Smart Ticket Option by 2018?

[thenorthern]

I am not condoning this but won't someone find a way of hacking a ticketless system and then put the source code for doing it on the internet meaning that the system encryption will need to be updated regularly so that passengers aren't traveling without paying?

The good thing about having a magnetic strip printed on the back of a piece of waxed paper is that very few people have the technology to create forgeries but with other systems it can be relatively easy to crack.

 

[najaB]

And not much use to those of us who choose not to have a smartphone (don't particularly need one, and can think of more interesting uses for my (not limitless) money...)

If TOCs do implement it, some sort of way of accessing your ticket while online, or having free WiFi at all stations. Not all of us have huge mobile data plans, or even have devices capable of getting mobile data. I have a cheap phone, and then a tablet to cover the smart part.

You could just continue to use paper tickets as the proposal is for non-traditional tickets to *supplement* paper tickets on all routes by 2018, not to replace them.

 

[Harbornite]

For everyone who's worrying about being left behind by technology and having the wrong phone etc etc...

By the end of 2018, my aim is for every passenger to have the choice of travelling without a paper ticket.

Does this say that paper tickets will be completely phased out by 2018? No, the key word is choice.

 

[paul1609]

So the ticket I usually buy as a paper ticket to travel to London from Chester will pass muster electronically on AW, VT, LM, XC, CH and GW on the permitted routes will it?
And I have a Windows phone, none of this Apple/Android stuff please.

Old Freight wagons will be towed along behind the Voyager with benches in them to form a new "windows phone owners class" on the grounds that they have much lower expectations than everyone else.

 

[Via Bank]

If TOCs do implement it, some sort of way of accessing your ticket while online, or having free WiFi at all stations. Not all of us have huge mobile data plans, or even have devices capable of getting mobile data. I have a cheap phone, and then a tablet to cover the smart part.

Hmm. iOS (on the iPhone) provides a way around the internet connection issue by offering Wallet/Passbook, which downloads and saves tickets, passes, membership cards etc. on the phone, and allows them to be suggested from the lock screen at certain times and places. It also lights up the screen at full brightness to make it easier to read when the passes are presented. And even better, since they're backed up to iCloud, if a person loses their phone then they don't lose their tickets.

You'd think TOCs that offer m-tickets would be falling over themselves to implement this functionality in their iPhone apps. You'd also be wrong. The only UK TOCs that allow tickets to be saved into Wallet are Eurostar and Heathrow Express.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Old Freight wagons will be towed along behind the Voyager with benches in them to form a new "windows phone owners class" on the grounds that they have much lower expectations than everyone else.

You mean like the yellow one in this picture? Yes please.
The views are much better.

 

[HH]

They don't intend getting rid of paper tickets; it's just a headline.

 

[SpacePhoenix]

One thing they need to do before even considering doing away with paper tickets is to sort out the smart cards so that any smart card can be used for any ticket type on any TOC

 

[HH]

One thing they need to do before even considering doing away with paper tickets is to sort out the smart cards so that any smart card can be used for any ticket type on any TOC

That is being done. The current policy is to put RSP products (i.e. normal rail tickets) on ITSO as the standard (as you can see from the SW ITT).

 

[TheKnightWho]

I am not condoning this but won't someone find a way of hacking a ticketless system and then put the source code for doing it on the internet meaning that the system encryption will need to be updated regularly so that passengers aren't traveling without paying?

The good thing about having a magnetic strip printed on the back of a piece of waxed paper is that very few people have the technology to create forgeries but with other systems it can be relatively easy to crack.

No more so than people could hack any paperless system. AES-256 is the order of the day.

 

[Paul Kelly]

You'd think TOCs that offer m-tickets would be falling over themselves to implement this functionality in their iPhone apps. You'd also be wrong. The only UK TOCs that allow tickets to be saved into Wallet are Eurostar and Heathrow Express.

Is it related to the problem of not having any way to validate the ticket against a back-end database when checked? Perhaps Eurostar and Heathrow Express can do this so it's not an issue for them?

 

[Via Bank]

Is it related to the problem of not having any way to validate the ticket against a back-end database when checked? Perhaps Eurostar and Heathrow Express can do this so it's not an issue for them?

I highly doubt that, because Virgin's m-tickets are displayed simply as an AZTEC code within the app. Unless Virgin also have a way of validating the AZTEC codes against a backend - and in which case, why not provide the facility for it to be stored in the app on the phone that's literally designed for exactly this purpose?

(A fun thing to do is look at the reviews of Virgin Trains app and the m-ticket functionality. All kinds of stories of tickets being lost, journeys having to be abandoned, extra tickets having to be bought. The technology is there to do mobile ticketing properly, but no UK TOCs seem to be interested in doing it except in a cackhanded way.)

 

[Bantamzen]

Hmm. iOS (on the iPhone) provides a way around the internet connection issue by offering Wallet/Passbook, which downloads and saves tickets, passes, membership cards etc. on the phone, and allows them to be suggested from the lock screen at certain times and places. It also lights up the screen at full brightness to make it easier to read when the passes are presented. And even better, since they're backed up to iCloud, if a person loses their phone then they don't lose their tickets.

You'd think TOCs that offer m-tickets would be falling over themselves to implement this functionality in their iPhone apps. You'd also be wrong. The only UK TOCs that allow tickets to be saved into Wallet are Eurostar and Heathrow Express.

A similar functionality is also available on Android allowing notifications and control functions to be displayed on the lock screen. And with more recent handsets across the board NFC functionality is available meaning that apps could handshake with new ticket machines / readers to validate tickets. This handshake could also render the eTicket unusable on further journeys to help prevent re-use.

I'm sure in time these will become more common, but in the meantime cards like Oyster in London and WY Metro's MCard can offer a solution that works for all passengers and not just those with the latest handsets.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Has anyone yet produced a foolproof way of preventing re-use during an electronic Anytime or Off-peak Return's month long return portion validity?

It needs to be no less secure than the present system, not more secure.

Presently, a biro scribble (if that) does not prevent re-use over part of the journey - you would just claim break of journey. However, a back end database of the use of a ticket built up over its use including precise locations and trains of use (even if that is built up by checking in the guard's device at the end of the day) can be used for far better detection and retrospective prosecution than a scribble of biro. In particular it would be easy to detect that a ticket had been used "further back" in the journey than it had already been used, and then seek to prosecute with the user's details you already have.

More secure, not less.
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I trust there will be an option to have any ticket on a smart card. I would hate the idea of having to ensure my mobile phone had battery on every journey I make.

Ever considered a battery pack? They are very cheap to buy and get rid of that issue entirely.
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They did and talk about not thinking the app through! To use your ticket you HAD to have an internet connection at all times you as it didn't store tickets locally until a very recent upgrade.

No, you didn't. You had to activate the ticket with an Internet connection (best done before leaving home), but once activated it could be used without being online. I've been using it since it was a Java based app on a Nokia featurephone.

The thing that caught people out was that, if I recall rightly, a season ticket had to be activated each day, not just once.

 

[najaB]

Ever considered a battery pack? They are very cheap to buy and get rid of that issue entirely.

Or (as I'm sure I read someone say in this thread already) simply continue to use paper tickets as the proposal is to make non-traditional tickets available as an *alternative* to paper tickets, not a replacement.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Or (as I'm sure I read someone say in this thread already) simply continue to use paper tickets as the proposal is to make non-traditional tickets available as an *alternative* to paper tickets, not a replacement.

Indeed. My point was that if the OP has issues with his mobile phone being discharged at inconvenient times that there is an easy, cheap and convenient solution to that problem which he could have in his hands by tomorrow if he so wished.

 

[Clip]

Or (as I'm sure I read someone say in this thread already) simply continue to use paper tickets as the proposal is to make non-traditional tickets available as an *alternative* to paper tickets, not a replacement.

I wasnt aware that this had been mentioned 3 or 4 times already in this thread. And I really do struggle that people go on rail journeys with their phone in such a bad state of low battery that they still havent picked up an extra power pack yet time and time again the same question gets asked!!!

 

[CdBrux]

It's amazing how so many people look to find a reason something (and choosing to interpret the announcement in a different way than it was made) won't work than to find a way to make it work!
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There is also much more of interest in this speech, for example a strongly implied change of emphasis to projects about capacity as well as customer experience. To me this seems a good thing.

 

[SpacePhoenix]

I've never used mobile ticketing, does the ticket get stored on the actual phone or does it rely on having either a mobile data or Wi-Fi connection to grab the ticket from a server when the ticket is viewed?

 

[AlterEgo]

I've never used mobile ticketing, does the ticket get stored on the actual phone or does it rely on having either a mobile data or Wi-Fi connection to grab the ticket from a server when the ticket is viewed?

Stored on the phone.

 

[ATW Alex 101]

I agree that this would only work as an alternative to paper tickets, and that the option to buy a paper ticket remains an option.

As for carrying a battery pack, I think it is unreasonable to assume that is the ultimate solution, and to expect people to carry them around all the time. :roll:

 

[Groningen]

So forcing people to get a smartphone?! Do the railwaycompanies give a discount or give them away?

 

[Bletchleyite]

I agree that this would only work as an alternative to paper tickets, and that the option to buy a paper ticket remains an option.

Which is precisely the proposal.

As for carrying a battery pack, I think it is unreasonable to assume that is the ultimate solution, and to expect people to carry them around all the time. :roll:

You can moan about your phone battery running out, or you can carry a battery pack and not have to moan about it

 

[Clip]

As for carrying a battery pack, I think it is unreasonable to assume that is the ultimate solution, and to expect people to carry them around all the time. :roll:

I like to look on how much easier I can make my life especially when travelling but it appears some people dont. they are small enough to fit in a jacket pocket so if you have problems with a short battery life then its either one of these or a new decent phone or make life difficult for yourself. Its an easy choice to make

So forcing people to get a smartphone?! Do the railwaycompanies give a discount or give them away?

Smartphones are dirt cheap nowadays for a basic one that can hold a simple ticket or app on so that doesnt wash with me Im afraid.

 

[yorksrob]

I've never used mobile ticketing, does the ticket get stored on the actual phone or does it rely on having either a mobile data or Wi-Fi connection to grab the ticket from a server when the ticket is viewed?

Which is precisely the proposal.



You can moan about your phone battery running out, or you can carry a battery pack and not have to moan about it

A paper ticket doesn't even require charging up don't y'know.

 

[AlterEgo]

So forcing people to get a smartphone?! Do the railwaycompanies give a discount or give them away?

Nobody is forcing anyone to get a smartphone.

 

[najaB]

So forcing people to get a smartphone?! Do the railwaycompanies give a discount or give them away?

Nobody is forcing anyone to do anything. The proposal is for non-traditional ticketing (including those on smart cards which don't require a smartphone) to be available as an alternative to paper tickets, not as a replacement.

 

[HH]

Keep up the good work guys. It may sink in eventually.

 

[NickBucks]

Thin end of the wedge guys. TOC's will not care about passenger needs only the cost of providing paper tickets. They will not hesitate to get rid of them in a few years time stating cost issues if they can. A bit like smart meters really. Allegedly no one is forcing you to have one but try switching provider without and you will find it difficult as the switch is being imposed by the Government.

 

[najaB]

Thin end of the wedge guys.

As well it should be. There's no reason why we should still be using paper tickets in ten to fifteen year's time.