Ticket barrier problems!

[ThinController]

I am an annual season ticket holder with GWR to London. My season ticket also has London zones 1-6 which allows me to use the underground.

A few months ago, my ticket stopped working in the underground barriers, while still working on the GWR barriers at Paddington. To me, this demonstrated that it wasn't just that the magnetic strip had become corrupted. But just in case, i went to the ticket office and got a new one printed. Same problem. In all, I got five replacement tickets and none of them worked in the underground. One of the ticket office guys said "we're getting this a lot. something about a software update"

Eventually, the problem seemed to just fix itself.

Yesterday it started happening again!

Does anyone here know anything about why the GWR and Underground ticket reading systems should drop out of agreement like this?

It's very annoying, because at rush hour you have to find a member of staff to let you in and out of the tube.

 

[Clip]

If its working the GWR barriers then the problem is solely with TfL

 

[ThinController]

If its working the GWR barriers then the problem is solely with TfL

Indeed!

Does that make it off topic for here then? Is this forum only for overground trains?

 

[greaterwest]

If its working the GWR barriers then the problem is solely with TfL

Or it's a problem with the tickets GWR are issuing; to have them work in GWR barriers but not underground ones is odd.

Does it work at other NR stations not operated by GWR, in the London Zones? What error code comes up on the display on the barrier where it says "Seek Assistance"?

 

[sharpley]

If a ticket is rejected on TfL gates then it will display a POD code as to why it was rejected... POD meaning Passenger Orientated Display. The POD code is displayed in different places depending what type of gate you put the ticket through. You mention Paddington which has E2 gates on the NR station, E1 gates on the Paddington LUL lawn entrance, and P gates on the Bakerloo / Praed Street entrances. POD code is displayed next to the Seek Assistance message, apart from P gates where it is displayed on the side of the POD. Common codes for paper tickets are 07 (No mag strip), 09 (unreadable mag strip), 11 (wrong time, off peak ticket at on peak time), 13 (out of date or London Terminals tickets), 51 (already used).

One thing to mention as well is that magnetic tickets are re-coded every time you put them through a gate, hence why your ticket may work sometimes and not others. Without the POD code its hard to tell where the fault lies.

 

[Signal Head]

... Common codes for paper tickets are 07 (No mag strip), 09 (unreadable mag strip), 11 (wrong time, off peak ticket at on peak time), 13 (out of date or London Terminals tickets), 51 (already used).

One thing to mention as well is that magnetic tickets are re-coded every time you put them through a gate, hence why your ticket may work sometimes and not others. Without the POD code its hard to tell where the fault lies.

I didn't know about the re-encoding, thanks, makes sense. It might also explain problems I've had where a ticket fails with code 08 in one gate, (typically shuttling back and forth 3 or 4 times before failing), thereafter failing with code 09 everywhere.
08 failure seems to mystify VT gate staff, they don't know the meaning of it.

 

[furlong]

As sharpley says, you need to look at the code next time the first time it happens for clues about which equipment has the error. (You might get a different code the first time from the code you get later.) LU ticket gates have the ability to decide a ticket is invalid and mark it so that it will never open another LU ticket gate. (Even a simple clock error could cause this - LU doesn't allow time to go backwards - code 54!) If the problem is the GWR issuing machine, sometimes using the ticket for a journey on NR first can fix it i.e. a less-fussy NR ticket gate rewrites the ticket correcting the fault before it gets inserted into an LU gate which might otherwise mark it as permanently invalid on LU. Another 'strange' LU code caused by an encoding mistake is 13 'underpaid'.

 

[Hadders]

I had this issue on a day travelcard following the installation of VTECs new TVM at Stevenage station a few months ago. A helpful forum member on here who works for VTEC (as they then were) contacted me and asked me to send the ticket to them. The problem was swiftly resolved

Have GWR installed new ticket issuing kit recently? That's probably the problem.

 

[zoneking]

I have a southern purchased zones 1-6 to Shalford season ticket and get exactly the same problem - it works everywhere except most TFL underground stations. It is very annoying. I don't know why I can't also get a zones-1-6 oyster card as well as my paper ticket, that would solve the problem. I bet TFL are wanting to do away completely with all tickets that are not smart or contactless cards.

 

[PeterC]

Always been a problem. I gave up on my company's season ticket loan scheme (they bought and issued the tickets, always paper) because I was fed detouring to a NR ticket office for a replacement and switched to PAYG on Oyster. Between sick leave, working at home and staying with friends nearer the office after a night out I was no worse off.

 

[greaterwest]

08 failure seems to mystify VT gate staff, they don't know the meaning of it.

08 means the gate has a faulty write head, said gate has just corrupted a ticket.

 

[westv]

I had the same problem yesterday with a 7 day season Guildford to London 1-6. Was ok before then.
Didn't work two gates I tried at Waterloo Jubilee line entrance nor one gate at Willesden Green but it did work the "wide gate" there.

 

[Clip]

Indeed!

Does that make it off topic for here then? Is this forum only for overground trains?

Im not sure how you came to that conclusion

 

[island]

A colleague of mine had an issue with a GWR ticket that was issued valid for longer than a year (because of void days) and got error 19 ticket used before start date. In her case, an encode exchange fixed it.

 

[sharpley]

I didn't know about the re-encoding, thanks, makes sense. It might also explain problems I've had where a ticket fails with code 08 in one gate, (typically shuttling back and forth 3 or 4 times before failing), thereafter failing with code 09 everywhere.
08 failure seems to mystify VT gate staff, they don't know the meaning of it.

08 is verify fail, the gate has attempted to write code to the ticket but has failed. E1 and P gates that you find on the TfL network have 3 mag heads inside (read, write, verify) and a ticket will only make 1 pass over these. E2 gates have 2 heads with the read / verify being done by one head. If its unable to verify the ticket is coded correctly it will make multiple passes over the head (shuttling back and forth) until it gives up. Once you have reject code of 09 then the mag strip is unreadable and normally won't work again.

 

[ThinController]

wow! thanks so much everyone.

I just tried it in the ticket barrier at Picc Circus and it just gave me the red "seek assistance" - it didn't generate any kind of error code.

 

[sharpley]

wow! thanks so much everyone.

I just tried it in the ticket barrier at Picc Circus and it just gave me the red "seek assistance" - it didn't generate any kind of error code.

Picc Circus has P Gates, theirs a 2 digit display on the side of the passenger display where it says 'seek assistance', its well hidden if you don't know its there.

 

[ThinController]

Picc Circus has P Gates, theirs a 2 digit display on the side of the passenger display where it says 'seek assistance', its well hidden if you don't know its there.

Crikey! you really know your s**t! I'll try and find it later on then. Thanks

When you say "on the side" do you mean the error code does not show on the screen, but on a side at right angles to it?

 

[tsr]

Crikey! you really know your s**t! I'll try and find it later on then. Thanks

When you say "on the side" do you mean the error code does not show on the screen, but on a side at right angles to it?

Yes (at least if I’m thinking of the same type of barriers)! It’s positioned that way partly to be used by revenue protection staff to pick out passengers with incorrect tickets (as opposed to faulty ones) by looking at the code displayed as people pass through. I seem to remember there was another reason as well, but I can’t recall it.

 

[sharpley]

When you say "on the side" do you mean the error code does not show on the screen, but on a side at right angles to it?

Yes, as you approach the gate you have the main display (green arrow, red cross, seek assistance etc...), on the left side of that display (ie facing into the walkway of the gate) is the 2 digit display. Can only really see it as you walk through the gate, look to your right as you pass through (it will display 00 if your ticket is valid)

 

[ThinController]

Yes, as you approach the gate you have the main display (green arrow, red cross, seek assistance etc...), on the left side of that display (ie facing into the walkway of the gate) is the 2 digit display. Can only really see it as you walk through the gate, look to your right as you pass through (it will display 00 if your ticket is valid)

...or don't pass though, in my case!

Thanks

 

[ThinController]

Ok. So my error code is...

54

 

[sharpley]

Ok. So my error code is...

54

54 = Valid ticket, but only for a journey shorter than that travelled.

No idea what thats supposed to mean LOL.

 

[island]

54 Paper ticket permanently cancelled, was used prior to start date

 

[furlong]

54 = Valid ticket, but only for a journey shorter than that travelled.

No - 54 is the one I referenced before. In effect the barrier reads a time in the future from the ticket in a location that is supposed to only store time in the past. It can be caused by clock errors (if the clock on the machine writing the ticket is running ahead of the barrier that reads it, or - less likely - if the clock in the barrier is running slow) or by an encoding error (one of the timestamp fields on the ticket is filled in incorrectly). For some types of these errors, completing a journey through national rail gates before presenting it to an underground gate may fix it. (Another cause is using the ticket in its first hours of validity after midnight while the LU clock still holds the previous day.)

 

[westv]

Tried to see if my ticket produced an error but all was ok this evening. I assume defective barriers rather than ticket.

 

[silverfoxcc]

This is spooky,
Was going to start a thread on this.
Today (Wed) purchased two Off Peak Travelcards at Twyford.
We both get through the gates at Pad, but as i sail through the machines at the underground bit, BiL is getting the 'computer says no' bit and gates not opening.This happened to him at every gate we went through both TfL an Overground at Chingford and Liv St, and on arrival bck at Pad,the GWR gates as well!!

I had no problems anytime during the day.

He had the card in the same pocket as his mobile. Could the strip have been compromised?

 

[furlong]

No idea unless you note down the error code the gates display! And then consider the error might be with the *previous* gate that that ticket went through. Did you go through different gates when exiting at Paddington NR?

 

[ThinController]

Ok. Thanks everyone. So any idea how I can fix this?

 

[AndyHA]

Ok. Thanks everyone. So any idea how I can fix this?

I often have this problem with Travel Cards issued st Bishop’s Stortford . I was told recently that if you keep your Travel Card near your Moblie Phone , and you get a call etc . The electrics upset the codings on the T/ Card .