[HN Gopher] TfL's simple pop-up message led to a significant dro...
___________________________________________________________________
TfL's simple pop-up message led to a significant drop in paper
ticket sales
Author : zeristor
Score : 185 points
Date : 2024-04-28 09:59 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ianvisits.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ianvisits.co.uk)
| perch56 wrote:
| This effective solution has been in use for a number of years now
| in cities throughout Czechia, Poland, Romania, Estonia and
| probably many others around Europe. I wish we could see a faster
| uptake of this approach in Ireland.
| felsokning wrote:
| Agreed. We need the contactless payment scheme.
|
| For what its worth, you can use Leap for Bus Eireann and other
| services[1].
|
| I think Irish Rail (excluding the Free Travel Scheme[2]) is the
| hold-out, in rural areas, as Bus Eireann and Irish Rail are the
| only services available in those areas.
|
| While not the contactless payment scheme inferred from the
| article, it would still be a viable alternative to paper
| tickets.
|
| [1] - https://www.transportforireland.ie/fares/leap-card/
|
| [2] - https://www.gov.ie/en/service/9bba61-free-travel-scheme/
|
| Edit: formatting
| CalRobert wrote:
| Where would you tap? I used to live near Clara train station
| in Offaly and there I just... walked on the train. I suppose
| they could add readers, of course.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| I thought they'd added the gates to all the stations?
| Certainly I see them a lot, even though they're generally
| open in more rural areas.
| cianmm wrote:
| In Farrenfore you just get on the train. It's a toss up
| on whether anybody will check your ticket on your journey
| to Dublin.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| Huh, wow. Like you can just walk on at Mallow, but they
| do have the gates if you need to tap.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Mallow is in the Cork commuter zone; you can use a leap
| card there. The issue is more around stations where you
| currently can't use a leap card at all.
| seabass-labrax wrote:
| Such contactless readers are the norm in the Netherlands.
| There are no ticket gates; it is still an honesty system,
| but one is expected to tap on before you board the train.
| They are sensibly located near the station entrance, so you
| also don't need to make a detour to find them.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Just readers on poles; smaller potentially unattended
| Dublin and Cork commuter zone stations have them. Same
| thing as used at Luas stops.
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| I've been using contactless for the majority of UK train and
| tube travel for many years now. Phone is most convenient, but
| adds a significant stress factor!
| drexlspivey wrote:
| You can also setup "Express mode" in Apple Pay that works
| with TFL. You don't have to unlock your phone/watch or press
| anything you just scan it and it works (like a physical card)
|
| https://www.apple.com/uk/apple-pay/transport/
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| It works when the phone is out of battery? This is the use
| case that makes it difficult for me (for the record, I
| don't have an Apple phone either)
| drexlspivey wrote:
| Yes it does, it says so in the link
| tialaramex wrote:
| No, it will work on power reserve, but it won't
| (logistically can't) work when you have literally run
| out.
|
| This ought to be incredibly rare, but if you actually do
| literally run out of battery (not just it gets to the
| last few percent) then this technology doesn't work,
| whereas your bank cards do.
| mjlee wrote:
| To clarify, power reserve works when your phone has run
| out of power to the point where it has shut itself off.
| taylortbb wrote:
| > it won't (logistically can't) work when you have
| literally run out.
|
| While I believe you're correct for the iPhone, that it
| won't work, it's actually not as impossible as you
| suggest. The NFC-capable BlackBerrys that supported the
| very early tap-to-pay with a phone had the concept of a
| default card, which could be programmed onto the secure
| element and would work even if the phone was totally dead
| (even if the battery was removed). The NFC field was
| enough power to boot up the secure element, just like
| it's enough power to run the chip in your bank card when
| you tap it.
|
| Later phones dropped this support, as it took a bunch of
| engineering effort and customers largely didn't care. But
| if customers ever start demanding it, so they can totally
| stop carrying a bank/credit card, it is possible.
| tialaramex wrote:
| I suspect that the tiny amount of power you can vampire
| to make NFC work (which is why your contactless bank
| cards work as you explained) isn't enough for even the
| basic features we now expect from a smart phone as
| payment device.
|
| So you'd have to message this very carefully, on top of
| the engineering effort, and my guess is that in reality
| "Reserve power" is always enough. If your phone "died"
| (screen turned off for lack of power) at the party, you
| have _several hours_ after that when it can still do
| enough NFC to get on the bus home.
|
| A lot of my friends get anxious at like 10%. Sure, at
| that point you should probably stop playing Candy Crush,
| but you're a _long way_ from not being able to tap in to
| your train home _if_ you stop. Power Reserve seems like a
| sensible choice to make you stop using the last dregs for
| frivolities.
| tadfisher wrote:
| We might see this again, as the Pixel 8 Pro has a system
| like this for UWB so your phone can be located by the
| Find My Device network after its power is drained.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| Power reserve is not "the last few percent", it's up to 5
| hours after you have run out of battery.
|
| https://support.apple.com/en-
| is/guide/iphone/iph0475909d4/io....
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Buying paper tickets at the station using contactless can
| actually be faster and more convenient than navigating the
| apps.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Agreed, though in case of TfL there isn't actually any app,
| it's standard EMV and would work with contactless-enabled
| bank card or mobile wallet emulating a bank card (so built-
| in Apple/Google Pay).
| avianlyric wrote:
| You maybe interested to know the TfL were the first metro
| system to use this system, they actually developed most of the
| technology themselves, and now sell it to a number of other
| cities.
| kmlx wrote:
| here's another fun fact: TfL turned on contactless payments
| for all their stations without any apparent changes in their
| user facing hardware. one day the same oyster card reader
| started accepting contactless payments. i'm sure it was not
| as simple as turning on a switch but it looked that way :)
| Asraelite wrote:
| Yes, but it will inevitably lead to paper tickets being removed
| completely, which has already happened in some places. That is
| an absolute nightmare both in terms of privacy and in terms of
| ceding power to the credit card duopoly.
|
| For the same reason that we need cash, we need to keep paper
| tickets at least as an option. I'm surprised the sentiment in
| this thread is so strongly in favor of cards; normally HN is a
| bit more cash-friendly.
| vidarh wrote:
| You can buy an Oyster card and top it up with cash.
| zeristor wrote:
| I believe Oyster cards are to be retired in due course
| ghaff wrote:
| It seems that you need some way for people without credit
| cards to pay and the OP is about TfL trying to get away
| from cash for paper tickets.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| That sounds like a bad idea, considering that children
| and tourists are very likely to not have a credit card
| (or at least not necessarily a compatible one).
| vidarh wrote:
| I think the tourists argument is rapidly fally, but not
| children (though they are available in the UK via
| providers like Go Henry). Credit/debit cards also won't
| solve the season-ticket issue.
| vidarh wrote:
| I'm not aware of any plans to do so, not least because
| while cards have overtaken Oyster for _pay as you go_ ,
| Oyster _season tickets_ / travel cards still remains a
| very significant use case. As do free / discounted
| children Oyster cards.
|
| Neither has a credit/debit-card based viable solution at
| present that'd be tolerable.
| deadbunny wrote:
| [citation needed]
| multjoy wrote:
| Paper tickets can also be tracked with ease and they can only
| be purchased at places guaranteed to have CCTV, so...
| sedatk wrote:
| The actual message in the popup may not be relevant at all. I
| also stop browsing a site immediately if I see a popup.
| vasco wrote:
| The article says it only appears for trips where it is possible
| to pay contactless.
| tux3 wrote:
| It's a physical ticket vending machine, not a web page.
|
| The whole machine is a giant popup, you walk up to it with the
| intent to buy something.
| sedatk wrote:
| Yes, that was the joke. :/
| echelon_musk wrote:
| Did you browse this site?
| keybored wrote:
| Like the popup on that website.
|
| > We value your privacy
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| "We and our 1052 partners value your privacy"
| mattlondon wrote:
| The TfL ticket machines are a UX disaster. Being a London native
| I am very comfortable with the transport system and how it works
| and how to get around etc, but fuck me the machines are an
| incomprehensible mess. They present so much information at once
| in small text - this popup is a good example, lots to read but
| you are in a rush to get somewhere and there are 25 impatient
| other people in the line behind you.
|
| I now just always tell people to just tap in with their phone.
| switch007 wrote:
| All modern ticket machines are
|
| I miss the ones from the south east that had physical buttons
| and very few options.
|
| Brighton button, Day Return button, insert cash, done. Even was
| visible in bright daylight, what a marvel.
| seabass-labrax wrote:
| That does indeed sound enticing, but I also really like the
| Deutsche Bahn ticket machines: not only do these have options
| for the most usual tickets, they also have the full journey
| planner system built in. That means you can purchase tickets
| valid across multiple fare zones - like the National Rail
| website in Great Britain, but in a vending machine!
| Additionally, you can use this to find information in
| advance, like what the platform for arrival will be, which
| can save some time when making connections.
|
| If you're going to put a touchscreen on something, you might
| as well do it properly! :)
| switch007 wrote:
| I find staff are even better for journey planning. Shame
| we've mostly replaced them with machines
|
| Now we get to stand there tapping 13 times because the
| touchscreen sucks. And worry about being taken to court
| because the machine was broken. Yes "most" people have
| phones but public transport needs to cater to all
| ta1243 wrote:
| Last ticket machine I used was at Stafford, tap the
| "Birmingham" button, Offpeak return, tap phone on the pad,
| ticket prints.
|
| Obviously that one was well maintained as the touchscreen was
| calibrated correctly. But old machines used to be broken too.
|
| If you want a ticket to say Gloucester from Stafford then
| it's something like "other, g, l, Gloucester, Offpeak return,
| tap phone". The old style physical machines wouldn't sell a
| ticket to anywhere other than a few locations.
| switch007 wrote:
| We used to have friendly and knowledgeable staff at most
| stations, who were great. The machines are still overall
| retrograde
|
| Ticket desks worked/better in bright light, if you're
| blind, deaf, unfamiliar with the machines, wanted to pay in
| cash etc etc
| roryirvine wrote:
| The point this story is trying to make is that the
| machines themselves are unnecessary - just tap in with
| your normal contactless credit card, debit card, oyster,
| or phone to get the best fare.
| switch007 wrote:
| Apologies for going on a tangent
|
| I disagree the machines are not needed. Often when it
| comes to the railway people argue for things that
| conveniently ignore edge cases and pretend public
| transport isn't for all the public. Our railway system is
| incredibly complicated.
| alkonaut wrote:
| Yeah this info, very condensed, should just be on big signs at
| station. "You can just tap your credit card and travel, no need
| to do anything else at all".
|
| Which is also how it _should_ work.
|
| Of course seniors, kids, period tickets etc are always going to
| be messy but at least describe the base case: single journey
| adult - what do I need to do?
| ivanbakel wrote:
| > Yeah this info, very condensed, should just be on big signs
| at station. "You can just tap your credit card and travel, no
| need to do anything else at all".
|
| This messaging _is_ all over TfL stations and advertising. If
| you 're stood at a London train or Underground stop for any
| length of time, you're likely to hear the overhead tannoy
| repeating a message about how convenient contactless cards
| are, and how they charge the same (cheapest) fare as the
| official Oyster system.
|
| It's a testament to how hard telling people anything is, that
| having a popup on the ticket machine is still effective.
| lozenge wrote:
| So is a lot of other messaging. An overwhelming amount for
| a lot of people.
| fullspectrumdev wrote:
| The "see it say it sorted" is what usually sticks in my
| mind :)
| ripe wrote:
| > the overhead tannoy
|
| I had never heard the word tannoy. The Internet informed me
| about the British loudspeaker company Tannoy.
|
| By the way, their Wikipedia article says their lawyers
| watch out for people using their trademark as a generic
| word and chase them down.
| alkonaut wrote:
| I'd interpret "Constactless card" as some form of RF
| variant of a traditional ticket card. Not as a way of
| describing your regular visa/mastercard debit/credit cards.
| Is "contactless card" a normal way of describing a
| debit/credit card? Can't any rf card be said to be
| contactless?
|
| The big revolution elsewhere was the transition from RF
| based ticket cards to RF based regular credit/debit cards.
| They're both "contactless" though but one is s a hassle.
| Symbiote wrote:
| Contactless is the normal word used in Britain for EMV
| NFC payments. It's also the word used by the EMV standard
| [1].
|
| London had RF ticket cards (Oyster card) since 2003, EMV
| payments since 2012.
|
| [1] https://www.emvco.com/emv-technologies/emv-
| contactless-chip/
| alkonaut wrote:
| I never heard the term EMV either and had to Google it
| now. I think my point is: for signs, use stupidly simple
| language, understandable by everyone. These signs are for
| tourists perhaps more than Londoners.
|
| The constant reference to "Oyster cards" for 20 years
| without specifying that "yeah that's codespeak for
| ticket" was a very similar UX failure. They should have
| called them the 3 seashells...
| toast0 wrote:
| Everywhere seems to have a name for their equivalent of
| Oyster cards though. The bay area has Clipper cards, and
| the seattle area has Orca cards.
|
| Conactless cards includes those (but your Orca card
| probably doesn't work in London...) and credit/debit
| cards, and your phone if that's how you roll.
|
| Not every credit/debit card includes contactless yet,
| afaik, telling people they can just use their credit card
| when there's no way to swipe or insert is going to lead
| to confusion and delay at the entrance gates.
| multjoy wrote:
| The vast majority in the UK do, and that is why it works.
| rsynnott wrote:
| ~Any credit or debit card issued in Western Europe in the
| last decade would be contactless.
| alkonaut wrote:
| Yeah I think if a sign says you can use your contactless
| credit card or "touch your credit card at the gate" or
| some language like that, then it should be clear enough.
|
| With validity of credit cards being <5 years you'd think
| we are at 100% now having no magnetic strip. Perhaps
| cards issued in some countries do have magnetic strip
| (but hopefully 100% have contactless too)
| martinald wrote:
| I have never seen a queue at a ticket machine for many years
| now everyone uses contactless...
| michaelt wrote:
| National Rail stations almost never have queues - but get
| queues in the 3 minutes before train departure.
|
| If your habit is to arrive in good time, or using the tube
| where there's another one along in 2 minutes, you might never
| see a queue.
| fullspectrumdev wrote:
| Airports there is consistently a queue and for some reason
| foreign bank cards are flaky as shit with the readers -
| especially at LHR.
| hilbert42 wrote:
| _" I now just always tell people to just tap in with their
| phone."_
|
| This is all very well but what happens if you have no phone, or
| it's just been lost, or you left it at home? What happens if
| there's no credit and you thought there was?
|
| And what happens if you've only cash and or you're a visitor
| who doesn't know the system and only wants a once-off one-way
| ticket? And why should one have to top up a card for a once-off
| journey (how does one recover the residual funds and or how
| much does the System rake off because residual amounts are too
| difficult to redeam)?
|
| These systems work for the cognoscenti who know both the system
| and the workings of their phone but little thought is given to
| those who don't or when the system breaks down.
|
| Let me give you an instance, I often use a feature/dumb phone
| and I deliberately do not have a Google account (or any
| accounts other than the phone number itself) on my smartphone.
|
| Why should I be forced to comply and be spyed on by Google et
| all just to get a rail ticket which people have done without
| difficulty for over 150 years?
| Symbiote wrote:
| In all these cases, tap in with a credit or debit card.
|
| If you have neither, pay cash.
| alibarber wrote:
| The system is used by millions of people per day - and it's
| these people who pay for it. They don't want to pay for any
| combination of "what ifs".
|
| As a commuter there I'm sorry, but I'd rather have saved a
| few quid a month on my ticket than pay for some tourist who
| can't figure out a credit/debit card despite travelling to
| one of the world's most expensive cities.
|
| 150 years ago you could lose a paper ticket or leave it at
| home, or it could have been out-of-date when you thought it
| wasn't, and you'd also be walking.
| seabass-labrax wrote:
| > 150 years ago you could lose a paper ticket... you'd also
| be walking.
|
| 150 years ago was 1874. Although printed tickets were well
| and truly established by this point, buying tickets from
| the conductor was also common. So perhaps you would not be
| walking home?
| avianlyric wrote:
| Well you can just buy a paper ticket then, as covered in the
| article.
|
| I don't think GP's comment constitutes an official
| declaration from TfL. You're free to continue living life the
| way you want.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| > What happens if there's no credit and you thought there was
|
| Initial authorization only takes PS0.10 and is there to
| validate your card is active.
|
| The actual charge gets applied 24h later and can overdraw
| even an account with no arranged overdraft through a
| transport-only exception with the card networks.
|
| In the end it means you only need 0.10PS to travel for 24
| hours, and can keep doing so as long as you fund your account
| before the initial 24h period (if you fail and it declines
| it'll retry up to a few days, and there's a way to make it
| retry online - until it succeeds, that particular card will
| get refused at the barriers).
| rsynnott wrote:
| Do you have a debit card? Just tap that.
|
| Also, no-one is forcing you; the ticket machines still
| _exist_.
| wdb wrote:
| I always say to just use your bank card instead of your phone
| as that is much faster than phone. Always waiting for people
| getting there phone ready at the gates.
| lpribis wrote:
| Maybe this is fixed, but they used to not even give you the
| cheapest ticket in all cases. I've used one for travelling just
| outside the oyster zone, and it recommended me a ticket that
| was 2x the price of the daily travel card to that location.
| rsynnott wrote:
| I mean, if I was running TfL, I might be tempted to make the
| ticket machines difficult to use, to discourage people from
| using them. From TfL's pov, it is always preferable for people
| to use contactless.
|
| (I was in Lisbon recently, and am convinced that that was going
| on there; there was no possible reason for the ticket machines
| to be so awkward to use, other than deliberate deterrence.)
| stavros wrote:
| The title is clickbait, because the actual content continues with
| "which is what the popup was designed to do".
| gpvos wrote:
| That was exactly what I expected the article to be about,
| actually. So there is nothing misleading. (Although I expected
| it to be about their website, not their ticket vending
| machines. But that's fine.)
| weberer wrote:
| I was expecting potential customers to bounce due to some
| annoying GDPR pop-up that somehow breaks the page.
| jayceedenton wrote:
| I think "drop in paper ticket sales" is unlikely to be
| misconstrued as a drop in sale in general.
| abanana wrote:
| Why has this been voted down? The title is plainly trying to
| imply that it's a confirmed case where the friction introduced
| by a popup in the purchase flow has seriously damaged sales.
| "Led to a significant drop" doesn't imply a commensurate rise
| in non-paper ticket sales, else it wouldn't be written that
| way. The title is pure clickbait.
| ssl232 wrote:
| Can you tap your contactless card at the barriers to pay for
| several passengers, e.g. by handing the card to the next one
| coming in? Or this this method only for single travellers?
| echelon_musk wrote:
| Single travellers.
| mjg59 wrote:
| You can't. It's one card per traveler.
| pityJuke wrote:
| > You can pay for someone else's travel with your contactless
| card or device if they're travelling with you. You need to pay
| for your own travel with a different card or device.
|
| https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/how-to-pay-and-where-to-buy-tickets...
| banf wrote:
| So I can't pay for others? I can pay for others but then I
| need another card or device for me
| jannes wrote:
| Exactly.
|
| Let's say you have:
|
| 1 contactless bank card, 1 iPhone, and 1 Apple Watch
|
| These count as three different cards and would therefore
| allow you to pay for your own fare and two additional
| people.
| barnabee wrote:
| Single traveller per card. You also have to tap out at the end
| so it can calculate the fare.
|
| If you have more than one card you can let others in your group
| use those.
|
| Though it's been a few years since I was travelling with anyone
| who didn't have either a contactless card or Apple Pay / the
| Android equivalent, which also works and is arguably even more
| convenient.
| Jamie9912 wrote:
| Even moreso these days, kids are getting their own debit
| cards.
| jayceedenton wrote:
| Does anyone know if you can use Go Henry or Hyperjar cards
| on the tube?
| PurestGuava wrote:
| So long as it has contactless, it's fine.
| vidarh wrote:
| Yes, you can, at least Go Henry. But you'll pay adult
| fares, so treat it as a fallback.
| andylynch wrote:
| All London kids should use a Zip oyster; contactless is
| always adult fare but with zip it's child fares (and free
| buses)
| lozenge wrote:
| You can buy an Oyster RFID card at the machine for any
| travellers that don't have bank cards. The fare is the same.
| lpribis wrote:
| The fare is the same as contactless, but this is only worth
| it if you're doing many journeys as cards themselves cost PS7
| each.
| beejiu wrote:
| The only time you do need an Oyster card is if you want to
| link a Railcard to it for discounted fares.
| felsokning wrote:
| https://archive.is/sBY6l
|
| > ...an off-peak trip from Paddington to Canary Wharf would cost
| PS6.70 if buying a paper ticket but PS2.80 if using contactless
| payments.
|
| Is the inference that a single magnetic strip paper ticket costs
| ~PS3.90 per printing? Did TfL reduce the volume of magnetic paper
| it bought (in relation to this change)? I don't see either of
| these points mentioned, anywhere in the article.
|
| If it's not that expensive to print on magnetic paper, and TfL
| has not reduced the volume of the magnetic paper it buys (in
| relation to the change) then the dramatic price fall seems a bit
| suspect to me - but maybe that's just me?
| JansjoFromIkea wrote:
| It'll be largely down to the costs of continuing to support
| paper tickets I'd imagine. Virtually everyone uses
| contactless/oyster and paper tickets are more prone to failure
| both for the ticket and the scanner in a way that both requires
| assistance and reduces the capacity of a station to process
| passengers at peak hours
| immibis wrote:
| More countries should adopt the random checking model used in
| Germany: sometimes ticket inspectors board the train and
| check everyone's tickets. If you don't have one you get fined
| on the spot. It saves a lot of expensive and annoying ticket
| gates.
| ubercow13 wrote:
| But how do you buy the ticket and is it less annoying than
| an almost instant tap on a ticket gate?
| Symbiote wrote:
| It is a tap on the card reader thing at the entry points
| to the platform.
| vidarh wrote:
| Frankly I find it more annoying than the gates - it's a
| lot easier to forget.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Where I live and such systems are used, the readers are
| just functionally fare gates that are always open.
| vidarh wrote:
| For the Croydon Tramlink (the only trams in London)
| they're not gates, but pillars on the platform. Always
| open gates would've been an improvement. There's no space
| for that at many of the stops though, so I get why
| they've picked the option they have.
| immibis wrote:
| Here it's paper tickets by default. There is one primary
| kind of ticket which you have to stamp at your origin
| point and it entitles you to move away from that point,
| anywhere in the city, for the next 2 hours.
|
| The value of having just one kind of ticket (for most
| uses) with a fixed price is surprisingly high, since you
| can even pre-purchase a bunch of them if you're an
| occasional rider. Then riding on the train without a card
| is: get ticket from wallet, stamp it, wait for train, get
| on train. The stamping machine doesn't seem very
| expensively complicated, though it does know the current
| time to within 15 minutes.
|
| Subscription tickets (monthly fee, unlimited travel) are
| RFID cards and ticket controllers have suitable readers.
| Obviously most travelers are ones who travel often and
| therefore bought subscription tickets, and few stamping
| machines are needed, for the occasional travelers who
| didn't. The process is: go to train platform, wait for
| next train, get on train.
|
| They don't do credit card taps here probably because
| German people are resistant to electronic tracking of
| people's movement (you know, after that big thing the
| government did some time ago). If they did, they'd
| probably have a place to tap your card in each station to
| validate it for the next 2 hours, same as a paper ticket,
| and then the ticket controller's handheld scanner would
| check where it was last tapped.
| Symbiote wrote:
| Two systems in London have this (trams in south London, the
| DLR in east London) so Transport for London can probably
| make a good guess at the costs of each method.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| Some London Underground and Overground stations are
| effectively like this as well, with the gates remaining
| open.
| petesergeant wrote:
| Another inference is that TfL has no incentive to reduce the
| paper ticket cost, as they'd rather you didn't use one
| amenhotep wrote:
| Might be an economies of scale thing? If you're offering paper
| tickets you _need_ the machines for them, you _need_ to pay to
| maintain them, that is a minimum cost that you can 't really
| decrease as usage drops. If one machine is servicing a million
| tickets, the per ticket cost is negligible; if usage drops and
| you're trying to split the cost among a hundred tickets, it's
| going to look extortionate.
|
| Cf the guns on the Zumwalt class destroyers.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Most of the cost of traditional methods is the needs of
| securing collection.
|
| Ticket machines take cash and that cash needs to be securely
| transported. Similarly a paper ticket needs to be collected
| for possible auditing later.
|
| Contactless is much easier since all the records are digital
| and the user carries their card with them.
| swores wrote:
| It's not just printing, it's maintaining / fixing jams /
| replacing / etc. for both ticket machines (self serve and
| staffed machines) and for ticket readers - with business logic
| being that motivating less use will cause costs to go down,
| more than (but not excluding) covering the actual running costs
| of keeping the older technology running.
|
| Additionally (though I don't know that it's relavent to the two
| figures you quoted), the paperless system is flexible in that
| it can measure all the journeys you take in a calendar day and
| then charge you whatever the lowest suitable fee is at midnight
| - whether that's a single or a return or a day pass or an off
| peak something or so on. Whereas with paper tickets the person
| needs to decide up front which option will be cost effective
| based on the trips they're expecting to take, which often is a
| cause of paper TFL tickets working out more expensive also.
| przemub wrote:
| Eh, it's just to force you not to use paper tickets and clog
| the machines. If you want to pay with cash, you're supposed to
| buy an Oyster card (PS5) and top it up at the machine or most
| convenience shops across London.
| seszett wrote:
| It costs that money to _customers_ , not to TfL, presumably due
| to flat rate for paper tickets vs. distance-based for
| contactless.
|
| At first glance TfL makes more profit on paper tickets, but if
| it deters more people from using the metro at all then it's a
| loss.
| tialaramex wrote:
| The zone fairs aren't really distance based. The goal is to
| disincentivise core travel especially in peak, so it's
| actually cheaper (but of course slower) to skirt around the
| core when crossing London.
|
| Suppose you enter at Upminster and leave at Moor Park, those
| are both in Zone 6. But by default the system will conclude
| that you probably passed through the core (Zone 1) since
| that's the obvious route and charge you for a journey using
| zones 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.
|
| If you're on a budget and no time constraint, you can travel
| to Barking, get out, touch the Pink validator, board a train
| to Gospel Oak, touch another Pink validator, and now finish
| your journey to Moor Park, and since you've avoided the core
| you're charged a significantly lower fare (but this takes
| much longer).
|
| Before Oyster this couldn't work, you weren't _allowed_ to
| travel on the cheap fare via the core, but there was no way
| to detect that you 'd done it - the tickets don't know where
| they are, so people routinely did and may not even have
| realised what they were doing wasn't legal. But because
| Oyster (and thus also contactless fare system) knows the
| journey you made, it can conclude that (unless it saw you at
| the Pink validator on a different route) you went the obvious
| way and should be charged accordingly.
|
| For most people this just made things slightly fairer. For a
| handful of people who liked cheap weird routes or are in no
| hurry it added a step (touching the pink validator).
| Symbiote wrote:
| It is easier to cheat the system with paper tickets, which I
| think is part of the reason the costs are set so high.
| wrsh07 wrote:
| I interpreted it as a peak vs off-peak thing
|
| You might be able to buy either a peak or off-peak paper
| ticket, but you have to choose.
|
| If you make the wrong decision, you'll end up paying PS3.90 too
| much. With contactless, you literally can't make the wrong
| decision (you pay the fare at the moment you're riding the
| train, so it can charge you accordingly)
| PaulRobinson wrote:
| You've just scratched the surface of the UK's insane ticketing
| systems. More detail here:
| https://busandtrainuser.com/2022/02/13/the-crazy-world-of-ra...
|
| You can't make any assumption or inference about anything based
| on the price presented to you in a given context.
|
| This is likely going to be an issue in this year's UK election.
| The only people who are happy about this is train operators who
| profit from customers getting bad deals.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Eh, while UK pricing is a mess, charging more for paper than
| contactless ticketing is a thing just about everywhere that
| has contactless, to discourage use of paper.
| projektfu wrote:
| Why is overall ridership down?
| pyb wrote:
| WFH?
| arrowsmith wrote:
| Economic long covid.
| jdietrich wrote:
| Work from home. While most workers have now returned to the
| office after the pandemic, a large proportion have done so on a
| part-time basis. Passenger volumes are below pre-pandemic
| levels throughout the week, but are particularly low on Monday
| and Friday.
|
| https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/return-to-office-work...
| ta1243 wrote:
| Yup, a lot of people turn up on Tuesday, Wednesday And
| Thursday -- they're called twats at our work.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| It seems to me, that the main focus of the article, was talking
| about how a very simple UI change (a pop-up cancel option) made
| all the difference.
|
| On the other hand, these types of popups can be _incredibly_
| disruptive to the UX, especially if the text is badly written,
| and there 's no clear utility to the user. All too frequently,
| these types of guardrail popups are there, only to advance the
| agenda of the developer/service provider, and not the end-user.
|
| It looks like the popup was well-designed, the text was well
| thought-out, and the user advantage is clear.
| mnw21cam wrote:
| Arguably, the entire purpose of this popup is to be incredibly
| disruptive to the UX - it's trying to stop you using the
| service.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Good point, but that is OK. The end user still gets the
| advantage (so does the TfL, but that doesn't concern the
| user).
|
| I feel that so many tech companies consider their end-users
| to be little more than cattle herds (the real product is the
| company), and they simply don't think about stuff like this.
|
| This kind of usability is a basic, fundamental mindset, that,
| in my opinion, seems to be severely lacking, in today's tech
| industry.
| ranit wrote:
| Arguably indeed. Depends what is considered _the service_ in
| this case. I would _argue_ that _the service_ is "using the
| public transport ", and it is not "using machine for buying
| paper tickets".
| ubercow13 wrote:
| So then rephrase their point to "it's trying to stop you
| using <this way to pay for> the service"
| Rastonbury wrote:
| Those snide guilt trip pop ups are the worst
| ghaff wrote:
| Depends on the design and purpose. It's a nudge to break
| people out of behavior that is probably suboptimal for them.
| bullman wrote:
| Perhaps, but there ample room for improvement here.
|
| The text simply say's it's cheaper, but the amount saved is not
| mentioned. This can be a big factor in changing people's
| behaviors. I may choose to shop at a local market for
| convenience, or fly a specific airline to get airline miles. In
| both cases, I know that I did not pay the absolute rock bottom
| price, but that the difference is small enough to not deter my
| loyalty.
|
| Later in the article an example is given: "...Paddington to
| Canary Wharf would cost PS6.70 if buying a paper ticket but
| PS2.80 if using contactless payments" I am unsure how random
| that example is, but if typical, that is a massive 60%
| discount. Sharing that sort of precise information would
| certainly change habits of even the most loyal of paper
| customers.
|
| It is of course far simpler (and cheaper) from a software
| design perspective to have the generic message, and perhaps it
| is all that could be accomplished in the timeframe allotted to
| the effort, and I understand that. But I do hope that more
| precise messaging is provided in the future so that we can
| revisit this discussion and review the results.
| NeoTar wrote:
| One minor problem is that the paper ticket is anytime, but
| the contactless fare had peak/off-peak fares...
|
| So if you buy a paper ticket at 0925, you'll pay 6.70 GBP. If
| you touch in and travel immediately you'll pay 3.40 GBP (peak
| fare), but if you stop for a coffee first and the time ticks
| over past 0930 before you touch in, you'll get the off-peak
| 2.80 GBP fare.
|
| (I think there is actually a little grace time, and it may be
| when you complete the journey which matters, but the
| principle holds).
| hosolmaz wrote:
| Nobody seems to have commented on the surveillance aspect?
|
| I would assume contactless payments are easier to surveil
| compared to paper tickets, similar to cash vs credit card
| payments.
| lpribis wrote:
| You can get contactless PAYG prices without any identification
| in London by using an Oyster card. You can buy them from corner
| shops without ID, and top them up at the same places with cash.
|
| I doubt this really affords you any extra anonymity though.
| Tube and rail stations are so heavily covered by CCTV, and the
| police have many times tracked peoples entire commutes and
| movement through CCTV only.
| cwillu wrote:
| Although somebody used to have to actually sit down and comb
| through the footage to do that. Although not so much these
| days, so that point is moot.
| eesmith wrote:
| To hinder traffic analysis across multiple trips, you should
| also have meeting where you swap Oystercards with others,
| similar to how people would (and still do?) swap grocery
| purchase tracker cards with each other, to get the discount
| with less surveillance.
| fullspectrumdev wrote:
| I used to do this with a few people.
|
| The system breaks down when one guy stops topping up their
| card knowing they can be a prick about it :)
| GlacierFox wrote:
| I think it's because it's the most obvious assumption you could
| make in this regard so it goes without saying :S
| robjan wrote:
| The article says that most people were buying paper tickets
| with cards anyway
| masfuerte wrote:
| The magnetic stripe tickets don't have a unique ID so your
| journey can't be tracked.
| dvdkon wrote:
| Are you sure? If they don't have unique IDs, they can be
| easily duplicated.
| masfuerte wrote:
| It's 1970s tech. Even if they had given them unique
| codes, they had no way of catching duplicates. The
| magnetic stripe has a very limited amount of storage
| space and, as far as I know, it's all used for other
| necessary information.
|
| It also explains why the rail operators are moving to QR
| codes on paper tickets, which are in every respect worse.
| (They are absurdly large tickets and take much longer to
| scan at the barrier, creating queues.)
| ianburrell wrote:
| You buy paper tickets at kiosk where camera can get close-up
| view of your face. Cameras can also you track when using the
| ticket at barrier.
|
| Also, contactless prepaid cards can be anonymous if don't
| register them or attach to credit card filling with cash. Can
| even swap them around with other people.
| ekianjo wrote:
| problem is that contactless payments are not anonymous...
| jarofgreen wrote:
| Anyone else find the "buy ticket" and "cancel" button text
| confusing? I had to take a second to work out which one was
| which. I'd try clear text like "buy ticket anyway" and "use
| contactless".
| tialaramex wrote:
| But "use contactless" isn't what that option does. It cancels
| your transaction which is why it's labelled cancel.
|
| Suppose I'm at this screen about to get myself a paper ticket
| to Brixton to see my friend Jim, as this prompt appears I see
| Jim - oh that's right, Jim is coming here we're not meeting in
| Brixton. Cancel. I'm not making a journey, I don't want to "use
| contactless" I want to cancel this purchase, and that's exactly
| what this option does.
|
| Yes most users who choose to cancel might end up using
| contactless, but that's not what the choice itself does, it
| does not, for example, check that you're carrying some form of
| contactless payment, nor does it charge you for a journey, it
| just cancels the ticket purchase.
| jarofgreen wrote:
| I think in that situation most people would just walk away
| from the machine. Or try and press the red "start again"
| button.
|
| Ok, maybe my suggestion is the wrong wording but I still
| think the original is confusing. If I'm going throught a
| process and suddenly get a confusing popup I didn't expect,
| my first instinct is I can press cancel and get back to what
| I was doing. But in this case it takes me out of the whole
| process.
|
| But I'm not saying my UI choices are representative of all -
| really, it's about proper UI testing. The article doesn't say
| what user testing they did, if any.
|
| I guess this falls into the trap a lot of tech metrics stuff
| falls into: ok, we can clearly show that sales of paper
| tickets fell. We assume there is a corresponding rise in card
| sales (But crucially, the article doesn't prove that). But
| what none of the stats can clearly show is whether people
| were happy with all this or not. Maybe they would have
| preferred the cheaper prices AND a paper ticket.
| ccppurcell wrote:
| Back in 2014 (and possibly still, I no longer live in London) not
| only was it cheaper per ticket but it was capped per day, so you
| couldn't accidentally pay for more than the price of a one day
| ticket. Obviously this is much superior to buying paper tickets
| for each journey. But I remember having quite a hard time
| convincing visitors to use their contactless cards on the
| machines.
| Smaug123 wrote:
| Today it is capped simultaneously per day and per week
| (https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/find-fares/tube-and-rail-
| fares/pay-...).
| CamelCaseName wrote:
| This is awesome. In Canada, GO transit is also capped per
| day. Unfortunately for me, that cap was something like
| $20/day when I was really using it frequently.
| zilti wrote:
| We have something similar in Switzerland called FairTiq
| roenxi wrote:
| Room for improvement - if they get rid of the pop up now the
| improvement in metrics will probably remain.
|
| There is an interesting lesson in that on the nature of metrics.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| I'll stick to paper tickets for the time being.
|
| In my case:
|
| A paper ticket is simpler and quicker to buy, and I can wait
| until I am reasonably convinced trains are running before buying.
|
| Scanners for e-tickets don't work. Every day I see people
| fighting with them with their smartphones while I just wizz past.
|
| Sometimes "old tech" just works.
|
| (I use TfL trains but not tube so infrastructure is shared with
| other operators in standard train stations. It may work better in
| the tube)
| nsteel wrote:
| This is about the tube so none of what you've written here is
| relevent.
|
| There are of course no "scanners for e-tickets" on the tube and
| there's no world where buying a physical ticket for a tube
| journey is faster than using contactless at the gate.
|
| New tech wins on the tube.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Oh dear, I've ruffled a few feathers here...
| nsteel wrote:
| Misleading offtopic posts are a bit frustrating, yes.
| ta1243 wrote:
| > There are of course no "scanners for e-tickets" on the tube
| and there's no world where buying a physical ticket for a
| tube journey is faster than using contactless at the gate.
|
| The lack of scanners at Underground stations is a pain for
| cross-London journeys -- you can't get a ticket from say
| Milton Keynes to Tunbridge Wells on an e-ticket because it
| includes the cross-london element
| nsteel wrote:
| That's a very fair criticism. They should at least make an
| eticket version of that route a few quid cheaper and make
| it clear the journey doesn't include the tube part.
| avianlyric wrote:
| What "TfL trains" are you using that aren't part of the oyster
| system and accept QR e-tickets?
|
| Also how is buying a paper ticket faster and easier than just
| tapping your card at the gate line? You can even wait till you
| know your train is going to arrive before tapping!
| seabass-labrax wrote:
| Both Oyster and National Rail tickets are valid on the
| Elizabeth Line, despite it being effectively part of the TfL
| network. Should National Rail introduce a smartcard? Probably
| - but they don't have one yet, so it's not unreasonable that
| parent would be frustrated by the unreliable QR code
| scanners.
| multjoy wrote:
| The ITSO card is just that.
| seabass-labrax wrote:
| Indeed; I forgot that! Maybe I should get one...
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Elizabeth line.
| Symbiote wrote:
| Contactless payments are fine for the whole Elizabeth Line.
| ta1243 wrote:
| But not Oyster
| madeofpalk wrote:
| Are you referring to no Oyster west of West Drayton? Or
| some other obscure quirk of the Elizabeth Line?
| mannykannot wrote:
| The message says, in part, "No need to buy a ticket, just tap in
| on a card reader at the start of your journey and touch out at
| the end." The article goes on, "The Passenger Operated Machine
| (POM), to use the TfL name for the ticket machines, doesn't show
| the pop-up for every journey that they can sell tickets for
| because not every destination accepts contactless PAYG tickets."
|
| Does this mean that there are at least three ways to pay:
| contactless credit/debit card, contactless PAYG ticket, and
| paper/magnetic stripe ticket? If so, what happens if you use a
| contactless PAYG ticket to enter a station but find, at your
| destination, that this ticket is not accepted?
| estel wrote:
| These are typically stations that are outside of London. If you
| reach the destination station, you'd probably need to appeal to
| the kindness of staff members who attend the ticket barrier (if
| there is one), who might ask someone to buy a ticket or pay a
| penalty fare. But it's functionally equivalent to traveling
| without a ticket at all.
|
| You'd also have to pay a default charge for an incomplete
| journey on the PAYG ticket, but you could potentially appeal to
| have this reversed.
|
| It's usually made pretty clear on train announcements that
| you're leaving the contactless PAYG fare zone.
| josephcsible wrote:
| > It's usually made pretty clear on train announcements that
| you're leaving the contactless PAYG fare zone.
|
| How is an announcement then supposed to help, since you'll
| have already bought your ticket before you hear it?
| NullPrefix wrote:
| >How is an announcement then supposed to help
|
| You would have some time to accept whatever is coming and
| make peace with it
| alexchamberlain wrote:
| You can then get off the train, buy a ticket and get the
| next one in 10 minutes or so.
| avianlyric wrote:
| You can get off the train before you exit the oyster fare
| zone. Tap out, then buy a ticket for your onward travel.
| iNerdier wrote:
| Because they tell you before you get to the last station in
| the zone. You can get off, tap out & buy a ticket to
| wherever you're going from that station.
| tialaramex wrote:
| Take my routine train home when worked in central London.
| It's an 1805 from Waterloo towards Weymouth and Poole, in
| the country's South West. Most people boarding the train at
| Waterloo are going to be on it for an hour or two, getting
| home - London's internal fares are obviously irrelevant.
| But, _technically_ the train is stopping one more time
| inside London, and thus TfL 's Oyster fares are valid for
| that one stop, at Clapham Junction although as timetabled
| this train isn't for Clapham Junction, you could leave
| there and your Oyster would work. This stop is for _picking
| up_ passengers. Indeed sometimes I might catch my train
| there if circumstances made it impossible to be sure I 'd
| reach Waterloo early enough.
|
| So there's an announcement. Your Oyster (or contactless) is
| not valid for travel _beyond_ London, and this train isn 't
| even really _for_ internal travel, but you can leave at
| Clapham Junction.
| eynsham wrote:
| This is in theory a problem with most ticketing systems: people
| can buy the wrong ticket and then get stuck on the way out. The
| message on the machines is a bit misleading because it suggests
| that wherever one travels behind the ticket barrier will take
| contactless, which is not true (e.g. enter at Bond St with
| contactless or a single, go to Reading via Crossrail, go to
| Manchester via Cross Country). Depending on how naive one seems
| and how far one goes beyond the contactless area, staff may be
| more or less sympathetic, as the sibling comment suggests. We
| ought to roll out contactless nationally, and hopefully this
| will happen under British Rail.
| tialaramex wrote:
| Because long distance travel can be very expensive it's
| trickier to make this work, financially. Suppose I "buy" a
| TfL Oyster card, use almost its entire balance, then Enter
| the system at peak time and just walk out (without
| validating) at some semi-rural station like Amersham. Oyster
| automatically reduces the card balance by the maximum fare,
| making the balance negative. Since I walked out without
| validating it couldn't - even if it were legal (which it
| isn't) - refuse to let me out, but it can refuse to let me
| back in.
|
| Oyster will invalidate this card (until I pay off the
| balance), its balance is now hugely negative, but obviously
| I'm not going to pay off that balance, so I effectively got
| (most of) a free journey.
|
| At London scale this feels pretty OK. In London a typical
| Oyster journey is cheaper than a pint of beer, if somebody
| "owes" you a pint of beer and then you never see them again
| you probably aren't bent out of shape about that. But
| Nationally it's a much greater cost. What if I travel from St
| Ives to Wick? That's going to be pretty expensive, but
| somehow we need to accept that I entered at St Ives (maybe
| for a local journey?) and yet might get out at Wick (the far
| end of the country) and if I don't have the money for this
| long journey all of that risk burden lands on... the fare
| operator? The government? The credit card company? Nobody
| wants that burden.
| margalabargala wrote:
| This is one of those things where it doesn't actually
| matter in the long run, as long as _most_ people do not
| abuse the system. It relies on social cohesion to a point.
|
| So long as the train isn't entirely full and you're taking
| up a seat that could be used by someone else, the marginal
| cost (in fuel, maintenance, etc) to the train operator of
| having an additional person on the train is very close to
| zero. The train is going from St Ives to Wick anyway; if
| you do what you describe, the train operator is in
| essentially the same situation as if you had simply decided
| not to take the trip.
|
| So as long as the fares that are actually paid are
| sufficient to operate the train and pay wages to the
| employees, the train operator can absorb the handful of
| people who do what you describe. As long as most people
| don't cheat the system in that way, it's easier to simply
| ignore.
| jdietrich wrote:
| _> So as long as the fares that are actually paid are
| sufficient to operate the train and pay wages to the
| employees_
|
| That would be a rare exception to the rule. Almost all
| public transport systems run at a loss and rely on public
| subsidy; revenues lost through fare evasion increase the
| burden on the taxpayer.
| margalabargala wrote:
| TfL claims they have an operating surplus.
|
| https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press-
| releases/2023/march/...
| tialaramex wrote:
| They do. But their income includes revenue from taxation.
| Suppose you own a London business. You pay taxes to the
| local government. In London, these taxes include money
| for TfL. After all, you chose to put the business in
| London, a city with a large public transport network, if
| you didn't like that you could have put your business in,
| say, Slough, and avoided this cost.
|
| Passenger revenue is TfL's _largest_ source of income by
| some distance, but it 's nowhere close to enough to pay
| for the entire network, let alone the necessary capital
| investments to grow and change with the city. And of
| course if prices went up, ridership would fall, and
| transport would be diverted to the over-stretched and
| polluting private transport options which the city does
| not want.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| Does a paper ticket do anything to prevent this?
| Symbiote wrote:
| Similar problem. Consider the train:
| London - Clapham Junction - many more stops - Hassocks -
| Brighton.
|
| You could buy two paper tickets, London to Clapham
| Junction and Hassocks to Brighton. Use the first ticket
| to enter in London, the other to exit at Brighton. This
| only works if you're confident the ticket won't be
| checked on the train.
|
| A safer option: buy an open return ticket London -
| Brighton. The London-Brighton bit is only valid that day,
| but the Brighton-London bit is valid for 30 days. Get
| through the barriers at Brighton with a Brighton-Hassocks
| ticket. Show the return ticket as required to the ticket
| inspector on the train, and use a Clapham Junction-London
| ticket to exit the station (the barrier swallows this
| used ticket).
| Doctor_Fegg wrote:
| The first of these is known as "doughnutting" and train
| companies are cracking down hard on it - there are
| countless reports of prosecutions on the busiest UK rail
| forum. They use a combination of ticket sales analysis
| (because most people do it with the same card and through
| the same retailer) and CCTV.
| eminent101 wrote:
| > The London-Brighton bit is only valid that day, but the
| Brighton-London bit is valid for 30 days. Get through the
| barriers at Brighton with a Brighton-Hassocks ticket.
|
| Wait, if you already have a Brighton-London return
| ticket, why would you bother to buy Brighton-Hassocks and
| Clapham Junction-London tickets? Couldn't you just use
| the Brighton-London return ticket?
| Doohickey-d wrote:
| This way, you can re-use the return part of the ticket
| for multiple trips, either until it gets stamped or
| marked by the ticket inspector, or the 30 days are up.
| rhaps0dy wrote:
| Yes, because you pay upfront for the whole value of the
| trip. So you can't get out of paying by simply not
| tapping out.
| porker wrote:
| > Does a paper ticket do anything to prevent this?
|
| Ticket inspectors used to mark the tickets so they'd know
| if someone was reusing a ticket. Originally it would be
| clipped, then date stamped, and towards the end on South
| West Trains it was a scribble of biro (or black marker if
| you were unlucky).
|
| On the occasional trips I take I now use an e-ticket. I
| have never had the QR(ish) code on it scanned for
| validity.
| Symbiote wrote:
| Denmark's Oyster-ish system covers the whole country.
| Anonymous cards need a balance of at least 70kr to start a
| journey, and are limited to a region of the country -- e.g.
| Zealand (Copenhagen's island) and nearby small islands.
| Adding the non-refundable cost of the card gives an amount
| larger than the longest journey within that area.
|
| It's possible to set an anonymous card to a high advance
| payment (600kr = 80EUR), and then use it to travel across
| the country.
|
| Great Britain is significantly larger, has much higher
| train fares, and isn't neatly divided into islands. They
| could limit it to contactless credit/debit cards, but I
| don't see a neat way to extend Oyster over the whole
| country.
| astrolx wrote:
| The Netherlands used to have this system over the full
| country (OV chipcard) when I lived there (it seems to
| still exist), the card could be anonymous too.
|
| After the French ticketing system, this felt magical to
| me.
| stefan_ wrote:
| The reality is that in the UK as many other places in the
| world, public transport is highly subsidized. All these
| little transport fiefdoms and zones aren't accomplishing
| anything at all. There is no good reason to not have a
| single payment system.
| advisedwang wrote:
| > The message on the machines is a bit misleading because it
| suggests that wherever one travels behind the ticket barrier
| will take contactless, which is not true
|
| The article makes it sound like they don't show the message
| in this case
|
| > The Passenger Operated Machine (POM), to use the TfL name
| for the ticket machines, doesn't show the pop-up for every
| journey that they can sell tickets for because not every
| destination accepts contactless PAYG tickets, but those that
| can will get the message. Over time, as more National Rail
| stations are added to the contactless payments system, the
| ticket machines will be updated to include them in the
| messaging.
| maronato wrote:
| The message doesn't say that the option is only available
| on the selected route.
|
| It's fair the assume that passengers are going to "learn"
| about this and try again next time in a different route,
| only to arrive at a destination that doesn't support it.
| tialaramex wrote:
| It's not as though it's hard to predict in general. These
| aren't like "Of 492 stations served by TfL 328 picked
| essentially at random take contactless but the rest do
| not". The situation is that _all_ of TfL 's stations and
| all the stations in the region they get to control even
| if operated by somebody else, take contactless.
|
| There are edge cases, but, they're literally edge cases,
| they're at the edge. Example, suppose I'm in central
| London and I want to go to Amersham. That's a Tube
| station, it's notionally in London for this purpose so my
| contactless just works. How about if I travel slightly
| further along that line, to Great Missenden? That's no
| longer in London, contactless is unavailable.
|
| But, why would I expect Missenden would work? It's not in
| London, it's not shown on a Tube map or a TfL London map,
| Amersham is (right at the top left) but Missenden isn't,
| because it's not in London by this definition, you have
| finally left.
|
| Could I be confused because I'm on a tube train? Nope.
| Tube trains don't go that far, they don't go beyond
| Amersham on that line. Once upon a time you could get
| tube trains out to Missenden (we're not talking last
| week, this is when they were _steam trains_ like 60+
| years ago) but not any more. So I have to have boarded a
| full size train, probably bound for Aylesbury, or
| Birmingham or something, and thought "I bet this is a
| London train and my London fare system applies". That's
| very silly.
| eynsham wrote:
| On the homepage there is another (non-pop-up) message: 'Use
| contactless to pay as you go at adult rate'.
| gotaran wrote:
| I find Japan's IC card system notoriously confusing here with
| every line operating its own fare gate, the notion of a base
| fare and additional fare for a line, and entry gates that
| require you to first walk all the way out to an exit.
| sksksk wrote:
| The article says it only shows the message if your end
| destination supports contactless
| eynsham wrote:
| On the homepage there is another (non-pop-up) message: 'Use
| contactless to pay as you go at adult rate'.
| matt-p wrote:
| It would be impractical to roll out nationally without
| enormous levels of fare evasion. Once you leave London some
| stations don't have any ticket barriers, most stations will
| close ticket barriers once the evening peak is over and so
| on.
|
| Let's say I get on and 'tap in' at London Euston then travel
| to oxenholme (no ticket barriers, but a 2-3 hour PS60 trip)
| if I don't tap out what should I be charged? This would have
| to be the same amount as if I travelled one stop on the tube
| in London and forgot to tap out. What if I tapped in at
| London got off the train after one stop and tapped out
| without leaving the station then continued my journey?
|
| What minimum amount should my oyster card (or debit card)
| have on it in order to take a tap in? It would have to be
| ~PS2.55 as that's the minimum fare; yet once in I could take
| a PS200 train journey.
|
| A big part of why the London system works is that it's quite
| literally small beer. The journey price range is something
| like PS2.55-PS9; in that case you can afford to do all sorts
| of things like have someone tap in with PS2.55 on thier card
| and tap out with a negative balance, and generally cope with
| a small number of edge cases and loopholes that are an
| inherent part of providing contactless travel.
| lelandbatey wrote:
| How does that work with paper tickets then? Couldn't you do
| the same thing of buying a cheap ticket then stepping onto
| an expensive train? Or is there paper ticket infra that's
| rolled out everywhere to prevent this?
| rcxdude wrote:
| The prevention is deterrance: because you need to buy the
| ticket up front, ticket inspectors can check that you
| have the right ticket and issue fines if you do not. You
| can cheat (for many journeys you can walk on and off the
| train without passing through a barrier, especially at
| odd hours) but you are taking a risk. If there's no pre-
| commitement to the journey then there's no real deterrent
| risk.
| lelandbatey wrote:
| What exactly is the deterance?
|
| Is there a person or machine who physically inspects the
| ticket before you board each train? Or is it that the
| person who sold you the ticket is probably going to be
| able see if you physically go to the wrong train for the
| ticket you just bought and yell if you go to the wrong
| one? Or is it that for most folks, the act of talking to
| a physical person keeps them honest even if they _could_
| lie and buy a cheap ticket but board an expensive train?
| Or something else?
| PaulRobinson wrote:
| There are lots of reminders, regular travellers know about it,
| and in my experience there is normally a mildly exasperated
| member of staff who will help you deal with the situation by
| letting you buy a ticket.
| joshuaissac wrote:
| > contactless PAYG ticket
|
| This would be a smart card that can hold a credit balance and
| also season tickets, so it is not necessarily PAYG.
|
| However, there are two types of such smart cards, Oyster cards
| issued by TfL, and ITSO cards issued by other train operating
| companies. Both can store season tickets for journeys within
| London. But only Oyster cards can be used for PAYG within
| London and only ITSO cards can be used for PAYG outside London
| and store season tickets involving journeys outside London.
|
| Aside from that, QR codes are yet another form of ticket for
| National Rail trains, and they work in some stations in London
| and not others.
| ThePowerOfFuet wrote:
| > But only Oyster cards can be used for PAYG within London
| and only ITSO cards can be used for PAYG outside London and
| store season tickets involving journeys outside London.
|
| Jesus wept.
| seabass-labrax wrote:
| > Aside from that, QR codes are yet another form of ticket
| for National Rail trains, and they work in some stations in
| London and not others.
|
| Which National Rail stations in London _don 't_ accept the
| barcoded tickets? I'm especially curious to know what happens
| if you attempt to purchase a barcoded ticket ('E-Ticket' in
| National Rail parlance) to one of these destinations.
| roryirvine wrote:
| I believe the reverse is actually more common - mistakenly
| touching in with with oyster/contactless for a journey out of
| zone for which a specific ticket has been purchased.
|
| I've done this myself a couple of times - touching in at my
| local station whilst half-asleep on a journey to Luton Airport
| Parkway when on my way to catch an early flight.
|
| What happens then is that TFL record an touch-in without a
| corresponding touch-out, and so might charge you the maximum
| fare for an unresolved journey.
|
| They're actually pretty good at fixing that automagically - so
| if, for example, you've not touched out at a station that had
| its barriers open due to crowding and make a return journey
| through the same station later in the day, they'll assume that
| you exited there and charge you the right fare.
|
| But if it's not fixed within 48h, you can claim a refund at
| https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/refunds-and-replacements
| Havoc wrote:
| Next step - open all the barriers. Every day on the way home 3
| out of 8 gates are active and one of the three is flakey
| avianlyric wrote:
| The gates are setup to deliberately limit throughput to prevent
| overcrowding on platforms or in trains.
|
| If you look around when walk through a TfL station you'll
| noticed that all the infrastructure is setup to make sure
| there's more provisions for exiting a station, than entering
| the station. So the gates are setup to have more exit gates
| than entry gates, escalators set are always configured to have
| more up escalators than down escalators, routes through the
| station are more direct for exiting than entering etc.
|
| TfL takes overcrowding extremely seriously, and have loads of
| provisions and strategies to prevent an overcrowding issue.
| kmlx wrote:
| can confirm. they regularly shut down entire stations due to
| overcrowding only letting people exit and not enter.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| > all the infrastructure is setup to make sure there's more
| provisions for exiting a station
|
| That's required because people tend to trickle into the
| station over time but flood when a train arrives.
| Theodores wrote:
| Although public transport always caters for paying in numerous
| ways, it can be hard to get people to change habits and it can be
| hard to get new customers to pay the 'easy' way. If you don't get
| a bus very often and don't have cash on your person, it can be
| worrying or slightly intimidating even if you just have to tap in
| and tap out. Plus you have to link a payment card to your phone.
|
| Personally I am still a paper ticket person, psychologically I
| need that bit of paper.
|
| Top tip if visiting the UK and going outside London with a ticket
| bought online or with an app - always screenshot your purchase!
| cja wrote:
| What does the message mean by "contactless card"? Oyster or
| payment (e.g. credit) card?
| binarymax wrote:
| Tap-to-pay using near-field-communication (NFC). New credit
| cards have this ability and Oyster cards (the TFL top up card)
| has had this for awhile
| beejiu wrote:
| Either or.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| "It's cheaper.." will grab attention. If you write anything thing
| else in the first 2 words you may not have had the same effect as
| people's attention span is low
| supertrope wrote:
| "Free"
| djhworld wrote:
| The last time I got a paper ticket for a TfL journey was at the
| olympic games in 2012 where I think they gave you one for free if
| you had a ticket for one of the sporting events.
|
| Other then that I just used my Oyster card. I don't live in
| London any more, but I've been back for visits/work and I've had
| no issues using Google or Apple Pay for contactless tap ins/outs
| - it's all very seamless. It's really impressive tbh and it's a
| shame this sort of system isn't rolled out to other cities in the
| UK, or at least is has patchy support.
| ianvisits wrote:
| There is a project at the moment to expand TfL's contactless
| payments to most stations across the southeast of England.
|
| Further expansion will be dependent on government funding.
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| Checking in and out by phone was recently rolled out nationally
| in the Netherlands, but at a slightly higher cost than the
| subscriber's card. It works on every train, metro, tram and bus
| in the country. The subscribers get the additional benefit of
| being able to hire bicycles from the train stations also.
| Toenex wrote:
| Manchester is slowly limping out the Bee Network (or whatever
| it's called now) which is modelled on Oyster. Tram and local
| train journeys can be mixed on a touch in/out system and the
| buses are to be included as the route contracts end.
| stevage wrote:
| >To pick a random example, an off-peak trip from Paddington to
| Canary Wharf would cost PS6.70 if buying a paper ticket but
| PS2.80 if using contactless payments.
|
| That's insane. It feels like some kind of dark pattern that they
| were even offering paper tickets.
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