Mkinson31422
On Moderation
How many operators use Wayfarer 6 then now?
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Bus operators that do not use Ticketer machines.
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Only two operators are left using Wayfarer 6 ticket machines. Lothian Buses (Edinburgh) and Translink (Northern Ireland) are the last two users. They both still use Wayfarer 6 ticket machines.
Mkinson31422
On Moderation
Ah ok thanks you for the info mate appreciate
Transmach seem to be suddenly getting very popular. I noticed that neighbouring operator Brookline on the 479 also use Transmach machines. It reminds me of how Ticketer suddenly had an explosion in popularity about five to ten years ago and now the same is happening with Transmach machines.
markymark2000
On Moderation
Transmach won't see that much of an explosion. Transmach users are mostly those who are just unhappy with the prices Ticketer are charging. Ticketer I believe will remain the market leader for some time. They are the best of a bad bunch I think, and until Transmach start to make large improvements to the way they do things, and have a product that doesn't look like a year 9 design and tech project, I don't think they will boost their market share by much more.
Citistar
Member
I noticed earlier in the year that Cresswells still use a Wayfarer Saver on the Evesham town service 582.
It isn't just the cost. Ticketer are no longer interested in any of the smaller operators and their service level towards us is barely existent. Lead times are also completely unacceptable. Their attitude towards those who adopted their machines early doors and gave them their entry into the market frankly stinks. The days when an operator of half a dozen vehicles could make suggestions with regards to features and upgrades are a very distant memory.
It isn't just the cost. Ticketer are no longer interested in any of the smaller operators and their service level towards us is barely existent. Lead times are also completely unacceptable. Their attitude towards those who adopted their machines early doors and gave them their entry into the market frankly stinks. The days when an operator of half a dozen vehicles could make suggestions with regards to features and upgrades are a very distant memory.
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markymark2000
On Moderation
That much I do agree with. But the alternative of Transmach isn't great either. Ticketer is very much the 'least worst' option rather than being the best.
And even if they ditch the independents, they seem to be good at winning tenders and so become the supplier for the likes of TFGM Bee Network and they work with TFW and TFW buy a lot of Ticketer machines to rent out to bus operators. Then you have got councils which also specify 'Ticketer Schedule Adherence, or another council approved software which does the same thing' (or words to that effect). The 'or another approved software which does the same thing' is very much because the council can't be seen to be forcing operators to have Ticketer, but still shows a strong preference towards them.
It doesn't matter what operators want, if Ticketer can keep the relationships going with the higher up transport authorities, and they they start to force Ticketer upon operators, they will keep their market share simply because of relationships with transport authorities. Not because they are the best supplier on the market.
What i do not understand is why nobody is buying the Wayfarer 6 machine? They have managed only three customers (Autocar and Lothian and Translink) and with Autocar switching to Transmach they now only have two left. This machine offers modern features like contactless payments and driver messaging and vehicle tracking and other stuff that Ticketer offers. It is a modern machine clearly designed to compete with Ticketer and other manufacturers. So why is nobody buying it. Is it simply cost and are Wayfarer extremely expensive?
From my experience Wayfarer are fantastic. Their machines are so reliable and easy to use. The good old Wayfarer 3 machines are some of the best machines i have used and even the newer TGX150 and TGX200 were great. They have a good reputation for making good ticket machines that last for years without problems.
Wayfarer used to be the largest and most popular ticket machine manufacturer. At one point they easily had over 90% market share. Practically all of the big groups like Arriva / First / Stagecoach / Go Ahead / Transdev etc were using Wayfarer 3 machines. Plus hundreds and hundreds of independents were using Wayfarer 3 too. Even the later Wayfarer TGX150 and Wayfarer TGX200 were fairly popular. They have seen such a decline in going from over 90% market share to less than 1% market share.
From my experience Wayfarer are fantastic. Their machines are so reliable and easy to use. The good old Wayfarer 3 machines are some of the best machines i have used and even the newer TGX150 and TGX200 were great. They have a good reputation for making good ticket machines that last for years without problems.
Wayfarer used to be the largest and most popular ticket machine manufacturer. At one point they easily had over 90% market share. Practically all of the big groups like Arriva / First / Stagecoach / Go Ahead / Transdev etc were using Wayfarer 3 machines. Plus hundreds and hundreds of independents were using Wayfarer 3 too. Even the later Wayfarer TGX150 and Wayfarer TGX200 were fairly popular. They have seen such a decline in going from over 90% market share to less than 1% market share.
Dwarfer1979
Member
Not 100% sure on Wayfarer as we were on VIX at the times and I can't remember exactly how many suppliers were canvassed now but when we were looking at switching to contactless machines Ticketer were the only supplier we spoke to/dealt with who were including pre-arranged agreements with a bank to manage to the payment process, it may have changed now as that was quite a few years ago now but it was the case at the time. Essentially whilst all the ticket machine suppliers could provide a machine capable of reading a contactless bank card for everyone else the operator had to make their own arrangements to collate, process and complete the transaction to receive the money. That is fine if you are a larger company like Stagecoach (& Lothian or Translink - the fact a small operator like Autocar was using them is unusual if they were doing contactless with them) who are big enough and will have enough money passing through to be of sufficient interest to many banks to get some interested in providing such a service but for most companies they are too small to get such deals (so transaction fees would be unviable given bus fares result in lots of low value transactions) and they don't have the staff experience within the company to manage such a contract either.
Whilst it is clear that circumstances must have changed, the success of Transmach with smaller operators would suggest they are doing the same and you would have thought that the others had also picked this up and done something themselves, but at the time contactless was taking off Ticketer initially they were really the simplest way for smaller operators to get contactless and became much of a default option. Their parallel success in getting many of the big groups onboard as well has created some issues as some smaller companies are rumoured to feel that more attention is given to the bigger groups and they have a less productive relationship which is partly what is driving the growth of Transmach as a business targeting these smaller operators to give them a more personal service.
The Wayfarer 3's were probably the most user friendly, at least from a back office perspective, of any machines I have dealt with - much more so than contemporary competitors like Almex - and as close to bullet proof as an electronic device attached to a bus could be. The TGXs were slightly less reliable, as they were slightly more complicated, but still relatively easy to set-up and programme but the VIX (originally ERG) machines were pretty competitive (particularly once they sorted an issue with the cutters on the very early machines that could be damaged by customers pulling the ticket before it was cut, as they would do with a Wayfarer where the cutting was done by the passenger tugging across an edge) and Wayfarer lost both Stagecoach & Go-Ahead to VIX which damaged their market share. By this point Almex had probably faded, they did an updated model to compete with the TGX that was bought by First but that roll out reportedly had all sorts of issues, I'm not sure they ever managed a full roll out across the company, and in the one dealing we had with them they didn't seem to be very focussed on building relationships with potential customers if they weren't currently direct customers. INIT also launched around this time and whilst their machines were quite good in themselves they were quite complicated to programme in the back office which affected the general useability which limited their attractiveness.
I am sure the reason Lothian and Translink are still using Wayfarer machines is because they are also dealing with the ticketing for Edinburgh trams and the trains in Northern Ireland? They're not just using it for buses.
At the end of the day it's the existing providers who failed to catch the bus when people needed newer machines and the requirements therein. And for many locations it wasn't just contactless being the big requirement over the years, you also had to deal with the smart cards as well for concession passes and the link. That's why Transport Scotland had a scheme for a number of years to provide smart card enabled machines for the concession cards (killing off the older Wayfarer machines and the like) and later on there was a similar scheme for contactless machines to replace the ones that they previously had. Other than a few exceptions, that's why most had Ticketer machines from now on.
Transmach seem to be doing alright and to be fair they are working on a new machine that seems to match what the newer Ticketer machine does, the existing ones from what I've seen are fairly quick to use, just an annoyance with where the printer is but that's just about it. If they get bigger customers then they will of course need to scale up accordingly. At this point, Wayfarer machines are ornaments, same with all the other providers that have died out at this point.
Ticketer machines were a decent thing years ago (especially for those who had to deal with the rather slow Almex machines that First and a few other operators had) but many are slowing down now, yes there is a newer model available but that's going to take time to replace them all, if they want to shell out for them! Feel free to make your own alternative supplier if you think there is a market for one, most of the hardware is off the shelf anyway!
At the end of the day it's the existing providers who failed to catch the bus when people needed newer machines and the requirements therein. And for many locations it wasn't just contactless being the big requirement over the years, you also had to deal with the smart cards as well for concession passes and the link. That's why Transport Scotland had a scheme for a number of years to provide smart card enabled machines for the concession cards (killing off the older Wayfarer machines and the like) and later on there was a similar scheme for contactless machines to replace the ones that they previously had. Other than a few exceptions, that's why most had Ticketer machines from now on.
Transmach seem to be doing alright and to be fair they are working on a new machine that seems to match what the newer Ticketer machine does, the existing ones from what I've seen are fairly quick to use, just an annoyance with where the printer is but that's just about it. If they get bigger customers then they will of course need to scale up accordingly. At this point, Wayfarer machines are ornaments, same with all the other providers that have died out at this point.
Ticketer machines were a decent thing years ago (especially for those who had to deal with the rather slow Almex machines that First and a few other operators had) but many are slowing down now, yes there is a newer model available but that's going to take time to replace them all, if they want to shell out for them! Feel free to make your own alternative supplier if you think there is a market for one, most of the hardware is off the shelf anyway!
Travelled with Stagecoach East yesterday and was intrigued to see the time-of-transaction was just a few minutes after I bought my ticket (I checked Google Pay before I left the bus). My previous take was that a depot connection was required for the payment processor to receive the transactions but it now seems the TP5800s can transmit them on the move like Ticketers do.
All that said you guys might be more interested in the news that Reading Transport Ltd is switching to Transmach for their ticketing needs...
All that said you guys might be more interested in the news that Reading Transport Ltd is switching to Transmach for their ticketing needs...
One complaint i have about ticketer is why they make the layout of their tickets so ridiculously complex and i think this is one thing that other manufacturers do better.
Look at this example with four different fare stages on one ticket:
All of the other manufacturers (Wayfarer and VIX and INIT and Almex) just have two simple "from" and "to" stages or "board" and "alight" stages which makes it much clearer for passengers.
Look at this example with four different fare stages on one ticket:
All of the other manufacturers (Wayfarer and VIX and INIT and Almex) just have two simple "from" and "to" stages or "board" and "alight" stages which makes it much clearer for passengers.
Cesarcollie
Member
- Joined
- 5 Jun 2016
- Messages
- 822
That’s not standard. I presume the operator has configured this to look like that, for some good reason no doubt.
One negative aspect of Reading Transport switching from Ticketer to TransMach is that links to BODS fare tables on bustimes - Thames Valley Buses, for example - do not include route numbers.
Finding a particular route takes considerable trial and error even though links are arranged such that route numbers with '1' as the first digit precede route numbers with '2' / '3' etc as the first digit. Furthermore many, possibly all the tables for adult-rate singles appear incomplete.
Finding a particular route takes considerable trial and error even though links are arranged such that route numbers with '1' as the first digit precede route numbers with '2' / '3' etc as the first digit. Furthermore many, possibly all the tables for adult-rate singles appear incomplete.
markymark2000
On Moderation
If you find the route that you want normally, then add /fares to the end of the URL and it will show route specific fares.
I can't help with the other things though sadly.
Thanks. That's a very useful tip.
TfL's revised Bus Safety Standard includes this paragraph:
It means (quite incredibly) the TG150s will still be affixed to TfL buses come 2030, albeit probably disconnected from the card readers at that stage.
You can take Stagecoach off the list in a couple of months - they're switching to Ticketer!
Stagecoach selects Ticketer for nationwide ticketing
Stagecoach will deploy Ticketer's TK300 ticket machines across its fleet from Setember, integrating ticketing, AVL and real-time information
www.route-one.net
YorkRailFan
Established Member
Andrews Of Tideswell don't use Ticketer machines, I'm not sure of the model they do use but it looked like a simple card reader!
citybus2500
Member
INIT, as shown on the first message of this thread.
Ballyheigue
Member
What does National Express West Midlands use as I find it strange that their tickets are a different shape/colour to everyone else's, day tickets have names on them and they come out of a box on the wall behind the driver!
Ticketer Handheld machines are and look like simply card readers.
YorkRailFan
Established Member
Ah interesting, the ticket didn't look like the usual Ticketer ticket so I thought it wasn't Ticketer.
Andrews use Transmach handhelds.
joieman
Member
Kinchbus are currently switching from Ticketer to Transmach ticket machines.