On 02/10/2023 01:24, Charles Ellson wrote:
> On Sun, 1 Oct 2023 08:19:31 +0100, Graeme Wall
> <rail@greywall.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> On 01/10/2023 05:50, Roland Perry wrote:
>>> In message <knqc61F79m6U1@mid.individual.net>, at 11:38:56 on Sat, 30
>>> Sep 2023, Clive Page <usenet@page2.eu> remarked:
>>>> On 29/09/2023 17:48, Jack Harry Teesdale wrote:
>>>>> A Yorkshire rail passenger has ended up paying almost £500 for a
>>>>> 10-mile journey through Yorkshire after contesting Northern’s
>>>>> prosecution of him for fare evasion.
>>>>>
>>>>> https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/crime/rail-fare-evaders-ps7-journe
>>>>> y-through-yorkshire-ends-up-costing-him-ps500-after-northern-take-him-t
>>>>> o-court-4353701
>>>>
>>>> I've nothing to say on this particular case,
>>>
>>> It's often the case in disputes like this that the person decides to
>>> stop throwing good money after bad in the face of the implacable
>>> bureaucracy, and falsely pleads guilty, just to get on with their life
>>> and in this case cost only £500 rather than £1000, if he had no means to
>>> *prove* the TVM was broken [take pictures, something a phone *is* useful
>>> for in the rail ticketing environment].
>>>
>>> I too have experienced broken TVMs at a Northern station in a compulsory
>>> ticket zone (Wakefield Westgate) but the conductor was happy to sell me
>>> a ticket on the train. As it happens she insisted the price was about 4x
>>> what I'd previously looked up, and refused to budge even when I showed
>>> her the relevant brfares.com page on my laptop. "My portable ticket
>>> machine says NO". So that's a mis-selling claim, which I again haven't
>>> yet had time to take up with the TOC.
>>>
>>>> but there is a claim in the Yorkshire Post article that management has
>>>> real-time data on whether ticket machines are working or not.
>>>>
>>>> I've had several interactions recently with Govia-Thameslink and the
>>>> local station manager about that fact that ticket machines at Luton
>>>> often (3 times in 3 weeks for me) do not have the ability to disgorge
>>>> pre-paid tickets, even though people paying at the machine can buy
>>>> tickets.  The GTR response to this is that if it happens again I
>>>> should use cash (or maybe a card, would that work if the comms are
>>>> down?) to buy another ticket and then work out how to claim for one of
>>>> the duplicates.  This seems entirely unreasonable to me, but what can
>>>> one do?
>>>
>>> Drifting topic slightly, my wife and I met my daughter in London just
>>> over a week ago, and ran some errands. The plan was for my wife and I
>>> then to travel on see my friend who I heard yesterday has just been
>>> moved to the hospice in Guildford (see thread "I've lost my sense of
>>> humour now"). But my wife was tired and decided to go back home, and my
>>> daughter came with me instead.
>>>
>>> I had pre-purchased all the tickets, to avoid hassle at the station(s)
>>> en-route, having suffered a rash of broken ticket machines recently, and
>>> even missed one train because I took too long failing to get a TVM to
>>> issue me an off-peak ticket "too early" (there's an easement at that
>>> particular station which they seem not to have programmed in, but I'm
>>> still looking into that).
>>>
>>> Anyway, I have a Senior Railcard, my wife a Disabled one, and my
>>> daughter a Young Persons. So we had the "wrong kind of ticket" for my
>>> companion on that Waterloo-Guildford leg. Imagine my surprise when I
>>> went to the GWR ticket office at Waterloo that they refused to change
>>> the ticket (in effect refund one and use the exact same funds to buy a
>>> new ticket) on the grounds that I'd bought the original from not-GWR and
>>> would have to travel back to GTR-land to make such an exchange.
>>>
>>> So there was a choice to busk it and see if we were stopped, or buy a
>>> new YP ticket and later attempt to get a refund for the Disabled one.
>>> Because life is already complicated enough at the moment, I went for the
>>> latter, and I still haven't had time to approach GTR about the refund,
>>> not least because the nearest manned GTR station is an hour's drive away
>>> from home.
>>>
>>>> But: it appears that this is a failure of the machines to communicate
>>>> with the server which holds details of pre-purchased tickets and it
>>>> also appears GTR management does not have satisfactory information on
>>>> this.  Maybe they could prove that the ticket machine are working but
>>>> only for some types of transaction.  Not very satisfactory.
>>>
>>> I presume comms failure (which I have observed at other GTR stations) is
>>> the very thing which prevents the ticket machine from sending a message
>>> to GTR control that it's broken. Such a classic workflow failure I
>>> suspect it deserves greater publicity.
>>>
>>> And as far as I can tell, GTR have no process in place to look at
>>> transactions on their TVMs in real time, let alone daily, and wonder
>>> "hmm, nothing sold by that usually busy TVM yesterday, I wonder if it's
>>> broken". Similarly, it would be possible (if they had the inclination)
>>> to look at collections from a TVM, and notice from the back office
>>> systems, which control would still have comms with, that say starting at
>>> 6am one day, it had issued no pre-purchased tickets, when you'd expect
>>> it to have done dozens.
>>>
>>> In any event, sometimes you get a different kind of multi-TOC failure.
>>>
>>> When I arrived at Stansted airport a couple of weeks ago without a
>>> ticket because the GTR machine at the station I started from was broken
>>> (which GTR didn't know at the time, but even if they did, they would not
>>> have broadcast that to GA staff), The GA staff at Stansted were
>>> initially refusing to sell me a ticket (rather than charge a penalty
>>> fare) despite me approaching them first and asking to buy a ticket. It
>>> was only when I said I'd call the police to stop them harassing me, they
>>> relented.
>>>
>>> Incidentally, they don't have automatic barriers at Stansted, and
>>> perform the ticket checking manually. When I was there Friday, it was
>>> taking them ten minutes to clear the full-Stansted-Express scrum of
>>> just-arrived pax off the platform and onto the escalators towards the
>>> station. I suppose they were just getting everyone used to queue after
>>> queue after queue one encounters at airports.
>>>
>>> From observing the process, it was clearly taking them on average three
>>> times as long to scrutinise each ticket presented to them on a phone,
>>> than on a bit of card. So *much* more convenient to have tickets on
>>> phones, they keep insisting.
>>
>> There's a GWR ticket office in Waterloo?
>>
> It's that shady looking bloke standing beside the machines offering
> tickets to the other Reading; not there when there is a Chelsea home
> game on when you will find him flogging more lucrative tickets on the
> Fulham Road. ;-)

Ah I know the bloke!
--
Graeme Wall
This account not read.

On 02/10/2023 05:32, Roland Perry wrote:
> In message <Q5xzUf4bqPGlFAez@perry.uk>, at 05:50:35 on Sun, 1 Oct 2023,
> Roland Perry <roland@perry.uk> remarked:
>> When I arrived at Stansted airport a couple of weeks ago without a
>> ticket because the GTR machine at the station I started from was
>> broken (which GTR didn't know at the time, but even if they did, they
>> would not have broadcast that to GA staff), The GA staff at Stansted
>> were initially refusing to sell me a ticket (rather than charge a
>> penalty fare) despite me approaching them first and asking to buy a
>> ticket. It was only when I said I'd call the police to stop them
>> harassing me, they relented.
>
> I've now remembered what the problem was. I had got off a train from the
> north which had arrived just after a Stansted Express. When I asked to
> buy a ticket they asked why I had I hadn't bought one before travelling.
>
> I said it was because the ticket machine was broken, and they robustly
> challenged the suggestion saying there were dozens of ticket machines at
> Liverpool St and they couldn't possibly have all been broken.
>
> I explained *again* where I'd travelled from, towards the north. Their
> response was "lala, I can't hear you".
>
> No idea how they thought I'd got on at barriered LST without a ticket.
>
> When they eventually agreed to sell me a ticket he asked, as if to
> check, "So that's a single from LST?" AAAArgh!

If you'd fallen for that one you'd have been prosecuted, it's a standard
check.
--
Graeme Wall
This account not read.

On Sun, 1 Oct 2023 12:35:42 +0100, Roland Perry <roland@perry.uk>
wrote:

>In message <knt0kmFj0d3U2@mid.individual.net>, at 11:40:22 on Sun, 1 Oct
>2023, Clive Page <usenet@page2.eu> remarked:
>>On 01/10/2023 05:50, Roland Perry wrote:
>
>>> Incidentally, they don't have automatic barriers at Stansted, and
>>>perform the ticket checking manually. When I was there Friday, it was
>>>taking them ten minutes to clear the full-Stansted-Express scrum of
>>>just-arrived pax off the platform and onto the escalators towards the
>>>station. I suppose they were just getting everyone used to queue after
>>>queue after queue one encounters at airports.
>>
>>My guess is that ticket barrier staff are worried about their jobs - if
>>the barriers worked 100% of the time then most of them could be made
>>redundant. This is why they sometimes set up the barriers to reject
>>various classes of ticket, e.g. those bought with railcards, or
>>off-peak tickets.
>
>I would be astonished if the minimum wage thugs manning the barriers had
>any say at all in the way they are programmed.
>
>And remember, Stansted doesn't have any barriers (but almost all pax
>will have boarded at a station with barriers). Deliberate decision, or
>just another way to passive aggressively irritate passengers?
>
Of course it was a deliberate decision. Stations don't grow
organically. But the idea that it was done to annoy passengers is
stupid.

What actually happened is there was a deliberate decision to allow
passengers on Stansted Express to pay on board because that was seen
as an appropriate way to treat the mainly business passengers the
service was designed for. Every train had an onboard host (as well as
a refreshment trolley) and they were happy to accept payment for
journeys starting at Stansted, Liverpool Street or elsewhere.

This situation lasted for some time because it was still in place when
the refurbished class 317/7 units were in use as docks for trolleys
were built in. It went eventually due to general industry-wide moves
to enforce the buying of tickets before travel, a change in the
Stansted passenger demographic, privatisation and the fact that at
least one pair of spouses working as hosts were keeping tickets they'd
inspected on board and selling them on to other passengers.

In message <ufdq0h$2qs82$2@dont-email.me>, at 08:03:45 on Mon, 2 Oct
2023, Graeme Wall <rail@greywall.demon.co.uk> remarked:
>On 02/10/2023 05:32, Roland Perry wrote:
>> In message <Q5xzUf4bqPGlFAez@perry.uk>, at 05:50:35 on Sun, 1 Oct
>>2023, Roland Perry <roland@perry.uk> remarked:
>>> When I arrived at Stansted airport a couple of weeks ago without a
>>>ticket because the GTR machine at the station I started from was
>>>broken (which GTR didn't know at the time, but even if they did, they
>>>would not have broadcast that to GA staff), The GA staff at Stansted
>>>were initially refusing to sell me a ticket (rather than charge a
>>>penalty fare) despite me approaching them first and asking to buy a
>>>ticket. It was only when I said I'd call the police to stop them
>>>harassing me, they relented.
>> I've now remembered what the problem was. I had got off a train from
>>the north which had arrived just after a Stansted Express. When I
>>asked to buy a ticket they asked why I had I hadn't bought one before
>>travelling.
>> I said it was because the ticket machine was broken, and they
>>robustly challenged the suggestion saying there were dozens of ticket
>>machines at Liverpool St and they couldn't possibly have all been broken.
>> I explained *again* where I'd travelled from, towards the north.
>>Their response was "lala, I can't hear you".
>> No idea how they thought I'd got on at barriered LST without a
>>ticket.
>> When they eventually agreed to sell me a ticket he asked, as if to
>>check, "So that's a single from LST?" AAAArgh!
>
>If you'd fallen for that one you'd have been prosecuted, it's a
>standard check.

I can understand why you say that, but I was asking for a more
expensive ticket from further away and he seemed genuinely incapable
of comprehending people don't all arrive on Stansted Express from
London. Stansted Express also calls at Bishops Stortford, for
professional fare dodgers.
--
Roland Perry

On 02/10/2023 08:01, Graeme Wall wrote:
> On 02/10/2023 01:24, Charles Ellson wrote:
>> On Sun, 1 Oct 2023 08:19:31 +0100, Graeme Wall
>> <rail@greywall.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>> On 01/10/2023 05:50, Roland Perry wrote:
>>>> In message <knqc61F79m6U1@mid.individual.net>, at 11:38:56 on Sat, 30
>>>> Sep 2023, Clive Page <usenet@page2.eu> remarked:
>>>>> On 29/09/2023 17:48, Jack Harry Teesdale wrote:
>>>>>> A Yorkshire rail passenger has ended up paying almost £500 for a
>>>>>> 10-mile journey through Yorkshire after contesting Northern’s
>>>>>> prosecution of him for fare evasion.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/crime/rail-fare-evaders-ps7-journe
>>>>>> y-through-yorkshire-ends-up-costing-him-ps500-after-northern-take-him-t
>>>>>> o-court-4353701
>>>>>
>>>>> I've nothing to say on this particular case,
>>>>
>>>> It's often the case in disputes like this that the person decides to
>>>> stop throwing good money after bad in the face of the implacable
>>>> bureaucracy, and falsely pleads guilty, just to get on with their life
>>>> and in this case cost only £500 rather than £1000, if he had no
>>>> means to
>>>> *prove* the TVM was broken [take pictures, something a phone *is*
>>>> useful
>>>> for in the rail ticketing environment].
>>>>
>>>> I too have experienced broken TVMs at a Northern station in a
>>>> compulsory
>>>> ticket zone (Wakefield Westgate) but the conductor was happy to sell me
>>>> a ticket on the train. As it happens she insisted the price was
>>>> about 4x
>>>> what I'd previously looked up, and refused to budge even when I showed
>>>> her the relevant brfares.com page on my laptop. "My portable ticket
>>>> machine says NO". So that's a mis-selling claim, which I again haven't
>>>> yet had time to take up with the TOC.
>>>>
>>>>> but there is a claim in the Yorkshire Post article that management has
>>>>> real-time data on whether ticket machines are working or not.
>>>>>
>>>>> I've had several interactions recently with Govia-Thameslink and the
>>>>> local station manager about that fact that ticket machines at Luton
>>>>> often (3 times in 3 weeks for me) do not have the ability to disgorge
>>>>> pre-paid tickets, even though people paying at the machine can buy
>>>>> tickets.  The GTR response to this is that if it happens again I
>>>>> should use cash (or maybe a card, would that work if the comms are
>>>>> down?) to buy another ticket and then work out how to claim for one of
>>>>> the duplicates.  This seems entirely unreasonable to me, but what can
>>>>> one do?
>>>>
>>>> Drifting topic slightly, my wife and I met my daughter in London just
>>>> over a week ago, and ran some errands. The plan was for my wife and I
>>>> then to travel on see my friend who I heard yesterday has just been
>>>> moved to the hospice in Guildford (see thread "I've lost my sense of
>>>> humour now"). But my wife was tired and decided to go back home, and my
>>>> daughter came with me instead.
>>>>
>>>> I had pre-purchased all the tickets, to avoid hassle at the station(s)
>>>> en-route, having suffered a rash of broken ticket machines recently,
>>>> and
>>>> even missed one train because I took too long failing to get a TVM to
>>>> issue me an off-peak ticket "too early" (there's an easement at that
>>>> particular station which they seem not to have programmed in, but I'm
>>>> still looking into that).
>>>>
>>>> Anyway, I have a Senior Railcard, my wife a Disabled one, and my
>>>> daughter a Young Persons. So we had the "wrong kind of ticket" for my
>>>> companion on that Waterloo-Guildford leg. Imagine my surprise when I
>>>> went to the GWR ticket office at Waterloo that they refused to change
>>>> the ticket (in effect refund one and use the exact same funds to buy a
>>>> new ticket) on the grounds that I'd bought the original from not-GWR
>>>> and
>>>> would have to travel back to GTR-land to make such an exchange.
>>>>
>>>> So there was a choice to busk it and see if we were stopped, or buy a
>>>> new YP ticket and later attempt to get a refund for the Disabled one.
>>>> Because life is already complicated enough at the moment, I went for
>>>> the
>>>> latter, and I still haven't had time to approach GTR about the refund,
>>>> not least because the nearest manned GTR station is an hour's drive
>>>> away
>>>> from home.
>>>>
>>>>> But: it appears that this is a failure of the machines to communicate
>>>>> with the server which holds details of pre-purchased tickets and it
>>>>> also appears GTR management does not have satisfactory information on
>>>>> this.  Maybe they could prove that the ticket machine are working but
>>>>> only for some types of transaction.  Not very satisfactory.
>>>>
>>>> I presume comms failure (which I have observed at other GTR
>>>> stations) is
>>>> the very thing which prevents the ticket machine from sending a message
>>>> to GTR control that it's broken. Such a classic workflow failure I
>>>> suspect it deserves greater publicity.
>>>>
>>>> And as far as I can tell, GTR have no process in place to look at
>>>> transactions on their TVMs in real time, let alone daily, and wonder
>>>> "hmm, nothing sold by that usually busy TVM yesterday, I wonder if it's
>>>> broken". Similarly, it would be possible (if they had the inclination)
>>>> to look at collections from a TVM, and notice from the back office
>>>> systems, which control would still have comms with, that say
>>>> starting at
>>>> 6am one day, it had issued no pre-purchased tickets, when you'd expect
>>>> it to have done dozens.
>>>>
>>>> In any event, sometimes you get a different kind of multi-TOC failure.
>>>>
>>>> When I arrived at Stansted airport a couple of weeks ago without a
>>>> ticket because the GTR machine at the station I started from was broken
>>>> (which GTR didn't know at the time, but even if they did, they would
>>>> not
>>>> have broadcast that to GA staff), The GA staff at Stansted were
>>>> initially refusing to sell me a ticket (rather than charge a penalty
>>>> fare) despite me approaching them first and asking to buy a ticket. It
>>>> was only when I said I'd call the police to stop them harassing me,
>>>> they
>>>> relented.
>>>>
>>>> Incidentally, they don't have automatic barriers at Stansted, and
>>>> perform the ticket checking manually. When I was there Friday, it was
>>>> taking them ten minutes to clear the full-Stansted-Express scrum of
>>>> just-arrived pax off the platform and onto the escalators towards the
>>>> station. I suppose they were just getting everyone used to queue after
>>>> queue after queue one encounters at airports.
>>>>
>>>>   From observing the process, it was clearly taking them on average
>>>> three
>>>> times as long to scrutinise each ticket presented to them on a phone,
>>>> than on a bit of card. So *much* more convenient to have tickets on
>>>> phones, they keep insisting.

It is much more convenient. The seller doesn't have to keep reloading a
machine with cardboard and taking away the money. Nor need they provide
any facility for displaying the electronic ticket: that's now the
passenger's problem, and an opportunity to make them pay again whenever
it goes wrong.

Roland Perry <roland@perry.uk> wrote:
> In message <ufcopq$2h0eg$1@dont-email.me>, at 21:36:58 on Sun, 1 Oct
> 2023, Sam Wilson <ukr@dummy.wislons.fastmail.co.uk> remarked:
>> Roland Perry <roland@perry.uk> wrote:
>>> In message <knqc61F79m6U1@mid.individual.net>, at 11:38:56 on Sat, 30
>>> Sep 2023, Clive Page <usenet@page2.eu> remarked:
>>> [snip]
>>>
>>>> But: it appears that this is a failure of the machines to communicate
>>>> with the server which holds details of pre-purchased tickets and it
>>>> also appears GTR management does not have satisfactory information on
>>>> this. Maybe they could prove that the ticket machine are working but
>>>> only for some types of transaction. Not very satisfactory.
>>>
>>> I presume comms failure (which I have observed at other GTR stations) is
>>> the very thing which prevents the ticket machine from sending a message
>>> to GTR control that it's broken. Such a classic workflow failure I
>>> suspect it deserves greater publicity.
>>>
>>> And as far as I can tell, GTR have no process in place to look at
>>> transactions on their TVMs in real time, let alone daily, and wonder
>>> "hmm, nothing sold by that usually busy TVM yesterday, I wonder if it's
>>> broken". Similarly, it would be possible (if they had the inclination)
>>> to look at collections from a TVM, and notice from the back office
>>> systems, which control would still have comms with, that say starting at
>>> 6am one day, it had issued no pre-purchased tickets, when you'd expect
>>> it to have done dozens.
>>
>> Any competent protocol designer would include a watchdog/keepalive poll
>> somewhere in the system so that TVMs that didn’t respond could be noted in
>> a suitable way.
>
> Actually, we don't know that's missing, just that when I report a broken
> TVM to GTR twitter account they are always surprised, give the
> impression they don't believe me, and don't know which one I'm talking
> about. And either they break down again soon after, or it takes days to
> get fixed.

Any competent operations manager would make sure their staff have access to
the information about which TVMs are marked as up and which down.

Sam

--
The entity formerly known as Sam.Wilson@ed.ac.uk
Spit the dummy to reply

Clive Page <usenet@page2.eu> wrote:
> On 01/10/2023 05:50, Roland Perry wrote:
>> Incidentally, they don't have automatic barriers at Stansted, and
>> perform the ticket checking manually. When I was there Friday, it was
>> taking them ten minutes to clear the full-Stansted-Express scrum of
>> just-arrived pax off the platform and onto the escalators towards the
>> station. I suppose they were just getting everyone used to queue after
>> queue after queue one encounters at airports.
>>
>
> My guess is that ticket barrier staff are worried about their jobs - if
> the barriers worked 100% of the time then most of them could be made
> redundant. This is why they sometimes set up the barriers to reject
> various classes of ticket, e.g. those bought with railcards, or off-peak tickets.
>

Things like that will be dictated by a manager, not at the whim of the
gateline staff.

Incidentally it takes several staff to effectively run a ~big/busy (say 10
gates) gateline - ideally you want at least one person for each direction
of flow assisting people whose tickets are rejected, one to help people who
get bags stuck, usually one observing the gateline control panel, and often
one or two revenue staff too.
>>
>> From observing the process, it was clearly taking them on average three
>> times as long to scrutinise each ticket presented to them on a phone,
>> than on a bit of card. So *much* more convenient to have tickets on
>> phones, they keep insisting.
>>
>
> I expect that the rail companies are keen on tickets on the phone as this
> saves them the cost of the cardboard.
>
> On timing: I see the same at tube barriers: those with Oyster or bank
> cards just touch and go through. I think (but don't have hard evidence
> that those with 1st Generation Oyster cards get through faster as all the
> data are on the card; the 2nd Gen ones involve two-and-fro with their
> servers. Meanwhile those using pay-by-phone play about with them,
> entering their PIN code or getting their fingerprint recognised, then
> getting the right page shown on the screen, and then operating the
> barrier. This is nearly always several seconds slower.
>

All that should be done before approaching the barrier, the actual
transaction at the barrier takes no longer. What you describe is the
equivalent of someone arriving at the barrier and then searching through
their pockets/bag to find their ticket/oyster.

Anna Noyd-Dryver

On Mon, 2 Oct 2023 11:49:00 -0000 (UTC), Anna Noyd-Dryver
<anna@noyd-dryver.com> wrote:

>All that should be done before approaching the barrier, the actual
>transaction at the barrier takes no longer. What you describe is the
>equivalent of someone arriving at the barrier and then searching through
>their pockets/bag to find their ticket/oyster.

Oh boy... watch people and observe how often that happens, and not
only Little Olde Ladies!

On Mon, 02 Oct 2023 08:29:21 -0700
Nobody <jock@soccer.com> wrote:
>On Mon, 2 Oct 2023 11:49:00 -0000 (UTC), Anna Noyd-Dryver
><anna@noyd-dryver.com> wrote:
>
>
>>All that should be done before approaching the barrier, the actual
>>transaction at the barrier takes no longer. What you describe is the
>>equivalent of someone arriving at the barrier and then searching through
>>their pockets/bag to find their ticket/oyster.
>
>Oh boy... watch people and observe how often that happens, and not
>only Little Olde Ladies!

Just as bad are the twats who have to pay with their phone with takes about
5 times longer to work than a contactless card especially if they have to
unlock the bloody thing first. I'm fairly sure they have bank cards so why TF
don't they just use them instead?

On 02/10/2023 09:23, Roland Perry wrote:
> In message <ufdq0h$2qs82$2@dont-email.me>, at 08:03:45 on Mon, 2 Oct
> 2023, Graeme Wall <rail@greywall.demon.co.uk> remarked:
>> On 02/10/2023 05:32, Roland Perry wrote:
>>> In message <Q5xzUf4bqPGlFAez@perry.uk>, at 05:50:35 on Sun, 1 Oct
>>> 2023,  Roland Perry <roland@perry.uk> remarked:
>>>> When I arrived at Stansted airport a couple of weeks ago without a
>>>> ticket because the GTR machine at the station I started from was
>>>> broken (which GTR didn't know at the time, but even if they did,
>>>> they would not have broadcast that to GA staff), The GA staff at
>>>> Stansted were initially refusing to sell me a ticket (rather than
>>>> charge a penalty fare) despite me approaching them first and asking
>>>> to buy a ticket. It was only when I said I'd call the police to stop
>>>> them harassing me, they relented.
>>>  I've now remembered what the problem was. I had got off a train from
>>> the  north which had arrived just after a Stansted Express. When I
>>> asked to  buy a ticket they asked why I had I hadn't bought one
>>> before travelling.
>>>  I said it was because the ticket machine was broken, and they
>>> robustly  challenged the suggestion saying there were dozens of
>>> ticket machines at  Liverpool St and they couldn't possibly have all
>>> been broken.
>>>  I explained *again* where I'd travelled from, towards the north.
>>> Their  response was "lala, I can't hear you".
>>>  No idea how they thought I'd got on at barriered LST without a ticket.
>>>  When they eventually agreed to sell me a ticket he asked, as if to
>>> check, "So that's a single from LST?" AAAArgh!
>>
>> If you'd fallen for that one you'd have been prosecuted, it's a
>> standard check.
>
> I can understand why you say that, but I was asking for a more
> expensive ticket from further away and he seemed genuinely incapable
> of comprehending people don't all arrive on Stansted Express from
> London. Stansted Express also calls at Bishops Stortford, for
> professional fare dodgers.

If you'd agreed to buy the cheaper ticket, you would have been
prosecuted for trying to evade the more expensive fare.
--
Graeme Wall
This account not read.

On 02/10/2023 12:49, Anna Noyd-Dryver wrote:
> Clive Page <usenet@page2.eu> wrote:
>> On 01/10/2023 05:50, Roland Perry wrote:
>>> Incidentally, they don't have automatic barriers at Stansted, and
>>> perform the ticket checking manually. When I was there Friday, it was
>>> taking them ten minutes to clear the full-Stansted-Express scrum of
>>> just-arrived pax off the platform and onto the escalators towards the
>>> station. I suppose they were just getting everyone used to queue after
>>> queue after queue one encounters at airports.
>>>
>>
>> My guess is that ticket barrier staff are worried about their jobs - if
>> the barriers worked 100% of the time then most of them could be made
>> redundant. This is why they sometimes set up the barriers to reject
>> various classes of ticket, e.g. those bought with railcards, or off-peak tickets.
>>
>
> Things like that will be dictated by a manager, not at the whim of the
> gateline staff.
>
> Incidentally it takes several staff to effectively run a ~big/busy (say 10
> gates) gateline - ideally you want at least one person for each direction
> of flow assisting people whose tickets are rejected, one to help people who
> get bags stuck, usually one observing the gateline control panel, and often
> one or two revenue staff too.
>

Guildford fits that description, 10 barriers and at least 3, usually 5
staff around in busy periods. Also has the complication that the
overbridge can be used as a pedestrian access between the housing estate
below the cathedral and the town centre. That used to have special
laminated passes that they handed out one side and collected the other.
It was suspended during covid, not sure what they do now.

--
Graeme Wall
This account not read.

In message <jKGPoaWG4nGlFAal@perry.uk>, at 09:23:34 on Mon, 2 Oct 2023,
Roland Perry <roland@perry.uk> remarked:

>>> When they eventually agreed to sell me a ticket he asked, as if to
>>>check, "So that's a single from LST?" AAAArgh!
>>
>>If you'd fallen for that one you'd have been prosecuted, it's a
>>standard check.
>
>I can understand why you say that, but I was asking for a more
>expensive ticket from further away and he seemed genuinely incapable
>of comprehending people don't all arrive on Stansted Express from
>London. Stansted Express also calls at Bishops Stortford, for
>professional fare dodgers.

And as I posted a few days ago, on Friday I arrived at Stansted on the
Express, having changed at Bishops Stortford, because at that time of
day they've mutilated the direct services from the north.

On the plane back now, and when I get connectivity again I'll have to
see if I need to go northbound via Bishops Stortford for similar
reasons.
--
Roland Perry

In message <aiukhihv16aoo1s1rcrlcdcgf48idi8q24@4ax.com>, at 09:19:29 on
Mon, 2 Oct 2023, Ken <ken@birchanger.com> remarked:
>On Sun, 1 Oct 2023 12:35:42 +0100, Roland Perry <roland@perry.uk>
>wrote:
>
>>In message <knt0kmFj0d3U2@mid.individual.net>, at 11:40:22 on Sun, 1 Oct
>>2023, Clive Page <usenet@page2.eu> remarked:
>>>On 01/10/2023 05:50, Roland Perry wrote:
>>
>>>> Incidentally, they don't have automatic barriers at Stansted, and
>>>>perform the ticket checking manually. When I was there Friday, it was
>>>>taking them ten minutes to clear the full-Stansted-Express scrum of
>>>>just-arrived pax off the platform and onto the escalators towards the
>>>>station. I suppose they were just getting everyone used to queue after
>>>>queue after queue one encounters at airports.
>>>
>>>My guess is that ticket barrier staff are worried about their jobs - if
>>>the barriers worked 100% of the time then most of them could be made
>>>redundant. This is why they sometimes set up the barriers to reject
>>>various classes of ticket, e.g. those bought with railcards, or
>>>off-peak tickets.
>>
>>I would be astonished if the minimum wage thugs manning the barriers had
>>any say at all in the way they are programmed.
>>
>>And remember, Stansted doesn't have any barriers (but almost all pax
>>will have boarded at a station with barriers). Deliberate decision, or
>>just another way to passive aggressively irritate passengers?
>>
>Of course it was a deliberate decision. Stations don't grow
>organically. But the idea that it was done to annoy passengers is
>stupid.

TOCs are installing new barriers somewhere almost every week. Why have
they flatly refused to do that at Stansted?

>What actually happened is there was a deliberate decision to allow
>passengers on Stansted Express to pay on board because that was seen
>as an appropriate way to treat the mainly business passengers the
>service was designed for. Every train had an onboard host (as well as
>a refreshment trolley) and they were happy to accept payment for
>journeys starting at Stansted, Liverpool Street or elsewhere.

That was the past, where they did things differently.

>This situation lasted for some time because it was still in place when
>the refurbished class 317/7 units were in use as docks for trolleys
>were built in. It went eventually due to general industry-wide moves
>to enforce the buying of tickets before travel, a change in the
>Stansted passenger demographic, privatisation and the fact that at
>least one pair of spouses working as hosts were keeping tickets they'd
>inspected on board and selling them on to other passengers.

Were they prosecuted? I heard that the staff shortage at Ely a few years
ago was because of a similar scam, and they got fired. But I never saw a
newspaper report of their day in court.
--
Roland Perry

In message <ufe9va$2u4qs$1@dont-email.me>, at 11:36:10 on Mon, 2 Oct
2023, Sam Wilson <ukr@dummy.wislons.fastmail.co.uk> remarked:
>Roland Perry <roland@perry.uk> wrote:
>> In message <ufcopq$2h0eg$1@dont-email.me>, at 21:36:58 on Sun, 1 Oct
>> 2023, Sam Wilson <ukr@dummy.wislons.fastmail.co.uk> remarked:
>>> Roland Perry <roland@perry.uk> wrote:
>>>> In message <knqc61F79m6U1@mid.individual.net>, at 11:38:56 on Sat, 30
>>>> Sep 2023, Clive Page <usenet@page2.eu> remarked:
>>>> [snip]
>>>>
>>>>> But: it appears that this is a failure of the machines to communicate
>>>>> with the server which holds details of pre-purchased tickets and it
>>>>> also appears GTR management does not have satisfactory information on
>>>>> this. Maybe they could prove that the ticket machine are working but
>>>>> only for some types of transaction. Not very satisfactory.
>>>>
>>>> I presume comms failure (which I have observed at other GTR stations) is
>>>> the very thing which prevents the ticket machine from sending a message
>>>> to GTR control that it's broken. Such a classic workflow failure I
>>>> suspect it deserves greater publicity.
>>>>
>>>> And as far as I can tell, GTR have no process in place to look at
>>>> transactions on their TVMs in real time, let alone daily, and wonder
>>>> "hmm, nothing sold by that usually busy TVM yesterday, I wonder if it's
>>>> broken". Similarly, it would be possible (if they had the inclination)
>>>> to look at collections from a TVM, and notice from the back office
>>>> systems, which control would still have comms with, that say starting at
>>>> 6am one day, it had issued no pre-purchased tickets, when you'd expect
>>>> it to have done dozens.
>>>
>>> Any competent protocol designer would include a watchdog/keepalive poll
>>> somewhere in the system so that TVMs that didn’t respond could be noted in
>>> a suitable way.
>>
>> Actually, we don't know that's missing, just that when I report a broken
>> TVM to GTR twitter account they are always surprised, give the
>> impression they don't believe me, and don't know which one I'm talking
>> about. And either they break down again soon after, or it takes days to
>> get fixed.
>
>Any competent operations manager would make sure their staff have access to
>the information about which TVMs are marked as up and which down.

Their staff perhaps (although I can see they don't). Other TOC's staff,
forget it.
--
Roland Perry

On Mon, 2 Oct 2023 15:42:39 -0000 (UTC), Muttley@dastardlyhq.com
wrote:

>On Mon, 02 Oct 2023 08:29:21 -0700
>Nobody <jock@soccer.com> wrote:
>>On Mon, 2 Oct 2023 11:49:00 -0000 (UTC), Anna Noyd-Dryver
>><anna@noyd-dryver.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>All that should be done before approaching the barrier, the actual
>>>transaction at the barrier takes no longer. What you describe is the
>>>equivalent of someone arriving at the barrier and then searching through
>>>their pockets/bag to find their ticket/oyster.
>>
>>Oh boy... watch people and observe how often that happens, and not
>>only Little Olde Ladies!
>
>Just as bad are the twats who have to pay with their phone with takes about
>5 times longer to work than a contactless card especially if they have to
>unlock the bloody thing first. I'm fairly sure they have bank cards so why TF
>don't they just use them instead?
>
Cue response that cards are only for goat-herders?
Discounted purchases in supermarkets can sometimes only be achieved by
using an app (e.g. ASDA) but otherwise not yet needed in other
supermarkets. For ticket barriers there is usually but not always
(depending on amount of available hands) the opportunity to get the
'phone ready on the approach run but that doesn't seem to occur to
many of them.

On 02/10/2023 19:18, Charles Ellson wrote:
> On Mon, 2 Oct 2023 15:42:39 -0000 (UTC), Muttley@dastardlyhq.com
> wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 02 Oct 2023 08:29:21 -0700
>> Nobody <jock@soccer.com> wrote:
>>> On Mon, 2 Oct 2023 11:49:00 -0000 (UTC), Anna Noyd-Dryver
>>> <anna@noyd-dryver.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> All that should be done before approaching the barrier, the actual
>>>> transaction at the barrier takes no longer. What you describe is the
>>>> equivalent of someone arriving at the barrier and then searching through
>>>> their pockets/bag to find their ticket/oyster.
>>>
>>> Oh boy... watch people and observe how often that happens, and not
>>> only Little Olde Ladies!
>>
>> Just as bad are the twats who have to pay with their phone with takes about
>> 5 times longer to work than a contactless card especially if they have to
>> unlock the bloody thing first. I'm fairly sure they have bank cards so why TF
>> don't they just use them instead?
>>
> Cue response that cards are only for goat-herders?
> Discounted purchases in supermarkets can sometimes only be achieved by
> using an app (e.g. ASDA) but otherwise not yet needed in other
> supermarkets. For ticket barriers there is usually but not always
> (depending on amount of available hands) the opportunity to get the
> 'phone ready on the approach run but that doesn't seem to occur to
> many of them.

I've not used one of these new-fangled phone tickets. If I prepare it
in advance, does it stay displayed, or was the app written by a cretin
who thinks it should time out unless interacted with every few seconds?

On 02/10/2023 19:22, Certes wrote:
> On 02/10/2023 19:18, Charles Ellson wrote:
>> On Mon, 2 Oct 2023 15:42:39 -0000 (UTC), Muttley@dastardlyhq.com
>> wrote:
>>
>>> On Mon, 02 Oct 2023 08:29:21 -0700
>>> Nobody <jock@soccer.com> wrote:
>>>> On Mon, 2 Oct 2023 11:49:00 -0000 (UTC), Anna Noyd-Dryver
>>>> <anna@noyd-dryver.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> All that should be done before approaching the barrier, the actual
>>>>> transaction at the barrier takes no longer. What you describe is the
>>>>> equivalent of someone arriving at the barrier and then searching
>>>>> through
>>>>> their pockets/bag to find their ticket/oyster.
>>>>
>>>> Oh boy... watch people and observe how often that happens, and not
>>>> only Little Olde Ladies!
>>>
>>> Just as bad are the twats who have to pay with their phone with takes
>>> about
>>> 5 times longer to work than a contactless card especially if they
>>> have to
>>> unlock the bloody thing first. I'm fairly sure they have bank cards
>>> so why TF
>>> don't they just use them instead?
>>>
>> Cue response that cards are only for goat-herders?
>> Discounted purchases in supermarkets can sometimes only be achieved by
>> using an app (e.g. ASDA) but otherwise not yet needed in other
>> supermarkets. For ticket barriers there is usually but not always
>> (depending on amount of available hands) the opportunity to get the
>> 'phone ready on the approach run but that doesn't seem to occur to
>> many of them.
>
> I've not used one of these new-fangled phone tickets.  If I prepare it
> in advance, does it stay displayed, or was the app written by a cretin
> who thinks it should time out unless interacted with every few seconds?

The first incarnation of the TfW app did exactly that and you needed
live data to re-display the ticket. EE had little or no mobile coverage
at the Cardiff Central railway station barriers at the time.

On Mon, 2 Oct 2023 19:22:20 +0100, Certes <Certes@example.org> wrote:

>On 02/10/2023 19:18, Charles Ellson wrote:
>> On Mon, 2 Oct 2023 15:42:39 -0000 (UTC), Muttley@dastardlyhq.com
>> wrote:
>>
>>> On Mon, 02 Oct 2023 08:29:21 -0700
>>> Nobody <jock@soccer.com> wrote:
>>>> On Mon, 2 Oct 2023 11:49:00 -0000 (UTC), Anna Noyd-Dryver
>>>> <anna@noyd-dryver.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> All that should be done before approaching the barrier, the actual
>>>>> transaction at the barrier takes no longer. What you describe is the
>>>>> equivalent of someone arriving at the barrier and then searching through
>>>>> their pockets/bag to find their ticket/oyster.
>>>>
>>>> Oh boy... watch people and observe how often that happens, and not
>>>> only Little Olde Ladies!
>>>
>>> Just as bad are the twats who have to pay with their phone with takes about
>>> 5 times longer to work than a contactless card especially if they have to
>>> unlock the bloody thing first. I'm fairly sure they have bank cards so why TF
>>> don't they just use them instead?
>>>
>> Cue response that cards are only for goat-herders?
>> Discounted purchases in supermarkets can sometimes only be achieved by
>> using an app (e.g. ASDA) but otherwise not yet needed in other
>> supermarkets. For ticket barriers there is usually but not always
>> (depending on amount of available hands) the opportunity to get the
>> 'phone ready on the approach run but that doesn't seem to occur to
>> many of them.
>
>I've not used one of these new-fangled phone tickets. If I prepare it
>in advance, does it stay displayed, or was the app written by a cretin
>who thinks it should time out unless interacted with every few seconds?
>
I have only used a WMT barcode some time ago. The local station didn't
have a reader so I had to shout into the ticket office to get the gate
opened but at the other end it was fairly immediate.

On Mon, 2 Oct 2023 10:41:15 +0100, Roland Perry <roland@perry.uk>
wrote:

>In message <aiukhihv16aoo1s1rcrlcdcgf48idi8q24@4ax.com>, at 09:19:29 on
>Mon, 2 Oct 2023, Ken <ken@birchanger.com> remarked:
>>On Sun, 1 Oct 2023 12:35:42 +0100, Roland Perry <roland@perry.uk>

>
>TOCs are installing new barriers somewhere almost every week. Why have
>they flatly refused to do that at Stansted?
>
I haven't seen anything that says they've refused. Have you? As to why
they haven't barriered it, maybe MAG don't want it? Maybe they think
that layout of the station is somehow wrong? In any case your
assertion that they've singled out Stansted for some reason as a place
to deliberately irritate passengers was and still is daft.

>>What actually happened is there was a deliberate decision to allow
>>passengers on Stansted Express to pay on board because that was seen
>>as an appropriate way to treat the mainly business passengers the
>>service was designed for. Every train had an onboard host (as well as
>>a refreshment trolley) and they were happy to accept payment for
>>journeys starting at Stansted, Liverpool Street or elsewhere.
>
>That was the past, where they did things differently.

I'm not qualified to talk about the future.

>>This situation lasted for some time because it was still in place when
>>the refurbished class 317/7 units were in use as docks for trolleys
>>were built in. It went eventually due to general industry-wide moves
>>to enforce the buying of tickets before travel, a change in the
>>Stansted passenger demographic, privatisation and the fact that at
>>least one pair of spouses working as hosts were keeping tickets they'd
>>inspected on board and selling them on to other passengers.
>
>Were they prosecuted? I heard that the staff shortage at Ely a few years
>ago was because of a similar scam, and they got fired. But I never saw a
>newspaper report of their day in court.

Yes, it made the local paper.

On Mon, 2 Oct 2023 19:22:20 +0100
Certes <Certes@example.org> wrote:
>On 02/10/2023 19:18, Charles Ellson wrote:
>> Cue response that cards are only for goat-herders?
>> Discounted purchases in supermarkets can sometimes only be achieved by
>> using an app (e.g. ASDA) but otherwise not yet needed in other
>> supermarkets. For ticket barriers there is usually but not always
>> (depending on amount of available hands) the opportunity to get the
>> 'phone ready on the approach run but that doesn't seem to occur to
>> many of them.
>
>I've not used one of these new-fangled phone tickets. If I prepare it
>in advance, does it stay displayed, or was the app written by a cretin
>who thinks it should time out unless interacted with every few seconds?

IME of how software development is done these days, the apps and web front end
are usually written by kids not long out of uni, the backend side is written by
the grown ups.

On 03/10/2023 09:27, Muttley@dastardlyhq.com wrote:
> On Mon, 2 Oct 2023 19:22:20 +0100
> Certes <Certes@example.org> wrote:
>> On 02/10/2023 19:18, Charles Ellson wrote:
>>> Cue response that cards are only for goat-herders?
>>> Discounted purchases in supermarkets can sometimes only be achieved by
>>> using an app (e.g. ASDA) but otherwise not yet needed in other
>>> supermarkets. For ticket barriers there is usually but not always
>>> (depending on amount of available hands) the opportunity to get the
>>> 'phone ready on the approach run but that doesn't seem to occur to
>>> many of them.
>>
>> I've not used one of these new-fangled phone tickets. If I prepare it
>> in advance, does it stay displayed, or was the app written by a cretin
>> who thinks it should time out unless interacted with every few seconds?
>
> IME of how software development is done these days, the apps and web front end
> are usually written by kids not long out of uni, the backend side is written by
> the grown ups.
>
Which summarises the problem nicely.

Their crummy front ends are the public face of their company.

In message <ufe5m1$2t2rq$1@dont-email.me>, at 11:22:55 on Mon, 2 Oct
2023, Certes <Certes@example.org> remarked:
>On 02/10/2023 08:01, Graeme Wall wrote:
>> On 02/10/2023 01:24, Charles Ellson wrote:
>>> On Sun, 1 Oct 2023 08:19:31 +0100, Graeme Wall
>>> <rail@greywall.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 01/10/2023 05:50, Roland Perry wrote:
>>>>> In message <knqc61F79m6U1@mid.individual.net>, at 11:38:56 on Sat, 30
>>>>> Sep 2023, Clive Page <usenet@page2.eu> remarked:
>>>>>> On 29/09/2023 17:48, Jack Harry Teesdale wrote:
>>>>>>> A Yorkshire rail passenger has ended up paying almost £500 for a
>>>>>>> 10-mile journey through Yorkshire after contesting Northern’s
>>>>>>> prosecution of him for fare evasion.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/crime/rail-fare-evaders-ps7-journe
>>>>>>> y-through-yorkshire-ends-up-costing-him-ps500-after-northern-take-him-t
>>>>>>> o-court-4353701
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I've nothing to say on this particular case,
>>>>>
>>>>> It's often the case in disputes like this that the person decides to
>>>>> stop throwing good money after bad in the face of the implacable
>>>>> bureaucracy, and falsely pleads guilty, just to get on with their life
>>>>> and in this case cost only £500 rather than £1000, if he had no
>>>>>means to
>>>>> *prove* the TVM was broken [take pictures, something a phone *is*
>>>>>useful
>>>>> for in the rail ticketing environment].
>>>>>
>>>>> I too have experienced broken TVMs at a Northern station in a
>>>>>compulsory
>>>>> ticket zone (Wakefield Westgate) but the conductor was happy to sell me
>>>>> a ticket on the train. As it happens she insisted the price was
>>>>>about 4x
>>>>> what I'd previously looked up, and refused to budge even when I showed
>>>>> her the relevant brfares.com page on my laptop. "My portable ticket
>>>>> machine says NO". So that's a mis-selling claim, which I again haven't
>>>>> yet had time to take up with the TOC.
>>>>>
>>>>>> but there is a claim in the Yorkshire Post article that management has
>>>>>> real-time data on whether ticket machines are working or not.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I've had several interactions recently with Govia-Thameslink and the
>>>>>> local station manager about that fact that ticket machines at Luton
>>>>>> often (3 times in 3 weeks for me) do not have the ability to disgorge
>>>>>> pre-paid tickets, even though people paying at the machine can buy
>>>>>> tickets.  The GTR response to this is that if it happens again I
>>>>>> should use cash (or maybe a card, would that work if the comms are
>>>>>> down?) to buy another ticket and then work out how to claim for one of
>>>>>> the duplicates.  This seems entirely unreasonable to me, but what can
>>>>>> one do?
>>>>>
>>>>> Drifting topic slightly, my wife and I met my daughter in London just
>>>>> over a week ago, and ran some errands. The plan was for my wife and I
>>>>> then to travel on see my friend who I heard yesterday has just been
>>>>> moved to the hospice in Guildford (see thread "I've lost my sense of
>>>>> humour now"). But my wife was tired and decided to go back home, and my
>>>>> daughter came with me instead.
>>>>>
>>>>> I had pre-purchased all the tickets, to avoid hassle at the station(s)
>>>>> en-route, having suffered a rash of broken ticket machines
>>>>>recently, and
>>>>> even missed one train because I took too long failing to get a TVM to
>>>>> issue me an off-peak ticket "too early" (there's an easement at that
>>>>> particular station which they seem not to have programmed in, but I'm
>>>>> still looking into that).
>>>>>
>>>>> Anyway, I have a Senior Railcard, my wife a Disabled one, and my
>>>>> daughter a Young Persons. So we had the "wrong kind of ticket" for my
>>>>> companion on that Waterloo-Guildford leg. Imagine my surprise when I
>>>>> went to the GWR ticket office at Waterloo that they refused to change
>>>>> the ticket (in effect refund one and use the exact same funds to buy a
>>>>> new ticket) on the grounds that I'd bought the original from
>>>>>not-GWR and
>>>>> would have to travel back to GTR-land to make such an exchange.
>>>>>
>>>>> So there was a choice to busk it and see if we were stopped, or buy a
>>>>> new YP ticket and later attempt to get a refund for the Disabled one.
>>>>> Because life is already complicated enough at the moment, I went
>>>>>for the
>>>>> latter, and I still haven't had time to approach GTR about the refund,
>>>>> not least because the nearest manned GTR station is an hour's
>>>>>drive away
>>>>> from home.
>>>>>
>>>>>> But: it appears that this is a failure of the machines to communicate
>>>>>> with the server which holds details of pre-purchased tickets and it
>>>>>> also appears GTR management does not have satisfactory information on
>>>>>> this.  Maybe they could prove that the ticket machine are working but
>>>>>> only for some types of transaction.  Not very satisfactory.
>>>>>
>>>>> I presume comms failure (which I have observed at other GTR
>>>>>stations) is
>>>>> the very thing which prevents the ticket machine from sending a message
>>>>> to GTR control that it's broken. Such a classic workflow failure I
>>>>> suspect it deserves greater publicity.
>>>>>
>>>>> And as far as I can tell, GTR have no process in place to look at
>>>>> transactions on their TVMs in real time, let alone daily, and wonder
>>>>> "hmm, nothing sold by that usually busy TVM yesterday, I wonder if it's
>>>>> broken". Similarly, it would be possible (if they had the inclination)
>>>>> to look at collections from a TVM, and notice from the back office
>>>>> systems, which control would still have comms with, that say
>>>>>starting at
>>>>> 6am one day, it had issued no pre-purchased tickets, when you'd expect
>>>>> it to have done dozens.
>>>>>
>>>>> In any event, sometimes you get a different kind of multi-TOC failure.
>>>>>
>>>>> When I arrived at Stansted airport a couple of weeks ago without a
>>>>> ticket because the GTR machine at the station I started from was broken
>>>>> (which GTR didn't know at the time, but even if they did, they
>>>>>would not
>>>>> have broadcast that to GA staff), The GA staff at Stansted were
>>>>> initially refusing to sell me a ticket (rather than charge a penalty
>>>>> fare) despite me approaching them first and asking to buy a ticket. It
>>>>> was only when I said I'd call the police to stop them harassing
>>>>>me, they
>>>>> relented.
>>>>>
>>>>> Incidentally, they don't have automatic barriers at Stansted, and
>>>>> perform the ticket checking manually. When I was there Friday, it was
>>>>> taking them ten minutes to clear the full-Stansted-Express scrum of
>>>>> just-arrived pax off the platform and onto the escalators towards the
>>>>> station. I suppose they were just getting everyone used to queue after
>>>>> queue after queue one encounters at airports.
>>>>>
>>>>>   From observing the process, it was clearly taking them on
>>>>>average three
>>>>> times as long to scrutinise each ticket presented to them on a phone,
>>>>> than on a bit of card. So *much* more convenient to have tickets on
>>>>> phones, they keep insisting.
>
>It is much more convenient. The seller doesn't have to keep reloading a
>machine with cardboard and taking away the money.

In message <kvgnhipg5snbbgli24a9hfoc95pv4u5tu3@4ax.com>, at 08:42:47 on
Tue, 3 Oct 2023, Ken <ken@birchanger.com> remarked:
>On Mon, 2 Oct 2023 10:41:15 +0100, Roland Perry <roland@perry.uk>
>wrote:
>
>>In message <aiukhihv16aoo1s1rcrlcdcgf48idi8q24@4ax.com>, at 09:19:29 on
>>Mon, 2 Oct 2023, Ken <ken@birchanger.com> remarked:
>>>On Sun, 1 Oct 2023 12:35:42 +0100, Roland Perry <roland@perry.uk>
>
>>TOCs are installing new barriers somewhere almost every week. Why have
>>they flatly refused to do that at Stansted?
>>
>I haven't seen anything that says they've refused. Have you? As to why
>they haven't barriered it, maybe MAG don't want it? Maybe they think
>that layout of the station is somehow wrong? In any case your
>assertion that they've singled out Stansted for some reason as a place
>to deliberately irritate passengers was and still is daft.
>
>>>What actually happened is there was a deliberate decision to allow
>>>passengers on Stansted Express to pay on board because that was seen
>>>as an appropriate way to treat the mainly business passengers the
>>>service was designed for. Every train had an onboard host (as well as
>>>a refreshment trolley) and they were happy to accept payment for
>>>journeys starting at Stansted, Liverpool Street or elsewhere.
>>
>>That was the past, where they did things differently.
>
>I'm not qualified to talk about the future.

As a product designer, many of whose things are still going strong 40yrs
later, I'm not such a shrinking violet. But in any event I'm not talking
about predicting the future, just adapting to change. For example some
of the computers I designed 40yrs ago are now loaded with games by
recently developed flash-memory cards (holding dozens of them), rather
than cassette tape.

Anyway, coming back through Stansted yesterday I talked to one set of
staff about the strikes and they claimed they hadn't had any pay rise
since 2019, which I was a bit surprised to hear. Then having bought my
paper ticket using Android-pay at a TVM, I asked the guy manually
checking outbound tickets which train should be catching. He asked where
I was travelling to, and I replied "it's printed on that ticket in your
hand" (in case there should be the sort of confusion about it like when
I arrived). He said he'd never heard of it, and asked a colleague. Well,
I suppose it's in the next county, and you can't expect railway staff to
memorise more than a handful of station names.

They decided I should catch the train which was co-incidentally about
20ft away. Which unceremoniously departed when I was still 10ft away.

So rinse and repeat with the ticket checker!

<Thread convergence> So I got the next train in that direction, which
was an XC, and I asked the gripper whether they'd be stopping at
Cambridge North in the future, and he said "No, it's been vetoed by GA
and GN" - 2tph and 1tph [pre-pandemic 2tph] respectively. So much for
the idea it's the DfT which is the Fat Controller telling TOCs what to
do, and where to stop their trains.

<More thread convergence> The XC had a trolley service, the first I've
seen this year. And the wifi was working. But there are no power
sockets.

>>>This situation lasted for some time because it was still in place when
>>>the refurbished class 317/7 units were in use as docks for trolleys
>>>were built in. It went eventually due to general industry-wide moves
>>>to enforce the buying of tickets before travel, a change in the
>>>Stansted passenger demographic, privatisation and the fact that at
>>>least one pair of spouses working as hosts were keeping tickets they'd
>>>inspected on board and selling them on to other passengers.
>>
>>Were they prosecuted? I heard that the staff shortage at Ely a few years
>>ago was because of a similar scam, and they got fired. But I never saw a
>>newspaper report of their day in court.
>
>Yes, it made the local paper.

That's the Stansted staff, not the Ely staff, presumably.
--
Roland Perry

In message <fs1mhi9v6nhruifnk70hd7thsh7jqpv4o8@4ax.com>, at 19:18:49 on
Mon, 2 Oct 2023, Charles Ellson <charlesellson@btinternet.com> remarked:

>For ticket barriers there is usually but not always (depending on
>amount of available hands) the opportunity to get the 'phone ready on
>the approach run but that doesn't seem to occur to many of them.

Not just ticket barriers, the manual checks at Stansted require someone
with several kitchen sinks in their baggage to put most of it down and
retrieve their phone from their jacket pocket.
--
Roland Perry

In message <ufeogd$30lev$1@dont-email.me>, at 16:44:13 on Mon, 2 Oct
2023, Graeme Wall <rail@greywall.demon.co.uk> remarked:
>On 02/10/2023 09:23, Roland Perry wrote:
>> In message <ufdq0h$2qs82$2@dont-email.me>, at 08:03:45 on Mon, 2 Oct
>>2023, Graeme Wall <rail@greywall.demon.co.uk> remarked:
>>> On 02/10/2023 05:32, Roland Perry wrote:
>>>> In message <Q5xzUf4bqPGlFAez@perry.uk>, at 05:50:35 on Sun, 1 Oct
>>>>2023,  Roland Perry <roland@perry.uk> remarked:

>>>>> When I arrived at Stansted airport a couple of weeks ago without a
>>>>>ticket because the GTR machine at the station I started from was
>>>>>broken (which GTR didn't know at the time, but even if they did,
>>>>>they would not have broadcast that to GA staff), The GA staff at
>>>>>Stansted were initially refusing to sell me a ticket (rather than
>>>>>charge a penalty fare) despite me approaching them first and asking
>>>>>to buy a ticket. It was only when I said I'd call the police to
>>>>>stop them harassing me, they relented.

>>>>  I've now remembered what the problem was. I had got off a train
>>>>from the  north which had arrived just after a Stansted Express.
>>>>When I asked to  buy a ticket they asked why I had I hadn't bought
>>>>one before travelling.

>>>>  I said it was because the ticket machine was broken, and they
>>>>robustly  challenged the suggestion saying there were dozens of
>>>>ticket machines at  Liverpool St and they couldn't possibly have all
>>>>been broken.

>>>>  I explained *again* where I'd travelled from, towards the north.
>>>>Their  response was "lala, I can't hear you".

>>>>  No idea how they thought I'd got on at barriered LST without a ticket.
>>>>  When they eventually agreed to sell me a ticket he asked, as if to
>>>>check, "So that's a single from LST?" AAAArgh!
>>>
>>> If you'd fallen for that one you'd have been prosecuted, it's a
>>>standard check.

>> I can understand why you say that, but I was asking for a more
>> expensive ticket from further away and he seemed genuinely incapable
>> of comprehending people don't all arrive on Stansted Express from
>>London. Stansted Express also calls at Bishops Stortford, for
>>professional fare dodgers.
>
>If you'd agreed to buy the cheaper ticket, you would have been
>prosecuted for trying to evade the more expensive fare.

As I had repeatedly expressed my frustration at their refusal to sell me
the more expensive ticket, that was never going to happen.

(Plus in some parallel universe, they had no evidence where I'd boarded,
which I could have claimed to have been somewhere like Shelford.)
--
Roland Perry