Rail Sale and e-Tickets

[MikeWh]

I've bought some rail sale tickets today, Southeastern and LNER/GC, and in neither case was I offered e-Ticket fulfilment. All four journeys were single train, no Underground or anything complicated. Has there been a bit of a mistake made here?

 

[Travelmonkey]

when looking myself I've had the oppisite problem only availible as E tickets

 

[Adam Williams]

It gets screwed up most years. The way the system (RCS) works is increasingly unfit-for-purpose given E-Ticket penetration at this point, in my view.

But yes, I can see flows on e.g. Southeastern where it looks like they've forgotten to add NAP to the E-Ticketability list, despite other products on the very same flow being E-Ticketable.

I've not looked at LNER/GC, but if you can confirm the ticket details someone can probably check.

 

[MikeWh]

I've not looked at LNER/GC, but if you can confirm the ticket details someone can probably check.

The LNER one isn't actually rail sale, having checked, so it'll be the GC YRK-KGX that blocks it.

 

[Haywain]

I've bought some rail sale tickets today, Southeastern and LNER/GC, and in neither case was I offered e-Ticket fulfilment. All four journeys were single train, no Underground or anything complicated. Has there been a bit of a mistake made here?

If they are all purchased in one transaction they will default to the same fulfilment method, so if one isn't available as eTicket the rest can't be issued that way.

 

[MikeWh]

If they are all purchased in one transaction they will default to the same fulfilment method, so if one isn't available as eTicket the rest can't be issued that way.

I'm aware of that. The Southeastern ones were purchased from them while the York ones came from LNER. Which confirms that the GC ticket must not have been set up properly. Perhaps it's a ruse to use up a load of CCST stock?

 

[Haywain]

Perhaps it's a ruse to use up a load of CCST stock?

Why would GC, who don’t have TVMs or ticket offices* care about that?


*Other than Eaglescliff which is barely worth mentioning in the grand scheme of things.

 

[superkopite]

But yes, I can see flows on e.g. Southeastern where it looks like they've forgotten to add NAP to the E-Ticketability list, despite other products on the very same flow being E-Ticketable.

SE are aware and are working on a fix

 

[MikeWh]

Why would GC, who don’t have TVMs or ticket offices* care about that?


*Other than Eaglescliff which is barely worth mentioning in the grand scheme of things.

So GC might not, but I'll hazard a guess that Southeastern have quite a few TVMs and ticket offices.

 

[Haywain]

So GC might not, but I'll hazard a guess that Southeastern have quite a few TVMs and ticket offices.

Rail Sale tickets won't make a dent in Southeastern's CCST stocks compared to the volume of Travelcards and other London tickets they will be selling. And as noted above, SE are working to fix the eTicket availability.

 

[Adam Williams]

SE are aware and are working on a fix

Great, but it happens every year; when are TOCs going to ask RDG to re-think this process?

 

[superkopite]

Great, but it happens every year; when are TOCs going to ask RDG to re-think this process?

Give it 20 more years, they'll have it licked

 

[thedbdiboy]

Great, but it happens every year; when are TOCs going to ask RDG to re-think this process?

The way these things are managed is all changing, but we are left with the legacy of a process dating from the mid 90s that gave absolutely thought to co-ordinating future developments nationally. The idealogues were somehow convinced that in the absence of any overall accountability for managing the development of future national ticketing infrastructure post 1996, it would all somehow magically happen simply because it was 'privatised'.

Asking when TOCs are going to ask RDG to re-think this process ignores the fact that RDG (and ATOC before it) are not 'in charge' of anything; RDG exists to administer functions on behalf of the TOCs, who legally own RDG. And whilst there are many able minds at RDG able to rethink this process (yes really!) the funding for changes and the actual approval of decisions needs to come from TOCs (and therefore from DfT, who sign off what TOCs can agree). Which is why such a seemingly simple ask hasn't happened to date.

 

[Adam Williams]

The way these things are managed is all changing, but we are left with the legacy of a process dating from the mid 90s that gave absolutely thought to co-ordinating future developments nationally. The idealogues were somehow convinced that in the absence of any overall accountability for managing the development of future national ticketing infrastructure post 1996, it would all somehow magically happen simply because it was 'privatised'.

Asking when TOCs are going to ask RDG to re-think this process ignores the fact that RDG (and ATOC before it) are not 'in charge' of anything; RDG exists to administer functions on behalf of the TOCs, who legally own RDG. And whilst there are many able minds at RDG able to rethink this process (yes really!) the funding for changes and the actual approval of decisions needs to come from TOCs (and therefore from DfT, who sign off what TOCs can agree). Which is why such a seemingly simple ask hasn't happened to date.

RDG is the custodian of RCS. RDG is also responsible for the standards that govern its usage; they describe their own purpose (which presumably all of their members agree with) as:

Designing and running central industry systems to support the operations of the railway, integrating systems from Network Rail, Retailers and Operators, improving the security of industry systems, integrating and analysing data and delivering large scale programmes from testing to ongoing service management.

From journey information, reservations and Railcards to improving performance, safety and accessibility, we drive the services and people that keep the railway moving

That sounds very much to me like they are in charge of running the systems they are responsible for.

If we take the position that it's impossible to fix the mess that is the data here without incurring significant cost (which - as a position - I completely disagree with and do not think has any real alignment with reality), it is free to issue a bulletin that says something like "You can use the presence of one ticket on a flow for E-Ticketability to justify E-Ticketability for any comparable ticket on that same flow priced by the same fare setter". That would fix all of the product-on-flow-level anomalies overnight, and all the development cost of doing that would be borne by retailers.

It is also free to look at a list of anomalous flows that a retailer has already compiled for you at no cost. It should be less than 5 minutes of work to then update them in bulk. If that is not the case, then the system that was procured and built was never fit for purpose in the first place.

You do not need a significant change here that needs sign-off from 20 committees. I know RDG finds actually doing stuff very difficult without that level of pointless bureaucracy but there are many small things you could do to improve the passenger experience in this area - as part of day-to-day management of this service - without deviating too far from the existing BAU process (or scrapping it and starting again) if the will was there. I do not believe that DfT oversight extends to the minutiae and technical implementation detail of RCS itself - I think that that is a convenient excuse which often gets wheeled out to justify not improving the passenger experience.

 

[CyrusWuff]

Logically the solution would be to have RCS defaulting to have everything other than cross-London journeys (and those involving Merseyrail and ScotRail) for e-ticket fulfiment.

But clearly that's much too sensible! It's also unlikely to be applied retrospectively to existing products.

 

[Adam Williams]

Logically the solution would be to have RCS defaulting to have everything other than cross-London journeys (and those involving Merseyrail and ScotRail) for e-ticket fulfiment.

Completely agree - the "allowlist" approach is the wrong way around, though as you rightly point out you'd need to try and get the existing flows & products into the right state as well as putting this in place for everything new.

 

[Wallsendmag]

Let me have the LNER flow and I'll check, ah sorry read the rest now never mind. If you ever want me to check just PM me

 

[thedbdiboy]

If we take the position that it's impossible to fix the mess that is the data here without incurring significant cost (which - as a position - I completely disagree with and do not think has any real alignment with reality), it is free to issue a bulletin that says something like "You can use the presence of one ticket on a flow for E-Ticketability to justify E-Ticketability for any comparable ticket on that same flow priced by the same fare setter". That would fix all of the product-on-flow-level anomalies overnight, and all the development cost of doing that would be borne by retailers.

It is also free to look at a list of anomalous flows that a retailer has already compiled for you at no cost. It should be less than 5 minutes of work to then update them in bulk. If that is not the case, then the system that was procured and built was never fit for purpose in the first place.

You do not need a significant change here that needs sign-off from 20 committees. I know RDG finds actually doing stuff very difficult without that level of pointless bureaucracy but there are many small things you could do to improve the passenger experience in this area - as part of day-to-day management of this service - without deviating too far from the existing BAU process (or scrapping it and starting again) if the will was there. I do not believe that DfT oversight extends to the minutiae and technical implementation detail of RCS itself - I think that that is a convenient excuse which often gets wheeled out to justify not improving the passenger experience.

The good news is that things are changing, and it doesn't require significant cost. The issue has been that anything that steps outside the tramlines of agreed budgets gets difficult very quickly, because the current (outgoing) structure doesn't create the right accountabilities for people to feel empowered to make decisions.

All I'm trying to do is explain that the failure for things to happen is not because a few people sit on their backsides and choose not to do so; it is because the entire structure has been constructed as a systemic self-cancelling bureaucracy. The root of that was the decision back in 1996 to make the TOCs collectively responsible for network systems despite the franchising process meaning that each member would only ever have time-limited commercial interest in the operation. That does not make for a resilient operational structure or decent long term planning.

 

[Sonic1234]

Rail Sale tickets won't make a dent in Southeastern's CCST stocks compared to the volume of Travelcards and other London tickets they will be selling. And as noted above, SE are working to fix the eTicket availability.

Issuing tickets on CCST means they get a TOD fee from the retailer, which most likely will not be SE themselves.

They're running those TVMs and ticket offices whether or not your sale ticket is an e-ticket or not. May as well get some use out of them.

Isn't this the Merseyrail argument for not accepting e-tickets?

 

[Haywain]

Issuing tickets on CCST means they get a TOD fee from the retailer, which most likely will not be SE themselves.

They're running those TVMs and ticket offices whether or not your sale ticket is an e-ticket or not. May as well get some use out of them.

Isn't this the Merseyrail argument for not accepting e-tickets?

The idea that Rail Sale tickets being issued on CCST and not e-tickets is some sort of financial conspiracy is just nonsense.

 

[Travelmonkey]

to be fair my rail sale tickets I'm getting as TOD as I prefer them over E tickets, especially if things go wrong and I am delayed by a substantial period.

 

[OscarH]

it is because the entire structure has been constructed as a systemic self-cancelling bureaucracy

It's so painful, everything is a meeting about a meeting about a meeting, then 50 committees to do the most basic thing. It's no wonder most of the good people leave (not all! I also work with lots of people there who've stuck around and desparately try to move things forward), because they can never get anything useful done

Just sitting in meetings and email chains with various parts of it does my head in, I couldn't hack working there

Putting it in the hands of the TOCs, who had a vested interest in how many of these systems operate was a terrible decision anyway, and one we're still seeing the repercussions of to this day. It really needs to be handled by an independent body who can balance the interests of TOCs and retailers properly

 

[Haywain]

who had a vested interest in how many of these systems operate

I think the problem is that individual TOCs didn't have sufficient vested interest in how systems operate to bring about improvements. You can never get progress if you have many competing interests in the decision making process.

 

[OscarH]

I think the problem is that individual TOCs didn't have sufficient vested interest in how systems operate to bring about improvements. You can never get progress if you have many competing interests in the decision making process.

You're right to be fair there's a lot of cases where it feels like there was/is no interest, so "just leave it as is" is the course of action

There's also a few where TOCs have been able to veto features that really they shouldn't have been in a position to, and now they and everyone else are paying the price (quite literally) which I had on my mind

 

[Wallsendmag]

TOCs have Smart targets to hit so aren't interested in any way in increasing ToD sales

 

[Adam Williams]

The smart targets don't properly incentivise E-Ticket rollout because bogroll is "smart".

 

[Wallsendmag]

The smart targets don't properly incentivise E-Ticket rollout because bogroll is "smart".

But very few TVMs produce PRT currently.

 

[Adam Williams]

But very few TVMs produce PRT currently.

Sure - but it was commonplace a few years back for TOCs to go to DfT and say "we've given our guards new TIS hardware that can print to PRT! Aren't we amazing at meeting smart ticketing targets?"

All the while, said same operator had failed to add 60% of their latest shiny new Advance tiers to RCS on flows around the country to enable E-Ticketing for the sales channels that actually matter because they drive the majority of sales. It didn't matter though because the on-train ticket machine was able to print barcodes, therefore the new tickets were smart.

 

[Travelmonkey]

I do need to test the "bog roll" style ticket on something like a Cheshire day ranger, see how many Merseyrail staff I can confuse, it does seem like a mix bag even within tocs, EMR for example when I get my ticket from a guard it's a bog roll but when I see the colleuges in the local ticket office it's card stock. they even have a full filling cabinent off them. E tickets are alas the future even the calledonain sleeper has switched to E tickets for all their transactions.