E-tickets. How frustrating.

[bakerstreet]

I was caught out by the SWR ticket machine problems today (ticket machine image posted in the global ID outage thread)

Instead, I bought an E-ticket (single off peak) to travel between an ungated station near Basingstoke and a station just beyond Reading.

Ticket was not scanned on entry to the station (no scanner)

Ticket was scanned on board train on guards mobile phone.

It made a rejection sound (it was different from the other passenger’s sound in my carriage)

Guard ignored this, said thank you and moved on.

On his way back, I enquired out of interest why my E ticket made that sound – I so rarely buy an E ticket was curious as to the issue.

He scanned it again and he said – this was scanned at Reading. Have you been to Reading?

No, I said, I’m on my way there now.

(The purchase time would not have enabled me to have been at Reading either)

Given the guard was the only person who has clipped my ticket, I am deeply concerned that a e-ticket scan history can tell a very different story from what actually has occurred.

The guard was fine, helpful and said no, no it’s fine.

However, I am still none the wiser – and this has put me off using e-tickets because I imagine what the computer says can never be questioned in case of difficulty

Presumably now I also have a rejected e-ticket on my account.

I won’t share the ticket image here, and I don’t need the ticket checked, but any general thoughts would be welcome.

 

[signed]

Presumably now I also have a rejected e-ticket on my account.

I doubt very much that there is a e-ticket validation file per-person (as opposed to one per-ticket) record in the UK. And even if it existed, it wouldn't bar you from travelling.

You could do a UK-GDPR Article 15 request for your data to check it, but I think it is not worth the hassle.

IT issues happen, it will make you have no issue going forward.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I suspect the ticket did not in fact have a scan at Reading but rather he either remembered wrongly or it was his previous scan that came up.

There are 3 possible situations - definitely valid, definitely not valid (e.g. wrong date) and "check validity" (or somesuch) - it probably came up with that one.

 

[Adam Williams]

If you bought it from a supportive retailer, I would suggest contacting them to try and get to the bottom of this. They will be able to check the scan history and confirm what actually happened (i.e. what scans actually existed against your ticket at the time you were on the train). There are usually at least some staff at each retailer with access to (a test version of) the same software that on-board staff use, which means they may be able to explain to you why it made the noise it made.

Often it's down to the guard misconfiguring their ticket validation software.

 

[Benjwri]

Was the service you scanned the ticket on on the way to Reading? I have honestly no idea what the apps display, but an educated guess might say the guard was picking up their own scan from earlier, telling them that it had been used as far as Reading?

 

[Wallsendmag]

You have a message.

 

[bakerstreet]

Was the service you scanned the ticket on on the way to Reading? I have honestly no idea what the apps display, but an educated guess might say the guard was picking up their own scan from earlier, telling them that it had been used as far as Reading?

Yes heading to Reading.

 

[Benjwri]

Yes heading to Reading.

Yeah was wondering if whether because the next stop was Reading on the second scan the guard was seeing it had used its validity to Reading, with the app not being designed to scan twice between the same two stations.

The first rejection could have been a different reason such as railcard, or a manual rule to make the staff member question the ticket based on some point of it? I would expect staff to take notice of a full rejection, whereas it is common for them to ignore the sound made for reasons such as a railcard.

 

[bakerstreet]

Yeah was wondering if whether because the next stop was Reading on the second scan the guard was seeing it had used its validity to Reading, with the app not being designed to scan twice between the same two stations.

The first rejection could have been a different reason such as railcard, or a manual rule to make the staff member question the ticket based on some point of it? I would expect staff to take notice of a full rejection, whereas it is common for them to ignore the sound made for reasons such as a railcard.

Thank you yes that makes sense.

 

[yorkie]

@bakerstreet hopefully you got it from the forum's site? Please do contact Raileasy (or send me a message via this forum and I will be happy to forward it); if nothing else it will satisfy your curiousity (and perhaps mine and others; you can choose whether you want to to post the results here).

About a year ago, I had bought tickets from the forum's site for travel from York to Newton-le-Willows; the TfW Guard scanned the first ticket before I could scroll to the next ticket. The ticket was accepted by the Guard, even though it was a TPE Only Advance, and not valid on that leg of my journey. I requested an analysis of the scan and it turned out the Guard had configured their ticket reader to "gateline" mode, hence why it accepted a ticket that was not valid on that service.

Last weekend, I bought a ticket to Witham and was checked on board a Colchester-bound train between Shenfield and Witham. A revenue inspector scanned the ticket, and their scan was logged as being at Colchester. My ticket wasn't valid at Colchester and I didn't go to Colchester that day.

If any train company or any representative of any train company claims conclusively that a ticket has been scanned at a particular location, or on a particular service, they ought to be considering the possibility that the scanner has been configured for a different location.

A little bit of knowledge, without understanding the limitations of that knowledge, can be a dangerous thing.

 

[Adam Williams]

If any train company or any representative of any train company claims conclusively that a ticket has been scanned at a particular location, or on a particular service, they ought to be considering the possibility that the scanner has been configured for a different location.

A little bit of knowledge, without understanding the limitations of that knowledge, can be a dangerous thing.

This is very true. Scan data is often incorrect or has large chunks of data missing (e.g. no location or train service). I don't believe the latter records should even be accepted and stored, personally.

 

[sheff1]

If any train company or any representative of any train company claims conclusively that a ticket has been scanned at a particular location, or on a particular service, they ought to be considering the possibility that the scanner has been configured for a different location.

A little bit of knowledge, without understanding the limitations of that knowledge, can be a dangerous thing.

Quite. But, as has been said before, far too many people perceive technology to be infallible and are unwilling to entertain any arguments to the contrary.

 

[AdamWW]

Quite. But, as has been said before, far too many people perceive technology to be infallible and are unwilling to entertain any arguments to the contrary.

I believe that in the UK there is currently (but there hasn't always been) a legal presumption that computer systems are reliable.

 

[47742]

I believe that in the UK there is currently (but there hasn't always been) a legal presumption that computer systems are reliable.

For very obvious reasons, based on recent (and indeed not even recent) cases, this is quite frightening.

 

[johncrossley]

Has anyone been prosecuted or given an excess or penalty fare in error because the guard or inspector assumed the e-ticket had been used before?