Mobile ticketing Apps

[Rob R]

I try to live in the 20th century, and although I prefer to buy a paper ticket from a live person at my local station, I realise this isn't always possible.

I have become seriously fed up of being treated as a fare dodger by default by the revenue protection officers at Manchester Piccadilly on platform 1 and 2 especially.

I get the train in from Guide Bridge, plan a is normally buy an Off Peak Return and just travel in.

However, on a few occasions the ticket office was shut, nobody was on the train selling tickets, and when I got to Piccadilly I was singled out by a belligerent guy to prove why I hadn't bought a ticket. He phoned the station office, and when there was no answer reluctantly let me buy a ticket.

Ever since, I have taken a picture of the station whenever it is closing.

That usually works, and I can get a ticket on the train. However the other day the ticket man said he was just closing up, so I jumped on the train. The guard saw me jump on the train, went an looked at the ticket office, said I should have bought a ticket, wouldn't believe me that the office was shut as the curtain wasn't down, and charged me "full price" for not buying a ticket in the station.

I furiously tweeted Northern who said the best thing would be to download their app so I could avoid future hassle and harassment by by the gestapo, erm I mean revenue protection officers. I had tried the app before, but with there being no registration option, only a login page, I found it to be useless.

So today the ticket office was shut again. I took a picture which led to people asking me what I was doing (not regular travellers so I explained about the dangers of the ticket police at the other end). The train wasn't in so I loaded the Northern App up, dialled in my journey. An the only ticket option provided was "Collect tickets from machine at a station". This has happened before. It seems whenever I want to actually travel and get a mobile ticket, they magically become unavailable.

No ticket person was on the train, end result I went to ask the guy checking tickets why the app wouldn't let me buy a mobile ticket, he said he had no idea and sent me to the back of a long queue.

To add insult to injury, he then started selling tickets to the next people who approached him, and I was late for work and extremely stressed.

So why do these apps only choose to provide the option of mobile tickets at certain times and not others? They just never seem available when the ticket office is closed and I need to desperately buy a ticket to avoid being harassed and persecuted.

I use the MyGetMeThere app to buy my Metrolink tickets and have never had a problem with it, so clearly the technology can work.

In all, I am seriously fed up of being treated disgracefully by the revenue protection officers and you'd think in this day and age there would be some means of purchasing a ticket on or offline instead of having to answer 20 questions and collect photographic evidence on each journey to prove one is not a fare dodger?!

 

[fredk]

I understand your frustration and think it is simply because the UK TOCs such as Northern simply do not have enough incentive to provide a good experience. The various ticket laws and methods TOCs use to ensure they are paid are based on 19th century principles. Combine that with a mishmash of different operators and technology advancing at a rapid rate, it is no surprise that passengers are having to experience such poor services. Although I understand it, I do not believe it is acceptable for passengers to have these negative experiences.

The "solution" would be to try and purchase earlier or (sad to say) use a different form of transport.

 

[johntea]

I used the Northern ticket app the other day and had no problems, maybe as mentioned try booking through it earlier and if the option doesn't come up you could maybe take a screenshot of the screen and tweet it to Northern

Although looking at the app it feels like it may just be branded by Northern and the back end is actually provided by whoever programs the Trainline app anyway

Not sure on this but you may also be able to purchase several tickets in advance and have them saved on your phone if you know what dates you're going to be using them

 

[Rob R]

Thanks for the replies.

I'm wary of buying tickets in advance, as the other week I got to the station office and bought a ticket, then went to the platform - and all the services had cancelled on them. Fortunately the ticket man apologised, had forgotten there was a signal failure on the line, and instantly refunded me and I went to get the bus.

Would the app let me get a refund in such a circumstances?

Some days I do get the bus but at this time of year the roads in and out of Manchester are clogged and it's standing room only on buses half the time (with presents taking up half the seats!)

If the buses weren't so vulnerable to the flow of traffic I would choose them every time over the experiences I've been having.

Funnily enough I did try the trainline app as well, and it wouldn't offer me a mobile ticket either, when I have purchased loads of mobile tickets for other journeys with it. I even tried putting the time 2 hours ahead and it wouldn't offer a mobile ticket.

Yet for the MyGetMeThere app I basically press purchase as I am walking onto the tram sometimes. It did cross my mind that some people might try having it ready and press purchase only if they see the inspectors getting on the trams, but I am an honest person and that's why getting singled out over and over again is something I find really offensive.

Ironically I have travelled much longer journeys without having my ticket checked a single time in recent weeks!

 

[rebmcr]

I even tried putting the time 2 hours ahead and it wouldn't offer a mobile ticket.

Well there goes my suggestion.

Maybe try to get the name of any particularly unpleasant RPO and let Northern decide whether their behaviour, balanced against silly ticket office hours, is worth the negative PR?

 

[mattdickinson]

Masabi publish a map of mTicket availability

 

[Rob R]

Interesting, today I tried both trainline and northern apps before I left the house.

Trainline would only let me pick up my tickets (for same day journey from Guide Bridge to Man Pic) from a ticket machine.

While the Northern App actually let me purchase an e-ticket on this occasion.

I have no idea what the difference is/was. Sometimes my travel plans can change as I might get an appointment cancelled and need to go somewhere else, so don't want to purchase train tickets until I am sure I definitely need the train ride (as in this case).

I notice I didn't receive an email receipt, so screenshotted the ticket into my album so I can collate them all when I come to do my tax return (am self employed so having some kind of printable/paper evidence is essential for my tax returns).

I wonder if the app sees you are at the station and then restricts purchase of the ticket? Maybe if my compass is slightly out it thinks I am already on the train and so won't sell me a ticket?

I shall continue this experiment I suppose!

And in future I shall have my phone ready for any belligerent behaviour and be writing to TFGM and Northern for fuller explanations of what is going on, s when I tweet I usually just get an apology but no real explanation.

It might sometimes be helpful to change the ratio of ticket checkers to ticket sellers - sometimes there are a dozen people checking tickets and 1 person with a ticket machine, surely if the idea is to increase revenue, more people selling tickets would help!

 

[mrbluelips]

I wonder if the app sees you are at the station and then restricts purchase of the ticket? Maybe if my compass is slightly out it thinks I am already on the train and so won't sell me a ticket?

From what I understand, the tickets sold on the Northern app are time restricted. So you can only purchase tickets in advance of a train departing (I think 30 minutes).

I believe this is to deter people from trying to purchase a ticket only if they see the guard approaching. This is something that happens on Metrolink all the time.

On Northern e-tickets the time and date scroll on the screen to prevent people from showing a screen-shot image of the ticket.

 

[Rob R]

Seems slightly potty in that case - I get to the station ready to buy a paper ticket, the ticket office is shut, the train is due in 10 minutes, but I can't use the app to buy a ticket, and so again have to run the gauntlet and hope that a) the ticket man on the train doesn't think I'm a liar and b) I get a reasonable member of the gestapo at the gates at Piccadilly who also doesn't think I'm a liar.

I think I'll go back to using the bus and metro from January. I have so many MyGetmeThere tickets on my phone, which I think have been checked once out of 40 journeys, so it's no surprise people try that game.

I envision a future where your tickets are tagged into your DNA, and if you try to board with an outdated profile you are instantly vaporised by the onboard security computer...

 

[Bletchleyite]

I believe this is to deter people from trying to purchase a ticket only if they see the guard approaching. This is something that happens on Metrolink all the time.

That's ludicrous - wouldn't it make more sense to do something like SBB and have a rule that the ticket must be purchased and activated before the scheduled departure of the train from the ticketed origin? That's easy enough to check.

 

[jon0844]

On Northern e-tickets the time and date scroll on the screen to prevent people from showing a screen-shot image of the ticket.

Like my bus ticketing app, which adjusts the barcode every few seconds (which contains the time/date in the encoding). If it's outside of a certain window on the bus ticket machine, it's rejected.

I know, as I had a bus ticket rejected because the bus ticket machine was ten minutes out! Driver, fortunately, read the screen and let me travel but could so easily have told me to bugger off.

 

[hairyhandedfool]

That's ludicrous - wouldn't it make more sense to do something like SBB and have a rule that the ticket must be purchased and activated before the scheduled departure of the train from the ticketed origin? That's easy enough to check.

If you also had a law that allowed train crew to manhandle passengers off the train (at speed if necessary) if they don't adhere to the rules, then it might work.

 

[Rob R]

Well yesterday the Northern app actually worked as expected. I was supposed to be getting a bus into Stockport but the roads were at a standstill both ways, so I went on the app and purchased a ticket, and yes I did have to pick a train time that was half an hour ahead (this time picking a later time worked)

Ridiculous. It shows what time the ticket was activated on the app, so as long as I activate an e-ticket before the scheduled time of the train I am getting on, and that is checkable, why do they have this stupid rule of not being able to buy an e-ticket less than 30 minutes before?

And nobody at Northern could actually explain why I couldn't buy an e-ticket on the occasions I couldn't - perhaps I can now educate them on their own app as their staff had absolutely no idea about this 30 minute rule!

I will have to see what happens if I select a later train next time the ticket office is shut - that is the scenario where I want to be able to buy an e-ticket if I am choosing to use the train at the last minute.

It is laughable when it tells me Guide Bridge doesn't have a ticket machine so I will have to collect my tickets from an alternative station.

TFGM have been doing a consultation on what transport should be like in 2040, I think I'll be sending them and Northern some feedback on what it should be like in 2017 :roll:

 

[johntea]

Yes I came across this issue yesterday, I bought an off peak day return but had to select a later train service for it to allow me to purchase the ticket, they could do with sorting that out

 

[kevconnor]

I am sure this has been well answered in ticketing section but can't readily find the answer but how does it currently work on routes with more than one TOC and mticketing? I can in theory buy an anytime single from Manchester to stoke, Liverpool or Sheffield on the Northern App. For each route there are 3 TOCs who ply their trade but if purchased on Northern App am I limited to using only Northern?

 

[brompton rail]

I am sure this has been well answered in ticketing section but can't readily find the answer but how does it currently work on routes with more than one TOC and mticketing? I can in theory buy an anytime single from Manchester to stoke, Liverpool or Sheffield on the Northern App. For each route there are 3 TOCs who ply their trade but if purchased on Northern App am I limited to using only Northern?

Unless all trains between your two chosen stations are operated by Northern ( like Kirk Sandal (KKS) to Doncaster (DON) as my local example) the Northern App will not offer an e-ticket. It will tell you ticket must be collected from a machine - difficult at KKS as it ain't got a machine!