Greater Anglia is upgrading some of its ticket vending machines to allow it to trial a new, barcoded type of ticket.
The operator will upgrade ticket machines at eighteen of its one hundred and seventy stations, enabling them to print a barcode onto tickets. Station ticket gates will then be able to scan the tickets, rather than requiring passengers to insert them.
The involved in the trial are Acle, Brundall, Cambridge, Cambridge North, Cromer, Ely, Gunton, Hoveton & Wroxham, Lingwood, North Walsham, Norwich, Oulton Broad North, Reedham, Roughton Road, Sheringham, Stansted Airport, West Runton, and Worstead.
Greater Anglia aims to begin the trial in mid-December and run it for three months to investigate the practicality of making scannable tickets widely available via ticket vending machines.
The operator's ticket gates can already scan smartcards, e-tickets and mobile tickets bought online.
Malcolm Cotter, Greater Anglia's Head of Retail Systems, said: “Passengers may notice tickets from the ticket machines looking a little different than they usually do. They will be on plain white paper, instead of the usual orange, and will contain a barcode. These must be scanned at the ticket barriers instead of being inserted.
“Staff on the trains and at the ticket gates will be able to provide assistance and advice while we carry out this trial and we would be grateful for any feedback from passengers who use them.”
Why are ticket machines placed out in the open ?
Standing in the rain and wind trying to type in is a real pain , especially compared to the traditional warm waiting room ticket office.
Try it on a local station in middle of a field in the list of a wet winter.
Then, if the sun does shine , the screens can not be seen.
Add a bit of frost , and things become interesting.
Then, when the sole machine at a station stops working. You press the assistance button. That also is not working. So you try to get a permission to travel ticket , but you have no coins that work in it , it’s to cold aparantly , and it does not take cards, so you get on train anyway, and end up having to pay a penalty at the far end !
If we must have machines not humans, we need much more resilience .
Here’s a radical idea. Open some ticket offices at these stations and employ some real staff
Will these ticket machines be useful or will they be much harder to buy a ticket just like the ticket machines at c2c stations and breaks down time after time. Rather not upgrade the ticket machines and to continue on using them with cash and card payments.
These are Scheidt & Bachmann machines of the type that issue normal card tickets. The only difference with these GA machines is that they will issue some tickets on plain white paper. Far better than those awful c2c machines.