Passenger-unfriendly downsides of e-tickets?

[ainsworth74]

The discussion on data protection can now be found in it's own thread here.

 

[Starmill]

Whilst I agree it's nice of them to tell you after the fact how much extra they'd have charged you had you not opted to sell your data, though those 'savings' are in my view largely illusory, since in many cases the non-discounted price would have been completely uncompetitive and there's no reason to suppose the customer would necessarily have bought the item at that price.

And it doesn't alter the fact you don't know the real value of the discounts you'll be offered later, even compared to the non-discounted price (let alone compared to the the going rate - often the discount is less than nothing when viewed from that perspective), when you sign up.

The savings are totally illusory and it's really just desperation to exploit data law in my opinion. But unfortunately as a consumer you will soon face a choice of either giving in, paying up (big time) or shopping exclusively at Aldi and your local independent grocery shops (OK a few other places too, but the point is an enormous reduction in choice).

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 7 Oct 2024 ==

With Tesco the T&Cs state that while the main cardholder must be over 18, secondary cards can be used by any person living at the same address.

Indeed. And sharing the e-code is usually permitted explicitly or tacitly anyway because you can add it to Google or Apple Wallet on someone else's device (not Pret though). But of course that's the "generosity" of the provider and not a lawful protection...

 

[125Spotter]

I haven't had one for years. The last one I had was an inkjet. When I printed flight tickets, the British Airways scanners were unable to read them, even though the written words were perfectly legible. I expect railway ticket scanners would have the same problem.

I've had issues at airports with phone wallet boarding passes where they won't scan, so will not admit you to the secure area, and I've been sent traipsing (sometimes not an insignificant distance) back to the check-in desks with attendant queuing time to obtain a piece of paper. This happened to me most recently this year in Dublin. I always try to ask for a paper printout if I can but sometimes the machines won't print them by default without a staff member overriding it.

 

[ainsworth74]

I've had issues at airports with phone wallet boarding passes where they won't scan, so will not admit you to the secure area, and I've been sent traipsing (sometimes not an insignificant distance) back to the check-in desks with attendant queuing time to obtain a piece of paper.

Not a screen brightness issue was it? I've occasionally had issues with scanners when the phone screen hasn't automatically increased to maximum, has always been fixed by boosting the brightness manually.

 

[125Spotter]

Not a screen brightness issue was it? I've occasionally had issues with scanners when the phone screen hasn't automatically increased to maximum, has always been fixed by boosting the brightness manually.

No sadly not. We tried for a few minutes all manner of things. It looked like the rendering was simply missing the top of the barcode (from memory) and I guess enough was lost that either it couldn't identify the orientation boxes in the corners or too much data had been lost as to be corrected during decoding.

Of course this shouldn't be an issue with the native wallet apps on Android or Apple. But it is if you're sent documents in another format where the rendering is a bit squiffy.

 

[ainsworth74]

No sadly not. We tried for a few minutes all manner of things. It looked like the rendering was simply missing the top of the barcode (from memory) and I guess enough was lost that either it couldn't identify the orientation boxes in the corners or too much data had been lost as to be corrected during decoding.

Of course this shouldn't be an issue with the native wallet apps on Android or Apple. But it is if you're sent documents in another format where the rendering is a bit squiffy.

How frustrating!

 

[class442]

To answer the thread title, for me the downside of e-tickets (the Aztec type) are that they are slower to use at the gateline. Whenever I get off a busy train at a major stop, the queue to get through the gateline seems to take much longer than it did a few years ago when CCST tickets were the norm. I think this is because they are fiddly and slow to scan, whereas paper tickets read quite quickly.

My preferred ticket type is a smartcard though, which is still an electronic ticket at the end of the day, and is probably the quickest type. But they're not very common/only good for frequent users.

 

[infobleep]

This has come up before but I thought it worth mentioning here.

No trains to / from London Victoria on Saturday 16 and Sunday 17 November
.......
Ticket acceptance:

Paper tickets can be used with:

London Underground:

Victoria - Euston (Victoria line).
Victoria - Shepherds Bush (Circle / Central line).
Victoria - West Brompton (District line).
Oxford Circus - Harrow & Wealdstone (Bakerloo line).
Victoria - Blackfriars (Circle / District line).
London Bridge - Canada Water (Jubilee line).
London Buses:

Victoria - Battersea Park (route 44).
Victoria - Waterloo (routes 11 / 211).
Victoria - Clapham Junction (route 170).
Selhurst - West Croydon (Bus route 157).
Balham and Crystal Palace (Bus route 249).
Balham and Streatham Hill (Bus route 255).
Clapham Junction and Streatham Hill (Bus route 319).
London Overground:

Euston - Watford Junction.
Clapham Junction - Willesden Junction.
Canada Water - Clapham Junction / Crystal Palace / West Croydon.
London Northwestern Railway between London Euston and Watford Junction.

South Western Railway between London Waterloo and Clapham Junction.

London Trams all weekend between East Croydon and West Croydon.

https://www.southernrailway.com/travel-information/plan-your-journey/planned-engineering-work?date=2024-11-17#engineering-departure-board

Paper tickets being in bold is my addition. So if you had an eTicket, tough.

To be fair, this time they are not allowing passe gees with tickets valid via Clapham Junctiom but not London to travel via London. Instead they must take the slow rail replacement buses or buy a more expensive ticket but if their ticket is the return portion of a ticket valid for a month and is an eTicket....

 

[TUC]

E-tickets are vastly superior to m-tickets, that isn't up for debate but what I'd like to know is what remaining disadvantages are there for e-tickets versus credit card size ticket stock (CCST)? To clarify I'm not talking about flows for which e-tickets are not yet enabled.

I can think of a few:

1. Privacy - There is no scan history with paper tickets, so your movements aren't being tracked. This becomes less of a problem if bought from a TVM, and if paying cash the problem is eliminated.

I do find it odd that you list this as point 1. Do you really think that where someone has individually been travelling (as opposed to wider travel patterns of multiple passengers) is remotely of interest (unless they want to make me a special offer for the next time I make that journey, for which I say Yes Please).

 

[Haywain]

I think this is because they are fiddly and slow to scan, whereas paper tickets read quite quickly.

Not at all fiddly and very easy to scan if you know what you're doing. Certainly not noticeable slower than CCST for me.

 

[lookapigeon]

Unfortunately large numbers of people do not seem to know what they're doing - I was in Waterloo the other day, me, straight through with an orange credit card ticket, at the gate next to me, faff, faff from someone trying to scan her ticket and presumably find it on the app/phone etc. Luckily it wasn't at rush hour!

 

[redreni]

This has come up before but I thought it worth mentioning here.

https://www.southernrailway.com/travel-information/plan-your-journey/planned-engineering-work?date=2024-11-17#engineering-departure-board

Paper tickets being in bold is my addition. So if you had an eTicket, tough.

To be fair, this time they are not allowing passe gees with tickets valid via Clapham Junctiom but not London to travel via London. Instead they must take the slow rail replacement buses or buy a more expensive ticket but if their ticket is the return portion of a ticket valid for a month and is an eTicket....

Does anyone know what London Travelwatch is doing about this? I wonder if it would be worth applying pressure through them to fix this?

 

[AdamWW]

Unfortunately large numbers of people do not seem to know what they're doing - I was in Waterloo the other day, me, straight through with an orange credit card ticket, at the gate next to me, faff, faff from someone trying to scan her ticket and presumably find it on the app/phone etc. Luckily it wasn't at rush hour!

On the other hand I saw someone trying to scan their card ticket on the contactless pad at a barrier this week.

Not unreasonable - it was their first train trip in the UK and some places do have RFID chips in card tickets.

 

[Lewisham2221]

Unfortunately large numbers of people do not seem to know what they're doing - I was in Waterloo the other day, me, straight through with an orange credit card ticket, at the gate next to me, faff, faff from someone trying to scan her ticket and presumably find it on the app/phone etc. Luckily it wasn't at rush hour!

I've seen plenty of people faffing with CCST at the barriers too. Trying to find the right ticket, putting it in the wrong way, not retrieving the ticket from the top slot and thus the futile wait for the gate to (not) open etc. It's not just e-ticket users who don't seem to know what they're doing

 

[AdamWW]

I've seen plenty of people faffing with CCST at the barriers too. Trying to find the right ticket, putting it in the wrong way, not retrieving the ticket from the top slot and thus the futile wait for the gate to (not) open etc. It's not just e-ticket users who don't seem to know what they're doing

Amd bending it so it won't go through any more.

 

[RJ]

One downside is people not understanding what they are buying. People think buying a ticket online means they’re getting an eticket - even for Cross London journeys requiring use of the Underground and Travelcards. They then turn up at the station and have no card to collect their TOD ticket with, necessitating a trip to a ticket office, if one is available.

 

[Halwynd]

Confession time...

I have for a long time been an e-ticket refusnik, but over the past few weeks I've bought a few e-tickets using the Trainsplit and LNER apps essentially to compare and contrast, but, with apologies to this forums ticket purchasing facility, I did buy some LNER e-vouchers via Amex for the 10% cashback.

My reason for doing so was that in the past I've had problems with closed booking offices due to no staff, faulty ticket machines, and, in the case of Avanti, a slow, frustrating ticket machine buying process.

Both apps provided a very easy and smooth buying process, but I felt the Trainsplit app did have a clear edge in that it was far less 'busy' than the LNER example - just a simple straightforward ticket buying facility. My tickets downloaded to Apple Wallet smoothly and I had no problems at the barriers. I think Trainsplit are testing a Live Departures function for Android phones, and if this comes to iOS I will use Trainsplit all the time because I didn't find LNERs facility particularly great.

But... I only had the confidence to do this because I printed off a copy of each e-ticket as a backup.

Anyway, hands up, I'm a convert!

 

[redreni]

Conversely I usually get e-tickets where I can (but I often can't as more often than not there's a cross-London ticket or a ticket to or from an underground zone in the booking), however I'm now minded to also get a paper ticket for journeys to or from London terminals if I can't rule out the possibility that engineering work or disruption would cause me to want to take advantage of London Underground ticket acceptance.

Thinking about it, on a trip to Altrincham last season I checked that my train was expected to run on time, left my office for Euston, and arrived at Euston to find no trains were moving in or out of the station. After a short while there was an announcement that passengers for Manchester should go to Kings Cross and ticket acceptance with LNER and TPE was in place. They didn't say if they'd arranged ticket acceptance with London Underground and it was raining, so I thought I'd go to the gateline and ask if I could use the tube to Kings Cross. They checked my paper ticket and let me through. It never occurred to me at the time that if I'd had an e-ticket, they might have made me pay or walk.

 

[800Travel]

Recently I have also become of the opinion that I will fall back to booking CCSTs for as long as the local machines issue them. Most of my journeys involve a cross-London element on TfL for which a paper ticket is currently necessary.

I'm not typically a privacy 'freak'. I use a bank card to make most purchases. I accept the footprint I leave. However, I do not appreciate ToC prosecution departments' attitudes after reading this forum and the type of dragnet surveillance that seems to be performed by them. To be frank, many ToCs seem incompetent.

I am not performing any sort of fare evasion. It's more a matter of principle regarding defending what limited civil liberties we have left.


Someone made an app to decode the Aztec codes: https://eta.st/2023/01/31/rail-tickets.html

Unfortunately the railway responded by blocking access to the public keys used to decode the Aztec codes. And due to the way these are designed, it's not a signature only - the whole code is encrypted with the retailer's private key so you do need access to the public counterpart to decode it.

I only partially understand this response. Anyone who comprehends public key cryptography will understand there is all upside of having the public key, and no downside. Further anyone will also understand that security through obscurity is not a viable means of security (although I accept it is not their only protection here).

My guess is they are concerned that the app didn't have online access to the ticketing database(s) and they were concerned (or it actually happened) that individuals were confused that their ability to scan a ticket locally did not validate it online against the database. Only a partial answer though, and a typical railway shortsightedness.


Very Orwellian. No thanks, I'm not interested in handing what are still private companies more power over me than they need.

A bit like saying freedom of speech isn't important because I have nothing to say.


I make up rubbish email addresses and names to get through these. These days 5G onboard is good enough that I don't even need to bother using the WiFi provision.

I can still be fingerprinted, sure, if I use the WiFi. But at least one local ToC has given up collecting this information and just asks you to click through. I wonder what motivated this.

Found that eta article very interesting. Has anyone had any success with using the TTK app on tickets at home?

 

[winks]

Unfortunately large numbers of people do not seem to know what they're doing - I was in Waterloo the other day, me, straight through with an orange credit card ticket, at the gate next to me, faff, faff from someone trying to scan her ticket and presumably find it on the app/phone etc. Luckily it wasn't at rush hour!

Exactly this. Waterloo was log-jammed on Saturday due to large numbers of people faffing around trying to load their e-ticket (even though they walked right to the Gateline without thinking of doing so) then the vast majority couldn’t get the barcode scanned to exit the barriers. Having a CCST meant I could breeze through the barriers without issue, technology is meant to make our lives easier not harder.

Orange credit card “old skool” tickets are brilliant. Easy to find and store - bright orange so if you drop it you can locate it easily. And of course if you run out of battery or have your phone lost/stolen there are no issues.

But more importantly for me these tickets are actually still the cheapest form of travel into London. Why should I pay more to travel contactless etc when the opposite is true.

Hoping they last as long as possible to be honest.

 

[MrJeeves]

Found that eta article very interesting. Has anyone had any success with using the TTK app on tickets at home?

TTK has been significantly locked down since then, with you needing to sign in before any interesting information gets downloaded to your device, let alone try to scan any tickets.

Unfortunately the railway responded by blocking access to the public keys used to decode the Aztec codes. And due to the way these are designed, it's not a signature only - the whole code is encrypted with the retailer's private key so you do need access to the public counterpart to decode it.

It's not that "the railway" decided this, but rather one supplier within the rail industry (TTK) decided this after it was pointed out to them by the person in question.

I'd definitely prefer it if the public keys were what they say they are, though -- public!

 

[800Travel]

TTK has been significantly locked down since then, with you needing to sign in before any interesting information gets downloaded to your device, let alone try to scan any tickets.


It's not that "the railway" decided this, but rather one supplier within the rail industry (TTK) decided this after it was pointed out to them by the person in question.

I'd definitely prefer it if the public keys were what they say they are, though -- public!

Ah well, thanks for letting me know

 

[Sonic1234]

Orange credit card “old skool” tickets are brilliant.

And are still the only format which you can go everywhere with.

 

[OscarH]

I'd definitely prefer it if the public keys were what they say they are, though -- public!

I'd rather they used signatures, and assymetric encryption the way god intended :P

 

[MrJeeves]

I'd rather they used signatures, and assymetric encryption the way god intended :P

Rewrite the spec and send it to RDG /troll

 

[crablab]

I'd rather they used signatures, and assymetric encryption the way god intended :P

Don't be silly! It wouldn't be the railway if things weren't done differently

 

[infobleep]

Does anyone know what London Travelwatch is doing about this? I wonder if it would be worth applying pressure through them to fix this?

No idea myself as I haven't tried asking. I took a route that avoided the need to pass through Clapham Junction today.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 Nov 2024 ==

Exactly this. Waterloo was log-jammed on Saturday due to large numbers of people faffing around trying to load their e-ticket (even though they walked right to the Gateline without thinking of doing so) then the vast majority couldn’t get the barcode scanned to exit the barriers. Having a CCST meant I could breeze through the barriers without issue, technology is meant to make our lives easier not harder.

Orange credit card “old skool” tickets are brilliant. Easy to find and store - bright orange so if you drop it you can locate it easily. And of course if you run out of battery or have your phone lost/stolen there are no issues.

But more importantly for me these tickets are actually still the cheapest form of travel into London. Why should I pay more to travel contactless etc when the opposite is true.

Hoping they last as long as possible to be honest.

I dropped an orange ticket once in London Waterloo station. Pre-barrier days.

First i knew about it was on the train when I didn't have my ticket and there was a ticket check. I had to buy a new ticket without any discount. The guard recognised me from previous travel so seemed to think I was being honest but I needed a ticket so one had to be purchased.

So going back to your dropping of an orange piece of card and locating it easily......

 

[sot]

Has anyone had a look at the data on the Aztec that was/is on some ccst tickets?

I attempted to look into it but the data didn't follow any known specification and doesn't match the spec used (rst6?) on the printed roll tickets with a larger barcode. Additionally there is no code (UTN? I can't remember) on the ticket, the only thing was a 8 character that seemed like a checksum.

It is a shame that the new public keys have not been found or leaked to enable some newer tickets to be checked

 

[Peakrider]

I wouldn't deny that some of the reported usability issues with e-tickets will be on the passenger's side and would therefore be resolved in time simply by withdrawing the alternatives. The number of people of my parents' generation who became adept at video calling only when lockdown removed the option of conversing face to face was huge.

Blakey has raised an issue on the railway side, though, which you've simply ignored, namely some gateline staff's belief that if it doesn't scan, it isn't valid. I for one would be much more interested in your view on what, if anything, the rail industry could do differently or better rather than on what passengers can or should do.

The railway could start by stopping using untrained agency bouncers on gatelines. All ticket checks and gatelines should be staffed by properly trained (and paid) rail staff. But since customer service is at the bottom of the list of the railways priorities I can’t see this ever happening. In the same way I can’t ever see a train becoming a comfortable peaceful environment to travel in. Sadly bone hard seats and endless blaring inane announcements are here to stay.

 

[fandroid]

One downside is people not understanding what they are buying. People think buying a ticket online means they’re getting an eticket - even for Cross London journeys requiring use of the Underground and Travelcards. They then turn up at the station and have no card to collect their TOD ticket with, necessitating a trip to a ticket office, if one is available.

If you read the Prosecutions/Disputes sub-forum, you will observe many who suffer a worse fate than having to go to a ticket office when thinking they're buying an e-ticket!

Those are people who have bought online, not spotted that they aren't getting an e-ticket but ToD, and getting on a train where there's no ticket gate. Then they get checked either on the train or at the destination and end up with a penalty fare or worse.

A couple of points on the main topic:

For long split ticket journeys I find e-tickets to be very convenient. Handling loads of paper tickets for the more complex ones is an absolute pain. There's even a danger of mistakenly discarding tickets that are still needed, just in an attempt to tidy up the bewildering handful. Loaded onto Google wallet on my phone, they're neatly stacked and accessible. Even if I download from an email, they're all kept together on one pdf file.

Magstripes on London Travelcard ccst tickets can often get corrupted during a day's London travel. It's what sent me over to using a Smartcard. I've never looked back!