How difficult can it be to buy three tickets?

[whole diary]

[Trowres]

My task was to buy three advance singles, two of which would be with railcards (of differing types).

By habit, I started with the National Rail journey planner - it offered me a suitable train and what brfares.com confirmed was the lowest-priced advance single The railcard discounts were correctly applied. Pressed the button to take me to the gwr.com website.

No fares available for this journey

What?? A little testing showed that I could have three tickets with one railcard selected, but every time I selected a second railcard I was back to the "computer says no" problem.

Plan B

I went through the options to buy one ticket with railcard, then pressed the "another journey" * button. Put in second railcard selection, then repeated "another Journey" and did the without-railcard option. So, I now had three separate journey orders pending. Pressed "Contunue".

Aha! Computer says I need a compulsory seat reservation. But, seemingly, it only wants to give me one for journey 3. I pause, wondering what is going to happen if I don't get reservations for journeys 1 and 2.

I also ponder on the improbability of getting three adjacent seat reservations.

IDEA

Try another booking engine. I settled for Transport for Wales. Unlike GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)'s booking engine, the TfW operation happily managed two railcards in one transaction. The seat reservation part was a bit tricky, offering preferences such as airline, table, facing, back, next to another seat.

The rather cryptic "next to another seat" option seemed my best bet, along with "table", and I was presented with seat numbers that suggested that the three seats might even be around a table (how difficult would it be to provide seat diagrams?).

Onto delivery options. I wished to collect from a station. Hang on... what do TfW mean by "collect from one of our ticket machines" ?

Credit to TfW, when I phoned their contact line on a bank holiday Monday they answered within 2 minutes and assured me that ticket collection wasn't restricted to TfW stations. I completed the purchase.

Went to my local station in England a while later and was able to collect tickets from the machine without any trouble.

POSTSCRIPT
Having sorted out the above nightmare, I could concentrate on other plans. I ordered some more tickets from GWR to come back to my home from a somewhat different location (only one railcard this time so gwr.com could cope)...
Tried to collect these from the same machine and was told that the reference number wasn't recognised.

My fault (if you believe it's always the customer's fault no matter how awkward the buying process). Unlike TfW, GWR asks for you to select a specific station for ticket collection (defaulting to the starting point for the ticket). I missed this selection box when I clicked on "collect". Not a fatal  error, as I should be able to collect the tickets at the remote station on the day, but it caused me to waste several minutes re-keying the collection code and receiving the same "can't find the reference" message each time.

Where did I go wrong? 

[Mark A]

Tried to collect these from the same machine and was told that the reference number wasn't recognised.

My fault (if you believe it's always the customer's fault no matter how awkward the buying process). Unlike TfW, GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) asks for you to select a specific station for ticket collection (defaulting to the starting point for the ticket). I missed this selection box when I clicked on "collect".

Worried at this point as... isn't it the case that no matter that a collection location may be specified, a ticket can be collected from any station or has this changed?

Mark

[plymothian]

The fulfilment servers of WebTIS (Web Ticket Issuing System) - ie the bit that converts your tickets you bought through gwr.com in to the media you desire - went down today.  It wasn't possible for the website to send details to TVMs^▸ (Ticket Vending Machine) for collection, produce digital e-tickets to be sent to the app, an email pdf or via HOPS (the system that runs ITSO) for smartcards.  Hence reference code not recognised.

[CyclingSid]

The TVMs^▸ (Ticket Vending Machine) at Reading never used to let me buy more than one ticket with a Senior Railcard, so I do my bit for the continued employment of ticket office staff.

[ChrisB]

The fulfilment servers of WebTIS (Web Ticket Issuing System) - ie the bit that converts your tickets you bought through gwr.com in to the media you desire - went down today.  It wasn't possible for the website to send details to TVMs^▸ (Ticket Vending Machine) for collection, produce digital e-tickets to be sent to the app, an email pdf or via HOPS (the system that runs ITSO) for smartcards.  Hence reference code not recognised.

Is it so difficult to display a message to that effect on the TVM when collecting tickets though?!!

[grahame]

Is it so difficult to display a message to that effect on the TVM^▸ (Ticket Vending Machine) when collecting tickets though?!!

Probably, Chris

1. You keep telling us it would cost millions to reprogram TVMs to sell superoffpeak tickets rather than off peak when there are no trains at all from Melksham to London that require an off peak, and only a very few back.  So by your logic it would cost a lot.     

2. During the period that SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) was terminating trains from Exeter at Salisbury, they told us it was "too difficult" to offer EXD^» (Exeter St Davids - next trains) to WAT fares on their website with that change, and they were selling more expensive fares via Taunton ... and often Paddington and the tube!

[ChrisB]

1. You keep telling us it would cost millions to reprogram TVMs^▸ (Ticket Vending Machine) to sell superoffpeak tickets rather than off peak when there are no trains at all from Melksham to London that require an off peak, and only a very few back.  So by your logic it would cost a lot. 

For someone who knows his IT, I'm surprised at your response. Of course it is easier to simply display an error message of "There is currently an error" type, than to reprogram the entire fares database with all its different time restrictions to ensure that only the cheapest fares appear on a TVM front screen

[grahame]

1. You keep telling us it would cost millions to reprogram TVMs^▸ (Ticket Vending Machine) to sell superoffpeak tickets rather than off peak when there are no trains at all from Melksham to London that require an off peak, and only a very few back.  So by your logic it would cost a lot. 

For someone who knows his IT, I'm surprised at your response. Of course it is easier to simply display an error message of "There is currently an error" type, than to reprogram the entire fares database with all its different time restrictions to ensure that only the cheapest fares appear on a TVM front screen

Perhaps I haven't explained the previous issue properly.   The TVM switches from Anytime fares  to off peak fares at the end of the morning peak.  All we are asking is that it switch instead to super off peak fares, the reason being that there ARE no off peak departures - our service is so thin that no trains at all run in that shoulder.

[ChrisB]

The TVM^▸ (Ticket Vending Machine) switches from Anytime fares  to off peak fares at the end of the morning peak.  All we are asking is that it switch instead to super off peak fares, the reason being that there ARE no off peak departures - our service is so thin that no trains at all run in that shoulder.

And your TVM is part of a network that all run on the same software, no? (you know the answer)

So to correct your TVM, the software (used by all the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) & most other TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company)) running these TVMs needs a rewrite to specifically understand that - and ideally to insert a further changeover at super off-peak time. When it was written, there wasn't nationwide use of super off-peak (even if there was in Melksham), so the software wasn't designed with another changeover, nor one for the PM peak (which did exist on many flows). I agree that it does need a rewrite, but it is costly, and with a (hopefully) major fares rewrite in the offing (within a couple of years if GBR^▸ (Great British Railways) gets off the ground), it isn't currently a sensible use of taxpayer money. It would be a lot cheaper if Peak/off-peak & off-peak/super off-peak change times were all the same?)

What could *and should* be done is to make it very clear (by prominent notice on the TVMs) is to guide customers to the fares for the destination station page & allow the customer to choose by looking through the validities of each fare. Not expensive (dirt cheap in fact). That would be a sensible thing to campaign on as it would be within the TOC remit even now.

The front screen as I understand things is correct in the AM Peak, just the off-peak times onward.

[Mark A]

Off-topic: I had no idea that the Merseyrail network's machines with a couple of exceptions do not allow collection of tickets booked online. Instructions are to set them to be collected from a staffed station during opening hours and the staff will then print and issue the tickets. Now wondering if any other parts of the railway network to which this applies.

Mark

[ChrisB]

Which is why the booking engines ask that you select from a list of stations - the list only contains stations that *do* have a TVM^▸ (Ticket Vending Machine) that issues tickets....

[Mark A]

It's ... complicated: three I've sampled and I hopefully have this right:

GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway): offers a search for the station to be used for collection: the list of stations do not contain those on the Merseyrail network.

TfW: offers a 'Collect from station' option but does not specify the station. If we assume the originating station, Southport, the site doesn't caution that this will involve the booking office being staffed at the specified hours and doesn't caution that the ticket can't be collected from a machine. On the plus side, TfW offers an advance fare for the journey in question at a third of the price of the other sites which offer only anytime day singles.

Trainline: their site correctly and helpfully cautions that the ticket can be collected from Southport, but only during the times that the ticket office is staffed. It doesn't though state explicitly that the tickets cannot be collected from a ticket machine. It also offers the 'Collect from station' option with a drop down list, which contains no Merseyrail stations *save, for some reason, for Meols Cop* (whose ticket machine, if collection is attempted, responds with 'Sorry, ticket collection is currently unavailable').

Mark, with apologies that this hardly concerns an issue under the Coffee Shop heading "All across the Great Western territory" - though, to possibly insult Southport, isn't there a very prominent 'Great Western Railway' branded warehouse on the Liverpool waterfront?

[bobm]

Trainline: their site correctly and helpfully cautions that the ticket can be collected from Southport, but only during the times that the ticket office is staffed. It doesn't though state explicitly that the tickets cannot be collected from a ticket machine. It also offers the 'Collect from station' option with a drop down list, which contains no Merseyrail stations *save, for some reason, for Meols Cop* (whose ticket machine, if collection is attempted, responds with 'Sorry, ticket collection is currently unavailable').

..and then they charge you a booking fee.