Avanti ticket checks

[zero]

I have been travelling up and down the WCML fairly often this month on the Glasgow, Manchester and Liverpool routes with Avanti.

There have been ticket checks on every train, but my e-tickets were not scanned on any train. Most of the time I enlarge the barcode, meaning that the station three-letter codes can't be seen or only partially seen, and the date or time definitely can't be seen, but none of the train managers were interested in reading the information.

A surprisingly large proportion of passengers were using CCSTs (around 5 to 10 in every carriage I sat in). What makes less sense is that the train managers were very interested in checking these orange cards, and scribbling on them.

In fact, one passenger was trying to find an e-ticket on their phone and after a while the TM said not to bother. But at the other end of the same carriage, someone showed the return portion of a CCST and could not find the outbound, and the TM said to keep looking and show it to him when he walked back through the train later. She did find it and he scribbled on it.

In December I had a few Avanti trips and my tickets were scanned on board all trains, so is something going on?

 

[Krokodil]

I think that there is some form of work-to-rule going on at the moment, specifically around scanning. Management were micromanaging things, so scanning has ceased entirely.

Quite a contrast to the way things are managed in other companies, where the carrot is used rather than the stick.

 

[Watershed]

In fact, one passenger was trying to find an e-ticket on their phone and after a while the TM said not to bother. But at the other end of the same carriage, someone showed the return portion of a CCST and could not find the outbound, and the TM said to keep looking and show it to him when he walked back through the train later. She did find it and he scribbled on it.

Was that passenger travelling on the outward portion? If not, they shouldn't have been required to produce it.

I have noticed a big change over the last month or so in terms of Avanti staff becoming much more hot on marking paper tickets (in the usual non-descript manner!), but showing little interest in e-tickets.

 

[AlterEgo]

I think that there is some form of work-to-rule going on at the moment, specifically around scanning. Management were micromanaging things, so scanning has ceased entirely.

Quite a contrast to the way things are managed in other companies, where the carrot is used rather than the stick.

This is my understanding direct from the horse’s mouth from an Avanti guard. I noted the same lack of scanning last week.