CCST's (With the strip) costs approx 1p per ticket and the size limits what can be stored on a QR code. One of the main reasons why a few TOC's have gone over to the new style tickets (which imho) will be fine when they get rid of the conditions of travel that is printed. The Mag Strip has seen its day long gone and Aztec/QR codes fit what people need for the foreseeable future. Now all we need to do is convince TfL lol
The QR code fits what
TOC management believe we all need for the foreseeable future maybe, the fact that many TOCs don't have any working QR readers kind of limits their usefulness right now and any change to QR readers, given that the vast majority of ticket barriers already accept smartcards, is just money down the drain.
Northern managers have already noted to staff that, apparently, one reason they chose the bigger tickets with QR codes was to get people used to scanning tickets before they introduce Smartcards. NEWS ALERT: Having a QR code makes no positive difference to the travel experience, infact everything is now "temporarily" harder, and many areas of the north now have Smartcards for the buses anyway! (including ENCTS passes)
Each time Northern Guards note the lack of ability to sell tickets with a cross London marker, even for journeys entirely north of London (which do not require use of LUL services, like Barnsley-St Albans '+via Chesterfield'), management come back with "it's not our fault, it's LUL who won't accept them" and "the other printers are too big, too slow and don't carry as many tickets as Avantix" (which is a joke given the apparent lack of capacity of the PRT!).
In fact the whole argument starts to fall to pieces when it gets noted that VTEC (and their predecessors) have been putting QR codes on CCST stock for years! Apparently we need bigger QR codes so that the TOCs can collect "marketing data" from travel patterns (so they can adjust prices to suit no doubt).
All Arriva own TOC's will be going over to this system. It started with ATW not Northern....
The trial was at ATW (though that does vary with who you ask), but lets face it, they were only seeing which systems managed to make the most money per ticket sold, without looking at any other aspects like lack of ability to sell certain tickets, or time taken to issue, or cost for upgrades to other systems, or practicality.
....This style of ticket is here to stay....
Sadly that is true, there is no budging on this one from above, we have to force LUL to accept a ticket that currently doesn't operate any of it's ticket barriers, or ours for that matter (presumably without any TOC incurring any charge as that would be wrong because "it's LUL's problem not ours").
.... Progress has been made with TfL to accept these style of Tickets....
Would have been better if they agreed it before rolling out the new stock, it's not like they haven't had time to do it, but as always it's reactive thinking when a money losing problem rears it's head.
.... Once the scanners are operational we will be scanning the Aztec code anyway and thats all we will need to see....
The scanners that no-one at Northern (or Arriva?) has? The ones they still need to fit or programme on the barriers? More money wasted while they try to de-staff trains to cut costs!
....Once the update has finally been done the Conditions of Travel will be gone from the front reducing the ticket size by a third....
Something they could have done long ago (infact I believe it was supposed to have been done already) if they weren't blind to what ticket stock they were going to use (they actually wanted plain white receipt roll, with management even trying to convince me of it being white when TPE had already started using the current stock!).
.... For the people who use the machines different types of bags have been trialed with mixed results and faults like battery not lasting etc should be almost eliminated with the new sleds.
Every aspect of this new ticket stock has been, and is still being, dealt with reactively rather than proactively. We are told the systems were trialled and had no problems (in an area that seems to vary depending on who you ask), we were told the slings were "tested extensively", yet problems that must have existed are still being "looked at" with "updates coming soon" because "we've known about it for a while".
Very few people outside of management actually wants this ticket stock, it's got to be costing more to use it than stay with CCST (and small QR codes) because of all the upgrades, lost revenue, new equipment and dealings with third party operators who won't accept them. PRT isn't the future, it's the past, most of us thought we'd left it behind a decade ago with Sportis, but I guess we forgot fashion is circular.
