Southport Ticket Barriers

[strange6]

I was behind two people yesterday who had put tickets that they needed back (must have been rangers / rovers), through these things only to see them swallowed up in to the internals. The attitude of the barrier staff was quite dismissive and unsympathetic and they were told to go into the shop/ticket office for reprints. One woman was quite upset fearing that they wouldn't believe her and she would have to pay again!
This is rotten customer service in my opinion and these bloody ticket barriers should be sorted out once and for all. Even a sign telling customers to display tickets to the barrier staff if they need them back would be a lot better than the current set-up.

 

[causton]

At Potters Bar, travelcards are valid on the TfL buses (and service 84) but not the trains (because FCC are tight ***s) - there is a handy notice explaining that if you put your Potters Bar + Travelcard ticket in the barriers it will swallow them, so show the ticket to the staff member. However, the poster is on the back of the gate control box, facing towards people coming on the platforms. So people who that notice would apply to (people exiting the barriers) would not be able to see the sign. Smart thinking!

 

[First class]

I was behind two people yesterday who had put tickets that they needed back (must have been rangers / rovers), through these things only to see them swallowed up in to the internals. The attitude of the barrier staff was quite dismissive and unsympathetic and they were told to go into the shop/ticket office for reprints. One woman was quite upset fearing that they wouldn't believe her and she would have to pay again!
This is rotten customer service in my opinion and these bloody ticket barriers should be sorted out once and for all. Even a sign telling customers to display tickets to the barrier staff if they need them back would be a lot better than the current set-up.

I have personally configured ALL of the Merseyrail ATGs centrally and have greatly improved the quality and quantity of the base data controlling BoJ Tables and ticket capture. Full effects are not yet in operation, but a lot are!

Part of this includes entering something called 'CAPRI' codes that allow the barriers to identify ticket types and then subsequently apply whatever restriction (if any) and decide whether to return or capture the ticket.

My point is that the gates will not retain a ticket at Southport unless it is showing as terminating there, e.g. Liverpool-Southport SDR (OUT).

It certainly will not retain rangers/rovers/seasons. The problem is that customers do not pay any attention to the signs in the booking office windows about the receipts and then agitated when they are told the tickets are being retained. There is no "right" for you to keep the ticket.

Merseyrail now have signs up in (all?) booking offices stating that tickets with no further validity will be retained and if you need a receipt then you should ask for one at the time. Staff have not got the time to be emptying capture bins out for one ticket. That causes poor customer service when there are queues building behind you.

 

[strange6]

I have personally configured ALL of the Merseyrail ATGs centrally and have greatly improved the quality and quantity of the base data controlling BoJ Tables and ticket capture. Full effects are not yet in operation, but a lot are!

Part of this includes entering something called 'CAPRI' codes that allow the barriers to identify ticket types and then subsequently apply whatever restriction (if any) and decide whether to return or capture the ticket.

My point is that the gates will not retain a ticket at Southport unless it is showing as terminating there, e.g. Liverpool-Southport SDR (OUT).

It certainly will not retain rangers/rovers/seasons. The problem is that customers do not pay any attention to the signs in the booking office windows about the receipts and then agitated when they are told the tickets are being retained. There is no "right" for you to keep the ticket.

Merseyrail now have signs up in (all?) booking offices stating that tickets with no further validity will be retained and if you need a receipt then you should ask for one at the time. Staff have not got the time to be emptying capture bins out for one ticket. That causes poor customer service when there are queues building behind you.

Fair points and Merseyrail generally are professional and polite people but I do feel there should be signs on the platform side at Southport advising people to show tickets to the staff if you think that you need to retain them for some reason
Having said all that, there are at least two people at those barriers, not matter what the time of day so why have the barriers there in the first place? Doesn't make sense to me. You may as well have staff operated turnstyles. Lot cheaper

 

[First class]

Fair points and Merseyrail generally are professional and polite people but I do feel there should be signs on the platform side at Southport advising people to show tickets to the staff if you think that you need to retain them for some reason
Having said all that, there are at least two people at those barriers, not matter what the time of day so why have the barriers there in the first place? Doesn't make sense to me. You may as well have staff operated turnstyles. Lot cheaper

Ticket Barriers, (and the staff), are there for more reasons than you would imagine.

For one, the ticket barriers give accurate details of what the TRUE passenger numbers are for entry/exits. You can correlate this with LENNON data and gives you all sorts of nice stats to manipulate.

The Revenue Protection aspect of them has also been very effective, with ticket sales reflecting this.

As for the staff, they are there for multiple reasons at Southport:

1) Excess Fares Window
2) Customer Assistance - Disabilities
3) CIS Operations, dep/arr indicators and some announcements
4) MtoGo Stocking
5) Customer Assistance - General Queries

Also, at the moment, a lot of passes don't work the ATGs, so staffing levels are managed to reflect the fact staff will need to manually let them through with their gate pass. However, when ITSO is fully active in June 2011, staffing levels should be reviewed by the appropriate people.

 

[rmt-driver]

I have personally configured ALL of the Merseyrail ATGs centrally and have greatly improved the quality and quantity of the base data controlling BoJ Tables and ticket capture. Full effects are not yet in operation, but a lot are!

Part of this includes entering something called 'CAPRI' codes that allow the barriers to identify ticket types and then subsequently apply whatever restriction (if any) and decide whether to return or capture the ticket.

My point is that the gates will not retain a ticket at Southport unless it is showing as terminating there, e.g. Liverpool-Southport SDR (OUT).

It certainly will not retain rangers/rovers/seasons. The problem is that customers do not pay any attention to the signs in the booking office windows about the receipts and then agitated when they are told the tickets are being retained. There is no "right" for you to keep the ticket.

Merseyrail now have signs up in (all?) booking offices stating that tickets with no further validity will be retained and if you need a receipt then you should ask for one at the time. Staff have not got the time to be emptying capture bins out for one ticket. That causes poor customer service when there are queues building behind you.

On LUL quite some time ago a little clever device was fitted to all ticket gates. Retained tickets instead of going straight to the bin, go into this capture device, which holds the last ten or so tickets, so that if someone's gets swallowed by mistake, or if they forgot to keep it for a receipt they can immediately ask the barrier staff who can get the ticket out in a few seconds..

A small cheap addition to the gate but makes things a lot easier in these situations !

 

[First class]

On LUL quite some time ago a little clever device was fitted to all ticket gates. Retained tickets instead of going straight to the bin, go into this capture device, which holds the last ten or so tickets, so that if someone's gets swallowed by mistake, or if they forgot to keep it for a receipt they can immediately ask the barrier staff who can get the ticket out in a few seconds..

A small cheap addition to the gate but makes things a lot easier in these situations !

If I am correct, the hardware (Gating) that Merseyrail has implemented is different (newer) than some of the older LUL barriers which made the mentioned device effective.

 

[mickey]

Also, at the moment, a lot of passes don't work the ATGs

Does this mean that some do now? When I had a railpass ONLY Lime Street took it, and it was a pain in the arse having to use the manual gates each time. Part of the reason I switched to the bus.

 

[First class]

Does this mean that some do now? When I had a railpass ONLY Lime Street took it, and it was a pain in the arse having to use the manual gates each time. Part of the reason I switched to the bus.

The "Railpass" product is working the barriers properly (where valid) at all Merseyrail stations, as do Saveaways and the ME Only Day Saver products.

Obviously it will return the ticket to you.

Over the past 2 months, Merseyrail has agreed to replace any season ticket for use on the network, free of charge, if it does not work the Automatic Ticket Gates for any reason, whether it is your fault or not.

You may be surprised to hear that 90% of the time, the problem is with the magnetic strip on the ticket, rather than the actual barrier or the software controlling it.

 

[mickey]

You may be surprised to hear that 90% of the time, the problem is with the magnetic strip on the ticket, rather than the actual barrier or the software controlling it.

The machines never ate my ticket: they rejected it with a loud beep and I had to use the manual gate (as said earlier, except Lime St). One of the barrier staff once tried to make loads of useless excuses but at the time no such tickets worked and it was a blanket policy. I haven't had one for a while but I'm glad they're finally working properly - it's not before time.