Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Reversing UK mobile rail tickets

eta.st

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 236 posts

Re: Reversing UK mobile rail tickets

#11

Post by IanCal »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #2

Nobody who cheers "mobile tickets" has ever watched a guard or ticket inspector do their job. In the UK, a guard with good eyesight and a sprightly, cheerful manner can almost run through the carriages shouting "tickets please!" and see, with a single glance, all s/he needs. Then she gets to the muppets with phones. They faff, fumble and fuss. They scowl at being interrupted watching videos, browsing social media and…

Have you ever actually been on a train in the UK? Ticket inspectors will go on to do anyone that's ready and come back - they're not bemused by someone without their ticket ready. And people constantly also fumble for their tickets then present an old ticket, then the return instead of the outgoing one, then the seat reservation not the ticket etc.

My local station doesn't sell tickets. It has no office. I can buy an advance then drive miles to a totally different station to print them out or just buy it on my phone even on the way to the station and be done with it. I guarantee you buying from the ticket inspector is slower than showing them my phone.

Re: Reversing UK mobile rail tickets

#12

Post by Symbiote »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #2

Nobody who cheers "mobile tickets" has ever watched a guard or ticket inspector do their job. In the UK, a guard with good eyesight and a sprightly, cheerful manner can almost run through the carriages shouting "tickets please!" and see, with a single glance, all s/he needs. Then she gets to the muppets with phones. They faff, fumble and fuss. They scowl at being interrupted watching videos, browsing social media and…

That ticket inspector can also turn a blind eye to invalid tickets (apply their own discretion/favours/whatever), while they'll probably need to follow the official policy with an app-based ticket scan.

From the article, it seems unlikely that a data connection is required to validate a ticket, except to prevent the same ticket being shown twice to different inspectors within a short timeframe.

Re: Reversing UK mobile rail tickets

#14

Post by OJFord »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #2

Nobody who cheers "mobile tickets" has ever watched a guard or ticket inspector do their job. In the UK, a guard with good eyesight and a sprightly, cheerful manner can almost run through the carriages shouting "tickets please!" and see, with a single glance, all s/he needs. Then she gets to the muppets with phones. They faff, fumble and fuss. They scowl at being interrupted watching videos, browsing social media and…

Weird, that's not my experience at all.

I have my digital ticket ready when the guard's behind me, interrupting my video/HNing far longer than is necessary to do so, and everyone else is asking for 'X from please', cursing that this train actually had someone to call 'tickets please', as I feel like a mug for actually paying in advance every time.

Re: Reversing UK mobile rail tickets

#15

Post by scrollaway »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #8
scrollaway wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kids these days, how dare they use technology, am I right, fellow luddite on the internet? People lose paper tickets. People throw them on the ground. Stations are littered with them. Oh, and people do spend ages looking through their pockets, bags, coats and other places for where their paper ticket is at. You're just being contrarian because you're on a tech website, tbh.

> littered with them. I don't see that. The ticket barriers are programmed to retain used tickets. And please lay-off the "contrarian" slurs, I'm just telling you what I see with my eyes each day. If you looked up from your phone you might notice too :)

Ticket barriers that swallow tickets are not universal. In many cities tickets are reusable over a long period of time and contactless.

I see downvoters are happy to downvote facts, good going HN tonight.

Re: Reversing UK mobile rail tickets

#16

Post by OJFord »

Symbiote wrote: post #12
nonrandomstring wrote: post #2

Nobody who cheers "mobile tickets" has ever watched a guard or ticket inspector do their job. In the UK, a guard with good eyesight and a sprightly, cheerful manner can almost run through the carriages shouting "tickets please!" and see, with a single glance, all s/he needs. Then she gets to the muppets with phones. They faff, fumble and fuss. They scowl at being interrupted watching videos, browsing social media and…

That ticket inspector can also turn a blind eye to invalid tickets (apply their own discretion/favours/whatever), while they'll probably need to follow the official policy with an app-based ticket scan. From the article, it seems unlikely that a data connection is required to validate a ticket, except to prevent the same ticket being shown twice to different inspectors within a short timeframe.

They definitely need a data connection for a ticket sale, (but they'll go ahead and come back or whatever) I'm not sure about validating digital advance sales.

Re: Reversing UK mobile rail tickets

#17

Post by Symbiote »

scrollaway wrote: post #15
nonrandomstring wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> littered with them. I don't see that. The ticket barriers are programmed to retain used tickets. And please lay-off the "contrarian" slurs, I'm just telling you what I see with my eyes each day. If you looked up from your phone you might notice too :)

Ticket barriers that swallow tickets are not universal. In many cities tickets are reusable over a long period of time and contactless. I see downvoters are happy to downvote facts, good going HN tonight.

Those aren't the tickets that would be littering the ground.

Re: Reversing UK mobile rail tickets

#18

Post by madeofpalk »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #2

Nobody who cheers "mobile tickets" has ever watched a guard or ticket inspector do their job. In the UK, a guard with good eyesight and a sprightly, cheerful manner can almost run through the carriages shouting "tickets please!" and see, with a single glance, all s/he needs. Then she gets to the muppets with phones. They faff, fumble and fuss. They scowl at being interrupted watching videos, browsing social media and…

> Paper tickets rule.

Paper tickets suck. It's already a pain having to navigation the station to find your platform, and then add onto it trying to find a ticket machine. Make sure you get the right ticket machine because multiple train companies operate from this station!

And then you have to hold on to it for the duration of your journey and not lose it, otherwise you'll face the fine.

Re: Reversing UK mobile rail tickets

#19

Post by AmericanChopper »

switch007 wrote: post #6

> Nowadays, the industry would very much like you to ditch your paper ticket in favour of a fancy mobile barcode one (or an ITSO smartcard2); not only do they not have to spend money on printing tickets but they also gain the ability to more precisely track the ticket’s usage across the network and minimise fraud. And unsurprisingly only a subset of tickets are available on the apps. Therefore the government gets its…

I don’t know if they do this in the UK, but using apps also gives the government the ability to profit from breakage the same way gift card programs do. The last time I had a public transport app I had to maintain a balance that could expire. The place that implemented this system also prohibited all other forms of payment as a Covid measure, and for some reason hasn’t reverted that policy yet.

Re: Reversing UK mobile rail tickets

#20

Post by Symbiote »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #19
switch007 wrote: post #6

> Nowadays, the industry would very much like you to ditch your paper ticket in favour of a fancy mobile barcode one (or an ITSO smartcard2); not only do they not have to spend money on printing tickets but they also gain the ability to more precisely track the ticket’s usage across the network and minimise fraud. And unsurprisingly only a subset of tickets are available on the apps. Therefore the government gets its…

I don’t know if they do this in the UK, but using apps also gives the government the ability to profit from breakage the same way gift card programs do. The last time I had a public transport app I had to maintain a balance that could expire. The place that implemented this system also prohibited all other forms of payment as a Covid measure, and for some reason hasn’t reverted that policy yet.

In London you can use a normal contactless debit or credit card or NFC payment on a phone for public transport. This is great for Londoners, and even better for visitors who don't need to figure out what they need to buy or how to top up a card.

I don't belive the ticket apps being discussed keep a balance, but I haven't used them myself.

Post reply on HN