Why I avoid e-tickets

[Haywain]

Plus, in my experience, keeping a diary or notebook with emergency contacts copied into it.

I can remember those!

 

[Sonic1234]

Whether a paper roll ticket scan code would have worked at the Underground is questionable

No. There are no barcode scanners at Underground gates (or Overground).

 

[317 forever]

No. There are no barcode scanners at Underground gates (or Overground).

This makes paper roll tickets all the more futile for where Underground journeys are necessary.

 

[JamesT]

This makes paper roll tickets all the more futile for where Underground journeys are necessary.

There have been several threads on the forum about TfL working to introduce barcode scanners.

 

[Haywain]

This makes paper roll tickets all the more futile for where Underground journeys are necessary.

That’s why they are not, generally, issued for such journeys.

 

[xotGD]

Likewise, and this is (as has been stated before) one of the benefits of e-tickets.

Needing to use a laptop to be able to present your ticket and railcard at the same time is a bug, not a feature.

For the vast majority of e-ticket users with a railcard, faffing about with their phone is required.

 

[Haywain]

Needing to use a laptop to be able to present your ticket and railcard at the same time is a bug, not a feature.

At a gate it might be, but not on a train when the laptop is already open.

 

[jfollows]

If you’ve got an Apple Watch, you can use it to display tickets saved in the Wallet. For me, this does away with the need to faff around with my phone. Plus it’s fine for contactless in London also. Obviously it won’t apply to lots of people, but if you have the technology you can use it.
I’ve already said that I’m neutral about the technology, it’s the purchase process for etickets that annoys me. If I could ask for the ticket I want at a ticket office and have it fulfilled as an eticket, that’d be fine with me.
Android phones and watches may also be capable of similar things. I just don’t know.

 

[Haywain]

If I could ask for the ticket I want at a ticket office and have it fulfilled as an eticket, that’d be fine with me.

LNER ticket offices can do this but emailing the e-tickets is a bit of a faff in itself.

 

[xotGD]

At a gate it might be, but not on a train when the laptop is already open.

Vastly more passengers brandish phones when the gripper comes round than have an open laptop in front of them.

 

[railpigeon]

Why? For me it's the best of both worlds, you get the flexibility of being able to book immediately with all the information you need to hand but none of the fiddlyness of having to get your phone out, switch it on and try to find out which folder it's hidden your e-ticket in whenever there's an inspection .

There seems to be this myth that the only people who use paper tickets are dinosaurs who are terrified of technology; in my experience they're not, they just find having a paper tickets a lot more convenient. As the old saying goes, if it ain't broke, why fix it?

What a relief - I am not alone!

I am not a dinosaur; just prudent. If your 21st century tech fails through a drained battery, a power pack you forgot to recharge, sockets not working, a cracked screen, loss of signal or greasy fingers that won’t scroll the screen then the downsides are Victorian.

Unable to present a ticket? Then by-laws first framed in the 1840s kick in, the RORA 1889 is dusted off, you have to await a letter (!) to see how the operator has decided how to penalize you. To ensure your side is heard you have to go to a post office (“grandad, what’s a post office?”) to queue to send your letter tracked/registered. You settle the dispute with an “admin fee” that implies it was resolved by frock-coated clerks shuffling dockets through in-trays and out-trays.

What if the penalties for simple and everyday tech failures were to join 2026 in the same way that ticket retail has? What if you had 24 hours to send a screenshot to prove you had a valid ticket at the time of ticket inspection? What if inspectors had access to your ticket purchasing history there and then, accessing my valid ticket from their side? With that I would be happy with an eticket.

Until then, for as long as the occasional and ordinary downsides of the iPhone render me liable to be treated as a criminal, I will stick with paper.

 

[Cdd89]

Needing to use a laptop to be able to present your ticket and railcard at the same time is a bug, not a feature.

This should be a slam dunk advantage of eTickets. Just encode the railcard number, validate upon issuing, and look up the image(s) from a central database upon scanning for verification. Instead it's a total miss and every ticket check involves shuffling around between three apps.

 

[jfollows]

LNER ticket offices can do this but emailing the e-tickets is a bit of a faff in itself.

Good to know, thank you.

 

[Haywain]

Vastly more passengers brandish phones when the gripper comes round than have an open laptop in front of them.

That is undoubtedly the case, but if someone is working on a laptop, as in the case of @Cdd89, then it might be easier.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 7 Jun 2026 ==

I am not a dinosaur; just prudent. If your 21st century tech fails through a drained battery, a power pack you forgot to recharge, sockets not working, a cracked screen, loss of signal or greasy fingers that won’t scroll the screen then the downsides are Victorian.

Unable to present a ticket? Then by-laws first framed in the 1840s kick in, the RORA 1889 is dusted off, you have to await a letter (!) to see how the operator has decided how to penalize you. To ensure your side is heard you have to go to a post office (“grandad, what’s a post office?”) to queue to send your letter tracked/registered. You settle the dispute with an “admin fee” that implies it was resolved by frock-coated clerks shuffling dockets through in-trays and out-trays.

What if the penalties for simple and everyday tech failures were to join 2026 in the same way that ticket retail has? What if you had 24 hours to send a screenshot to prove you had a valid ticket at the time of ticket inspection? What if inspectors had access to your ticket purchasing history there and then, accessing my valid ticket from their side? With that I would be happy with an eticket.

Until then, for as long as the occasional and ordinary downsides of the iPhone render me liable to be treated as a criminal, I will stick with paper.

And what if you lose that bit of paper?

 

[Cdd89]

And what if you lose that bit of paper?

I agree with the OP in the sense that losing your phone is a analogous to losing your paper ticket, and your phone becoming damaged is analogous to your ticket becoming damaged. Your phone malfunctioning on a full battery, however, is analogous to your ticket dematerialising, which the conservation of mass-energy states is not possible.

Personally I find this risk tolerable, and would expect to only get a penalty fare or an understanding prosecution department upon presentation of the excuse and evidence, but I find it poor that the rail industry offers no statutory protection against this scenario even though it's unlikely.

Given that eTickets are already instantly transferable, it would open no new avenues for fraud to allow for retrospective validation of eTickets and eRailcards as a matter of right, upon payment of a reasonable admin fee.

 

[Haywain]

I agree with the OP in the sense that losing your phone is a analogous to losing your paper ticket, and your phone becoming damaged is analogous to your ticket becoming damaged. Your phone malfunctioning on a full battery, however, is analogous to your ticket dematerialising, which the conservation of mass-energy states is not possible.

But it isn't analogous, as in any of the situations described with a phone, all is not lost. The ticket can still be accessed on another device and, whilst it prevents difficulty, the kindness of strangers might well allow on opportunity for a ticket to be retrieved for long enough to get through a barrier line or pass a ticket inspection. None of that is available with a lost paper ticket.

 

[xotGD]

But it isn't analogous, as in any of the situations described with a phone, all is not lost. The ticket can still be accessed on another device and, whilst it prevents difficulty, the kindness of strangers might well allow on opportunity for a ticket to be retrieved for long enough to get through a barrier line or pass a ticket inspection. None of that is available with a lost paper ticket.

"Can I just borrow your phone to log in to my email account?"

Good luck with that.

 

[Haywain]

"Can I just borrow your phone to log in to my email account?"

Good luck with that.

At least it's an option, and it won't be with a paper ticket.

 

[Cdd89]

At least it's an option, and it won't be with a paper ticket.

In this day and age, you're [probably*] not getting into your own email account using a random person's phone without first clearing a secondary authentication challenge, which will require your phone.

There are potential solutions, like retrospective validation or (as the OP states) TOCs having the ability to review your purchases in real time with an email address, some identifying details/form of weak ID and your verbal consent. However they require the industry to approach ticketing design from the perspective of how they can minimise the number of honest people being penalty fared, when the actual approach almost seems to be the opposite (I say almost as I am not so cynical as to think it's intentional).

 

[Haywain]

In this day and age, you're [probably*] not getting into your own email account using a random person's phone without first clearing a secondary authentication challenge, which will require your phone.

Well, I didn't mention email accounts, but I would easily be able to log in to my Trainsplit account, for example.

 

[trainophile]

I took "the kindness of strangers" to imply that you might be able to borrow a charging cable/plug from someone. Most people these days do carry such items, even if they don't expect to have to use them. I would happily lend mine to someone in dire need for the purpose of showing their ticket.

 

[AlterEgo]

"I would never lose a paper ticket"

"I would never lose my phone"

Thus the argument crunches around again and again.

 

[xotGD]

I took "the kindness of strangers" to imply that you might be able to borrow a charging cable/plug from someone. Most people these days do carry such items, even if they don't expect to have to use them. I would happily lend mine to someone in dire need for the purpose of showing their ticket.

The phrase "accessed on another device" was used in the original post.

I agree that someone lending a charging cable to a fellow passenger is much more likely. You might even come across one of those folk with a three pin plug in their pocket.

 

[Haywain]

The phrase "accessed on another device" was used in the original post.

Yes, that's one of the possibilities.

 

[johncrossley]

I took "the kindness of strangers" to imply that you might be able to borrow a charging cable/plug from someone. Most people these days do carry such items, even if they don't expect to have to use them. I would happily lend mine to someone in dire need for the purpose of showing their ticket.

It would make sense for inspectors to carry their own power bank along with USB-C and Apple cables, to resolve issues regarding dead batteries. However, as you say, chances are there will be a fellow passenger who could help.

 

[yorkie]

What a relief - I am not alone!

I am not a dinosaur; just prudent. If your 21st century tech fails through a drained battery, a power pack you forgot to recharge, sockets not working, a cracked screen, loss of signal or greasy fingers that won’t scroll the screen then the downsides are Victorian.

Unable to present a ticket? Then by-laws first framed in the 1840s kick in, the RORA 1889 is dusted off, you have to await a letter (!) to see how the operator has decided how to penalize you. To ensure your side is heard you have to go to a post office (“grandad, what’s a post office?”) to queue to send your letter tracked/registered. You settle the dispute with an “admin fee” that implies it was resolved by frock-coated clerks shuffling dockets through in-trays and out-trays.

What if the penalties for simple and everyday tech failures were to join 2026 in the same way that ticket retail has? What if you had 24 hours to send a screenshot to prove you had a valid ticket at the time of ticket inspection? What if inspectors had access to your ticket purchasing history there and then, accessing my valid ticket from their side? With that I would be happy with an eticket.

Until then, for as long as the occasional and ordinary downsides of the iPhone render me liable to be treated as a criminal, I will stick with paper.

Ok so you appear to have ruled out the possibility of having a printed backup or another device, but can you rule out the possibility of losing a paper ticket?

 

[TUC]

"I would never lose a paper ticket"

"I would never lose my phone"

Thus the argument crunches around again and again.

Or equally those talking about people 'faffing about with their phone' at ticket gates whilst not acknowledging those faffing about with getting paper tickets out of their wallets, or trying to get crushed tickets from their pockets to work gates.

 

[Snow1964]

Just picked up tickets from TVM at my local station, (bought on this forums ticket site, but involving crossing London) so not on e-ticket.

Our ticketing site is much better now do person with senior railcard, and 16-25 railcard in one transaction

3 of us travelling, return journey, (train, tube, train) 19 ccst tickets (actually 15, 3 reservation (which say no allocated seats on one leg), 1 receipt

Others may be better using phone than me, but when each person has 5 tickets, rapidly finding the correct one and displaying to gate reader or inspector is lot harder, than having correct ticket for that leg on top.

I must also be cack-handed as turning phone over to display to a gate whilst carrying any bag always seems to rotate the ticket on screen so never scans until I realign it. Whose idea was it to make scanners face upwards rather than allowing you to scan with screen upwards

 

[TUC]

Just picked up tickets from TVM at my local station, (bought on this forums ticket site, but involving crossing London) so not on e-ticket.

Our ticketing site is much better now do person with senior railcard, and 16-25 railcard in one transaction

3 of us travelling, return journey, (train, tube, train) 19 ccst tickets (actually 15, 3 reservation (which say no allocated seats on one leg), 1 receipt

Others may be better using phone than me, but when each person has 5 tickets, rapidly finding the correct one and displaying to gate reader or inspector is lot harder, than having correct ticket for that leg on top.

I must also be cack-handed as turning phone over to display to a gate whilst carrying any bag always seems to rotate the ticket on screen so never scans until I realign it. Whose idea was it to make scanners face upwards rather than allowing you to scan with screen upwards

Storing tickets in the phone's wallet should make all of these easier.