Tickets with a * after the station name

[hughesfowler]

Not sure where to ask this but its something that puzzles us. Some stations on the ticket have a * after the station name, for example Irlam* but warrington no * printed after the station name. Sorry if this seems a bit vague but only way to describde it. Does anyone know why some stations have a * on tickets and others not

 

[telstarbox]

It's to stop ticket fraud by changing a short station name to another (eg Charing to Charing Cross) - the star makes it more obvious if this has happened.

 

[neilmc]

I thought it was to denote I had free travel on the city centre portion of the Metrolink. Good job I didn't get caught, eh?

 

[hughesfowler]

It's to stop ticket fraud by changing a short station name to another (eg Charing to Charing Cross) - the star makes it more obvious if this has happened.

Gm Traincard*, I dont know what Traincard could be altered to

 

[transportphoto]

IIRC, any destination under 16 characters in length will have an astrix. Thinking about it, however, 14/15 character long place names may not have one either.

TP

 

[Eagle]

Anything up to 14 characters will have one. 15 and 16 won't (because there's no space for it).

Also some ticket machines now print a full stop at the end of some stations' names, which will affect the character count.

 

[swt_passenger]

IIRC, any destination under 16 characters in length will have an astrix. Thinking about it, however, 14/15 character long place names may not have one either.

TP

An 'asterisk' is what that symbol is.

An 'astrix' is probably a badly spelt French cartoon character...

 

[Paul Kelly]

Also some ticket machines now print a full stop at the end of some stations' names, which will affect the character count.

To be more precise, they print the form of the station name intended for internal use in ticket issuing systems rather than that intended for printing on tickets. You have to wonder how they get their accreditation from ATOC, or how thorough the checks are. It has been speculated that the dot is a hackish way (and not without side-effects) for TIS operators to cut short the station name autocomplete on their systems. But it's not just the dot after the names that is different - Sandwell & Dudley to Jewellery Quarter is a particularly interesting one.

 

[Class172]

I had often wondered why Droitwich Spa had a '*' after it, but not Worcester Stns.

 

[dvboy]

Leeds always has a dot after it iirc.

 

[Paul Kelly]

Leeds always has a dot after it iirc.

True; both the "TIS version" and the "ticket version" of Leeds have a trailing dot in the fares database. I always wondered why, when you type "Leeds" into BR Fares, it doesn't auto-suggest LEEDS but instead LEEDS + BUS. Now I know why! Greenford, Luton Airport, Ashford Intl, Old Street, Moorgate, Peterborough, Doncaster are a few others with the dot affliction, and there are a few more too. Weirdly Ashford Intl doesn't have a dot in the TIS version, so on a Todler machine it would print without the dot, but on a normal machine with the dot!

But does anybody else really care about this?

 

[Muzer]

Interesting about ToDler. I know to stay away from them now, they seem like thoroughly awful machines!

 

[RJ]

IIRC, any destination under 16 characters in length will have an astrix. Thinking about it, however, 14/15 character long place names may not have one either.

TP

The origin/destination fields contain up to 16 characters. Locations with less than 14 characters will be followed by an asterisk.

 

[34D]

I thought it was to denote I had free travel on the city centre portion of the Metrolink. Good job I didn't get caught, eh?

I believe the destination printed needs to be MANCHESTER CTL ZONE (or similar 16 character shortening) for you to be able to do thus.

 

[hairyhandedfool]

I believe the destination printed needs to be MANCHESTER CTL ZONE (or similar 16 character shortening) for you to be able to do thus.

Close, it needs to be to a destination of 'Manchester CTLZ', or be routed 'Metrolink (GM)', or be to a Metrolink destination, or be one of the rovers, rangers or PTE products/Season tickets that give free travel on Metrolink in the city centre.

 

[Mojo]

Close, it needs to be to a destination of 'Manchester CTLZ', or be routed 'Metrolink (GM)', or be to a Metrolink destination, or be one of the rovers, rangers or PTE products/Season tickets that give free travel on Metrolink in the city centre.

Has the route of Metrolink (GM) now not been changed to METROLINK CTLZ for most (all?) tickets?

 

[hairyhandedfool]

Good point, I'd somehow forgotten that.

 

[Starmill]

Has the route of Metrolink (GM) now not been changed to METROLINK CTLZ for most (all?) tickets?

Yes

And don't go pretending you found that out all by yourself, though I'd be interested if any have not been changed?

 

[Muzer]

Close, it needs to be to a destination of 'Manchester CTLZ', or be routed 'Metrolink (GM)', or be to a Metrolink destination, or be one of the rovers, rangers or PTE products/Season tickets that give free travel on Metrolink in the city centre.

If a booking engine routes you on the Metrolink but the ticket in question doesn't have any of these, does it mean you have to buy a separate Metrolink ticket? (Eg for transfers from Piccadilly to Victoria and vice versa)

 

[34D]

If a booking engine routes you on the Metrolink but the ticket in question doesn't have any of these, does it mean you have to buy a separate Metrolink ticket? (Eg for transfers from Piccadilly to Victoria and vice versa)

I'll defer to the manchester area experts, but I would have _expected_ that it would only show things valid.

Potentially it would say 'walk'? Or route you via heavy rail?

 

[hairyhandedfool]

Some journey planners are known to show routes which include travel on Metrolink when it is not included on the ticket. The same can be said of the bus link between the Yeovil stations also. Where travel on Metrolink is not permitted by the ticket a Metrolink ticket must be purchased to use the service, regardless of what the journey planner says.

 

[Paul Kelly]

And don't go pretending you found that out all by yourself, though I'd be interested if any have not been changed?

None of the individual fares have been changed; they still use route code 00318, which hasn't been changed. It's just that what's printed on the tickets for that route code has been changed. So anything that previously printed with METROLINK (GM) will now automatically print METROLINK CTLZ instead.

 

[OwlMan]

.... You have to wonder how they get their accreditation from ATOC, or how thorough the checks are. ...
.

For a list of current accredited systems folow the links from
http://www.atoc.org/about-atoc/rail...ation-standards/accreditation/accredited-tis/

For details of the accreditation process see the ATOC RSP TIS accreditation guide
http://www.atoc.org/clientfiles/files/RSPDocuments/RSPA2000 v02-00.pdf

 

[Paul Kelly]

Very interesting links there Owlman. Surprising how short the list of accredited systems is. I note the second document says:

As far as possible RSP aims to promote self-assessment with the minimum of
verification. This is more practical for objective criteria and thus RSP may apply an
amount of due diligence on the more subjective criteria which varies according to
the scope and complexity of the TIS.

which suggests to me that (what on the surface appears to be) a simple objective criterion such as printing the correct form of the station name is not actually likely to be checked. When they're dealing with companies with many years of experience in rail systems this is probably reasonable, but there's so many vague and unclear areas in all the specification documents that it might not be such a good idea to leave a "new entrant" supplier (such as Parkeon who make the Todler machines) to verify everything itself!

 

[Muzer]

I'll defer to the manchester area experts, but I would have _expected_ that it would only show things valid.

Potentially it would say 'walk'? Or route you via heavy rail?

I tried Southampton Airport (Parkway) to Marsden on a The Train Line powered engine (SWT's) and it gave me a Metrolink leg.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Very interesting links there Owlman. Surprising how short the list of accredited systems is. I note the second document says:


which suggests to me that (what on the surface appears to be) a simple objective criterion such as printing the correct form of the station name is not actually likely to be checked. When they're dealing with companies with many years of experience in rail systems this is probably reasonable, but there's so many vague and unclear areas in all the specification documents that it might not be such a good idea to leave a "new entrant" supplier (such as Parkeon who make the Todler machines) to verify everything itself!

If someone managed to get through to a reasonably knowledgeable person at the country, I wonder if they could get a software update written and pushed out to resolve these two bugs?

 

[Eagle]

I tried Southampton Airport (Parkway) to Marsden on a The Train Line powered engine (SWT's) and it gave me a Metrolink leg.

But it does flag up a warning saying that the cost of Metrolink is not included in the ticket.

(It also gives me itineraries going Piccadilly–Stalybridge–Marsden, out of interest.)

 

[Muzer]

But it does flag up a warning saying that the cost of Metrolink is not included in the ticket.

Does it? It flags up a warning that one leg is by a non-rail means of transport, but I can't see where it says that it's not included in the ticket.

 

[Starmill]

Does it? It flags up a warning that one leg is by a non-rail means of transport, but I can't see where it says that it's not included in the ticket.

Doesn't it normally just say 'Please check operating hours for this service' ?

 

[185]

Does it? It flags up a warning that one leg is by a non-rail means of transport, but I can't see where it says that it's not included in the ticket.

Advertising Standards were on at ATOC not too long ago over more than one product which was not valid, despite being advertised to the contrary.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Generally speaking, a train ticket from somewhere in the Greater Manchester ticketing area to central Manchester (for example Piccadilly, or Victoria, or Deansgate, or Oxford Road) will have "Manchester CTLZ" as the destination (rather than "Manchester Stns") and thus will allow free use of the Metrolink trams in the Manchester City Centre zone.

Similarly, a train ticket from somewhere on the North side of the Greater Manchester ticketing area (e.g. Littleborough) to somewhere on the South side (e.g. Cheadle Hulme) which necessitates a cross-Manchester City Centre transfer will have routing as "Manchester CTLZ" and so will allow use of the Metrolink trams in the City Centre zone.

However, if one or both of the stations are outside of the Greater Manchester ticketing area, then you have to pay extra for the Metrolink cross-Manchester transfer (Adult single = £1.10).