Caledonian Sleeper now only providing e-tickets if you book direct through their website

[radamfi]

Now that's concerning if not unexpected. PRTs are hard to carry around for long periods and create enough problems already.

Most people currently prefer to use ticket machines if they are buying singles or returns for immediate travel. If credit card sized tickets are no longer available, that will encourage more people to switch to e-tickets to avoid having to carry around paper. So if e-tickets become the standard ticket medium, that will drastically reduce the number of tickets sold from TVMs. Hopefully that will mean Monday morning queues will become the thing of the past.

If you go to countries where mobile or smartcard ticketing is common, queues at ticket machines are rare outside airports and main tourist destinations.

 

[sheff1]

Oh, come on. I've long resisted electronic ticketing, but access to printers is available in libraries, hotels, cafes and offices all over the place, and this is app-free, device-independent and very straightforward.

The Sleeper requires a compulsory reservation and you'll need to show your ticket once. It's akin to the way airlines work, and there's no problem there.

Caledonian Sleepers equate themselves to a 4/5 star hotel. If I book such a hotel (or even a 3 star) I just turn up and tell them my name. If any printing is required it is them who do it not me - absolutely no need for me to go searching for a library, cafe etc.

Again with airlines, I either rock up at the check in desk, tell them my name and they print the boarding pass or I type the booking reference into a self service machine at the airport and that prints the boarding pass. Indeed, no problem ... and no need for me to print anything.

 

[Starmill]

Don't Grand Central issue m-tickets (which are available on phone apps only) and call them e-tickets? Until this sort of charlatanism is sorted out, I don't think I'll proceed with electronic ticket options except where they're cheaper.

Other problems seem to be around include getting the tickets excessed at a station if you wish to change your plan at the last minute. There was an automatic right to this with paper Advance tickets, but TPE refused point blank to do it for me when I bought a ticket from their website.

 

[ainsworth74]

Other problems seem to be around include getting the tickets excessed at a station if you wish to change your plan at the last minute. There was an automatic right to this with paper Advance tickets, but TPE refused point blank to do it for me when I bought a ticket from their website.

Which is ironic as the LNER website, in trying to persuade you into getting an e-ticket puts a tick next to the box "Easy to change" and doesn't for collected tickets!

 

[yorkie]

I think part of the problem we have when it comes to moving beyond paper ticketing is that the implementation was so botched when we first got going. M-tickets that you have to activate via an app for instance, print @ home tickets that required a pre-nominated form of ID to verify (or even worse had to be presented with the card used to book). I think this instantly had the effect of generating significant resistance to moving beyond the traditional paper ticket because the alternatives were universally dreadful.

I've used e-tickets on the continent and they've been excellent and it appears that our implementation of that is now much closer to how it works for GB ticketing but there's now this hurdle to overcome whereby e-ticketing is instantly viewed with suspicion because the first implementation was just so dreadful.

Exactly my thoughts as well. The industry only has itself to blame for this, though it's unfair that TOCs such as Caledonian Sleeper are getting unfair criticism for this now, when the mistakes were made by others, but that's the nature of the industry: some TOCs acting badly can - and frequently do - damage the reputation of others.