The above posts in a different thread reminded me I wanted to start a thread to highlight how excellent, in my opinion, the Northern TVMs actually are now. One of my longstanding complaints with a lot of more recent TVM installations (including Northern) is the proliferation of journey planning software as a critical part of the interface. Whilst I absolutely think that having a journey planner is an extremely helpful function in a TVM it does rather make things more complicated when at a lot of stations all the majority of people are actually after is a return ticket valid on the next train to the nearest major settlement. I was poking at a Northern TVM at Meadowhall a little over a month ago to kill time before rejoining a railtour and discovered that Northern appear to have done a, in my view, very good job at solving this issue. Quick Buy!
Once you wake the TVM up with a tap you're presented with the home screen which now has a big and prominent "Quick Buy" button on it:
The screen also keep the other options like a journey planner, live running information, ticket collection, etc.
This then takes you to a much more classical TVM interface:
With the station you're currently at pre-selected as the origin (but you can change it if so desired) and then a range of stations or the option to type a station in. I am slightly intrigued by the logic though. I can buy that Darlington, Middlesbrough, Saltburn, Newcastle, Redcar Central and Thornaby will be popular. But are lots of people really walking up to the TVM to buy a ticket to Kings Cross or Seaburn?! However the logic works though the main point is that if I just want a ticket to the next biggest town along the line I am now within potentially two presses of being presented with a ticket selection screen:
Where I can choose from a couple of singles or returns (Anytime or Off-Peak) with the cheapest fare helpful highlighted. Bliss! Though I'm intrigued by the "Singles Each Way" option, Northern preparing for single leg pricing perhaps?! It also allows you to fiddle with the number of people travelling or add a railcard if needed. Once you've chosen your ticket it takes you to a summary screen:
Which confirms the ticket, any discount, price and I think helpfully highlights when the next train on which your ticket is valid is. Hit pay now and you're taken to a payment screen (where you can also PlusBus as a button offering it appears). Bliss. You're now only around four or five presses away from being able to buy a ticket which is valid on the next train rather than having to go through a full journey planning experience.
At the bottom ticket selection screen there are two other buttons one of which is titled "Help Choosing" and that brings up a box:
(Text in a box on the TVM screen saying: "For help please speak to local staff (if available) or call Northern for assistance on 0800 200 6060. Text 61016 to report a crime or incident that requires a British Transport Police response. In an emergency call 999.")
I'm not entirely sure how helpful that really is (especially the stuff about contacting the BTP) but I guess it's better than nothing! The other button is labelled "Advance Fares" and takes you to the full journey planner:
(Picture shows full journey planner interface)
I did like that it read across the stations I'd told it in Quick Buy straight into the journey planner. Though I do think that that button is slightly poorly named. I was wondering if rather than calling it "Advance Fares" it might be better to explicitly call it "Journey Planner" so it's a bit more obvious what it is. I also wondered similarly about "Help Choosing?" as when I first pressed on that I did kinda expect it to take me to a journey planner! So I think perhaps Northern might have a bit of work to do on those two features specifically. But that's definitely nit pick territory. Compared to the first time I used one of these TVMs where you were forced to use a clunky and slow journey planner this is light years ahead. I was honestly very impressed.
Anyway I thought I'd post this up as this is the best implementation of this concept I've seen amongst the journey planner capable TVMs and I guess there will be people out there who might be interested but haven't seen it in the wild themselves yet. I wonder if it's helping reduce queues at stations (like my own) where there is only one TVM when everyone isn't being forced to plan their journey?
