Why I avoid e-tickets

[johncrossley]

The Dutch are replacing the OV-Chipkaart with the OV-Pas and the OV-Chipkaart will be withdrawn at the end of next year.

This works fully on account. Nothing is stored on the card. Prepaid balances, season tickets, discounts and railcards are all online. When the card is checked on the train, this data is extracted over the internet so they have incredible faith in their mobile phone networks. The guard sees your photo on his device and so there is no longer a need for your photo to be on the card.

They want to enable putting the card on a phone wallet, meaning no need for a card at all. But according to people working on the project, they are negotiating with Apple and Google about how this will work in respect to privacy and this is proving problematic.

 

[35B]

The Dutch are replacing the OV-Chipkaart with the OV-Pas and the OV-Chipkaart will be withdrawn at the end of next year. This works fully on account. Nothing is stored on the card. Prepaid balances, season tickets, discounts and railcards are all online. When the card is checked on the train, this data is extracted over the internet so they have incredible faith in their mobile phone networks. The guard sees your photo on his device and so there is no longer a need for your photo to be on the card. They want to enable putting the card on a phone wallet, meaning no need for a card at all. But according to people working on the project, they are negotiating with Apple and Google how this will work in respect to privacy and this is proving problematic.

Which way round is privacy a problem? Is it about Apple & Google respecting the privacy of users, or is it that they’re reluctant to pass information to the railway because of their obligations to phone users?

 

[johncrossley]

Which way round is privacy a problem? Is it about Apple & Google respecting the privacy of users, or is it that they’re reluctant to pass information to the railway because of their obligations to phone users?

According to

Nieuwe OV-pas is nu beschikbaar – eind 2027 definitief einde van OV-chipkaart

De nieuwe OV-pas is sinds deze week beschikbaar. Mensen kunnen de opvolger van de OV-chipkaart voor 6 euro aanschaffen via Ovpay.nl of de Ovpay-app. In het

www.treinreiziger.nl

"Digital EMV cards must be placed in a wallet, such as those from Apple, Google, or Samsung. Negotiations with those parties are in various stages of success and are particularly complex from a privacy perspective. In our view, the requirements imposed by some parties pose risks to the position of travelers, carriers, BKAs, and independence."

Digitale EMV kaarten moeten in een wallet geplaatst worden, zoals die van Apple, Google of Samsung. De onderhandelingen met die partijen verkeren in verschillende stadia van succes en zijn vooral privacytechnisch erg ingewikkeld. De eisen die door sommige partijen gesteld worden brengen ons inziens gevaren met zich mee voor de positie van reizigers, vervoerders, BKA’s, en onafhankelijkheid.

 

[35B]

According to

Nieuwe OV-pas is nu beschikbaar – eind 2027 definitief einde van OV-chipkaart

De nieuwe OV-pas is sinds deze week beschikbaar. Mensen kunnen de opvolger van de OV-chipkaart voor 6 euro aanschaffen via Ovpay.nl of de Ovpay-app. In het

www.treinreiziger.nl

"Digital EMV cards must be placed in a wallet, such as those from Apple, Google, or Samsung. Negotiations with those parties are in various stages of success and are particularly complex from a privacy perspective. In our view, the requirements imposed by some parties pose risks to the position of travelers, carriers, BKAs, and independence."

Thank you - that seems less about privacy and more about digital sovereignty and who pays what

 

[Lewisham2221]

Yes, before they reach the gateline, so that they can all go through the barriers in parallel. Thereby speeding up the process for the couple/ family.

Or stopping immediately in front of the barriers - obstructing at least three of them - then removing backpack from back, opening said backpack, rummaging around to find the tickets, figuring out which little bits of card are the relevant tickets and which are reservations etc, distributing said little bits of card, eventually proceeding to put the tickets through the barriers with some combination of wrong ticket/wrong way round etc. all whilst still obstructing multiple gates.

I've seen groups using the "right" and "wrong" methods with both e-tickets and CCST. Ultimately e-tickets are more efficient when used correctly, but people are people...

 

[Bletchleyite]

The Dutch are replacing the OV-Chipkaart with the OV-Pas and the OV-Chipkaart will be withdrawn at the end of next year. This works fully on account. Nothing is stored on the card. Prepaid balances, season tickets, discounts and railcards are all online. When the card is checked on the train, this data is extracted over the internet so they have incredible faith in their mobile phone networks. The guard sees your photo on his device and so there is no longer a need for your photo to be on the card. They want to enable putting the card on a phone wallet, meaning no need for a card at all. But according to people working on the project, they are negotiating with Apple and Google about how this will work in respect to privacy and this is proving problematic.

This (which I sometimes refer to as true e-ticketing, i.e. the ticket is a record in a database and you just carry a reference to it even if it's a "CCST" style thing) will come in time. But in the UK we don't have blanket mobile coverage so it's not yet an option.

The Netherlands is basically like the South East of England (though is polycentric) - you could do it there just about, but try getting a signal on the line to Wick?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 May 2026 ==

Which way round is privacy a problem? Is it about Apple & Google respecting the privacy of users, or is it that they’re reluctant to pass information to the railway because of their obligations to phone users?

I'm not sure why it's even an issue if the barcode is just a reference, similar to a supermarket loyalty card barcode. That suggests to me that it is in fact more than that...

 

[35B]

I'm not sure why it's even an issue if the barcode is just a reference, similar to a supermarket loyalty card barcode. That suggests to me that it is in fact more than that...

@johncrossley has elaborated, and our assumption is I think right. However, we’re seeing more and more absolute views of data privacy and data sovereignty being required by EU nations, so the question is fair to ask

 

[johncrossley]

The Netherlands is basically like the South East of England (though is polycentric) - you could do it there just about, but try getting a signal on the line to Wick?

There needs to be coverage in tunnels before it is an option. You don't even have blanket coverage on the train to Gatwick as there are two tunnels on the way. In Switzerland it is common for people to do Teams meetings on the train even though there are tunnels everywhere.

 

[Bletchleyite]

There needs to be coverage in tunnels before it is an option. You don't even have blanket coverage on the train to Gatwick as there are two tunnels on the way. In Switzerland it is common for people to do Teams meetings on the train even though there are tunnels everywhere.

I don't think you quite need that because the ticket check can simply pause until the tunnel is exited. To be fair UK coverage was once OK, I've worked with a signal all the way from MK to Edinburgh via Brum before, but turning off 3G ruined it.

 

[DaveB10780]

The Netherlands is basically like the South East of England (though is polycentric)

Except for one key difference it is flat .

 

[johncrossley]

Except for one key difference it is flat .

Switzerland isn't flat but they have pretty much universal mobile coverage on the train network, including long tunnels.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Except for one key difference it is flat .

It is, but that doesn't have that big an effect on the possibility of providing mobile coverage. It's more that basically the whole country is urban or suburban and has the population densities needed for it to be cost effective to basically have blanket 4G/5G coverage. The UK isn't bar the South East, the West Midlands and the North West conurbation around Liverpool, Manchester, Preston and Chester and the similar one around Leeds.

 

[35B]

It is, but that doesn't have that big an effect on the possibility of providing mobile coverage. It's more that basically the whole country is urban or suburban and has the population densities needed for it to be cost effective to basically have blanket 4G/5G coverage. The UK isn't bar the South East, the West Midlands and the North West conurbation around Liverpool, Manchester, Preston and Chester and the similar one around Leeds.

Fair, but that doesn't answer for why Switzerland have made it work despite significantly more challenging geography. It's about will

 

[Bletchleyite]

Fair, but that doesn't answer for why Switzerland have made it work despite significantly more challenging geography. It's about will

Switzerland is also quite built up particularly along the valleys, and you can stick masts up the hills to give line of sight to a very large area.

The UK is, outside the SE, much more rural than most of Switzerland.

 

[johncrossley]

It is, but that doesn't have that big an effect on the possibility of providing mobile coverage. It's more that basically the whole country is urban or suburban and has the population densities needed for it to be cost effective to basically have blanket 4G/5G coverage. The UK isn't bar the South East, the West Midlands and the North West conurbation around Liverpool, Manchester, Preston and Chester and the similar one around Leeds.

The north-east of the Netherlands is pretty rural, sort of on a par with East Anglia. Groningen is the only big town (similar in size to maybe Norwich) and the next biggest is Assen which has much less than 100,000 population. Leeuwarden is a bit bigger but that's some distance from Groningen.

 

[35B]

Switzerland is also quite built up particularly along the valleys, and you can stick masts up the hills to give line of sight to a very large area.

The UK is, outside the SE, much more rural than most of Switzerland.

Which doesn't explain why the Swiss phone networks give basically permanent high quality connectivity, meaning that on train WiFi is hardly a thing to the extent that one Swiss rail forum had a thread recently expressing surprise that a German order for new trains would specify WiFi fitment.

If we're looking for an explanation about signal quality, we need to look at culture far more than engineering. And, IMHO, the Swiss have got the balance right in terms of what they expect their mobile companies to provide.

 

[styles]

Switzerland is also quite built up particularly along the valleys, and you can stick masts up the hills to give line of sight to a very large area.

The UK is, outside the SE, much more rural than most of Switzerland.

Indeed.

Scotrail are (were?) trialing Starlink on some of their services to deal with this issue.

Switzerland is also a weird case in that they still car car trains where you can load your car on, they have trains which go to loads of villages or halts which in the UK we just wouldn't do any more (like Rohrfluh). They have entirely car free villages (like Saas-Fee), etc. They fundamentally have, in my view, a different attitude towards public transport.

If the UK wanted it, we could have it, but the desire isn't there, certainly not with most politicians.

 

[sheff1]

The Netherlands is basically like the South East of England (though is polycentric) - you could do it there just about, but try getting a signal on the line to Wick?

No need to look to Wick. No signal for me in central London going out of St Pancras both north and south.

Noticeable that after travelling on the Paris Metro and then Eurostar with pretty much perfect signal, as soon as we started through Kent the signal became flakey and then disappeared completely as we approached London.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Then you get the family of four with all of their e-tickets on the same phone, who have to perform a game of pass the parcel in order to negotiate the barriers.

That’s a piece of cake, I stand at the gate and scan them all through then scan myself through.

See also: security gatelines at the airport.

Other than that, I’ll simply repeat what I said earlier. Personal preference is just that: personal preference. For me, e-tickets are so much easier to use that it’s really become a no-brainer. But if people prefer CCST then they certainly don’t need to justify themselves.

 

[crablab]

What it does though is to automatically withdraw after a period if it hasn't been confirmed online. Apple Wallet doesn't do that.

This is not the right way of achieving what they're trying to do and relies on the client behaving correctly.

 

[Bletchleyite]

This is not the right way of achieving what they're trying to do and relies on the client behaving correctly.

What they are doing is a fudge to deal with a non-ideal situation.

 

[johncrossley]

No need to look to Wick. No signal for me in central London going out of St Pancras both north and south.

Noticeable that after travelling on the Paris Metro and then Eurostar with pretty much perfect signal, as soon as we started through Kent the signal became flakey and then disappeared completely as we approached London.

Yes, it is kind of embarrassing that much of HS1 has no coverage, especially the underground bit near London.

 

[MarlowDonkey]

Also why would you need a laptop for 2 Factor Authentication? It is usually a text message to your phone. What sort of 2FA are you using that runs on a laptop?

As you say I don't really like using smartphones as I find them difficult in comparison to a laptop or a physical wallet. One of my pet hates is trying to find a text message when the screen is already open on something else. Hence a preference to receive a text message on a different device.

I've never used a wallet on a smartphone or even stumbled across it. Where would I look?

The 2FA is sent to an email address. Generally I use a laptop for email. I am aware that the phone does email. That doesn't mean I want to use it for that.

 

[317 forever]

I had a problem with an e-ticket purchase in April.

I received an email confirmation of the booking but not the e-ticket itself.

I needed the ticket for work, so 25 minutes later I booked it again. Unknown to me at the time, a split second before I accepted the 2nd booking the 1st e-ticket did finally arrive.

I raised this with the TOC, including the ticket references so that they could see which one I had used but which one I had not used.

I received a probably "standardised" reply as it mentioned Delay Repay, which was not even applicable.

Admittedly the fare was just £2.70, but this is still a poor show.

While I had my reasons for preferring their website (EMR in case you're curious), I have stopped using them for future bookings. I did use my pre-booked tickets for last weekend but will not use them again.

 

[1D54]

Sort of off thread so apologies as i didn't want to start a new thread and question should be easily answered.

This morning Leicester has gone bog roll style ticketing , i have no problem with them whatsoever but i often buy Z 1-6 travel cards when visiting London. Do i now just scan the ticket to open the gates or have the rigmarole of going to seek help in getting through?

 

[Hadders]

Zone 1-6 Travelcards will still be issued on CCST because TfL’s gateline do not except barcodes (yet!)

 

[renegademaster]

Quite. I don’t see that many people using ticket machines now, let alone queues. Waterloo 10 or 15 years ago would have a 10-20 deep queue for the machines. Now you can expect to have a choice of most of them on demand.

The reason nobody queues at the TVMs at Waterloo or Victoria anymore is because 95% of people use contactless now, not because e-tickets

 

[TUC]

The reason nobody queues at the TVMs at Waterloo or Victoria anymore is because 95% of people use contactless now, not because e-tickets

Either way, it still amounts to many people not seeing any need to queue for a piece of paper rather than their phone doing the job for them.

 

[renegademaster]

Either way, it still amounts to many people not seeing any need to queue for a piece of paper rather than their phone doing the job for them.

NFC is a lot quicker in a busy gate line than faffing about with a QR code. And if my phone dies I can use my debit card , which anecdotally I think about 40% use instead.

If e-tickets could support NFC if would be a definite upgrade and would make it easier to get TfL on board.

 

[johncrossley]

Zone 1-6 Travelcards will still be issued on CCST because TfL’s gateline do not except barcodes (yet!)

However you can usually load them onto an ITSO card using a TOC app with the same TOC's smartcard. For Inboundary Travelcards just choose any journey wholly within the zones.