Why I avoid e-tickets

[Belperpete]

Library, internet cafe, show it on your friend or partner’s phone…

But if you have lost your phone, you won't have any details to retrieve the ticket. And the chances of finding a library or internet cafe that is open without the aid of a mobile and in time to still catch the train must be negligible. Do internet cafes still exist? Certainly none that I can think of near where I live. And my local library, that has limited opening hours, requires you to book in advance to use a computer.

The idea that you can reprint an e-ticket is only practical if you have booked it in advance (which with the new refund rules is going to be increasingly less likely), you realise that you have lost your phone before you leave home and have access to your printer, and you have sufficient time to print it without missing your train. So highly unlikely.

In practice, this forum's disputes section is choc full of incidents of people having problems with e-tickets, while the number of incidents of people having serious problems with ToD is negligible by comparison. Yes, you can take precautions by printing off your e-ticket as well as having it on your phone, copying it to a friend's phone, etc etc but what a faff. I just collect my tickets from my local booking office when I turn up to the station, put them safely in my wallet that is in a securely buttoned pocket, simple, no faff, job done. Zero chance of losing them - I have never once lost a CCST let alone my wallet in over 60 years of travelling.

 

[Wallsendmag]

But if you have lost your phone, you won't have any details to retrieve the ticket. And the chances of finding a library or internet cafe that is open without the aid of a mobile and in time to still catch the train must be negligible. Do internet cafes still exist? Certainly none that I can think of near where I live. And my local library, that has limited opening hours, requires you to book in advance to use a computer.

The idea that you can reprint an e-ticket is only practical if you have booked it in advance (which with the new refund rules is going to be increasingly less likely), you realise that you have lost your phone before you leave home and have access to your printer, and you have sufficient time to print it without missing your train. So highly unlikely.

In practice, this forum's disputes section is choc full of incidents of people having problems with e-tickets, while the number of incidents of people having serious problems with ToD is negligible by comparison. Yes, you can take precautions by printing off your e-ticket as well as having it on your phone, copying it to a friend's phone, etc etc but what a faff. I just collect my tickets from my local booking office when I turn up to the station, put them safely in my wallet that is in a securely buttoned pocket, simple, no faff, job done. Zero chance of losing them - I have never once lost a CCST let alone my wallet in over 60 years of travelling.

That's because eTicket is 85- 90% of tickets sold so ToD which is around 5% doesn't have enough people to have problems. Over the last couple of weeks we've seen ToD that only prints the first reservation on the coupon this is nowhere on the forum because so few people use ToD it doesn't make the news. ( all figures based an a TOC I may or may not have inside knowledge of)

 

[TUC]

They don't. People overwhelmingly still travel with walk up tickets.

The latest ORR stats show this:
View attachment 204224

The table above shows 35.9m advance ticket journeys in Q4 2025, compared to 147m anytime ticket journeys and 215m off-peak ticket journeys.

That will likely significantly vary between shorter distance commuter/shopping journeys which will have a high proportion of flexible tickets vs longer distance journeys for which a high proportion of tickets being Advance will probably be the case.

 

[Belperpete]

That makes it no different from airline tickets, steam, or Brunel's broad gauge.

There is a very big difference with airline ticketless travel - you don't need to show a ticket, either printed or on your phone, so zero chance of losing it or having problems because your mobile has died or been stolen.

 

[TUC]

There is a very big difference with airline ticketless travel - you don't need to show a ticket, either printed or on your phone, so zero chance of losing it or having problems because your mobile has died or been stolen.

One only has to sit on a train during a ticket check and hear the large number of beeps to know that this is a problem very few people experience.

 

[Belperpete]

That's because eTicket is 85- 90% of tickets sold so ToD which is around 5% doesn't have enough people to have problems. Over the last couple of weeks we've seen ToD that only prints the first reservation on the coupon

But that wouldn't have stopped the passenger from travelling. Likewise most of the cases of problems with ToD reported on this forum, it hasn't prevented travel, or ended up with the passenger being charged a penalty fare or the like, unlike the issues that e-tickets cause.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 16 May 2026 ==

One only has to sit on a train during a ticket check and hear the large number of beeps to know that this is a problem very few people experience.

One only has to sit on a train during a ticket check to hear the number of people who have issues accessing their etickets, electronic rail cards, etc

 

[TUC]

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 16 May 2026 ==


One only has to sit on a train during a ticket check to hear the number of people who have issues accessing their etickets, electronic rail cards, etc

The most I hear is a few passengers taking a moment to open their tickets/railcard, but that is no different to those who take a moment to find their paper tickets.

There is also a practical issue. Mornings are busy enough without having to add time to buy/collect tickets at a station.

 

[davews]

I have never ever lost my wallet, but did once have my debit card stolen (which I had just used for contactless). But I have certainly had my phone slip out of my pocket. As to this thread I have not yet used an e-ticket so can't really comment. The simplicity in getting my paper ticket from the ticket office or TVM if that is closed or on the odd occasion in advance as TOD overrides any enthusiasm to go the e-ticket route.

 

[zero]

I usually travel with my phone and laptop, so if my phone was lost/stolen I would usually be able to display an e-ticket on my laptop (might be tricky to scan it at barriers though).

There's also the problem of mislaying the printed ticket if you want to claim delay repay. Or letting a barrier swallow it! (I know it can be retrieved but not easily in a busy station)

Take a photo of the ticket before you insert it into a barrier.

 

[renegademaster]

I always find TVMs much quicker to use than Trainline and similar apps, especially considering phone signal can be pretty poor in a lot of places so your waiting many minutes for things to load, just a few taps on a screen , tap my card and I'm done.

There's a reason why in places like McDonald's they have the screens you can order on and don't expect you to only order on your phone. They have the capability but not many people use it. Restaurants that replaced their menus with QR codes during COVID got a lot of backlash.

 

[mmh]

One only has to sit on a train during a ticket check and hear the large number of beeps to know that this is a problem very few people experience.

Well you won't hear anything for the person with a broken phone!

 

[Haywain]

Take a photo of the ticket before you insert it into a barrier.

With a phone? But you might lose the phone!

 

[JBuchananGB]

I still have a preference for CCSTs.
One reason for this is that my wife does not have a smartphone.
The other day my wife and I made a round trip from Burscough to Lancaster, tickets booked on the forum's ticketing site. Tickets were off peak day returns. To avoid the risk that the TVM at Burscough Bridge might be out of order, my wife collected the tickets from the shop at Southport station the day before. She was shopping in Southport anyway. She says that both she and the ticket agent were shocked by the number of coupons issued. Four coupons would have been needed, but 12 were issued.
The Burscough TVM wasn't out of order, but the time taken for it to issue 12 coupons might have made me nervous!

Is this part of the disincentive to passengers for using CCSTs? The Avanti Wigan to Lancaster legs of the each trip had reservations, but these could have been printed on the travel coupon. There was absolutely no need to assign or issue counted places reservations on Northern between Burscough and Wigan. Interestingly exiting Wigan Wallgate invalidates the ticket for the Wigan North Western barriers and vice versa. On the return part of our journey we did not travel on our booked trains, but instead changed at Preston and went to Burscough Junction. The conductor on the Northern train did not bat an eyelid on the fact that we showed tickets to Burscough Bridge.

 

[TUC]

Well you won't hear anything for the person with a broken phone!

You would hear then in a discussion with the person checking the tickets.

 

[AlterEgo]

Another endless debate about e-tickets, which are the preferred method of ticket delivery for the vast majority of people. People are entitled to their preferences but they must accept they are niche preferences. We've all had paper tickets. And the vast majority of people now use e-tickets without a problem. If you have problems with them, then those are your problems!

 

[MrJeeves]

Over the last couple of weeks we've seen ToD that only prints the first reservation on the coupon this is nowhere on the forum because so few people use ToD it doesn't make the news.

Is the retailer or TIS to blame?

 

[TUC]

When I pay for my shopping by phone, collect reward points with a phone app, access my bank account by phone, order takeaways by phone and pay for bus travel by phone, why would I want a paper rail ticket?

 

[35B]

There is a very big difference with airline ticketless travel - you don't need to show a ticket, either printed or on your phone, so zero chance of losing it or having problems because your mobile has died or been stolen.

Indeed - because airline travel has control advantages (the gate system) that aren't available to the railway. One hears enough issues about ID documents at airports to suggest that any form of mandatory document, on any medium, is likely to cause some issues.

That doesn't alter the underlying point that the airlines' move in this direction has made life significantly easier for most travellers, and that a parallel move towards e-ticketing is also liberating for most rail users.

 

[Wallsendmag]

Is the retailer or TIS to blame?

Retailer I believe

 

[blimmo]

The "everyone uses etickets" is true but I don't think because they are less likely to lose them. I do use etickets sometimes if I don't have time to collect but I do think I'm less likely to lose CCST than my phone. All the other stuff I do on my phone makes it *more* likely I lose it.

To the people asking about my friend retrieval system: I would tell my friend the collection code in advance and would then only need to find a way to contact them so they can tell me the code. This is much easier (borrow someone's phone for a few seconds) than trying to find some way to display or print an e-ticket.

To be clear this was a worry about losing the tickets while on a trip abroad that I hadn't collected until I returned to the UK (an advance of single leg pricing!)

 

[Wallsendmag]

When I pay for my shopping by phone, collect reward points with a phone app, access my bank account by phone, order takeaways by phone and pay for bus travel by phone, why would I want a paper rail ticket?

Can you imagine the uproar if the Railway didn't offer tickets on a phone?

 

[Lewisham2221]

In the past 25 years, my wallet has been lost or stolen at least 3 times. In that same time, I've never had my phone lost or stolen. If I were to misplaced my phone, it's incredibly likely that I'd realise pretty quickly - by trying to use it - and have a far better chance of being able to locate and retrieve it. The most recent occasion that I lost my wallet? I didn't even realise that I had lost it, until a very kind gentleman knocked at my front door to return it!

As for experiencing problems, from a train crew perspective, I reckon the number of problems I encounter with physical tickets (lost, damaged, missing portion etc etc) is - proportionally - about the same as similar problems with e-tickets.

 

[Royston Vasey]

How do e-Tickets usually behave after a break of journey? Is it based on trust, location of scans or both?

Say I'm on an Off-Peak Day Return from Peterborough to Ely. I scan my ticket at the barrier at Peterborough at 09:30 and I am scanned by the XC conductor approaching Whittlesea (unstaffed and unbarriered) where as it happens I'm alighting to meet a friend for lunch.

I resume my journey in the afternoon on GA and I am scanned just after boarding at Whittlesea on the guard's first inspection down the train. There's a large crowd boarding at busy Whittlesea so the guard hasn't specifically seen me board.

What does the scanner tell the guard? Does it report it is already used? Does it say where and on what service it was scanned? There would be no exit scan from Ely, but the barriers are often open off-peak at Ely so that's not conclusive.

Has anyone had any issues resuming journeys and convincing the guard you're doing so honestly? Or particularly RPIs who may be a bit more focused on rooting out irregularities and be less pragmatic?

I suppose a paper ticket can be marked with a pen, with varying levels of usefulness depending on what is scribbled, usually nothing, but they also don't scream at the guard "UH UHH Ticket already used"!

 

[MrJeeves]

I suppose a paper ticket can be marked with a pen, with varying levels of usefulness depending on what is scribbled, usually nothing, but they also don't scream at the guard "UH UHH Ticket already used"!

I've certainly been asked questions when a random staff member has made an "identifying mark" (read: meaningless scribble) on the front of my CCST, and I've then broken my journey.

 

[Royston Vasey]

Another endless debate about e-tickets, which are the preferred method of ticket delivery for the vast majority of people. People are entitled to their preferences but they must accept they are niche preferences. We've all had paper tickets. And the vast majority of people now use e-tickets without a problem. If you have problems with them, then those are your problems!

Well aware I am a niche passenger, and I am really rather proud of my rather huge collection of orange tickets, which no doubt one day my children will inherit and immediately take to the tip!

I have never and will never evade the fare for even a small portion of any journey, I am very risk averse and have a healthy sense of paranoia which I find serves me well in life! Even though I've never committed an irregularity in my life, I am still not comfortable with leaving an unnecessarily large digital footprint that a TOC might misuse (maybe I should subscribe to Surfshark ) and yes @Haywain I probably do read this forum too much!

Peace of mind, avoiding friction and conflict, are a big priority when I am travelling, and it's also a fairly niche thing to do to break and resume journeys, use loopholes or pricing anomalies, start and finish short, take convoluted routeings etc. I've also rerouted and abandoned journeys during disruption. And I also claim delay repay on them from time to time, when entitled.

I have found that paper tickets are less likely to be questioned, and I know I know my rights, routeings and restrictions at least as well as most staff.

I change at Stansted Airport on London to Whittlesford tickets, and sometimes break my journey there. I have started and finished short at Coventry. I have used off peak tickets at 5pm at Paddington. Three locations where the staff have a poor reputation for knowing my rights.

E-Tickets will of course serve very well the vast majority of passengers, especially with simple point to point bookings or on fixed time tickets. But while the option is there, I will still use ToD.

 

[CaptainHaddock]

I'm with the OP and having given e-tickets a go have recently gone back to paper tickets wherever possible.

My ageing phone tends to lose power disturbingly quickly these days and the fear that your phone might run out of charge so you've effectively lost your ticket can spoil many a long day out. E-tickets as others have reported are very temperamental with ticket gates when breaking your journey and there's also the privacy concern that all your movements can hypothetically be tracked and monitored.

It's also important to remember that the shift towards e-tickets is driven by the TOCs not their customers, in the same way that banks shut their branches, claiming there's no demand for face to face contact because most people use online banking. Of course passengers will choose an e-ticket if you deliberately don't give them any practical alternative!

 

[Haywain]

there's also the privacy concern that all your movements can hypothetically be tracked and monitored.

If that's what you're worried about eTickets are at the very low end of the scale.

the shift towards e-tickets is driven by the TOCs not their customers,

If that was true, they would have been much quicker off the mark in introducing eTickets.

in the same way that banks shut their branches, claiming there's no demand for face to face contact because most people use online banking.

Guess what? Most people do use online banking. I even used it to pay a cheque into my account this week.

Of course passengers will choose an e-ticket if you deliberately don't give them any practical alternative!

But they choose it when they are given alternatives, which they see as less practical.

 

[TUC]

Of course passengers will choose an e-ticket if you deliberately don't give them any practical alternative!

No, it's that why would I want to waste time queueing at a station when I can buy a ticket at home, or even on the platform?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 16 May 2026 ==

In the past 25 years, my wallet has been lost or stolen at least 3 times. In that same time, I've never had my phone lost or stolen. If I were to misplaced my phone, it's incredibly likely that I'd realise pretty quickly - by trying to use it - and have a far better chance of being able to locate and retrieve it. The most recent occasion that I lost my wallet? I didn't even realise that I had lost it, until a very kind gentleman knocked at my front door to return it!

Add to that, if my phone is lost or stolen, when I get a new one I can sign into my account and recover pretty much everything that was on the previous phone. I can't do that with a paper ticket.

 

[Adam Williams]

It's also important to remember that the shift towards e-tickets is driven by the TOCs not their customers

This really isn't true, I have responded to hundreds of customer complaints about E-Ticket unavailability. Usually due to poor RCS data quality, London or one of the other problematic operators (Merseyrail, ScotRail). Customers don't want to use paper tickets, overwhelmingly. The people in this thread are simply not representative of the overwhelming majority of the travelling public - sorry.

But that wouldn't have stopped the passenger from travelling

I have dealt with many customers in a panic because they were unable to print their tickets and departure of their first service is rapidly approaching. You may not hear about it much here, but it does happen and many TVMs are very poor at recovering from print failures.

Many times, where the customer selected ToD themselves, they can be convinced that the quickest resolution (where permitted by the flow/tickets) for their mess would be for us to simply re-issue the booking as an E-Ticket booking. At least it's not reliant on an unreliable machine at their local station.

Combine this with the fact that there's no entitlement to just board and print off your ToD tickets at the first opportunity if you experience problems, and you can very rapidly end up stuck in a way that you wouldn't be if you had chosen E-Tickets.

 

[MrJeeves]

I love my paper tickets, but...

The people in this thread are simply not representative of the overwhelming majority of the travelling public - sorry.

...at least I admit to being one of these people!

The vast majority of people I know find E-Tickets far more convenient than paper tickets. They are used to using them since COVID, don't need to faff about with a TVM with the most unusable touchscreen you've seen, and in an increasingly digital era they are simply used to having their lives on their phones.

Some people won't agree, but they (and I) are not in the majority of passengers. You just have to take a train with a staff member on board and listen to the number of beeps when tickets are checked to realise that.