(Northern Rail stations) Ticket barrier accept/reject loop

[johntea]

In recent months I'm having quite an annoying problem with my season ticket in that all of a sudden I will put it in a barrier and it will keep trying to swallow it then spit it back out and repeats this for about 10 seconds before giving up with a Seek Assistance message.

The problem is, the ticket will then refuse to work in any barriers and present the exact same issue of the reading loop...but the next day things seem back to normal with the ticket!

Has anyone else come across this? I thought it was a Leeds specific issue but the same happened at Bradford Forster Square this afternoon!

 

[rich r]

I've had this many times at Leeds, and sometimes once it finally gives the ticket back it won't work in any barrier ever again - so you have to get a new ticket from the ticket office. They are generally happy to exchange it if you just say that the barriers rejected it but it worked the day before. If I'm in the last week of a monthly season ticket I just wave it at the gateline staff rather than bothering to try it in the reader, as I know it's unlikely to work, then return to using the readers on my renewal.

 

[js1000]

In recent months I'm having quite an annoying problem with my season ticket in that all of a sudden I will put it in a barrier and it will keep trying to swallow it then spit it back out and repeats this for about 10 seconds before giving up with a Seek Assistance message.

The problem is, the ticket will then refuse to work in any barriers and present the exact same issue of the reading loop...but the next day things seem back to normal with the ticket!

Has anyone else come across this? I thought it was a Leeds specific issue but the same happened at Bradford Forster Square this afternoon!

Occasionally, happens to me at Manchester Oxford Road with a season ticket. I don't know why they the things become all stroppy and hormonal once in a while.

 

[johntea]

A new record as my fresh monthly ticket that only started today was instantly rejected by the Harrogate barrier!

I wouldn't mind so much apart from the annoying form that they insist you fill in every time to obtain the replacement

 

[johntea]

Strange issue trying to get the dodgy ticket replaced today, tried at Harrogate and the ticket office couldn't find me on the system at all!

Tried at Leeds, same issue but then a supervisor came along and eventually managed to replace it somehow. No wonder it didn't work initially!

 

[rich r]

Strange issue trying to get the dodgy ticket replaced today, tried at Harrogate and the ticket office couldn't find me on the system at all!

Tried at Leeds, same issue but then a supervisor came along and eventually managed to replace it somehow. No wonder it didn't work initially!

That's not uncommon - generally I've found that if you go to the station that issued the photocard it'll scan and find you every time. If you go to another it either won't find you at all, or it'll find part of your details (such as missing the address).

 

[johntea]

...and again, less than a week this time after my new monthly ticket which I’ve ensured has been kept in pristine condition!

 

[Joseph_Locke]

Strictly, they can't insist you go through a barrier? At Man Vic most seasons work for about a week and then you just have to head for the one that has the (mostly) happy (mostly) smiling Northern operative working it.

 

[furlong]

Well if it keeps happening, see if you can narrow down the cause. Is somewhere you are placing the ticket affecting the magnetic stripe? Take note of which way round you put the ticket through every barrier (and if it fails try it the opposite way). Ticket barriers read the magnetic stripe then rewrite it to indicate the gate opened, so if a ticket can't be read, the problem could be a misalignment in the last barrier that it opened. If the misalignment is slight, you might find some barriers can still read it afterwards (and will fix the ticket when they rewrite it) but others can't.

 

[[.n]]

A new record as my fresh monthly ticket that only started today was instantly rejected by the Harrogate barrier!

I wouldn't mind so much apart from the annoying form that they insist you fill in every time to obtain the replacement

I've often had season tickets not work on my first use of them - though I don't recall ever having to fill in a form for a replacement - lucky I guess!

 

[rich r]

At Leeds on at least two occasions in the last year, the whole bank of barriers at the south entrance were found to invalidate every ticket put through them with no indication it was doing it until people started to come back later in the day. They'd take the ticket and spit it out the top as normal, but the next time you try to use it in any reader it rejects it.
On both times I witnessed it in the morning, the Northern staff were very apologetic in the evening and waved people through saying that an engineer had been out and fixed it so it should be fine for the next day (assuming you'd been to the ticket office and got your season ticket reissued).

I've had to fill a form in at Leeds for a reissue, but when I do it at Selby the nice Transpennine Express staff there tend to do it for you

 

[Joseph_Locke]

At Leeds on at least two occasions in the last year, the whole bank of barriers at the south entrance were found to invalidate every ticket put through them with no indication it was doing it until people started to come back later in the day. They'd take the ticket and spit it out the top as normal, but the next time you try to use it in any reader it rejects it.
On both times I witnessed it in the morning, the Northern staff were very apologetic in the evening and waved people through saying that an engineer had been out and fixed it so it should be fine for the next day (assuming you'd been to the ticket office and got your season ticket reissued).

I've had to fill a form in at Leeds for a reissue, but when I do it at Selby the nice Transpennine Express staff there tend to do it for you

I have a real problem with this - you have a valid ticket, and the fact that their system cannot determine this correctly is their problem, not yours. Do not be a sheep - insist on your rights! Where in https://assets.publishing.service.g...attachment_data/file/4202/railway-byelaws.pdf does it say that you can be required to use an AFG and only an AFG?

 

[johntea]

A new record...2 days before Harrogate barriers did the loop this morning and now Error Code 9 (unable to read magstripe correctly)

Either I’ve got a magnet in my body or there is something seriously wrong!

Wish they would just print a Aztec code on the ticket as a backup option!

 

[AMD]

Wish they would just print a Aztec code on the ticket as a backup option!

Smartcards are coming.... The hardware is currently being installed at ticket offices, with gates already ITSO ready, so it's now just a matter of time.

*ITSO is the standard used.

 

[rich r]

I too wonder why it's not possible to encode a monthly or yearly season ticket information on the scanable ticket code. Be much easier than having to take the ticket out of the plastic wallet, put it through the reader then put it back in again. I don't know if it's a technical restriction, or I guess more likely a reduction in potential cloned ticket risk?

 

[johntea]

I asked Metro or whatever they're called these days about the possibility of linking it to an MCard somehow, you would obviously need a counterpart rail ticket but could then use the card to tap in and out of barriers

Their response :-
The Z6 ticket is a rail only product and doesn’t formally form part of the range of MCards.

Transport for the North are in the process of rolling out smart ticketing capability across the north and this ticket should be available on rail smartcards in the near future.

Coincidentally I didn't even get chance to replace it this month after the failure 2 days in so can confirm it doesn't magically come back to life at any point as I kept trying it throughout the month in various barriers! I can also confirm it is more annoying than you would think having to seek out a member of gate line staff every...single...time!

 

[johntea]

I got an annual ticket rather than monthly ones at the start of this year from the travel office at Leeds station and (touch wood!) have had no issues so far with it working various barriers across West Yorkshire.

The only thing I can think of is I had one of those wallet phone cases with a small magnet on the front to close it up, which I ditched for another case recently. It would seem odd if such a small magnet in a totally different pocket could have been wiping out a magnetic stripe though, if anything I work in a hospital with all sorts of weird and wonderful machinery which probably emit a far greater magnetic force!