Retrieval of Tickets from Gatelines

[bb21]

I'll be quick with this one as I'm in a hurry. Any thoughts on this?

Got to Southampton Central Tuesday night last week on XC and put the ticket into the gateline which of course meant that it got swallowed. I then asked the guy manning the gate if he wouldn't mind retrieving it for me to which he replied 'no' as it was my fault to have put it through the gate. On top of that he said he didn't have the key for it. I was in a rush then so after explaining that i really needed to have it and getting nowhere for 5 minutes had to leave.

Does anyone have a view on where passengers stand in that sort of situation? Are TOC staff obliged to open the gate and retrieve the ticket if requested? I lost £6.77 because of this and am very interested to know if it was worth writing to SWT about this?

Cheers all

 

[northwichcat]

If your ticket wasn't for Southampton and the ticket gate swallowed it then it suggests it's programmed wrongly and could accept invalid tickets.

Yes you should write to SWT as you've paid twice for part of your journey. If you paid by card and have a receipt that states the amount you paid and where you make the transaction then that'll be useful for your claim.

 

[455driver]

If the ticket was to Southampton IE finished with the gate line will keep it, if you wanted to retain the ticket why did you put in the gate instead of just showing it and explaining you wanted to keep it!

JC why do you assume the machine was in error when the OP stated-

Got to Southampton Central Tuesday night last week on XC and put the ticket into the gateline which of course meant that it got swallowed

which reads to me that the ticket was finished with.

 

[tony_mac]

if you wanted to retain the ticket why did you put in the gate instead of just showing it and explaining you wanted to keep it!

because he didn't know that would happen?

Some gatelines always return tickets - others retain (sometimes still valid) tickets; unless you have had one retained you don't know that is what will happen.

(somebody has to come along and say that the ticket is owned by the railway, and you have no right to ask for it back!)

 

[DaveNewcastle]

(somebody has to come along and say that the ticket is owned by the railway, and you have no right to ask for it back!)

That'll be me, then.

The physical ticket is the legal property of the railway company(s) [actually, I'm not sure which company in the case of it being sold by one for use on one or more others, but this isn't the point]. It isn't the passenger's property but is to be retained by the passenger when travelling.
In addition. Receipts are generally available at the time of purchase which might be of use to the passenger.

This maybe doesn't answer the original question but might help, and should prevent tony_mac having to wait much longer!!!

 

[bb21]

It was finished with. The ticket in question was the Brighton - Southampton Central Route Not London.

I understand the bit about receipts however my boss will not accept that as proof and company policy dictates that expenses can only be claimed if both parts of a return ticket was present. This was allegedly to stop people claiming full expense on one portion and claiming for compensation in case of delays etc on the other. This was what I explained to the gateline staff however he was having none of it and insisted that it was my fault.

The problem was that on many occasions I was told by gateline staff to put the ticket through the gates and if it was swallowed then they would retrieve it. In fact there were so many more occasions when this happened especially at SWT and LM stations now I just automatically put it through to save the hassle and have never come across a situation where the member of staff declines such requests.

It's not a massive amount of money just out of curiosity. After this I guess I will NEVER do that again unless I have the assurance of the gateline staff.

I thought the issue of being railway property would surface somewhere.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Also forgot to add that in practice how many people ask for receipts? Most people I know consider the actual tickets to be receipts anyway.

 

[willas00]

I always get a receipt especially when paying by card.

Best to have it on record.

 

[Matt Taylor]

He was lying to you when he said he didn't have a key, all barrier staff have to have keys to open the barriers otherwise they must be switched off, we use the keys to open the barriers when people get stuck. They have the new style barriers at Southampton so the ticket could have been recovered with little difficulty, but writing to SWT will not do anything as the ticket is not the property of the passenger and you have no legal right to it.

 

[First class]

He was lying to you when he said he didn't have a key, all barrier staff have to have keys to open the barriers otherwise they must be switched off, we use the keys to open the barriers when people get stuck. They have the new style barriers at Southampton so the ticket could have been recovered with little difficulty, but writing to SWT will not do anything as the ticket is not the property of the passenger and you have no legal right to it.

That's incorrect regarding the keys. The barriers must only be legally de-activated (switched off) during periods where no staff are present to monitor them.

As you can control the barriers using the EMO or Computer Screen, no key is necessary. A one shot release key, does however, make it a lot easier. But it is not a legal requirement to have one.

 

[northwichcat]

JC why do you assume the machine was in error

They said they lost £6.77 and were in a rush which suggested to me that they had to buy another ticket for a connecting service. There was no information in the original post stating why £6.77 had been lost.

Northern Rail and Merseyrail both state that you aren't permitted to keep the ticket when you finish with it if going through a barriered station and must obtain a receipt if you need to claim expenses. They fail to state about needing to retain your ticket if putting in a compensation claim for a delayed service.

As discussed before if barriers stamped something like "Exit SOU 17.08.2010 18:00" and returned it to you it would prevent these issues and still prevent fraud. After all irregular rail users don't know how barriers work they might see someone in front getting a ticket returned (which is a season ticket) and then get confused when there's get swallowed.

 

[swt_passenger]

As discussed before if barriers stamped something like "Exit SOU 17.08.2010 18:00" and returned it to you it would prevent these issues and still prevent fraud.

Presumably they'd also have to deactivate the magnetic info as normal, preventing reuse in the barrier...

 

[Matt Taylor]

That's incorrect regarding the keys. The barriers must only be legally de-activated (switched off) during periods where no staff are present to monitor them.

As you can control the barriers using the EMO or Computer Screen, no key is necessary. A one shot release key, does however, make it a lot easier. But it is not a legal requirement to have one.

But where I work the keys for the barriers are the same as the keys for the SCU cabinet, if you have no keys how are you going to use the computer screen? Last resort is the EMO plunger but we have been advised that it really is a 'last resort' option as there is a risk of people in other barriers getting hurt while you try to release someone in another gate.

 

[First class]

Our SCU is not in a cabinet.

I can only assume that the use/issue of these keys is subject to TOC Local Instructions as per the CSM.

 

[Greenback]

I often find it strange why many companies seem to accept scruffy handwritten pieces of paer as legitimate receipts for such things as a taxi, yet insist on the actual rail tickets rather than an official receipt?!

Although staff can retrieve tickets when they have a key to the barrier in question, it does cause a bit of delay and inconvenience to others. A bit of a queue builds up at Swansea every time this happens, as 33% of the gates are out of use whilst it's done, and often 66% if the staff and customer are blocking one of the two other gates! The membe rof staff is also then unavailable to help other passengers through as well.

There are a similar number of gates at Southampton IIRC from last week, so I'm not surprised that staff are reluctant to locate a key, open the machine and get the ticket out again, particulalry when it is the property of the company not the passneger!

 

[dan_atki]

They fail to state about needing to retain your ticket if putting in a compensation claim for a delayed service.

Condition 42 (e) of the Conditions of Carriage covers this:

To qualify for this compensation you must make a claim to one of the Train Companies’ ticket offices or customer relations offices within 28 days of completing the relevant journey, stating the timetabled departure time of the train or trains you intended to use for the journey. When you make your claim you must provide a ticket or other authority to travel which was valid for that journey. A Train Company will allow you to retain a ticket for this purpose.

(my emphasis).

 

[northwichcat]

Condition 42 (e) of the Conditions of Carriage covers this:

Yes but Northern and Merseyrail don't tell you this themselves on huge posters they stick up at stations telling you about ticket barriers.

 

[DaveNewcastle]

I understand the bit about receipts however my boss will not accept that as proof and company policy dictates that expenses can only be claimed if both parts of a return ticket was present. This was allegedly to stop people claiming full expense on one portion and claiming for compensation in case of delays etc on the other. This was what I explained to the gateline staff however he was having none of it and insisted that it was my fault.

I find that a highly objectionable policy by your employer!
A receipt should be perfectly acceptable evidence of your expense.
If your employer has a policy which is so focussed on traps to avoid possible overclaiming, then I guess there are other reasons for the appalling lack of trust between employer and employee. "My boss will not accept that as proof" suggests that your boss already knows you went there and back, by some form of paid-for travel, but is unwilling to countersign a receipt to confirm it was a legitimate expense incurred on company business. Why not? Sounds a dreadful place to work!
(I wonder what would happen if you and your colleagues had travelled regularly from stations hundreds of miles away and not had their expenses refunded!)

I don't really want to get sidetracked into the "to stop people claiming full expense on one portion and claiming for compensation in case of delays etc" but if there WAS a repayment to the passenger by way of compensation for the delay, is it beyond the company's care for their staff to think that the poor employee who was inconvenienced by a serious delay might reasonably deserve some compensation - particularly if it led to their returning home much later at night than might be expected from the terms of their employment?

How many of your colleagues have been de-frauding the company of £6.77 a shot, then? Was the company really sufferring from this crippling economic fraud?

They said they lost £6.77 and were in a rush which suggested to me that they had to buy another ticket for a connecting service. There was no information in the original post stating why £6.77 had been lost.

I'm assuming from the first post that the "loss" was only that his employer would not re-imburse him/her without the ticket as evidence of the expense.

 

[blacknight]

Assuming only 1 gateline assistant is on duty & several other passengers have also passed through gate-How is he or she going to positively identify your ticket in spent ticket bin surrounded by other tickets?

 

[bb21]

I find that a highly objectionable policy by your employer!

It's only a part-time job after all so I'm in for some pocket money
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

I'm assuming from the first post that the "loss" was only that his employer would not re-imburse him/her without the ticket as evidence of the expense.

You're right. Southampton was my destination, plus iirc the railway only works in 5p units so £6.77 wouldn't have been something to do with fares i guess. It's half of the ticket cost as the fare was £13.55 and I was only allowed to claim back £6.78. The guy at the gateline did mention that I could have claimed using the return portion which had the price on it however he didn't take in any of my explanation
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Assuming only 1 gateline assistant is on duty & several other passengers have also passed through gate-How is he or she going to positively identify your ticket in spent ticket bin surrounded by other tickets?

By matching the ticket number of the return portion I still hold i assume

 

[jon0844]

When my wife lost her ticket between King's Cross and Hatfield (I don't know how she did, most likely she dropped it soon after using the gate at KGX), on a day when we'd gone with friends on Groupsave tickets, the gateline staff did - after everyone had gone through - open the machine to retrieve one of the group save tickets, presumably to check we'd really got groupsave tickets.

As a few people had gone through between, there were a lot of tickets to go through but we knew pretty much the time we'd got the tickets and how we'd paid etc (including whether it was a ticket office or TVM). All things that should have made it dead easy to find.

Funnily enough, he still couldn't find the ticket but that's probably because he got them all mixed up instead of simply looking through them as a stack! In the end, he gave us the benefit of the doubt. I am sure that if my friendly RPI was on duty that day, it would have been £20. Not that, under those circumstances, either myself or my wife would have had a problem paying it - she did lose the ticket and fail to present it when required.

To be honest, it's probably not that easy to pull out one single ticket if anyone else has used the machine since. They may be stacked up, but they're probably easy to mix up when you extract a clump. It's also fair to say that they all look rather similar!

 

[bb21]

Although staff can retrieve tickets when they have a key to the barrier in question, it does cause a bit of delay and inconvenience to others. A bit of a queue builds up at Swansea every time this happens, as 33% of the gates are out of use whilst it's done, and often 66% if the staff and customer are blocking one of the two other gates! The membe rof staff is also then unavailable to help other passengers through as well.

There are a similar number of gates at Southampton IIRC from last week, so I'm not surprised that staff are reluctant to locate a key, open the machine and get the ticket out again, particulalry when it is the property of the company not the passneger!

I exited from the Platform 4 (down) end and it was 7.50pm so there was me and about three other passengers. I can understand the reluctance during rush hours considering the inconvenience but during such a quiet time of the day, especially considering all the discussions that followed, it was probably quicker to get the ticket back out anyway.

As I mentioned before I'm not overly concerned about the money that much and will now NEVER put tickets through barriers again unless told to. Just wondering where passengers stand in these situations, especially someone not familiar with the system, was on a single ticket, and who did not obtain a receipt prior to travel. I'll fire off a letter to SWT anyway to see what they say although I'm not holding my breath. Maybe they'll provide an explanation letter of some sort I don't know.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

When my wife lost her ticket between King's Cross and Hatfield (I don't know how she did, most likely she dropped it soon after using the gate at KGX), on a day when we'd gone with friends on Groupsave tickets, the gateline staff did - after everyone had gone through - open the machine to retrieve one of the group save tickets, presumably to check we'd really got groupsave tickets.

I had the pleasure of waiting for everyone to pass at St Pancras during rush hours once before the gateline staff opened the cover to retrieve my ticket. Oh yes it was a nightmare trawling through all of them, even though he asked me to supply him with the ticket price and origin.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

It's also fair to say that they all look rather similar!

Here is an idea back to the old days of multi-coloured ticket stock, maybe even different ones for singles/returns

 

[jon0844]

Passengers shouldn't stand anywhere. You expect to give up most tickets at the end of a journey, and if you need a receipt you ask for a receipt.

As has been stated, it seems a problem with your employer and the accounts department, not the railway.

However, you can usually ask to keep your ticket and have it marked/torn, but clearly you do that by approaching a member of staff, not a gateline that won't listen to you saying 'hey, give me my ticket back'.

Here is an idea back to the old days of multi-coloured ticket stock, maybe even different ones for singles/returns

Machines have ticket stock on a large reel, so that's not really possible. In London, they use different coloured tickets in different areas - but that's about as much as you could do. In a ticket window, they can use an individual ticket for seasons/railcards, but a TVM wouldn't have room. What you'd need is a colour printer that prints on a basic blank/white ticket.

 

[Greenback]

Strangely enough we went through the platform 4 exits at around 8pm last Monday and there were a few people about - there wasn't a huge group of people going through in one go, more like a steady flow of 5-6 per minute in both directions. I don;t remmber there being more than two gates in each direction, and one member of staff, so I think there would have been a bit of disruption in retrieving the ticket, although there's no way of knowing whether that was a factor in the decision to refuse or not!

It was much busier last Tuesday at 1830, but then there was a football match on!

 

[bb21]

Passengers shouldn't stand anywhere. You expect to give up most tickets at the end of a journey, and if you need a receipt you ask for a receipt.

This is what I used to do but given the policy of these new guys I work for I stopped such practice.

As has been stated, it seems a problem with your employer and the accounts department, not the railway.

I agree. It seems a ludicrous policy but they're my boss so unlikely anything I say would influence what they do anyway as it's only a small private business.

However, you can usually ask to keep your ticket and have it marked/torn, but clearly you do that by approaching a member of staff, not a gateline that won't listen to you saying 'hey, give me my ticket back'.

Like I said, I used to do that until somewhere down the line I realised that I was being asked to put the ticket through the barrier NO MATTER WHAT a lot more times than being let through by showing the ticket to the staff, plus I have never had such a problem of someone refusing to retrieve it. Oh well there's a first time for everything and it could have been far far worse such as having a Inverness-Exeter SVS or something similar swallowed
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

I don;t remmber there being more than two gates in each direction, and one member of staff, so I think there would have been a bit of disruption in retrieving the ticket, although there's no way of knowing whether that was a factor in the decision to refuse or not!

It was much busier last Tuesday at 1830, but then there was a football match on!

There were three gates (incl the wide access gate) and one member of staff. The voyager I was on was fairly quiet.

Maybe he had a run-in with the 4000 strong Bournemouth contingent and hence had more important things on his mind. Mind you the 22.31 back to Poole was jam-packed in the front 6 coaches.

 

[northwichcat]

You expect to give up most tickets at the end of a journey

I disagree. Most times I've left a station with a finished ticket I've not been asked to surrender it and on some of the occasions I have it's been by human mobile barriers who may be at a completly different station the next day.

 

[jon0844]

Well, clearly if there's no gate or member of staff then you'll get to keep your ticket or do what a lot of people do, leave it on the gate or chuck it.

Some may keep their ticket, but unless you intend to claim for something, why bother?

 

[Lampshade]

I've found if you simply ask to keep it they check it then let you through.

 

[LE Greys]

I expected that a few people would bring up the receipts issue, but I'll explain how the Herts County Council reimbursement system works (or at least used to work).
HCC always demanded proof of travel before they paid up (they used to pay my train fare all the way to Somerset when they sent me to school down there). That meant that you had to hand in a punched or stamped tickets. They refused receipts on the grounds that "There is no evidence that the traveller used the ticket" and "Printing receipts is a environmentally unsound because it wastes paper". The latter sounds like a feeble excuse, but the former probably means "If you're stupid enough to buy a ticket and then not use it, you don't deserve any money". Since I sometimes didn't get my ticket punched, I used to have to do them myself with a hole punch before handing them in!

However, if the tickets remain railway property, should I give back the 5,000 or so in my collection? :?

 

[blacknight]

Amazing how many passengers state they seem to have lost the return portion of a ticket they are travelling with but then can pull out of a pocket a crumpled outward portion as proof of purchase. Could this because return part is valid for 30 days

 

[jon0844]

Welwyn Hatfield council issue rail warrants, so you don't have to claim anything back in the first place. I'm surprised HCC doesn't do that too.