Avantix replacement (previously: Arriva ditch Avantix)

[WelshBluebird]

How many stations that HSTs call at there have no ticketing facilities?

Probably not many, but then you also have unmanned stations that connect to those (specifically thinking of Oldfield Park travelling towards London, some journeys give you a ~5 minute connection at Bath Spa, certainly cutting it fine to go and buy a ticket without delaying yourself!).

 

[sonic2009]

I'm back.....

So what's the defined list now of TOCs who have still got avantix? I believe London Midland have switched? Unless it's depot by depot. As Birmingham guard said he had new machine last week.

 

[trentside]

EMT are still using Avantix in a small number of locations. Some guards at Lincoln and Nottingham are still not trained on Envoy/Worldline MTS, but I'd expect all to be trained in the next month.

 

[sd0733]

I'm back.....

So what's the defined list now of TOCs who have still got avantix? I believe London Midland have switched? Unless it's depot by depot. As Birmingham guard said he had new machine last week.

At Crewe we've not got them on LM and we've been told January for getting the new ones so it's a depot by depot roll out.

 

[CentralTrainer]

I'm back.....

So what's the defined list now of TOCs who have still got avantix? I believe London Midland have switched? Unless it's depot by depot. As Birmingham guard said he had new machine last week.

iirc - it's just the Stourbridge Depot that are using the new equipment - I've seen a mixture of equipment on the Hereford to Snow Hill & New Street Lines

 

[craigybagel]

iirc - it's just the Stourbridge Depot that are using the new equipment - I've seen a mixture of equipment on the Hereford to Snow Hill & New Street Lines

Shrewsbury LM are mostly on Envoy now, bar some new starters who haven't had the training yet.

 

[sonic2009]

Hmm... The guard on the 0908 last week off Winsford-Birmingham was using the new machines. I know Virgin WC are still using the old ones.

 

[BHXDMT]

At LM nearly all depots have gone over to Envoy, but there's still quite a split of "have been trained/haven't been trained" so you'll still see some with Avantix.

I took my first one out the other day and was completely useless with it to begin with

 

[trentside]

I took my first one out the other day and was completely useless with it to begin with

It's quite a different experience to Avantix, and is going to take some getting used to. It's taking me awhile to get used to putting railcard discounts on.

I also can't get used to the weight difference - keep forgetting I've got it with me!

 

[LowLevel]

It is fantastic when you get used it. Quick issue is a life saver on local pay trains. You just have to get used to thinking a little about card payments and when to try them.

Would never go back to Avantix.

 

[trentside]

It is fantastic when you get used it. Quick issue is a life saver on local pay trains. You just have to get used to thinking a little about card payments and when to try them.

Would never go back to Avantix.

It's a great system, far more user friendly. I think within a few shifts I'll feel the same.

 

[BHXDMT]

It's quite a different experience to Avantix, and is going to take some getting used to. It's taking me awhile to get used to putting railcard discounts on.

I also can't get used to the weight difference - keep forgetting I've got it with me!

For me it's juggling the phone and trying to count change out, have to get into the habit of putting it back in its holder while I do that. Think I've got the hang of it now though. We'll see when I try again tomorrow!

Overall though, enjoying it. I got a little too excited when I did my first contactless payment.

 

[Solent&Wessex]

TPE still have Avantix at a few locations. Man Picc depot is exclusively Avantix still but most, if not all others, are now largely Star Mobile, with just a few people at some depots still to be trained on Star.

 

[trentside]

Overall though, enjoying it. I got a little too excited when I did my first contactless payment.

Glad it wasn't just me then - poor passenger didn't really appreciate it at silly o'clock in the morning

 

[plymothian]

When they go wrong, they can go spectacularly wrong though; fault finding is long and tedious.

Passengers are actively rejecting the paper tickets by refusing to buy them. TfL are still refusing paper tickets - so they cannot be sold for cross London or London inclusive fares, and those that do get sold on CCST don't have the Maltese cross and are getting rejected by TfL on valid routes. And every passenger must have an individual ticket (demanded by TfL), which makes issuing a long process for groups.

 

[Blindtraveler]

got a huge paper roll off VTWC the other day, folded 3 times before the wallet would shut and the ultimate irony was it was a Penrith Carlisle paid contactlessly single with railcard!

 

[kevjs]

got a huge paper roll off VTWC the other day, folded 3 times before the wallet would shut and the ultimate irony was it was a Penrith Carlisle paid contactlessly single with railcard!

Just wait until one of the bods from the DfT nips into WH Smiths or Boots - you'll get three times that printed full of adverts and vouchers that are nigh on impossible to redeem.

 

[island]

I know Virgin WC are still using the old ones.

Depends on the depot. I was on a PRE-EDB a few months ago and they had the new equipment.

 

[bunnahabhain]

For me it's juggling the phone and trying to count change out, have to get into the habit of putting it back in its holder while I do that. Think I've got the hang of it now though. We'll see when I try again tomorrow!

Overall though, enjoying it. I got a little too excited when I did my first contactless payment.

Get a lanyard, if it can't take the weight of the phone put a bit of superglue on it, it works wonders for being able to just let go of the phone, admittedly you end up with yet another strap around your neck, but hey, its better than the strap you're provided with. Likewise I've got an old avantix bag strap for the printer which works far better for me as I carry my cash in a leather satchel.

 

[BHXDMT]

Get a lanyard, if it can't take the weight of the phone put a bit of superglue on it, it works wonders for being able to just let go of the phone, admittedly you end up with yet another strap around your neck, but hey, its better than the strap you're provided with. Likewise I've got an old avantix bag strap for the printer which works far better for me as I carry my cash in a leather satchel.

Yeah a lot of ours have taken old Thyron chip & pin bags to attach to their belt to carry the phone & new chip and pin in, and then an Avantix bag strap for the Printer. Not tried that yet, I'm getting the hang of the actual strap now.

 

[Ticket Monster]

Do any Envoy/WLMTS users know if it's possible to excess multiple tickets in one go?

Earlier I had to do an over distance excess for a pair of tickets issued with a Two Together Railcard - the only way I could figure it out was to do one, put it in the basket, then do the other, then issue them both. Of course, doing one at a time it wouldn't let me select the R/C, so I ended up selecting a different one in order to get the discount. This seems odd to me, so maybe I'm missing something. A lot of work for £2.30!

A colleague was saying he had to do the same to excess some Groupsave tickets.

 

[cactustwirly]

Reading guards are still on Avantix, hopefully they'll get the CCST printers.

 

[Sprinter153]

Reading guards are still on Avantix, hopefully they'll get the CCST printers.

Reading was one of the first depots to get Star Mobile with CCST. Avantix is still available for now for technophobic colleagues but will be permanently decommissioned across all depots next Monday.

Redhill guards haven't had the equipment yet, so you may have come across one of them. Neither have Worcester guards, both seem to have come last due, I suspect, to liaison issues with Southern and LM respectively. I'd suspect staff at these depots may have no revenue equipment for a while.

 

[tsr]

Do any Envoy/WLMTS users know if it's possible to excess multiple tickets in one go?

Earlier I had to do an over distance excess for a pair of tickets issued with a Two Together Railcard - the only way I could figure it out was to do one, put it in the basket, then do the other, then issue them both. Of course, doing one at a time it wouldn't let me select the R/C, so I ended up selecting a different one in order to get the discount. This seems odd to me, so maybe I'm missing something. A lot of work for £2.30!

A colleague was saying he had to do the same to excess some Groupsave tickets.

Interesting! Don't have the answer to that, I'm afraid. I know you can't duplicate excess calculations quite like you were once able to do with Avantix - which was really handy - but I hadn't come across that specific railcard rules issue.

Does your version of Envoy regularly prompt you that "Restrictions have not been checked for this ticket type"? If so, maybe they could just put railcard restrictions under that warning, rather than preventing their use outright, just as you get with time restrictions.

Amusingly, it seems that despite all the many restrictions, you can still issue tickets with no minimum fare quite happily, when the railcard restrictions require one. Presumably this may be to allow purchase for later in the day / the next day etc. - not sure!

Redhill guards haven't had the equipment yet, so you may have come across one of them. Neither have Worcester guards, both seem to have come last due, I suspect, to liaison issues with Southern and LM respectively. I'd suspect staff at these depots may have no revenue equipment for a while.

Southern have been ramping up the use of Envoy, and for that matter doing the fault-finding for it, and more and more staff are using the stuff now - I'm wondering if it's only a technical (eg. accounting or data transfer) issue which prevents them from providing GWR staff at Redhill with Envoy kit, as they did with Avantix.

To be fair, I'm actually still surprised to hear about so many places still having Avantix. Apparently you can't take cards in certain places because of a breakdown in either contracts or communications about extending its lifespan. It really must be on its last legs, even by railway IT standards!

 

[Parallel]

Still some Avantix being used at Westbury. Many are now using new CCST printers or till roll printers now though.

 

[cactustwirly]

Reading was one of the first depots to get Star Mobile with CCST. Avantix is still available for now for technophobic colleagues but will be permanently decommissioned across all depots next Monday.

Redhill guards haven't had the equipment yet, so you may have come across one of them. Neither have Worcester guards, both seem to have come last due, I suspect, to liaison issues with Southern and LM respectively. I'd suspect staff at these depots may have no revenue equipment for a while.

I didn't realise GWR had a depot at Redhill

 

[tsr]

I didn't realise GWR had a depot at Redhill

A small one - conductors only. Only signs Gatwick-Reading and Reading-Basingstoke.

 

[Ticket Monster]

Interesting! Don't have the answer to that, I'm afraid. I know you can't duplicate excess calculations quite like you were once able to do with Avantix - which was really handy - but I hadn't come across that specific railcard rules issue.

Does your version of Envoy regularly prompt you that "Restrictions have not been checked for this ticket type"? If so, maybe they could just put railcard restrictions under that warning, rather than preventing their use outright, just as you get with time restrictions.

Yep, get that 'check restrictions' prompt frequently. Annoying as, when the new system was first touted at my depot as being the new thing, one of the things they seemed proud of was the ability to enter your trains headcode and only be offered tickets valid on that service. That seems to have fallen by the wayside...

As for the excess issue, I understand why it's not letting me select the correct railcard - it's because the ticket I'm currently retailing (ie the excess fare) doesn't meet the railcard terms. The issue is more that there is no way to excess multiple tickets at once - in other words it's impossible to fulfil the Two Together conditions in the excess menu. Not sure if this applies to Family R/C?

If one edits the ticket to reflect more than one person, then carry on, the Calculate Excess option doesn't appear.

I need to get my hands on an Avantix and see if it was possible on that - I can't remember.

 

[cactustwirly]

A small one - conductors only. Only signs Gatwick-Reading and Reading-Basingstoke.

I had assumed that these were solely worked by Reading. A Reading based conductor would only do Marlow in addition to that work.

It looks like the guards I saw were Redhill based.

 

[Sprinter153]

Southern have been ramping up the use of Envoy, and for that matter doing the fault-finding for it, and more and more staff are using the stuff now - I'm wondering if it's only a technical (eg. accounting or data transfer) issue which prevents them from providing GWR staff at Redhill with Envoy kit, as they did with Avantix.

To be fair, I'm actually still surprised to hear about so many places still having Avantix. Apparently you can't take cards in certain places because of a breakdown in either contracts or communications about extending its lifespan. It really must be on its last legs, even by railway IT standards!

GWR is using Star Mobile so slightly different models of the Steatite printer are used, and also there are proprietary charging cradles to house the PDA, Ingenico PED and batteries which have to be installed at all locations, and also the back office software is supposed to be quite complicated in comparison with Avantix and Envoy. They don't have a lot of room in the Sales Point at Redhill - certainly not enough for more than a few sets of equipment!

You're right in that Avantix is giving up the ghost. The Thyron PEDs seem to be working more intermittently than ever, the PDAs have stopped showing certain (quite important) ticket types and faults on certain machines aren't being rectified because they're being phased out next week.

Interestingly, Fujitsu, not Worldline, are decommissioning and recycling Avantix equipment, at least at GWR.