Northern 'Get a Ticket'

[Starmill]

Sorry if this has been posted elsewhere, I can't see that it has and Northern social media claim this is launching today:

http://www.northernrail.org/getaticket

The crux of it is in these videos, which all looks a little bit silly to me...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdlu73GaOFM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQzxO-bxDZg

If it works though...

 

[gordonthemoron]

since when has it been a requirement to seek out the conductor to pay?

 

[Starmill]

That's interesting; rather than being 'advice' this sounds like they're claiming you are liable if you do not do so:

It's the passengers responsibility to buy a ticket, so seek out the conductor on the train or buy a ticket at your destination station if the station you boarded on had no ticket office or machine.

 

[itsjustmyjob]

Such a clumsy campaign.

The claim about 'seeking out the conductor' isn't correct I'm sure.

There's no way I'm leaving my seat on a packed train only to lose it while buying a ticket. I'll stick to buying mine 'as soon as is reasonably practicable' as it states in the Conditions of Carriage.

The more of these stunts Northern Rail pulls, the more any sympathy for them when things go wrong ebbs away.

I feel sorry for the front line staff who might have more 'tricky' situations to deal with after this.

 

[noddingdonkey]

I had an exchange with them on Twitter, suggesting that they ought to get their own house in order as far as making it easy for people to buy a ticket before boarding before offensively labelling everyone who hasn't been given the opportunity to buy a ticket as a criminal.

Why have they not gone down the road of mobile or e-tickets yet? Or something Oyster-like? The length of the queues of people arriving ticketless at Leeds needing to buy a ticket to get through the barriers should be all the evidence they need that they aren't making it easy enough to buy before boarding at unstaffed stations.

Does anyone have anything concrete to back up the view that passengers aren't expected to seek out the guard?

 

[Starmill]

in the same way you would seek out the ticket office in a manned station. Hope this clarifies the situation

?

What a load of...

 

[noddingdonkey]

How does that work on a train formed of two 142 units when you're in the other unit to the guard?

 

[ANorthernGuard]

To be fair Northern have done a great deal to educate passengers who would have previously just boarded at a station with an open booking office without purchasing a ticket. However it is a rarity for a passenger to come up to myself and ask for a ticket. Maybe this will change after this next campaign. Northern do tend to be very blunt the last few years but rightly or wrongly I am pretty sure they would have checked the wording of the campaign with a few solicitors before being released to the passengers.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

How does that work on a train formed of two 142 units when you're in the other unit to the guard?

get off and move to the back set at the 1st opportunity as thats the only place the guard is allowed

 

[hairyhandedfool]

Bear in mind that the people who send out those twitter posts are [probably] not the people who came up with the 'campaign' and are [probably] just following the company line as best they can.

The brief I receive on this 'campaign' was quite short and did not elaborate on the point made here.

As for seeking out the guard, well, I guess it depends how you read the NRCoC, I see it that you should buy the ticket "as soon as is reasonably practicable", though others have their own ideas, such as the passenger deciding when they want to buy the ticket and the often mentioned 'at the first opportunity' (this has been discussed at length before).

 

[MartinsR]

So we have to seek the conductor?

 

[sonic2009]

So what happens, if for example :

Ticket office is open, one window and someone is faffing around buying advance tickets, or there is queue. What's the protocol for how long you should wait?

Ticket machine is card only (don't know if there are any in Northern's franchise area), and you only have cash on you?

Should you be required to wait? Possibly miss a service where the train maybe every hour?

 

[Drsatan]

In an ideal world franchise requirements would ensure that TOCs adhere to their passenger charter requirements on queue times for purchasing tickets. This would mean more than the bare minimum of ticket purchasing facilities at stations I.e installing another TVM if queue times at a station are too long.

Unfortunately, the way I understand it there's no incentive or obligation for Northern to provide more ticket purchasing facilities.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk

 

[northwichcat]

To be fair Northern have done a great deal to educate passengers who would have previously just boarded at a station with an open booking office without purchasing a ticket. However it is a rarity for a passenger to come up to myself and ask for a ticket. Maybe this will change after this next campaign. Northern do tend to be very blunt the last few years but rightly or wrongly I am pretty sure they would have checked the wording of the campaign with a few solicitors before being released to the passengers.

Based on Northern's wording. If the train is loaded like this: http://www.mcrua.org.uk/chairmansblog/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/2012-11-21-08.04.55.jpg then the passenger would only be able to reach the conductor when the train is stopped at a station and if the conductor issues tickets during dwell times then they'll usually delay the train. If it's a busy 150 where the conductor chooses not to attempt to go out in to the passenger area then the passengers will only see the conductor when the train is stopped.

Also not all passengers know that if the service is 2 x 142s and there isn't a 'second conductor' that the conductor will be on the rear train and be unable to access the front train. Then even if they do if the rear train is packed and the front train has ample space should the passenger have to board the packed unit?

get off and move to the back set at the 1st opportunity as thats the only place the guard is allowed

And if there's no intermediate calls between your boarding and alighting stations?

Also some conductors get annoyed with passengers who alight and then re-board.

 

[ANorthernGuard]

Based on Northern's wording. If the train is loaded like this: http://www.mcrua.org.uk/chairmansblog/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/2012-11-21-08.04.55.jpg then the passenger would only be able to reach the conductor when the train is stopped at a station and if the conductor issues tickets during dwell times then they'll usually delay the train. If it's a busy 150 where the conductor chooses not to attempt to go out in to the passenger area then the passengers will only see the conductor when the train is stopped.

Also not all passengers know that if the service is 2 x 142s and there isn't a 'second conductor' that the conductor will be on the rear train and be unable to access the front train. Then even if they do if the rear train is packed and the front train has ample space should the passenger have to board the packed unit?



And if there's no intermediate calls between your boarding and alighting stations?

Also some conductors get annoyed with passengers who alight and then re-board.

1st point if it is totally crammed then there would not be an opportunity to purchase the ticket on the train (most guards would let G4s know this)

2nd point if the guard can't get out into the saloon he would have to let Retail control know and once again inform G4s.

3rd point Myself and a lot of guards (not all admittedly) will do an announcement informing the passengers where the Guard is situated.

4th point Never in my years of being a guard have I seen the front unit empty and the rear unit full and standing as passengers prefer to go to the front for a speedier exit. (and to limit the amount of time being stuck in a queue)

5th point No system is perfect and yes some people will be missed.

and finally yes some Guards may get annoyed with passengers reboarding but also a lot of passengers hate queueing for a ticket when they legally should have bought one. People are human.

 

[ASharpe]

Northern need to accept responsibility for selling tickets, not scare passengers with warnings that apply to a small fraction of their stations.

Are ticket machines really so expensive that Northern can't afford to buy enough. Compare the number of Northern ticket machines to East Coast fast ticket machines at Leeds.

At Bradford Interchange the single machine has not been in full working order the last two times I wanted to use it (and the last time the advice was to walk to Forster Square and use the one there).

I have also noticed quite a few guards have stopped checking/selling tickets between Halifax and Bradford Interchange. Presumably they want those who didn't buy a ticket from the machine at Halifax to have to queue to buy one to get out at Bradford now.

Ticket machine is card only (don't know if there are any in Northern's franchise area), and you only have cash on you?

New Pudsey is one.

 

[Starmill]

Just to confirm, there are many, many stations where the only method of payment is by card only TVM either all of the time (e.g. Steeton & Silsden) or when the ticket office is closed (e.g. Mauldeth Road).

I quite agree that while Northern's message about it being the responsibility of the passenger to buy a ticket before boarding where possible, they need to come up with the cold hard cash to improve the facilities to do so at a number of stations. The only places where this is sufficient are IMO, major terminals such as Leeds (few enough of which have facilities managed by Northern, I can't think of another example of a large Northern ticket office) or in the Merseytravel area.

 

[RJ]

I think the key to this kind of issue is education. I commend what Northern are trying to achieve here, but for some people it will be a culture shock. Many will have travelled by rail for years, having been conditioned by lax enforcement or buying on board due to the operators over the years neglecting to sell tickets at stations. Evidently, something needs to be done.

I think the analogies are a good idea. I loathe them on this forum, but those in the campaign do a good job of easing people into understanding that rail travel in itself is service that requires payment at the first opportunity. I think it's better to communicate this to people than the "buy a ticket to avoid a fine" publicity I see elsewhere.

 

[neilmc]

Bizarre. Northern are using supermarket analogies themselves when they're totally irrelevant - at a supermarket you don't pay on entry, you pay when you've completed your shopping and pay at the till. And if a restaurant requested payment in advance you'd question the likely quality of the food!

And according to the leaflet IF you have boarded at a station with a working ticket office/TVM and haven't paid on the train AND are collared by a revenue officer, they state that "in most cases" you will have 21 days to pay and only then would you be liable to an £80 surcharge. This is confirmed by the "Fines and Penalties" section under "Failure To Purchase". Is this right and is this the normal practice?? I've been on this forums for a year or two and still don't know, what hope does an occasional customer have?

The sheer confusion and poor rational presentation in this leaflet would I suggest give customers more scope to challenge any penalties than ever! I'd like to see what a legal expert makes of it!

 

[MartinsR]

So what happens, if for example :

Ticket office is open, one window and someone is faffing around buying advance tickets, or there is queue. What's the protocol for how long you should wait?

Ticket machine is card only (don't know if there are any in Northern's franchise area), and you only have cash on you?

Should you be required to wait? Possibly miss a service where the train maybe every hour?

Yes mate there are loads of cards only.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Just to confirm, there are many, many stations where the only method of payment is by card only TVM either all of the time (e.g. Steeton & Silsden) or when the ticket office is closed (e.g. Mauldeth Road).

I quite agree that while Northern's message about it being the responsibility of the passenger to buy a ticket before boarding where possible, they need to come up with the cold hard cash to improve the facilities to do so at a number of stations. The only places where this is sufficient are IMO, major terminals such as Leeds (few enough of which have facilities managed by Northern, I can't think of another example of a large Northern ticket office) or in the Merseytravel area.

Agreed. When the ticket office closes at one of my local stations Leyland it's card only. This is isn't helpful. It's also on platform 4 in the pitch black on the fast line 5 feet from the tracks and where kids always seem to gather. I'd hate to have to put my card with my money in it anyway it could easily be tampered with through the night. They have just put CCTV at the station but the Tvm has been there well over 12 months.

 

[Haywain]

Bizarre. Northern are using supermarket analogies themselves when they're totally irrelevant - at a supermarket you don't pay on entry, you pay when you've completed your shopping and pay at the till. And if a restaurant requested payment in advance you'd question the likely quality of the food!

I would suggest that a very significant part of the population think that paying "restaurants" before they eat is nothing remotely unusual. As for shops, people have probably greater awareness of the criminality of taking tangible goods than they have of taking services without paying. And while we are on silly analogies, you don't use a bus service without paying first.

 

[hairyhandedfool]

Bizarre. Northern are using supermarket analogies themselves when they're totally irrelevant - at a supermarket you don't pay on entry, you pay when you've completed your shopping and pay at the till. And if a restaurant requested payment in advance you'd question the likely quality of the food!

I rather suspect you have missed the point......

 

[neilmc]

I would suggest that a very significant part of the population think that paying "restaurants" before they eat is nothing remotely unusual. As for shops, people have probably greater awareness of the criminality of taking tangible goods than they have of taking services without paying. And while we are on silly analogies, you don't use a bus service without paying first.

Well, as far as I am aware outside of London you don't have to stand in a queue on the street and buy a bus ticket, you wait for the bus to arrive then pay the driver once you've boarded. A lot of people probably think trains work that way and in fact when I was growing up in "Northern" territory that was exactly what happened on local services, you always paid the conductor on the train even if you boarded at mainline stations.

There's a lot of silly and conflicting advice such as "seeking out" the conductor - if everyone boarding at non-TVM stations did this en masse staff would soon feel harrassed and besieged and tell passengers curtly to sit down and let them manage the train!

 

[DaveNewcastle]

There's a lot of silly and conflicting advice such as "seeking out" the conductor . . . .

You are quite at liberty to comment that advice to 'seek out the conductor' is "silly".

However, people looking to this forum for reliable advice which will give them practial assistance and will put their mind at ease, will benefit the most from a balanced and informed analysis.

 

[Deerfold]

You are quite at liberty to comment that advice to 'seek out the conductor' is "silly".

However, people looking to this forum for reliable advice which will give them practial assistance and will put their mind at ease, will benefit the most from a balanced and informed analysis.

I travel regularly from Steeton and Silsden. In common with most of the line this has a card-ony TVM - 1 TVM and 8 trains an hour. It's not uncommon for this to not be working - this seems to be a communications-related issue and when it is down often all the TVMs on the line are down.

If all the passengers on a four car train who had been unable to buy a ticket tried to seek out the guard (who could be anywhere on the train) during the morning peak it'd be chaos - I'd agree in these circumstances that Northern's advice is silly and would be likely to annoy the conductors on these services if any significant number of people followed it.


As an aside, Northern could upgrade their machines which do take cash to take notes larger than £10 which might make them more popular - I've seen several people queue to use them and then be annoyed when they won't take their £20 note.

 

[northwichcat]

4th point Never in my years of being a guard have I seen the front unit empty and the rear unit full and standing as passengers prefer to go to the front for a speedier exit. (and to limit the amount of time being stuck in a queue)

Some routes have a reversal en route so if the front train is busiest before the reversal it means the rear train is busiest after the reversal.

When there's 4 car operations on Chester-Manchester services most Northwich and Knutsford passengers board the rear unit because the rear unit stops where passengers expecting a 2 car train are waiting. In the opposite direction it's the Altrincham passengers who mainly board the rear train and the Knutsford and Northwich ones mainly board the front train.

 

[YorkshireBear]

I seek out the conductor but only that i always go to back of train so i can catch them easily. Often they don't bother leaving cab for whatever reason and so i have to queue for hours at Leeds to exit.

I think they need to look at themselves and improve ticket buying facilities before they start trying to scare us all. I also think queues at stations would be much better with carnet style tickets.

 

[jon0844]

Any TOC that operates loads of stations with limited ticketing facilities, or none at all, is the perfect candidate for a smartcard system. Even one where you merely have a card to prove where/when you touched in - and can still purchase a ticket later on.

So, when a station has no facilities, you merely tap your card to validate entry. And if that machine doesn't work, the TOC would instantly know as all the machines would be connected. This would also be backed up with a vending machine to issue new smartcards to those that don't have one, perhaps for a nominal fee of £1/2 (and refundable if given up at the end of a journey for passengers never intending to travel again on the service).

I am not aware if any such systems exist to merely operate as a sort of glorified permit to travel, but obviously the same system would be able to pre-load tickets or credit for those who don't wish to have to queue up to be sold the right ticket during the journey or at the destination.

You'd still be able to jump on those who try and exit another station without paying, and anyone that magically loses their ticket could get a fixed-rate penalty of £80.

(All of the above requires a lot more than Northern Rail simply imposing its own system.. it will need the DfT and other agencies to get involved, as well as changing rules as necessary to there's a proper, recognised, penalty system not this unofficial one).

 

[Yew]

In my experience of northern, this approach tackles a problem that is not actually a problem. The lines are rural with a long time between stops, with plenty of time for the guard to come round and sell tickets. However I understand some of FCC's management has moved over to northern, probably why they are treating it like a London commuter line, not realising that there is a lower proportion of Season ticket holders, fewer ticketing facilities, and fewer trains per hour.

Admittedly there are commuter lines around leeds and manchester that the situation may be slightly different. But I still dont think this approach is right for the majority of northern.

 

[northwichcat]

In my experience of northern, this approach tackles a problem that is not actually a problem. The lines are rural with a long time between stops, with plenty of time for the guard to come round and sell tickets. However I understand some of FCC's management has moved over to northern, probably why they are treating it like a London commuter line, not realising that there is a lower proportion of Season ticket holders, fewer ticketing facilities, and fewer trains per hour.

I've not seen any difference in approach by conductors on Northern in almost 10 years - sometimes there's a full ticket inspection even if it means the conductor doesn't get to back in time to release the doors, while other times there's no ticket inspection. I've only ever once heard a Northern conductor say they are available at the rear to sell tickets (which was a Leeds based conductor) so that must be an extremely rare instance.

The only change I've seen on board (which would be influenced by management) is Northern seemed to introduce additional staff on busy trains for fare collection a couple of years ago but they've since disappeared!

 

[Deerfold]

The only change I've seen on board (which would be influenced by management) is Northern seemed to introduce additional staff on busy trains for fare collection a couple of years ago but they've since disappeared!

I caught a train to Keighley in the early hours of 06/12/2013 which had two fare collecting staff on. It was a very quiet train but would have arrived at Leeds on its return journey at either 0817 or 0830.