TVM problems

[thejuggler]

Any idea what this actually means? This was me helping a distressed individual who was trying to purchase a day retrun from Bramley to Leeds with senior railcard. This was about 15 minutes before the service was due and we tried a few times to purchase a ticket.

She then managed to get a "please pay £3.35", but the card machine failed!

We then decided to go down the Promise to Pay route, but again the same error message. The matter was resolved by buying on board.

 

[alistairlees]

It looks like you are trying to go out on 19 September and return over a month later on 19 October. There are no return tickets from Bramley to Leeds valid for more than a day (and this is more than a month), though I would have expected it to offer two singles.

I expect the user weas actually trying to do a day trip to Leeds, coming back on 19 September?

Either way, this is a really poor user experience for a thing that is not an edge case.

 

[ainsworth74]

Either way, this is a really poor user experience for a thing that is not an edge case.

Yes it comes back to a point I've made a few times that journey planner functionality is good on TVMs but not when it comes at the expensive of "a return to town please" type transaction which for a lot of stations is going to be the majority of purchases. Most people who rock up at station needing a ticket for immediate travel are probably going from their local station to the next big town over coming back the same day. They don't need rich planning functionality.

Northern from memory have gotten a bit better as they have a Quick Buy function or something. But obviously still work to do.

Yes here's a thread from me highlighting the function and it's ease of use over journey planners. Has that now been removed? OP and the passenger that was struggling would surely have been okay if that was available?

Northern TVMs - Quick Buy

I already find Northern's TVMs slow enough what with the 'artificial' need to send purchasers down the line of selecting trains of choice on routes where many users are simply going to be buying a flexible walk up type ticket. Whilst I haven't used it (should have tried while killing time at...

www.railforums.co.uk

 

[CyrusWuff]

Northern from memory have gotten a bit better as they have a Quick Buy function or something. But obviously still work to do.

The Chiltern and LNER Arrive (formerly Flowbird) TVMs have Quick Buy enabled too.

You still get the Popular Tickets screen, but once you've entered your journey details it shows you all the walk-up fares and the next train they're valid on.

 

[Wallsendmag]

Quick buy is simpler but you have to be careful as it won’t always offer the cheapest tickets (Advance )

 

[thejuggler]

Thanks for the responses.

Thinking back I went through the Quick Buy process and that resulted in the card reader error. The machines really aren't intuitive.

 

[BurtonM]

TPE need this feature, I'm currently trying to get them to compensate me as the lack of Quick Buy forced me to overpay for a journey, the journey planner wouldn't let me search for a train that was departing in less than 15 minutes and therefore wouldn't give me an itinerary.

 

[bakerstreet]

TPE need this feature, I'm currently trying to get them to compensate me as the lack of Quick Buy forced me to overpay for a journey, the journey planner wouldn't let me search for a train that was departing in less than 15 minutes and therefore wouldn't give me an itinerary.

Have you reminded TPE of this?



Image is from this TPE website page showing the following text.

What if I buy a ticket from a machine at the station and then find it cheaper somewhere else?​

In the unlikely event that you buy a ticket from a ticket vending machines (TVM) at one of our stations and find that you could have bought it cheaper somewhere else, we'll refund the difference.

The cheaper product must be for an identical journey and you can find out more from stations staff or contact Customer Relations.

 

[Haywain]

Have you reminded TPE of this?

That doesn't apply as the products were not for an identical journey.

 

[bakerstreet]

That doesn't apply as the products were not for an identical journey.

Perhaps I read it wrong.

I suppose it depends on definition of identical journey.

Did the poster depart from and arrive at the same stations that both products allow.

The website says:

The cheaper product must be for an identical journey

Not an identical product

 

[Haywain]

Perhaps I read it wrong.

I suppose it depends on definition of identical journey.

Did the poster depart from and arrive at the same stations that both products allow.

The website says:



Not an identical product

It’s a price promise and clearly refers to a ticket for the exact same journey; a ticket (not tickets) from A to B by the same route. The product is the ticket type and recognises that a Super Off Peak ticket might be cheaper than an Off Peak ticket, for example.

 

[bakerstreet]

It’s a price promise and clearly refers to a ticket for the exact same journey; a ticket (not tickets) from A to B by the same route. The product is the ticket type and recognises that a Super Off Peak ticket might be cheaper than an Off Peak ticket, for example.

So why wouldn’t the poster I quoted

TPE need this feature, I'm currently trying to get them to compensate me as the lack of Quick Buy forced me to overpay for a journey, the journey planner wouldn't let me search for a train that was departing in less than 15 minutes and therefore wouldn't give me an itinerary.

not be able to seek recompense?

 

[Haywain]

So why wouldn’t the poster I quoted



not be able to seek recompense?

Because the poster you quoted was unable to buy a ticket for their whole journey and 'overpaid' by buying two tickets. This was not something covered by the price promise. Nothing was sold at the wrong price and no cheaper price would have been found for either of the individual items purchased.

 

[bakerstreet]

Because the poster you quoted was unable to buy a ticket for their whole journey and 'overpaid' by buying two tickets. This was not something covered by the price promise. Nothing was sold at the wrong price and no cheaper price would have been found for either of the individual items purchased.

Out of interest how do we know he bought two tickets from this post?

 

[Haywain]

Out of interest how do we know he bought two tickets from this post?

It was all detailed on a previous thread.

 

[bakerstreet]

It was all detailed on a previous thread.

I haven’t seen that thread I was going only from the post in this thread that I quoted. Thanks for your clarification.

 

[Halwynd]

She then managed to get a "please pay £3.35", but the card machine failed!

Not uncommon....

I've experienced numerous failures affecting Northern's TVM card payment modules. Only last week I attempted to buy a ticket from one; all appeared well when choosing the ticket but there was no response fron the card machine's LCD screen. Just out of curiosity I proceeded to insert my card and PIN number and to my surprise the ticket was dispensed.

I wonder how many normal folk would have quite reasonably assumed that no response from the LCD screen, or contactless, mean't the machine wasn't working properly - and given up?

 

[TUC]

TPE need this feature, I'm currently trying to get them to compensate me as the lack of Quick Buy forced me to overpay for a journey, the journey planner wouldn't let me search for a train that was departing in less than 15 minutes and therefore wouldn't give me an itinerary.

Why is that when clearly in most middle and small sized stations it will be very possible to get any platform in less than 15 minutes?

 

[talldave]

Why is that when clearly in most middle and small sized stations it will be very possible to get any platform in less than 15 minutes?

The TOC won't get any complaints about people missing the train and they don't care about inconveniencing everyone.