E-Ticket vs Apple Pay Contactless at Mainline Gateline

[Bletchleyite]

Just to understand things, I have a ticket that needs to be scanned, but I have not activated my Apple Pay card option on my phone (double click left right bottom) surely the machine would not pick NFC?

With Apple Pay if you don't select anything and you have an Express Transit card set up it will use that. If you don't have an Express Transit card set up it will pop up your normal default credit/debit card but await you double tapping and verifying Face ID (or whatever your phone has) before making the payment. It's sensible to set the main and Express Transit card the same as different devices may pick a different one of the two, most notably Metrolink inspection devices pick the default card, not the Express Transit one, which is causing problems for some people who get Penalty Fares and have to challenge them. If you select a pass that doesn't have NFC associated to it, no NFC payment will be made while that pass is on screen.

For train tickets it doesn't matter, though, as the NFC pad and the barcode scanner are far enough apart that the wrong one won't be picked up. Only inadvertent user error (tapping the pad instead of scanning by mistake) would cause the wrong one to be used. It's specifically an issue on Ticketer bus ticket machines.

 

[Trackman]

With Apple Pay if you don't select anything and you have an Express Transit card set up it will use that. If you don't have an Express Transit card set up it will pop up your normal default credit/debit card but await you double tapping and verifying Face ID (or whatever your phone has) before making the payment. It's sensible to set the main and Express Transit card the same as different devices may pick a different one of the two, most notably Metrolink inspection devices pick the default card, not the Express Transit one, which is causing problems for some people who get Penalty Fares and have to challenge them. If you select a pass that doesn't have NFC associated to it, no NFC payment will be made while that pass is on screen.

For train tickets it doesn't matter, though, as the NFC pad and the barcode scanner are far enough apart that the wrong one won't be picked up. Only inadvertent user error (tapping the pad instead of scanning by mistake) would cause the wrong one to be used. It's specifically an issue on Ticketer bus ticket machines.

Thank you, that has cleared it up.
I never have Express Transit card enabled anyway.

 

[sheff1]

Two ways to prevent it.

Ensure the ticket code is showing on the phone screen and not her default contactless card.
Present the code to the glass code reader and not the yellow contactless pad.

Or use a paper ticket.

 

[saismee]

I indeed suspect this is what happened. You do sometimes see people putting paper tickets onto the yellow pad and wondering why it doesn't work, so maybe signage needs improving.

I saw someone waving a CCST ticket at the barcode reader the other day (no barcode on the CCST ticket either).

Signage needing improvement is an absolutely necessary thing. I saw both of these situations occur at my station today, multiple times. The first time two of my friends used e-tickets, they attempted to scan it on the NFC reader. One tapped in but the other needed to unlock their phone, though these were two people who had never met, on different days.

I personally don't see why people would try and scan the Aztec code on the solid yellow circle, or how they expect that to work, but they try it every single time. The most frustrating one is when someone will wipe their phone across both scanners because they don't stop to think, then they start shouting that my machine is broken and keeps bringing their card up. Some people also just hold their phone too far from the reader so again, it's near enough to the NFC reader and brings up their card.

All of this greatly reduces the efficiency of my gateline and all it takes is one newbie traveller to jam the whole thing up when it's busy.

On my Android phone, I will often open the Greater Anglia app to check service when travelling, only to find that it refuses to pay when the app is open. That's a good implementation... if people didn't just screenshot the tickets from there.