other tickets where the time and route restrictions cannot be crammed into a credit sized piece of paper. Advance tickets are also the ones that people seem to have most problems with (even for those familiar with rail travel, the many coupons required for a return journey can be annoying at least). As I've said before, I'd be happy to see a return of airline style tickets wherever possible - TVMs would still have to dispense on ordinary stock. Automatic barriers can't check Advance tickets properly anyway so forcing staff to check it is no bad thing.

I am quite tempted to have a go at designing some tickets myself though Would probably do one "ideal world" version and one which could be printed using current printers.

A Guy looked at redesigning the whole BR network, he did a nice design for tickets if you scroll down the page

http://www.wallacehenning.com/national-network/

 

[Starmill]

Doubt they will, its heading to wards e-tickets anyway so its pointless spending money on changing the current paper tickets.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---



A Guy looked at redesigning the whole BR network, he did a nice design for tickets if you scroll down the page

http://www.wallacehenning.com/national-network/

Now, that I like!!!!!


Source: http://www.wallacehenning.com/national-network/

 

[Deerfold]

That design student said

The 22-year-old, from St Neots in Cambridgeshire, was inspired by his own experiences on train journeys where he and other passengers had received large fines for accidentally producing the wrong ticket for their journey.

Surely the guard would give him time to produce the right ticket?

Or does he mean he was travelling at an invalid time or on an invalid ticket?

I might be being picky, but I'd expect a designer to be fairly accurate about things.

 

[musicking1306]

Maybe plastic coins could be used such as in Multi-storey car parks which store data on them, which conductors and barriers with coin sized readers. However the credit card size ticket is iconic on UK railways.

 

[tankmc]

Maybe plastic coins could be used such as in Multi-storey car parks which store data on them, which conductors and barriers with coin sized readers. However the credit card size ticket is iconic on UK railways.

That would be so annoying tho having to carry coins around. I'm waiting for the day they get rid of tickets and they are all on your phone or contact less credit card.

 

[trentside]

A Guy looked at redesigning the whole BR network, he did a nice design for tickets if you scroll down the page

http://www.wallacehenning.com/national-network/

I can see the good points of those designs - though the short ticket does remind me of a SPORTIS ticket. Certainly, a major plus point is that the connection information is clearly displayed on the 'Travel Information' slip - a common problem I find is that printing this information out on receipt slips is that people struggle to read it or don't understand where they have to change.

The major issue with updating ticket formats though, will be updating the TIS systems and changing the printers - it will no doubt be an expensive business were there to be a decision to change the way tickets are printed.

 

[Eagle]

http://www.wallacehenning.com/national-network/

For such a modern design idea, I'm really not sure how he made it to look so early-1980s...

 

[thedbdiboy]

During 2013 there will be a new revised format for the way that the information is presented on tickets, but the printed ticket will still be credit card sized with the iconic orange stripes. New format tickets are likely to appear during the middle of the year, although for a period both old and new format versions will be issued, depending on the ticket issuer.

The main reason for the change is that the modern printers are capable of printing much more information than the old dot-matrix printers used by APTIS/SPORTIS, and it therefore means that a lot of the peculiar abbreviations can be done away with (for example a ticket will now be able to state 'valid with 16-25 Railcard' rather than 'Y-P' which should help both passengers and ticket inspectors).

 

[ainsworth74]

This is very interesting thanks for telling us. Not to be a pain but I don't suppose there are any mock ups in the public domain that you could show us?

 

[wintonian]

During 2013 there will be a new revised format for the way that the information is presented on tickets, but the printed ticket will still be credit card sized with the iconic orange stripes. New format tickets are likely to appear during the middle of the year, although for a period both old and new format versions will be issued, depending on the ticket issuer.

The main reason for the change is that the modern printers are capable of printing much more information than the old dot-matrix printers used by APTIS/SPORTIS, and it therefore means that a lot of the peculiar abbreviations can be done away with (for example a ticket will now be able to state 'valid with 16-25 Railcard' rather than 'Y-P' which should help both passengers and ticket inspectors).

What concerns me here is the font size, there is only so much information that can be fitted in to the same space with decreasing the size.

Is the equality act (ex DDA) relevant here?

 

[hairyhandedfool]

...(for example a ticket will now be able to state 'valid with 16-25 Railcard' rather than 'Y-P' which should help both passengers and ticket inspectors).

I rather hope it would say 'Only valid with 16-25 Railcard', thus making it blindingly obvious to even the most stubborn of people that you need to have a 16-25 Railcard with you to use the ticket.

 

[SS4]

I rather hope it would say 'Only valid with 16-25 Railcard', thus making it blindingly obvious to even the most stubborn of people that you need to have a 16-25 Railcard with you to use the ticket.

Don't bank on it!

 

[Eagle]

What concerns me here is the font size, there is only so much information that can be fitted in to the same space with decreasing the size.

If you write more things at the size that the route and validity fields use, it could work.

 

[eMeS]

....
...I'm sad and I keep every Ticket I get from every journey. ...
Ken

How do you do that?
My ticket gets swallowed by the automatic gates on my return to MKC.

 

[Eagle]

How do you do that?
My ticket gets swallowed by the automatic gates on my return to MKC.

Use the manual gate

 

[AndyLandy]

We could do a lot worse than combine the reservations onto a single coupon, so you have a ticket and a reservation coupon with up to five reservations listed. (Obviously if you go over, you'd need a third coupon, but that's no big deal). The point is that you don't have to make any significant changes to the ticket stock, or even the first coupon.

I've got some old Advance tickets that are printed on blue cardstock and the ticket seller wrote the reservations (up to three) in some space on the back of the ticket. It's not like you need a great deal of space for a reservation detail.

 

[Eagle]

From what I can see, it seems that older stock also put details of unreserved "& Connections" legs in with the reservations, which I disagree with as it falsely suggests that you must be on those trains. (And is indistinguishable from legs which are reservable but with no seat reservations, like the coach * seat *** you get on SWT and LM.)