Paperless Tickets

[MarlowDonkey]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...paper-tickets-will-be-phased-out-by-2020.html

Paper tickets for travel on the railroad will be phased out by 2020 with passengers paying instead by their mobile phones or smart card.

Patrick McLoughlin, the Transport Secretary, said the move away from printed tickets was necessary to make trains more accessible and allow passengers greater flexibility.

Rail travellers in London are already able to use their “Oyster Card” to purchase season tickets and pay-as-they-go on the capital’s rail, Underground and bus network.

In future, passengers will also be able to use their phones to make purchases and retain their ticket on their mobile device, as they can for air travel. Paper tickets, which have been used on the railways for 170 years, would be gradually phased out....

But someone, either the politician or the journalist, needs to check some basic facts.

"At present, travellers must buy separate tickets for journeys using different train operators. "

You can buy separate tickets and it is sometimes cheaper to do so, but integrated ticketing survived the fragmentation inherent in having numerous separate organisations running the trains.

It's in the Times as well, behind the paywall

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article4376417.ece?CMP=OTH-gnws-standard-2015_03_08

Printed tickets for rail travel will be phased out within five years, according to the transport secretary.

Most passengers will use mobile phones or Oyster-style smart cards to pay for journeys by the end of the next parliament, said Patrick McLoughlin.

The shift away from printed tickets, which have been a feature on the railways for 170 years, was vital to make trains more accessible, he said. The move would make flexible fares and part-time season tickets easier to operate, ending the “complexity which makes buying a train ticket much harder than it should be”....

 

[Simon11]

Or what about the spelling mistake below:

Mr McLoughlin said extending the system around the country would in particular make it easier to buy flexible fairs and part-time season tickets, ending the "complexity which makes buying a train ticket much harder than it should be."

 

[LexyBoy]

He meant to write:
"By 2020, travellers must buy separate tickets for journeys using different train operators."

Not surprisingly the comments in the article are also tearing it to shreds

 

[SS4]

Or what about the spelling mistake below:

Mr McLoughlin said extending the system around the country would in particular make it easier to buy flexible fairs and part-time season tickets, ending the "complexity which makes buying a train ticket much harder than it should be."

Does this mean buffet cars will sell candy floss and hot dogs?

One thing I dislike about smart ticketing and PAYG is that it eliminates break of journey.

 

[Greeby]

Translation: All booking offices closed by 2020.

Because no smartcard system outside of London involves booking offices and I don't seriously believe they are going to.

And as for all nonsense about being redeployed to the platform, don't buy it. Only two kinds of staff left on this railway: Those absolutely essential to running the train, and those who make the TOC and the government money. Once us station staff are made to stop doing that, we're gone.

 

[anme]

One thing I dislike about smart ticketing and PAYG is that it eliminates break of journey.

Why?

(Break of Journey might not be practical with PAYG, but smart ticketing will not only be PAYG. PAYG doesn't work well when the maximum fare is hundreds of pounds. You will probably buy a ticket just like today, but it will be electronically loaded on to the card. There's no reason why this ticket can't have the same T&Cs as today.)

 

[bavvo]

Atrocious article. Looks like the Journalist did a quick copy/paste job on a badly written press release and didn't even give it a cursory check. Railroad? flexible fairs?

Further evidence of the Telegraphs steady decline.

As for the numerous assumptions? Frankly it all seems a bit unlikely, many people don't have or want smartphones for all sorts of reasons (cost, complexity, usability). There's the issue of what happens if your battery goes flat, or your phone is faulty. Will you not be allowed to board a train without a workng phone then?

And the 'complexity of modern ticketing' has nothing to do with whether the result is printed on a small piece of card or not.

Am also wondering who was responsible for this gem ... "At present, travellers must buy separate tickets for journeys using different train operators." If the Journalist said that then it shows a very shoddy job, though not too surprising, but if it was the Transport Secretary...?

 

[Busaholic]

Does this mean buffet cars will sell candy floss and hot dogs?

One thing I dislike about smart ticketing and PAYG is that it eliminates break of journey.

The fair will include the usual hoopla stall with the never-attainable prize, in this case a CrossCountry advance ticket from Penzance.

 

[SS4]

Why?

(Break of Journey might not be practical with PAYG, but smart ticketing will not only be PAYG. PAYG doesn't work well when the maximum fare is hundreds of pounds. You will probably buy a ticket just like today, but it will be electronically loaded on to the card. There's no reason why this ticket can't have the same T&Cs as today.)

There's definitely no reason but we all know how "Simplification" turned out. Then again, I did get the impression that all fares would be treated as singles and seasons. So you couldn't get an off peak return on the card but could have two singles.