Great Western Coffee Shop

Hi,

I've been a season ticket holder between Reading and London for many years now.  During that time I've experienced my season ticket failing at regular(ish) intervals as it's strip deteriorates and I go to the ticket office and they fill in an Encoding Failure Form and I get a replacement etc

At first I thought it just coincidence but now after carefully noting where the failures occur I find that for whatever reason the Paddington ticket machines are where 90% of such failures occur.  In the last year I've had one failure at Piccadilly Circus station and one at Reading station - and both these were with extremely worn out tickets (wording had faded etc).

Whereas at the Paddington barriers the tickets are often in good nick.  In fact the reason I'm posting this message now is that I've had to replace my ticket again just 2 weeks after the last encoding failure - both at Paddington barriers.

I've also noticed that "failures" at these barriers happen differently than at other places.  My ticket goes through the machine but instead of coming out with "Seek Assistance" the machine actually reads (or writes over?) the ticket again and then it pops out.

My questions are:

- Are the Paddington Barriers different to those at Reading and on the underground?
- Have other people experience a disproportionate number of failures at Paddington barriers?  My ticket goes through a barrier check 8 times a day of which 2 checks are at Paddington barriers but rather than an 25%ish failure rate there it's almost every time.

Note:  My ticket is stored away from any other items - wallet, phone etc so as not to risk interference with the magnetic strip.

Thanks,

Boppy.

Reading gates and the ones at Pic circus are the old style gates. Pad has newer ones.

Going off on a tangant, but when I travel to London using an advance ticket. I buy a travelcard from a SWT or FGW guard from their avantix to use for my onward journeys in London. I have never been able to get a Gateline anywhere in London that accepts it ::) :(

I'm starting to wonder if the Travelcard they are selling me is not valid... It's a Super Off Peak which AFAIK is valid on a weekday so can't see why it complains!

My understanding is that tickets from Avantix Mobile machines aren't encoded as strongly as those from TVMs or ticket offices.  A mobile phone or even a credit card can knock out the encoding on these tickets.

I was wondering if that was indeed something to do with it and whether tickets are handled differently as a result.  Unless there's someone on the forum who's an expert in said machines I guess it will be hard to find out!

Cheers.

Thats worth knowing...! Thanks, where do I normally put my ticket? in a small pocket right next to my bank cards!!

Most of the staff i've encountered though just look at the ticket and open the barriers for me :)

Whats the code that comes up on the barriers?


http://www.cryptart.com/oyster/ - is a list of the different reject codes.
The Code can mean many things....
e.g. 07, 08 or 09 basically means it cant read your ticket.
133 means that the ticket has been through previously in the last 30 mins (i.e. youve given it to someone behind you to get out). That seems to come up a lot at PAD.
11* means some restriction, i.e. out of date, not valid yet, time restricted.

This is interesting. I'm on my fourth goldcard ticket this year- the last three stopped working the Paddington barriers fairly quickly. There is no error code that comes up, and no sound from the barrier- my ticket is returned and the barrier does not open. My current ticket is tempremental at the moment, next time I pass a ticket office it'll get replaced again. However if I pass thorugh the SWT barriers Waterloo, there are no problems (yes I do hold a valid ticket to do this, but it's easier just to use my goldcard!!) I wonder if there's something strange in the setup of the Paddington barriers?

I travel from Ashford International to Bristol Parkway and back once a week.  I buy advance purchase tickets and on several occasions have had to change the date, which has meant buying an excess ticket for the journey.  Without fail the excess ticket does not work at Paddington (or at St Pancras for that matter) but does work at Ashford, Bristol Parkway and at the Tube stations.  I usually avoid the barriers at Paddington though by accessing the platform from the footbridge (although the barriers they've recently installed there will no doubt be operational soon).

A warm welcome to the forum verypc!  ;D

Errr, not done the trip recently?
Those barriers have been operational now for a few monmths, maybe a month?

I've been doing that journey since the end of September.  The barriers were installed shortly thereafter, but I have not seen them operational once.  I arrive at the station  around 11 am and return again just after 9.30 pm, so I guess they switch them off when they see me coming!  :D

I do suspect they're only manned in the peak....

Hi,

Thanks for the link to the error codes SDS pad.

I get error codes starting 0x when I next try the ticket on say the London Underground barriers.  But when the ticket actually fails in the Paddington railway barriers I don't get any code - as it seems to go through twice before then just saying "Seek Assistance" - maybe similar to what adc82140 experiences?  It may be though that an error code does get flashed up briefly the first time the ticket passes through and I've missed it as that info vanishes as the tickets gets processed back through the machine a second time.

I'll keep an eye out for next time it happens.

Boppy.

Ive had something similar happen to my staff pass.
Went in, came out the top, gate grabbed it back and then spat it out the top error code 08
put it in again error code 09.

To spot the code you need to look at the green display to the right of the gate, and leave your ticket in the top. As soon as you 'reclaim' your ticket the code will vanish off the screen.

Cheers SDS Pad.

Each time I go through it now I'm ready for it to go wrong!  :)

What you describe happened to your staff pass sounds similar.  Why is the barrier trying to "Re-code" (08) your ticket before then trying to read it again?  It's this re-coding part that is strange.

I also recall another incident when after it failed at the Paddington barrier I then tried to use it in the main underground ticket hall barriers at Paddington.  Sure enough it failed (as expected) but the member of staff stood nearby as I tried the barrier commented at the time that it's very strange as my ticket's magnetic strip is reporting as blank.

Boppy.

I believe that the Pad barriers write to your ticket so that it knows you've passed through & to prevent you leding it to someone else to open the barriers. I think it can't be used again within 20 minutes - maybe that 'write' is failing?

... are you sure that is how it works. I assumed that the barriers just put your ticket number in a database so that the barriers knew if you were trying to get through twice.

Time last used is re-coded onto the magstripe of a ticket in the Gatelines.

As for staff passes, they are set up as gate passes and will be allowed through multiple times, however they still get the time coded on to them.

If you swipe a ticket (that has a magstripe still working!!!) on an avantix it will tell you the last time used in a G/L.

Is this "time last used" re-coding different for the newer Paddington barriers compared to the older ones like at Reading or on the underground?

Cheers,

Boppy.

Slightly off the point have you noticed how slow the Padd barriers are compared with LUL.
 
You put the your ticket in it comes out slowly, then  when you remove it the barriers reluctly start to open.

Whereas with LUL it almost spits the ticket out and as soon as you remove it the barriers snap open. They also snap shut very quickly too!

Yes.. That gets me everytime.. I'm just ready to walk through.. then the pause.. then finally they let me through.. I've always wondered why.. Especially since they're really busy and there are always queues behind me..

Maybe they are counting passengers per second/minute and want to reduce the figures?  ::)

Theres prob a Group Standard somewhere or guidance that states the speed of operation.

That doesn't apply anywhere else? Southampton seemed positvely speedy when I passed through earlier...

That I cant answer, maybe local risk assessment? or maybe they need a major service and cubic havent got around to it yet!

So of course after complaining about this I then have one of the longest runs (since mid-November) with a ticket before it failed this morning!!!

However it did fail (you guessed it) with the barriers at the end of the platforms at Paddington.  The Error code was 08 followed by 09 as suggested by you SDS Pad.

I'm not sure what this tells us apart form the fact that the initial read goes okay - the barrier then tries to do a write on a ticket just successfully read but this is the part that fails (Error 08).  It then pulls the ticket back in to re-read it and this then fails (Error 09).

I guess the next step would be to check what the information on my ticket now says - is it simply corrupt or has it been blanked (which is what one of the members of staff in the underground station once said had happened to it).  Also if a write fails in a ticket barrier - is this a once only attempt? - i.e. if the machine were to try more than once would the write maybe work second or third time around?

To be honest I'm just interested more than it being a problem - as long as I have several months between the need to get a replacement then that suits me just fine!

Cheers,

Boppy.

sorry to bump this but i had the exact same problem. had the ticket for a day and i put it in the paddington barrier (leaving pad) it then spat the ticket out and the barrier changed to 'X' (it was green and entry was allowed when i inserted the ticket)

everytime now i put the ticket in any barrier i get seek assistance which is doing my head in and i cant bothered to cue up for ages to get my ticket replaced.. i guess i'm going to have to as having to show it to someone everytime is annoying.

just to add it seemed to do this.. it kinda seemed to 'have a think' and hold my ticket for a couple of seconds before spitting it back out, that is when the barrier changed to 'X'.




_{Edit note: Post amended fo fix quote. Chris.}

This happened to me on Friday at Paddington. I left the H+C line at the footbridge barriers, went out and returned about 10 minutes later, putting my ticket in the barrier. It came out, was sucked back in before I could reach it, heard a mechanical crunching sound, it came out again and displayed "Seek Assistance". I didn't think to look at the code displayed. Sure enough trying to use the barriers at Wimbledon today the card was rejected. Have to get a new one tomorrow if it fails at Waterloo. >:(

Is it possible to get a staff pass recoded? It would be handy..

Edit: Recoded in the context that mine has been previously 'wiped' and no longer works through the barriers.

I think this thread shows that smart cards are needed urgently for season ticket holders. They would also help by smoothing the flow of passengers through barrier pinch points. It would be possible to have a paper ticket as well, so that guards without readers could check.

No way will pax want to carry both smartcard & paper ticket.

How would a smartcard be better at smoothing flow through barriers over a paper ticket? Go watch the tube barriers in action - far more oysters are refused than ever paper tickets are!

Yes ok, but they're quicker to swipe. Mine rarely fails and it has a railcard discount on it. Even the barriers at Waterloo seem to work now. Fine - give all guards a reader - would make checking tickets quicker and more fool proof.

Hi,

It's been a while but I feel obliged to post again to this thread as I believe my original issue with tickets at the Paddington barrier gateline has been fixed.  So I wanted to say a big thank you to whoever out there has changed anything.

What happens now is that I still get the odd read failure at the barrier line.  And it still sucks the ticket back in and appears to write to it.  I no longer get the encoding error number though - simply the "Seek Assistance" message.  The main difference though is that after that happens I can still use my ticket whereas before I could not.

Huzzah.

Boppy.

AFAIK - no, as they are supposed to be "traded in" for a new one and signed for.



_{Edit note: Quote marks fixed. CfN.}

season tickets do not get re-coded they just get read, the gates will sometimes "kill" a ticket due to fault with the unit which will be rectified by the installers. Ticket stock isnt designed to last forever.