New Ticket Design Launched

[hairyhandedfool]

Easier still is just not to mention routeing at all unless there is actually a restriction. That would be far easier overall.

To be fair there is a restriction in that it is only routes that are permitted (see the Liverpool-London via Manchester thread). A lack of wording could be construed as there being no limit to the routes that can be taken (not many people read the NRCoC).

 

[Amy Worrall]

How about "Permitted Routes Only"? Gets rid of the "any" in the phrasing which is what may cause the issue?

It's a shame we can't still say "Any reasonable route".

Maybe "Any reasonable route, as defined by the routeing guide"?

 

[sheff1]

It's a shame we can't still say "Any reasonable route".

Maybe "Any reasonable route, as defined by the routeing guide"?

No we don't want that - some routes permitted by the Routeing Guide could not, by any stretch of the imagination, pass a test of reasonableness

 

[hairyhandedfool]

It's a shame we can't still say "Any reasonable route".

Maybe "Any reasonable route, as defined by the routeing guide"?

Would that not just be a permitted route?

 

[po8crg]

The problem is presumably that some people can't tell the difference between "any permitted route" and "any route permitted", and will try to argue for Manchester Piccadilly to Stockport via London Euston with a week-long break of journey.

 

[BurtonM]

You could say it looks Scheidt

I think the letters at the top for discounts are a good idea - people will associate letters with words, but shapes will be harder to remember the meanings of and differentiate from each other at a glance. Surely an undefined/DISC discount could just be marked '10%' or whatever, too.
I also think the date printing in capitals is a good move, especially considering the non-standard month abbreviations. 'FBY' looks better than 'Fby', etc.

A minority of these new tickets look okay, but for the most part, they're a bit of a mess. On my travels I'm starting to see more and more people wielding QR-coded tickets, too.

 

[Starmill]

No we don't want that - some routes permitted by the Routeing Guide could not, by any stretch of the imagination, pass a test of reasonableness

Who cares about those. The real problem is when the most reasonable route is not permitted!!!

 

[transportphoto]

How far has the design stretched in terms of places issuing them? Have they reached anywhere in the Birmingham area yet? Is it just Northern, EMT and LOROL at the moment?

TP

 

[Hassocks5489]

How far has the design stretched in terms of places issuing them? Have they reached anywhere in the Birmingham area yet? Is it just Northern, EMT and LOROL at the moment?

TP

I haven't seen any more since the last one I posted (Liverpool Lime Street). No sightings yet on Southern, in particular.

 

[dvboy]

Not seen them anywhere round here yet.

 

[TEW]

Managed to get a picture of a Boundary Zone ticket today. Issued at Crystal Palace for anyone interested. I think the new wording used is a bitter clearer than simply Boundary Zone 3.

 

[CallySleeper]

So EMT are doing it a different way to Northern, despite both being Parkeon machines? With two or more reservations, I got the tickets printed in the old format.

I guess consistency is too much to ask for from the industry. :roll:

I had an advance ticket printed from an EMT machine on 26th Feb, two reserved legs out of three, all on one ticket.

 

[thedbdiboy]

So EMT are doing it a different way to Northern, despite both being Parkeon machines? With two or more reservations, I got the tickets printed in the old format.

I guess consistency is too much to ask for from the industry. :roll:

EMT have indicated that they will update their Parkeon machines when the S&B machines are upgraded (fairly shortly).

Ticket machines are owned and operate by individual TOCs who have the contracts with the suppliers, so the actual roll-out is ultimately subject to the terms of those contracts. There is no 'national' owner so the roll out has to be managed as best as possible within these constraints.

 

[northwichcat]

Ticket machines are owned and operate by individual TOCs who have the contracts with the suppliers, so the actual roll-out is ultimately subject to the terms of those contracts.

There was a change a few years back which allows TOCs to buy TVMs as franchise assets so they get sold on to the next franchisee at the end of the franchise.

Northern's Parkeon machines are franchise assets which might explain the generic National Rail branding on them: http://www.mcrua.org.uk/chairmansblog/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/2012-03-05_11.52.jpg unlike their older Northern branded machines: http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/SME/html/NRE_LIV/images/photos/800/o2372-0011433.jpg

 

[CallySleeper]

It was also disappointing to note that if an Advance fare had more than one reservation, the ticket was printed in the old format, so with two reservations that would be on three separate coupons, despite there being plenty of room on the new layout.

I had an advance ticket printed from an EMT machine on 26th Feb, two reserved legs out of three, all on one ticket.

This said, I sadly discovered today that the same EMT machines appear incapable of printing special tickets such as CallySleepers and EC Rewards in the new layout.

 

[Starmill]

I don't think they have been redesigned yet. My EC Flat Fares ones came out old-style too.

 

[trainophile]

I've just collected two AP tickets from Hereford TVM and they look awful. All the writing is on top of itself and there's nothing to show it's railcard discounted.

Best of luck to the guards checking these .

Edited to say that now I'm home with a magnifying glass I can see that Senior Railcard seems to be superimposed over the end of text that reads:

Valid only on the following ser[double printed]rd - the rd being the end of Railcard.

The printer time is rubbish too, showing yesterday's date and 17:23 on one collection receipt, 19:00 on the other.

I just hope there's no query as the first one is for my husband to use on his own and he's not as confident as me at sorting this type of thing out.

 

[Paul Kelly]

The printer time is rubbish too, showing yesterday's date and 17:23 on one collection receipt, 19:00 on the other.

Some TVMs print the date and time the booking was made on the collection receipt - could that be it?

 

[trainophile]

Some TVMs print the date and time the booking was made on the collection receipt - could that be it?

Brilliant!

 

[BHXDMT]

I've just collected two AP tickets from Hereford TVM and they look awful. All the writing is on top of itself and there's nothing to show it's railcard discounted.

Best of luck to the guards checking these .

Edited to say that now I'm home with a magnifying glass I can see that Senior Railcard seems to be superimposed over the end of text that reads:

Valid only on the following ser[double printed]rd - the rd being the end of Railcard.

They're really not great from a Guard's perspective, it's really slowed my ticket checking down since Shrewsbury's TVM started printing in this style. All the important information I use to identify valid tickets is so small and clumped together now. The only improvement I like is having the reservation printed on Advance tickets rather than separate reservations.

I also tried to excess a new ticket the other day and couldn't find the ticket number! Had to take a punt at one of the random sequence of digits along the bottom.

I also came across a gent with the same issue of overprinting, he couldn't find where it said he had 16-25 discount... until I noticed it printed under the "valid only on the following services" spiel!

 

[transportphoto]

I also tried to excess a new ticket the other day and couldn't find the ticket number! Had to take a punt at one of the random sequence of digits along the bottom.

I've had that problem at a ticket office, the clerk just didn't know where the ticket number was! She found it eventually…

It's the first five numbers in that little sequence, for example it would be 01048 on this ticket.

TP

(Click link to view ticket, it's hosted on RailUKForums, sourced from Kite159 in their [post=2212530]post here[/post].)

 

[trainophile]

I've had that problem at a ticket office, the clerk just didn't know where the ticket number was! She found it eventually…

It's the first five numbers in that little sequence, for example it would be 01048 on this ticket.

TP

(Click link to view ticket, it's hosted on RailUKForums, sourced from Kite159 in their [post=2212530]post here[/post].)

That ticket is 100% clearer than the ones I collected yesterday - you can see there's a Railcard discount for one thing. Is there no uniformity in play? I guess some ticket machines are not set up for the new design, but they have gone ahead with it anyway for some reason.

 

[BHXDMT]

I've had that problem at a ticket office, the clerk just didn't know where the ticket number was! She found it eventually…

It's the first five numbers in that little sequence, for example it would be 01048 on this ticket.

TP

(Click link to view ticket, it's hosted on RailUKForums, sourced from Kite159 in their [post=2212530]post here[/post].)

Indeed, that's the number I went with in the end! Glad I was correct, ha.

 

[Hassocks5489]

New layout tickets from Scheidt & Bachmann machines (the type used at Hereford, among other places) are very poorly laid out indeed. There are a lot of problems with double-printing, cut-off data and overlapping. The one I've illustrated here (issued at Kensington Olympia, machine 2272) even has three things superimposed! The Railcard text ("with Two Together Railc" [sic]) is printed over the validity information, as referred to above by trainophile, and the "Maltese Cross" marker is hidden in there as well. And look how small the date is (below "Kensington Olympia"), and how it is buried in the wall of text!

There are all sorts of inconsistencies in station names as well: some have hyphens and some don't, some are abbreviated unnecessarily, and the attached ticket to Shepherds Bush shows that Box Hill & Westhumble has reverted to its old incorrect spelling!

 

[BurtonM]

Is this still a pilot scheme?

Because if not, 'ain't broke, don't fix it' springs to mind.

Maybe they should have used a range of machines to test too, as opposed to just Parkeons (that appear to do a good job relatively!).

 

[JaJaWa]

The Parkeons get a lot of hate, but I actually think their tickets in this format look better!

 

[jon0844]

I wonder how long until someone gets grief from revenue staff or simply gets delayed because they produce a ticket like this?

 

[crehld]

I wonder how long until someone gets grief from revenue staff or simply gets delayed because they produce a ticket like this?

Hasn't it already happened? Remember seeing a thread a while back about someone being accused of ticket fraud!

 

[JB_B]

I got the my first new-style tickets from a machine a Brighton yesterday (Off peak day return with Network Railcard).

Problems:-

(1) Doesn't look like a ticket ( actually looks very like a collection receipt)

(2) Seems that *absolutely* no design input has gone into the layout - tiny text scrunched into one corner plus lots of blank space although at least there were no actual collisions on mine. (Crucial info like origin/destination almost equally tiny).

Plus sides:-

(1) Restriction code ( and a clue for looking it up ) is a little more prominent.

(2) "Network Railcard" spelt out in full.


I would post a scan but they've been eaten.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The above looks *terrible*. Was this not tested? If it was, the testing was inadequate.

A small point - "under 16 year old" may be ambiguous. I'd go for "15 year old or younger", or "age below 16th birthday".