Would a national PAYG phone app work?

[telstarbox]

At the moment some operators have ITSO smart cards and TfL has the Oyster system but there is no national one. One benefit of smart cards is that you don't need to use the ticket office for Pay As You Go travel.

Would a mobile app something like this work:
1. Passenger downloads the app and saves debit card details and any Railcards held
2. Touch in by scanning a QR code at the origin station (which could be provided at all stations cheaply)
3. Keep location services on during journey
4. Touch out by scanning a QR code at the destination
5. The app interrogates live running data to identify which train was used, to charge the appropriate peak or off-peak fare
6. If there is ambiguity, at the end the passenger is asked to confirm the specific trains they used, where route specific fares apply like "via Hebden Bridge"
7. Payment is taken in the background like Uber. You could have daily zonal or regional caps if necessary.
8. Or if you've done a simple return journey the app charges the best value day / period return fare.

Apart from the potential for charging high Anytime fares on long journeys, would this work?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 31 Jul 2021 ==

And obviously you could integrate a journey planner and purchase of on the spot Advances (as e tickets) into the same app.

 

[Aictos]

I rather they sorted out the existing problems with smart card technology eg make it possible to request the Key from Thameslink and load up tickets from any operator in the Network Railcard area which isn't currently possible for various reasons.

That must take priority over a National app.

 

[Bletchleyite]

SBB have done something very similar, based on GPS rather than barcodes I believe. Seems to have too many holes for my liking on a railway that is very "fine happy".

 

[Fawkes Cat]

I'd like to see this, although no doubt there are difficulties which haven't occurred to you or me. Playing Devil's Advocate for a moment
- could customer intervention be limited in the overwhelming majority (say 999/1000) of cases to steps 2 and 4? It doesn't take much for users to decide that something is too difficult to use.
- Can phones keep location services on the whole time just like that?
- how would the system cope with customers who didn't touch out? (I'm assuming not touching in would amount to travelling without a ticket.) The consequence of not following the rules needs to be sufficiently punitive to make sure people don't do it again, but not so harsh as to unreasonably punish innocent mistakes.

 

[Wallsendmag]

No not yet.PAYG is great in surburban areas but falls short for Intercity type journeys.

 

[Ken H]

At the moment some operators have ITSO smart cards and TfL has the Oyster system but there is no national one. One benefit of smart cards is that you don't need to use the ticket office for Pay As You Go travel.

Would a mobile app something like this work:
1. Passenger downloads the app and saves debit card details and any Railcards held
2. Touch in by scanning a QR code at the origin station (which could be provided at all stations cheaply)
3. Keep location services on during journey
4. Touch out by scanning a QR code at the destination
5. The app interrogates live running data to identify which train was used, to charge the appropriate peak or off-peak fare
6. If there is ambiguity, at the end the passenger is asked to confirm the specific trains they used, where route specific fares apply like "via Hebden Bridge"
7. Payment is taken in the background like Uber. You could have daily zonal or regional caps if necessary.
8. Or if you've done a simple return journey the app charges the best value day / period return fare.

Apart from the potential for charging high Anytime fares on long journeys, would this work?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 31 Jul 2021 ==

And obviously you could integrate a journey planner and purchase of on the spot Advances (as e tickets) into the same app.

what about people with old phones or no smart phone. The test and trace fell down on that with 20% of people unable to install it.
having location services on all the time will drain the phones battery
what about receipts for expenses claim?
and seeing the clusterf*ck with Northerns TVM network, can a reliable system be built that is resilient?

 

[Hadders]

What fare is charged if you scan in and don't scan out?

 

[Wallsendmag]

What fare is charged if you scan in and don't scan out?

Prices would need to go up to cover the paramedics at KGX after the INV and ABD arrivals. HOW MUCH !!!!! bang

 

[mattdickinson]

Prices would need to go up to cover the paramedics at KGX after the INV and ABD arrivals. HOW MUCH !!!!! bang

SWR customers can be charged £82 for PAYG journeys from London to Exeter.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

what about people with old phones or no smart phone. The test and trace fell down on that with 20% of people unable to install it.

They wouldn't be able to use it and would still have to buy a ticket at an office or TVM, just like how people without access to the internet can't use the Trainline right now.

what about receipts for expenses claim?

I imagine that there would be some way of seeing and printing your statement, just as there is right now with Oyster.

There may be insurmountable obstacles (I've some sympathy with the question of what happens with the Aberdeen train at King's Cross, although surely this is a planned trip for most people who would therefore have pre-booked an advance ticket) but issues which have already been solved for other forms of ticketing are unlikely to be those obstacles.

 

[PeterC]

What fare is charged if you scan in and don't scan out?

If the app records ticket checks then you assume that the passenger is travelling to the next appropriate major centre.

A passenger scanning at Barry Island would be assumed to be travelling to Cardiff. An onboard check by GWR could switch that to London. If he gets off at Reading without scanning out he pays to London. If GWR fail to check the ticket then they lose and he makes on the deal.

 

[Hadders]

If the app records ticket checks then you assume that the passenger is travelling to the next appropriate major centre.

A passenger scanning at Barry Island would be assumed to be travelling to Cardiff. An onboard check by GWR could switch that to London. If he gets off at Reading without scanning out he pays to London. If GWR fail to check the ticket then they lose and he makes on the deal.

That assumes a ticket check happens on every train. That simply doesn't happen, nor will it either.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

What fare is charged if you scan in and don't scan out?

If the app records ticket checks then you assume that the passenger is travelling to the next appropriate major centre.

That assumes a ticket check happens on every train. That simply doesn't happen, nor will it either.

The OP proposed

3. Keep location services on during journey

Assuming this is feasible, then there would be knowledge that the passenger had travelled from (e.g.) Aberdeen to London. Depending on the accuracy of the location services, it might struggle to get a precise answer for (e.g.) Bootle New Strand to Bootle Oriel Road but it would be possible to charge some sort of fare for most (all?) journeys.

Although to challenge my own point, unless the location service is accurate enough to identify that someone's on a train, I suppose this leaves open the risk of someone hopping on a train from Aberdeen to the next stop down, failing to check out, then getting a lift to London by car with a mate - and still being charged for the Aberdeen to London train. Someone would have to analyse how likely such a case would be before implementation of PAYG.

 

[Taunton]

Scan in/scan out Apps would fall over for me with the sheer number of occasions on a train when my phone has run out of battery during the journey, especially if I'm using it as I'm going along Incidentally, I've found the NHS App is a real battery drainer compared to previous times. There were pay-by-phone car parking schemes in their early days which depended on both Start and End transmissions, which had to be abandoned.

More fundamentally, the issue with a single App is that the supplier then has you, long term, by the short and curlies. This is exactly what happened with Oyster, and why TfL wants to move away from it, because of the costs.

Seems to have too many holes for my liking on a railway that is very "fine happy".

Too true, along with the railway perception that anyone who has not mastered their ticketing intricacies must be a criminal.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I refer those saying it is impossible again to my post up thread that points out that SBB actually have done it, ergo it is feasible. I don't however think it is that great an idea.

EasyRide – the ticket that does things your way | SBB

With EasyRide you check in before your journey and check out again afterwards. EasyRide recognises the route travelled and calculates the lowest price.

www.sbb.ch

• Activate EasyRide in the SBB Mobile app.
• Check in before your journey with a swipe from left to right.
• Get on, change as often as you like and check out again when you reach your destination. You can travel as often as you like by train, postbus, boat and urban transport. The EasyRide ticket is valid on the entire GA network.
• EasyRide detects the route you have travelled and automatically charges you for the correct ticket. EasyRide takes into account your SwissPass travelcards, such as the Half Fare Travelcard or regional Travelcard, and also automatically includes zone upgrades.
• If, at the end of the day, the value of the journey exceeds, for example, the price of a Day Pass, you will be charged the lower fare.
• If you forget to check out, EasyRide reminds you to do so.
• Useful information: Start your next journey even faster with the ‘EasyRide module’ on the homepage of the SBB Mobile app.

 

[Taunton]

The OP proposed

I suppose this leaves open the risk of someone hopping on a train from Aberdeen to the next stop down, failing to check out, then getting a lift to London by car with a mate - and still being charged for the Aberdeen to London train. Someone would have to analyse how likely such a case would be before implementation of PAYG.

I realise this is like what happened to us on Oyster. Swiped in on the DLR, when we came out at Bond Street Underground the fire alarms had gone off and were were all just hustled out through open gates. Went off with friends we were meeting there in their car. Apparently the system doesn't autocomplete because of known disruption if you don't later go back in at the same station, and/or have a recent history of using Bond Street. Got charged for going to Amersham. Times three of us.

 

[telstarbox]

Yes long (i.e. expensive) journeys would be an issue, although I don't think most people travel more than 100 miles spontaneously without checking the fares / times. For me an example use case would be travelling round the Network SouthEast area, maybe across TOC boundaries but not an Intercity journey.

Maybe the app could pre-authorise up to say £100. If you generate a fare over that amount and don't have funds you get 14 days to clear the "overdraft" then blocked?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 31 Jul 2021 ==

What fare is charged if you scan in and don't scan out?

Maybe nothing is charged but if you do it X times in Y weeks you get blocked. Or it makes the best guess for your last station and the user gets to confirm / alter. Google Maps Timeline does this sort of thing if anyone's used it.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 31 Jul 2021 ==

I can see some other potential advantages;

TOCs could offer a loyalty scheme or cashback for frequent users, or flash sales
Flexibility for asymmetric or triangular journeys etc so no need for excess fare system
Plusbus add-ons could be charged automatically by scanning a QR code on participating buses

 

[PeterC]

That assumes a ticket check happens on every train. That simply doesn't happen, nor will it either.

Ignoring the special arrangements for covid are you really saying that on board checks are no longer the norm on long-distance services? My post, as you are well aware, proposed a minimum charge based on the main flow from the boarding station. I haven't made more than local journeys since early 2020 but on the several journeys that I made in 2019 my tickets were always checked.

The OPs suggestion of scanning isn't practical at busy stations, the phone app would need to use NFC to activate gates - which gets us to arguements about cards versus phones of course.

 

[HSTEd]

The OPs suggestion of scanning isn't practical at busy stations, the phone app would need to use NFC to activate gates - which gets us to arguements about cards versus phones of course.

I'm not sure why NFC is any faster than a giant QR code with huge redundancy on the screen?
And doesn't exclude a substantial fraction of all phones.

Separately barriering platforms at busy stations might help, but thats a lot of complexity.

Myself I would just suggesting using a ~20p MiFARE style card with a deposit for returning it.

 

[Hadders]

Ignoring the special arrangements for covid are you really saying that on board checks are no longer the norm on long-distance services? My post, as you are well aware, proposed a minimum charge based on the main flow from the boarding station. I haven't made more than local journeys since early 2020 but on the several journeys that I made in 2019 my tickets were always checked.

The OPs suggestion of scanning isn't practical at busy stations, the phone app would need to use NFC to activate gates - which gets us to arguements about cards versus phones of course.

There are loads of threads on here over the years about ticket checks not taking place. I've personally travelled on many long distance trains over the years and many tickets are checked but a significant minority haven't been checked.

 

[WideRanger]

I don't understand the marginal benefit from doing this with an app, rather than a smartcard.

 

[bspahh]

I don't understand the marginal benefit from doing this with an app, rather than a smartcard.

An app has a screen so that it can show the running total for the fare for a journey. You could set it to give you an alerts if you go over a payment threshold. Ideally there would be a single product in the back end, with different interfaces, so you could tap a smart card at a barrier, check details on an app and get the best features from both.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

I don't understand the marginal benefit from doing this with an app, rather than a smartcard.

Customers already have phones, so nothing extra to carry.

A poster with a QR code on is a lot easier to install at every station in the country than a smart card reader.

 

[HSTEd]

Customers already have phones, so nothing extra to carry.

A poster with a QR code on is a lot easier to install at every station in the country than a smart card reader.

A poster with a QR code on is not sufficient for this purpose, because people could close journeys at any station desired if they could obtain a photo of the QR code in question - which is obviously going to be trivial.

It would be impossible to detect fare evasion because they would only "close" their journey as they walked off the station - if they are stopped en-route they are in the clear.

 

[87 027]

A poster with a QR code on is not sufficient for this purpose, because people could close journeys at any station desired if they could obtain a photo of the QR code in question - which is obviously going to be trivial

Not necessarily. An elderly relative has home care visits and I can access the carer records via an app, by scanning a QR code but only when I am at their home as registered to the care agency. I took a copy of the QR code but it doesn't work at any other location nor if location services are turned off. So it does seem to be technically possible to tie a QR code to a particular geographical location. And spoofing the presented location does not look that straightforward to me, at least on an iPhone - can't speak for Android

 

[HSTEd]

Not necessarily. An elderly relative has home care visits and I can access the carer records via an app, by scanning a QR code but only when I am at their home as registered to the care agency. I took a copy of the QR code but it doesn't work at any other location nor if location services are turned off. So it does seem to be technically possible to tie a QR code to a particular geographical location. And spoofing the presented location does not look that straightforward to me, at least on an iPhone - can't speak for Android

For that to work you would have to guarantee that all user's phones would have location services available at all stations, which is challenging - after all if they aren't they are going to get fined an enormous sum.

 

[87 027]

Yes, this would require both a GPS signal and a data signal at all station locations, as well the user being in possession of a suitable smartphone. So not really a practical solution for mass adoption at the moment in my view.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Yes, this would require both a GPS signal and a data signal at all station locations

No, it wouldn't. Because railway stations are generally spaced out a bit, cell locate would be fine, and locations can be cached and sent to the network once a signal is available. Rare not to have a GPS signal anyway unless you are indoors.

, as well the user being in possession of a suitable smartphone. So not really a practical solution for mass adoption at the moment in my view.

You might not have a suitable smartphone, but I reckon the vast majority do now.

 

[miklcct]

I realise this is like what happened to us on Oyster. Swiped in on the DLR, when we came out at Bond Street Underground the fire alarms had gone off and were were all just hustled out through open gates. Went off with friends we were meeting there in their car. Apparently the system doesn't autocomplete because of known disruption if you don't later go back in at the same station, and/or have a recent history of using Bond Street. Got charged for going to Amersham. Times three of us.

This can easily be solved by separating touch in / out machines like some other systems in the world already doing. In such case it will not be able for you to touch in without touching out and you need to find a staff to unlock your card.

 

[87 027]

No, it wouldn't. Because railway stations are generally spaced out a bit, cell locate would be fine, and locations can be cached and sent to the network once a signal is available. Rare not to have a GPS signal anyway unless you are indoors.

Fair comment. I was just responding to @HSTEd's suggestion that QR codes on their own could be easily gamed in the absence of any attempt to link them to specific locations, with an example of a use case where this has been thought about and dealt with.

You might not have a suitable smartphone, but I reckon the vast majority do now.

As a society we have a responsibility to consider the question of digital exclusion. Clearly the impact will shift over time, and what might be a step too far today could be an accepted and commonplace part of everyday life at some point in the future.