Northern Ticket Machines - Part 2

[urbophile]

I often collect tickets from Liverpool South Parkway Station which is a Merseyrail operated station. The ticket machine there is belongs to Northern Rail. There have been odd occasions when the machine has been out of order which is usually that the tickets have run out. I understand that it is the responsibility of Northern staff at West Allerton Station to deal with any problems. Customers can still buy tickets at the booking office which is open from first to last train (it is not closing) and the staff will print your advance tickets for you.

Good old Merseyrail! They've upped their game though: a few years ago when I had exactly this problem the Parkway office staff said they couldn't print out pre-booked tickets because they were Merseyrail. They sent us to West Allerton where the helpful staff member printed out our tickets, laughing that he had been doing that all day on behalf of S Parkway. (By the way, it's a nonsense that a comparatively busy interchange station like LSP, presumably used by many travellers from outside the region or even the country, has only one ticket machine.)

 

[Spartacus]

Lets see how this pans out:

Yorkshire journalist accused of train fare evasion by Northern in row over broken ticket machine

A Northern passenger accused of evading paying his train fare was almost arrested after he swore at the rail company’s lawyer during a court hearing.

www.yorkshirepost.co.uk

Not sure the line about the machine working normally when he boarded the train is such a slam dunk. Surely it has to be working at the time an attempt was made to buy a ticket, or should passengers wait by the machine until the train approaches just in case it starts working again?

Could be another case of the machines failing then resetting after a given period, by which time whoever tried to buy a ticket has long given up, few would stand there staring hoping for the best for long.

No matter what the state of the machine at Low Moor though, returning correspondence torn up, swearing in court at magistrates and solicitors, threatening to repeat it and refusing to apologise for said abuse, only doing so after being taken to the cells, must go down as one of the worst ways to conduct oneself in such a situation!

 

[kkong]

Not sure the line about the machine working normally when he boarded the train is such a slam dunk. Surely it has to be working at the time an attempt was made to buy a ticket, or should passengers wait by the machine until the train approaches just in case it starts working again?

Yes I wonder what Northern are using as evidence that "the Low Moor machine had in fact been working normally when Mr Vaux boarded his train".

Did they have an employee stood at the machine successfully purchasing a ticket at the very time the train pulled in?

From my own experience detailed on another thread of three "freezing" TVMs at the same station, there are many failure modes which affect TVMs and at least one of them - lack of network connectivity - would surely mean the TVM couldn't report its operational status to a control centre.

We have seen other cases where TOCs have claimed TVMs to be working because tickets have been sold by them at unspecified times around the time the customer claimed it wasn't working.

Are TOCs simply taking the approach of "if the machine doesn't report itself faulty, it must be working"?

If so, that seems to me like an assumption too far.

 

[SuspectUsual]

From my own experience detailed on another thread of three "freezing" TVMs at the same station, there are many failure modes which affect TVMs and at least one of them - lack of network connectivity - would surely mean the TVM couldn't report its operational status to a control centre

I'm sure @northernman knows more than me, but I was told by someone pretty high up in Northern that the machines send a signal back to base to confirm they're working, so a failure can be identified either as a specific failure message being sent or no message at all being sent

 

[kkong]

I'm sure @northernman knows more than me, but I was told by someone pretty high up in Northern that the machines send a signal back to base to confirm they're working, so a failure can be identified either as a specific failure message being sent or no message at all being sent

I can see that, but who is looking for the lack of messages when the machine has frozen?

It seems the S&B machines at least have some kind of watchdog timer and come back into use eventually in most cases.

I've also stood in front of a TVM recently which rebooted as I was typing in my ticket collection reference.

I watched it reboot (it was a S&B machine, I think it was running Windows XP Embedded) and then it downloaded an enormous fares database file from a remote server.

It took at least 5 minutes to come back online, possibly nearer 10 minutes.

 

[Halwynd]

While this is all true, wouldn't it have been much less effort for you to just get on the train and explain the situation? I know that's not ideal, but if Northern did charge you a Penalty Fare, which is, as you hint, fairly likely, you could win the appeal with less time and effort than five miles walk and however many hours you've spent going to two stations, writing a long email to northernman and also creating and replying to this thread.

Given some previous member comments, and indeed reflection on my own approach to the problem, I wasn't going to post again on this, but I'll just, if I may, comment further on this.

Are you seriously suggesting that I should accept a Penalty Fare rather than make every effort to buy a ticket? Seriously? I know you are trying to be pragmatic but the post from 'thejuggler' posted just a few minutes ago - as well as other posts in other dispute threads - indicates that appealing is not necessarily going to be any less hassle. It might well be more hassle, much more, and might not necessarily end in success. For the record, northernman was kind enough to offer me his Northern email address last year in case of further issues and we have exchanged a number of pleasant emails since - I do not ask for his email address. Neither was it a 'long' email, just an update on a long-standing issue.

The main reason for creating the thread was twofold. To make members aware that problems with some of these machines exist and secondly, to try to gauge whether it is more widespread and pass any on any information to northernman that he might find helpful. A few members have previously posted comments that suggest I am not alone, so it has been useful from that point of view. And finally, I thought the raisin d'etre of this forum was to create and reply to threads discussing railway matters?

Let's not forget, I'm not a fare evader - I'm just one of those who is honest, law-abiding and wants to pay his fare using the machines the railway provides to do so. Suggesting alternatives, however pragmatic and helpfully intentioned, will not solve this particular problem.

As I said above, I have reflected on my own approach to this and yes, perhaps after over 12 months of mainly TVM failure - my success rate has been no more than 20% - I have got a bit of a bee in my bonnet about this. Northernman is continuing his investigations and, as he has said above, will advise the forum on progress/solutions as and when. For my part I'm now going to forget the matter.

 

[yorkie]

Given some previous member comments, and indeed reflection on my own approach to the problem, I wasn't going to post again on this, but I'll just, if I may, comment further on this.

Are you seriously suggesting that I should accept a Penalty Fare rather than make every effort to buy a ticket? Seriously? I know you are trying to be pragmatic but the post from 'thejuggler' posted just a few minutes ago - as well as other posts in other dispute threads - indicates that appealing is not necessarily going to be any less hassle. It might well be more hassle, much more, and might not necessarily end in success. For the record, northernman was kind enough to offer me his Northern email address last year in case of further issues and we have exchanged a number of pleasant emails since - I do not ask for his email address. Neither was it a 'long' email, just an update on a long-standing issue.

The main reason for creating the thread was twofold. To make members aware that problems with some of these machines exist and secondly, to try to gauge whether it is more widespread and pass any on any information to northernman that he might find helpful. A few members have previously posted comments that suggest I am not alone, so it has been useful from that point of view. And finally, I thought the raisin d'etre of this forum was to create and reply to threads discussing railway matters?

Let's not forget, I'm not a fare evader - I'm just one of those who is honest, law-abiding and wants to pay his fare using the machines the railway provides to do so. Suggesting alternatives, however pragmatic and helpfully intentioned, will not solve this particular problem.

As I said above, I have reflected on my own approach to this and yes, perhaps after over 12 months of mainly TVM failure - my success rate has been no more than 20% - I have got a bit of a bee in my bonnet about this. Northernman is continuing his investigations and, as he has said above, will advise the forum on progress/solutions as and when. For my part I'm now going to forget the matter.

Each to their own, but there is no way I'd be walking 5 miles to avoid an incorrect penalty fare being issued.

If anyone from Northern tried this on me, I'd give them short shrift and I'd not be letting them issue it, but if anyone doesn't want to get into an argument with staff, I think most people would find the easiest thing may be to take the Penalty Fare, and immediately appeal it , rather than going on a long walk.

 

[johntea]

I can see that, but who is looking for the lack of messages when the machine has frozen?

It seems the S&B machines at least have some kind of watchdog timer and come back into use eventually in most cases.

I've also stood in front of a TVM recently which rebooted as I was typing in my ticket collection reference.

I watched it reboot (it was a S&B machine, I think it was running Windows XP Embedded) and then it downloaded an enormous fares database file from a remote server.

It took at least 5 minutes to come back online, possibly nearer 10 minutes.

If the machine designers have done the job properly you would expect a completely seperate communication port / network collecting and sending out the logs (perhaps even connected up to battery backup)

 

[kkong]

If the machine designers have done the job properly you would expect a completely seperate communication port / network collecting and sending out the logs (perhaps even connected up to battery backup)

I would agree.

However, the routine failures and poor user experience would suggest the designers (and probably operators) haven't done their job properly.

 

[asw22]

From my previous role dealing with car insurance complaints it was standard practice to give the customer our name and business address (in the days before email). This gives the customer confidence that any follow up concerns could be addressed by someone who knew the history, with the back up of a colleague picking up during annual leave etc

Each ticket bought from a tvm or ticket office should have a date and time stamp? So even without any real time reporting, it should be possible to calculate the number of tickets per hour for each hour in a week, then compare this against the equivalent period for the week before. Any sudden drops should flag that there was a fault at ...
Computer programs speed this up.
Otherwise how is Northern reporting it's income?

 

[Starmill]

Are you seriously suggesting that I should accept a Penalty Fare rather than make every effort to buy a ticket? Seriously?

What I'm suggesting is that I'd make sure to comply with the Railway Byelaws and to buy my tickets at the earliest possible opportunity. Nothing more, nothing less. Any Penalty Fare issued under such circumstances is invalid.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 4 Aug 2023 ==

For the record, northernman was kind enough to offer me his Northern email address last year in case of further issues and we have exchanged a number of pleasant emails since - I do not ask for his email address. Neither was it a 'long' email, just an update on a long-standing issue.

I can go only on what you posted, but you said that you asked for a formal complaint to be raised, although that's not the proper channel for doing so. A formal complaint of this nature likely needs to be a longer email yes.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 4 Aug 2023 ==

I know you are trying to be pragmatic but the post from 'thejuggler' posted just a few minutes ago - as well as other posts in other dispute threads - indicates that appealing is not necessarily going to be any less hassle. It might well be more hassle, much more, and might not necessarily end in success.

Obviously, but any Penalty Fare would be wrongly issued and you'd have very clear evidence of that.

 

[JD2168]

When I was in Barnsley on Wednesday one of the ticket machines at the end of the bridge was not working, the other one was working next to it.

 

[323235]

Hi all, to be clear, I am the responsible manager for TVMs at Northern, and user GB47711 contacted me and that is fine. The important thing for me here is that the TVM works, our customers expect it, and so do I. I am currently investigating the machines in question, and will happily provide an update when I have all of the information.

You are a top bloke @northernman

 

[northernman]

You are a top bloke @northernman

Thank you!

 

[fishwomp]

Ticket machine at Man Vic at 8pm yesterday was showing £25 anytime return instead of off peak at £17.40 for Penistone line.

There was no way to make it do anything else, so I had to use an app on phone instead..

Is this common? Is there any sanction on the company for this?

If I intentionally bought a ticket that was not valid, I would be committing a criminal offence, although would probably just get a £100 penalty fare. As this is something that the rail company is doing - fraudulently (it has words to effect of saying it is most appropriate fare) - shouldn't a similar fine be payable by the company for every ticket so sold?

 

[crablab]

I once bought a ticket from Manchester Oxford Road to (specifically) Manchester Victoria from one of the large touchscreen TVMs.

The ticket machine offered me a cheapest fare to 'Manchester Stations'. When it printed, it was to Deansgate.

So I had to pay a 10p excess at the ticket office...

Are Northern TVMs just really unreliable?

 

[Watershed]

Ticket machine at Man Vic at 8pm yesterday was showing £25 anytime return instead of off peak at £17.40 for Penistone line.

There was no way to make it do anything else, so I had to use an app on phone instead..

Is this common? Is there any sanction on the company for this?

If I intentionally bought a ticket that was not valid, I would be committing a criminal offence, although would probably just get a £100 penalty fare. As this is something that the rail company is doing - fraudulently (it has words to effect of saying it is most appropriate fare) - shouldn't a similar fine be payable by the company for every ticket so sold?

Wishful thinking, I'm afraid. The ORR is simply too much of a light-touch regulator to hold retailers (and particularly TOCs) to account for abiding by consumer law.

OTOH, the TOCs pour a lot of resources into revenue protection because they know it will pay off financially.

Unfortunately it's far from a level playing field.

 

[CyrusWuff]

Ticket machine at Man Vic at 8pm yesterday was showing £25 anytime return instead of off peak at £17.40 for Penistone line.

There was no way to make it do anything else, so I had to use an app on phone instead..

Is this common? Is there any sanction on the company for this?

If I intentionally bought a ticket that was not valid, I would be committing a criminal offence, although would probably just get a £100 penalty fare. As this is something that the rail company is doing - fraudulently (it has words to effect of saying it is most appropriate fare) - shouldn't a similar fine be payable by the company for every ticket so sold?

What destination were you looking for? A quick look at BRFares for Manchester - Penistone only shows an Anytime Day Single via Sheffield for £26.20, Off-Peak Return for £28.30 or Anytime Short Return for £39.30; or via Huddersfield for £26.40/£27.00/£38.30.

That said, as a general point the problem is that the journey planner interface on Flowbird TVMs (as used by Chiltern, LNER and Northern) doesn't have a via/avoid option and defaults to fastest route. I would have thought that the "Quick Buy" functionality (present on the Northern ones at least) would obviate that however.

 

[Killingworth]

I was asked today if South Yorkshire Senior citizens with a bus pass get a discount on Northern trains. Remembering the Barnsley based Freedom Riders campaign from a few years ago I said I believed they did.

Next question was "how can that be done at a TVM?" Not so fast, you'll need to use the Railcards link, not too easy to see through reflections in strong sunlight. (Aside,does the screen have to be so reflective?)

If you keep scrolling to the very bottom of the menu SY Concession Senior is there -below the Rhondda Railcard! Whereas the West Yorkshire Senior Concessionary Discount is 4th down on the opening screen.

I can understand why the elderly enquirer was puzzled. I took about 3 attempts to find it. Surely at South Yorkshire stations the TVMs should list South Yorkshire facilities higher up? If only alphabetically.

 

[fishwomp]

Any destination between Denby Dale and Lockwood has the issue.

£17.40 was the return sold on the GWR app( as seen on brfares.com l- and you can see the screenshot of what Northern machine offered..

The machine could/should also have offered the cheaper but painful "via hebden bridge" tickets.. but I was looking for the normal/default faster via Huddersfield.

 

[CyrusWuff]

Any destination between Denby Dale and Lockwood has the issue.

£17.40 was the return sold on the GWR app( as seen on brfares.com l- and you can see the screenshot of what Northern machine offered..

The machine could/should also have offered the cheaper but painful "via hebden bridge" tickets.. but I was looking for the normal/default faster via Huddersfield.

I'd have to check at a station with a Flowbird TVM, but I think that's the default behaviour if you specify an open return without putting a time in, as they default to searching for a return departing at 8am for some reason.

The Chiltern and Grand Central websites do the same if you just tick the "Open Return" box:



The above image is a screenshot from the Chiltern Railways online ticketing site, showing the result of a query for an open return between Manchester Victoria and Denby Dale, departing at an off-peak time on 19th September. The website has only returned the Anytime Short Distance Return.

The query URL that produced that result includes "openReturn=true" but no return time, so what actually is being passed is unknown. Other websites offer both the Off-Peak and Anytime Short Distance Return if you specify an open return, however.

 

[fishwomp]

I'd have to check at a station with a Flowbird TVM, but I think that's the default behaviour if you specify an open return without putting a time in, as they default to searching for a return departing at 8am for some reason.

An off peak return is an open return, I have up to 30 days/month to travel on any day.. it's open and not fixed to one train - I didn't ask for fully flexible peak /most expensive option it could find..

 

[northernman]

Ticket machine at Man Vic at 8pm yesterday was showing £25 anytime return instead of off peak at £17.40 for Penistone line.

There was no way to make it do anything else, so I had to use an app on phone instead..

Is this common? Is there any sanction on the company for this?

If I intentionally bought a ticket that was not valid, I would be committing a criminal offence, although would probably just get a £100 penalty fare. As this is something that the rail company is doing - fraudulently (it has words to effect of saying it is most appropriate fare) - shouldn't a similar fine be payable by the company for every ticket so sold?

Hi we will take a look, may be a fares feed fault, I'll come back to you next week

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 16 Sep 2023 ==

I was asked today if South Yorkshire Senior citizens with a bus pass get a discount on Northern trains. Remembering the Barnsley based Freedom Riders campaign from a few years ago I said I believed they did.

Next question was "how can that be done at a TVM?" Not so fast, you'll need to use the Railcards link, not too easy to see through reflections in strong sunlight. (Aside,does the screen have to be so reflective?)

If you keep scrolling to the very bottom of the menu SY Concession Senior is there -below the Rhondda Railcard! Whereas the West Yorkshire Senior Concessionary Discount is 4th down on the opening screen.

I can understand why the elderly enquirer was puzzled. I took about 3 attempts to find it. Surely at South Yorkshire stations the TVMs should list South Yorkshire facilities higher up? If only alphabetically.

View attachment 142922

View attachment 142923

I'm guessing this was at Dore TVM, I suspect the TVM has reverted to " all railcards" instead of "relevant railcards" because we have a test colour scheme, well get it changed back to "relevant railcards "

 

[fishwomp]

Hi we will take a look, may be a fares feed fault, I'll come back to you next week

Thanks - it was specifically Shepley I was buying to, and the machines adjacent to, if I remember rightly, Greggs

 

[CyrusWuff]

An off peak return is an open return, I have up to 30 days/month to travel on any day.. it's open and not fixed to one train - I didn't ask for fully flexible peak /most expensive option it could find..

You know that. I know that. Most people buying tickets know that. Ticket Office staff know that.

Unfortunately it seems that Ticket Issuing System suppliers rarely have people who've actually worked in a Ticket Office on their dev teams, so they make assumptions about what a given query means. In this case, that's given an incorrect result, as it absolutely should have shown both the Off-Peak and Anytime options.

 

[Killingworth]

I'm guessing this was at Dore TVM, I suspect the TVM has reverted to " all railcards" instead of "relevant railcards" because we have a test colour scheme, well get it changed back to "relevant railcards "

Correct and thank you.

Colour scheme is good.

Reflections still make the display harrd to read in any colour.

 

[fishwomp]

Thanks - it was specifically Shepley I was buying to, and the machines adjacent to, if I remember rightly, Greggs

The machine at Shepley this morning shows - almost - the right choices in the Manchester bound ticket.
Picture:


This is what "Manchester pic, Vic, or Oxford road" choice gives - the off peak period return is now there. Hence problem seems specific to ticket from Manchester.

I say "almost" because the via Hebden Bridge tickets are not showing. If you specifically have Man *Vic* as the destination then instead you, correctly, see:


If you look up SPY to Manchester *Pic*.. brfares.com would also show via Hebden Bridge - enabling an Ordeal Chord and I guess a Salford detour to Pic. Hence it seems that option should also be offered for the all Manchester stations ticket.

 

[SuspectUsual]

Ordeal Chord

How apt

 

[LYuen]

Lets see how this pans out:

Yorkshire journalist accused of train fare evasion by Northern in row over broken ticket machine

A Northern passenger accused of evading paying his train fare was almost arrested after he swore at the rail company’s lawyer during a court hearing.

www.yorkshirepost.co.uk

Not sure the line about the machine working normally when he boarded the train is such a slam dunk. Surely it has to be working at the time an attempt was made to buy a ticket, or should passengers wait by the machine until the train approaches just in case it starts working again?

Anyone knows the outcome of the court trial?

 

[riceuten]

Anyone knows the outcome of the court trial?

I remember this case, and he's done himself no favours. I've certainly seen Revenue Control staff threaten someone with a penalty fare back in the day when the TVM was broken at a station I'd boarded at and Revenue Control said it wasn't. It was only when other passengers had got on at the station said the same thing that they relented. I dread to think what would have happened if he'd've been on his own.

"But the machine is working according to my list..."