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Paper tickets vs E-tickets

Which is best ticketing style (in opinion)?

  • Credit card style paper tickets

  • E-tickets

  • Smartcard

  • Bar code paper tickets


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Haywain

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3 Feb 2013
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I did have an e ticket and had the pdf and that wouldn't scan either. I think you missed my point which was the guard would have no doubt accused me of having a fake ticket through no fault of my own had I not shown it in the app.
It could have been the scanner at fault rather than the barcode.
 

mikeg

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It could have been the scanner at fault rather than the barcode.
Think it was. I made a thread on it at the time. Someone who I believe works for LNER on the forum scanned it and it was fine.

The error message was 'This is not a valid ticket. Decryption failed.'. Luckily the guard wasn't too desperate but he probably only passed it as he'd seen it displayed in the app. At first he did seem to think it was fake when I showed him the .pdf on my phone, which was always my preferred way of showing it before I started using the LNER app with its Google integration. It was displaying it in the app that convinced him otherwise.

So yes a downside is you could be in trouble for what is in essence the railways fault
 

Haywain

Veteran Member
Joined
3 Feb 2013
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Think it was. I made a thread on it at the time. Someone who I believe works for LNER on the forum scanned it and it was fine.

The error message was 'This is not a valid ticket. Decryption failed.'. Luckily the guard wasn't too desperate but he probably only passed it as he'd seen it displayed in the app. At first he did seem to think it was fake when I showed him the .pdf on my phone, which was always my preferred way of showing it before I started using the LNER app with its Google integration. It was displaying it in the app that convinced him otherwise.

So yes a downside is you could be in trouble for what is in essence the railways fault
I’m not sure why you think you’d be in trouble. The barrier failed to read the valid ticket. The guard, by the sound of it, didn’t have a scanner so had no means of confirming any doubts he might have had about the ticket and had no choice but to accept it.
 

gaillark

Member
Joined
27 Jan 2013
Messages
212
Always prefer paper ticket.
No hassle in breaking journeys, no penalty charges in forgetting to tap in/out, less grief when things go wrong such as times of disruption and like above potential conflict with staff. Paper ticket no brainer.
 

mikeg

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20 Apr 2010
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1,743
Location
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The guard did have a scanner! It said it wasn't a valid ticket as the decryption had failed...
 

317 forever

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21 Aug 2010
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2,544
Location
North West
Without having seen an e-ticket yet, I hope it can be contained into 1 page, even including the bar code. At the risk of exaggerating, we should not have to worry about printing off reams of paper.
 

jfollows

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26 Feb 2011
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5,755
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Wilmslow
Without having seen an e-ticket yet, I hope it can be contained into 1 page, even including the bar code. At the risk of exaggerating, we should not have to worry about printing off reams of paper.
It's a bar code, or rather an Aztec code, nothing else. The text that might go with it is incidental to its primary function.
I've used an Apple Watch to display it. That's about 1 inch by 1 inch.
 
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