I guess that depends on the definition of 'unable'. If the tickets show as 'printed' on the system, then station staff could (and apparently do) say that they've been collected.
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Tickets didn't print: Help needed please!
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Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
And that's the problem.
Bug: it can say "printed" on the system when they haven't been printed or are stuck in the machine.
Solution: Having established they are not stuck in the machine, or that it isn't possible to check on the spot, railway has to, at their risk, reprint them. There might be fraud, but that's the railway's loss for having a broken system.
Neil
causton
Established Member
The amount of fraud would be huge. Especially if the customer bought advance tickets, then said they couldn't pick them up the station would have to issue open tickets! Unless a major change to the system is made...
johnnychips
Established Member
The ticket office was closed when I used the machine at Donny. If the problem had occurred with my Oxford tickets which I used today, I would not have appreciated having to get up earlier, join the big queue at the ticket office to explain things, and being implicitly accused of fraud because 'they have been printed'.
As it is I've got to go out of my way, as a good citizen, to sort out Mr X's ticket, which wrongly got issued with mine.
As it is I've got to go out of my way, as a good citizen, to sort out Mr X's ticket, which wrongly got issued with mine.
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Tetchytyke
Veteran Member
Print-at-home tickets are more restricted than tickets printed on ticket stock. For one thing you have to specify- at the time of purchase- what type of ID you wish to carry with you. If you forget the ID then your ticket is invalid. There are also complications should you wish to amend a print-at-home ticket.
Until they're the same as tickets printed on ticket stock, I'd steer well clear.
bb21
Emeritus Moderator
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You are assuming existing British rules for print-at-home tickets. The refund/exchange rules for DB online/Handy (mobile) tickets are same as for physical tickets. In fact better as you don't need to send online tickets back:
http://www.bahn.de/p_en/view/booking/passenger-rights/refunding-tickets.shtml
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Then the railway needs to come up with a workable solution (or fix the bug, so if a ticket is not printed the TVM doesn't record that it is[1]). The current situation is *not* a workable solution.
[1] Other than tickets getting stuck in the chute, which is solved by having someone on site with a key to the TVM if it's a staffed station, this is *not* hard. My HP desktop printer reprints a page automatically if it does not successfully print the entire page, and it is very reliable at doing this.
Neil
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greatkingrat
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Is that really much different to a TOD booking? If you forget the credit card you used to book with, you can't collect the tickets.
Yesterday at Euston I had a reservation printed twice with the exact same details! I saw it print all my tickets, but still remained on the printing screen, so I waited before it printed the duplicate reservation.
That depends on how the tickets were paid for. If they were booked on account, using vouchers or Pay-Pal then any card will work.
^^ which is why the pin isn't required either. Any card works as it's merely being used a proof of identity not as the proof of payment.
When I've had problems the staff have said they can't do anything about the TVMs or any ticket issues, bar notifying someone to come out. This was FCC and tickets I'd booked were with FCC, but it didn't matter.
Speaking to staff might get you the phone number to call up and ask for help. Not much good if you've collected on the day of travel.
As said, they are tickets on departure. Now I no longer have a season ticket and don't travel every day, there's a cost for me to go to the station earlier just to collect a ticket. Either the cost of a bus, or petrol and parking. So I expect to print when I go.
I'll accept missing a train if all the TVMs have queues for some random reason, but don't expect them to mess up or all be out of ticket stock as used to happen at certain times of the week (not seen that for ages luckily).
I've seen various machines opened up and they're very simplistic. It's no wonder they can have various common faults, and have no way to know they've printed correctly.
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bussnapperwm
Established Member
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I know at my local staffed station the ticket office staff (when they're quiet) will print them off their systems for me instead of me having to use the TVM as tbh I don't trust the TVMs. There again they all recognise me so that helps.
I had a TMV that failed on me at New Street outside the new VT booking office there once by giving half the tickets then spewing up a error message to see a member of staff...only to find that they had printed once I'd left to find a member of staff and said staff member had retrieved them!
I had a TMV that failed on me at New Street outside the new VT booking office there once by giving half the tickets then spewing up a error message to see a member of staff...only to find that they had printed once I'd left to find a member of staff and said staff member had retrieved them!
I travel lots by train. I buy lots of tickets. The times when I recieve what might be called 'good' customer service are the times which surprise me. With this in mind, nobody should be surprised that this is the system in place for dealing with exogenous factors such as damaged to ticket machines. The balls are in the TOCs' court - almost every single one of them.
SickyNicky
Verified Rep - FastJP
Pay ATOC many thousands of pounds a year and they would - but wouldn't let you tell anyone else.
dcsprior
Member
That may be the case for some of them, but not all. East Coast's print@home tickets no longer ask you to specify type and last 4 digits of ID. They do ask you to specify a passenger name, and say that you must carry ID (from a list - but not choosen in advance) confirming that name.
This is not to say there are not other restrictions - such as:
- With normal tickets, a company can purchase for an unnamed employee, and decide at the last minute which employee to send - they can't do this with print@home
- With normal tickets, you can amend your journey right up to when your train is due to depart (subject to admin fees/etc) but with print@home there's an earlier deadling (6pm for EC I think)
- Print@home aren't available to/from London Zones, only to the terminal stations
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