Why on earth is the industry accepting (and presumably paying) suppliers whose product doesn't recognise one of the commonest types of ticket? Surely they should be rejecting the software as not fit for purpose.
The gates can recognise them, but GTR have not paid for Cubic to reprogram the gates with the ticket types in its database. Perhaps if a nice request is put it via Twitter, they could arrange for it.
Advance tickets are not just one ticket type, there are many hundreds, if not thousands, of different ticket types associated with Advance tickets and each one requires programming and that is done by the train operator.
I'm not sure whether this nonsensical process is funny or just depressing. TIS suppliers manage to update from the fares data everyday automatically without making a fuss.
Because Cubic!
This, other gateline suppliers are available with changes included in the contract.
I'm not sure it is - I used to update Cubic gateline software, and I know that it was done in-house at a couple of other train operators, at least. No doubt Cubic will do it, but knowing what their charging is like, I wouldn't ask them unless it was unavoidable.
If only Cubic were interested in developing their software to that extent. The limitations of the software (for mag stripe tickets, at least) matches the limitations of the mag stripe itself. And some of the limitations of software for eTickets and smartcards are even more restrictive (see GTR and Super Off Peak Day Returns)!
This is common at Southern stations; I asked a gateline attendant once and they said it was to ensure people travelled on the right train. Take from that what you will.
Fully agreed - it makes uncertain or nervous travellers feel that they have done something wrong, and worse, it puts them at the mercy of the gateline staff, few of whom see customer service as one of their priorities.
When our tickets were spat out at Brighton the chap on the barrier immediately asked if we had advances. He's having to deal with this nonsense all day, every day.
It's super off peaks that are the programmed reject at Waterloo - in both directions...
I mean that's definitely not true as a blanket statement based on my usage of super off peak travelcards.
Sorry, I should have clarified that it's the through tickets I'm referring to, not the Travelcard ones.
…unless it is routed SWR only
I wouldn’t call it an exception, it’s just a normal feature of the “London Terminals” station group. It works the other way as well with tickets used from somewhere to Waterloo East to Waterloo to Vauxhall.
If your ticket was railcard discounted that would explain it as the gateline at Stevenage appears to be set to reject all railcard discounted tickets.
I've had that nonsense at Liverpool.
Potentially to allow a manual inspection - Farringdon to St Pancras using a traditional is a favourite of 'doughnutters'. Almost no normal person will use a traditional ticket between those stations - contactless ruling the roost these days (although I have used a Gold Card discounted ticket between ZFD and STP in the evening peak because it is cheaper)
What would happen if you scanned an e-ticket?
This is the response I got from Southern when I made a complaint about Advance tickets always being rejected. It seems it is a conscious decision from GTR rather than poor gateline programming - maybe they've set the gates to reject them by removing all Advances from the database rather than using special rules.