Great Western Coffee Shop

The barriers at Gloucester have had smartcard readers installed alongside the barcode scanners. Are the smart cards scanners representing that a new ticketing system could be installed or is it for the benefit of the gate staff, as of current they are not on the rear enterance gates that are unstaffed?

Thanks,
Charlie.

I'd like to know the answer to that. They're in place on the Severn Beach line too; all stations on this line are unstaffed (well, except BRI), so they're not there for the gate staff...

Severn Beach already has a smart ticketing system in place.

The initial trial on the Severn Beach line is now over, and while I don't have a card, GWR say that any of the existing ones will have stopped working now.
They are planning on rolling it out properly next year though.
https://touch.gwr.com/ (https://touch.gwr.com/)

GWR touch will be in place from the end of this year after a soft not publicised launch. 

Initially it will be only available if travelling between 21 major gated stations plus the Severn Beach line, but during 2019 will be rolled across the network.

To start with only weekly tickets will be available on smart, but will expand to monthly and more than monthly though to annual, and then (hopefully) other products (cough... waiting on TfL agreement... cough).

This is a DfT requirement that all TOCs must provide a smart option to their customers. 

Well that's intriguing - there was me thinking I was a reasonably well-informed, reasonably regular user of the line - and that's the first I've heard of it!


If by 'smart ticketing system' you mean up to four staff on a train who often try to sell people tickets, then yes it has...

Hope it works like Oyster Card, if so it'll be excellent.

They call it a "touch card," which implies it is a special card like a "GWR Oyster" rather than debiting a normal contactless bank card. But, like Red Squirrel, it's the first I've heard of it. Though come to think of it I have seen machines at the entrances to Severn Beach Line stations, but nothing to explain what they were for.

I can’t see a long distance TOC scheme ever allowing for Oyster style PAYG deducting from a stored balance in exactly the same way as TfL. 

What would the deduction on entry have to be at Paddington if you might be going to Penzance?

Paul

The pilot scheme on the Severn Beach Line, and even the First Bus touch cards it was based on, don't do that - they store tickets, in the case of the bus cards that can be single tickets in 5s or 10s. So presumably that is what the new GWR touch will do. I guess is could also serve as some other kind of smart card(s), such as for other TOCs - is that what DfT have been (ineffectually?) pushing for?

I think SWT’s was only ever seasons and purchased point to point tickets carried on a smart card.  They made a thing of them eventually becoming available within the London area, but I don’t think PAYG as such ever got activated. 

Southern might have some limited PAYG functionality, perhaps their maximum possible fare is considered reasonable?  Oyster PAYG is active to Gatwick but needs an especially large opening balance to get through the Gatwick Express gateline at Victoria.

But other than the London zonal area I don’t think I’ve heard of a TOC smartcard that will work on a neighbouring TOCs routes or readers.

I’ve always thought a smartcard that only allows seasons and purchased point to point fares gives me personally no real advantage over a magstripe ticket.  Seasons probably gain some reliability compared to worn out magstripes.

Lack of break of journey programming still seems to be a regular criticism.

I think despite DfT spin, many people will be disappointed in the national offering...

Paul

On a number of fronts, it would make perfect sense to have a card which can store tickets bought on the interweb. Those little cardboard ticket probably amount to a reasonably sized pile over a month or two. Then machines have to be loaded with them and other machines emptied. If that is what is coming, then I will have one.

These readers have also appeared at Didcot Parkway. It will be interesting to see how it works with Annual Gold Cards where the ticket is also a railcard, although I guess that is also an issue with the SWR smartcards.

At the moment there is little chance of a PAYG 'Oyster' arrangement on National Rail, not until either a very simplification of fares or a complete rewrite by the DfT even though the DfT eventually want it.  The current thought is the possibility of "self contained" branch lines having a PAYG scheme.

An analogy of 'touch' is that it is the equivalent of holding a blank CCST ticket; it has no validity until something is encoded on to it.

Passengers will be able to buy tickets at a ticket office, online or from a TVM (and eventually on board) and have the option to them loaded on to a smart card instead of a CCST or PRT ticket.  It is only the medium on which the ticket is held that is changing.  The ticket will still carry the same validity as if it were printed on a piece of card; it's just electronic on a piece of plastic instead.

For Gold Card holders, at the moment, you will still need to carry a separate Gold Card Record card as this is an RDG requirement.  Likewise, period ticket holders must have a photocard as that is still an RDG requirement.  And until this changes GWR are working on compromises.  There currently exists the ability of railcards etc being linked to cards but until the RDG change it's legal requirements, it cannot be done.

GWR is going above and beyond what other TOCs are doing to meet the requirement for having smart ticketing and they way they are planning on doing it is more passenger friendly.

The question is though....will paper season tickets finally disappear? Having to get it reprinted every couple of months is really irritating..especially since train staff always make out that it is my fault that the ticket has faded!

Is that the question? If it bugs you, all you need is that you can opt for an electronic one. If other people keep using paper ones, why would that bother you?

Fair enough. I wish my need to use a paper season ticket would go away. I would be DELIGHTED by the opportunity to have an electronic ticket.

Interesting to see at BTM the barriers are covered in adverts about paper tickets being replaced by smart cards

I have a GWR Touch smartcard that I have been using successfully for a number of weeks now and I have been attempting to buy a standard return ticket on the GWR website to load to my smartcard, but without much success.

I was trying to buy an off-peak return from Winchester to Southampton for later this week but I am only offered paper tickets or GWR e-tickets and there is no option to load the ticket to a smartcard. I was logged into my account while attempting this, I also tried it without logging in but had the same response.

I thought maybe I wasn't seeing the smartcard option because this is a SWR service, so I then tried to buy a ticket for Didcot to Reading and again no smartcard option.

So I went to the GWR Touch page where there is a different link to the booking engine. That link takes you to a different version of the booking system (with ITSO ticket options) but it appears to only offer season tickets; although it did look like I could have bought a Winchester to Southampton season for my smartcard!

So that leads to a load of questions:
   1. Can you buy non-season tickets for a GWR Smartcard with the GWR booking engine? And if so, how?
   2. If not, can you buy and upload them at a GWR TVM? Or anywhere else?
   3. Could I upload tickets to my GWR smartcard at a SWR TVM if purchased at said TVM?
   4. Even if I managed to buy a Winchester to Southampton ticket on my GWR smartcard would it work with the SWR gate lines?
   5. Why is this so complicated!

1. Currently only GWR gated to GWR gated station singles and returns are available
2. As above
3. Not currently, but an SWR ticket office should be able to - in theory
4. Probably not
5. Because this is new and not everything is ironed out yet.  And it's a DfT project that was basically handed to TOCs to sort out individually how they were going to implement it after the first generation L&SE/ScotRail TOCs started it but without the thought of cross-TOC integration.  However, GWR are one of the more advance 2nd generation TOCs in their scheme.

It is possible to get some fares for Didcot to Reading with "Only fares that can be loaded onto an ITSO SmartCard" selected. However, although Anytime Day Return and Off-Peak Single are available, an Off-Peak Day Return is not (if you unselect ITSO this fare reappears).

Thanks everybody for the response.
The link that I have that has the ITSO option appears to only allow the sale of seasons http://tickets.gwr.com/gw/en/journeyplanning/seasonmixingdeck (http://tickets.gwr.com/gw/en/journeyplanning/seasonmixingdeck), and the standard GWR site https://www.gwr.com/tickets/mobile/#/qtt (https://www.gwr.com/tickets/mobile/#/qtt) doesn't have the ITSO option. I am missing something or is there a different link for buying non-seasons?

And finally Is there any timetable for making the Smartcard option available on the standard GWR buy tickets page?

http://tickets.gwr.com/gw/en/journeyplanning/mixingdeck has the ITSO option for non-seasons although I haven't got as far as buying a ticket from it to see if it works. This use of ITSO cards doesn't seem to have been advertised and the option may only be there for test purposes.

Thanks that link works for me and I can at least see the Smartcard option, although like you it doesn't show any off-peak tickets!

I did try and book a ticket but when you get to delivery there is no option to load a ticket onto my smartcard even if I am logged into my account.

I will now stop wasting time and wait for GWR to complete their SmartCard rollout.

There is an advert at Didcot that says do away with paper tickets and replace them with the GWR app and/or Smartcard, and it doesn't mention any limitations on what type of tickets you can purchase with each technology. Although given that the advert is for both the GWR app and SmartCard I would guess it would get quite complicated to explain and it does point you to the GWR website.

To be fair to GWR their website does primarily talk about buying season tickets, although one part of the website says 'By the summer of 2019, you will be able to use your touch card to buy a wide range of tickets on most routes across Great Britain.' Of course that could still be true.

My apologies for neglecting to mention that singles and returns between GWR gates stations can only currently be purchased at GWR ticket offices

So what went wrong then? I thought this kind of capability was already there ...
From https://touch.gwr.com/

I'm not sure why, at least based on that page. It was put there nearly a year ago, and while the process has started it has only used the gwr.com site - and is running late, of course.

So it apears that not a single person in the GWR organisation has remembered that site exists, despite it being in use less than a year ago, still less have they registered that promise to at least provide a link there to get a new card!

Since then, rumours have arisen of First leaving railway business in the UK - and buses - and concentrating on North America. If I were in charge of considering that, I would first drop anything not essential to the day to day running of the business, including spending money on developing systems that I am unlikely to use in the future. I don't know if that has anything to do with the delay, just thinking aloud after reading newspaper reports with the past few days.

I understood the talk is ogff hiving off (selling) both the Greyhound FirstBus in the UK, while holding onto the franchises & the yellow bus network in the USA?

That’s how I read it yes. Of course the shareholder meeting called for later this month may change that.

Just over 22,000 new season tickets ticket flows have been made available for use on smartcards; passengers can now travel between nearly every GWR station using a touch smartcard loaded with a season ticket.

I got one of these cards pretty much as soon as they were available, more in the hope that unlike the paper tickets these may last a bit longer
Considering I literally keep it in my wallet apart from ticket checks / going through a barrier.
The printed cover with my name etc on is already starting to peel off

Getting a replacement could be interesting

Your name and photo is printed onto the card, the bit peeling off is only a laminate overlay, as long as the ink doesn't come off too your card will be fine.

Is your photo on the card? My SWR touch card just has my name and serial number. The photo card is separate.

GWR touch smartcards incorporate a photo.

But you still require a separate photocard if you are a GWR season ticket holder.

Officially, no.  You can happily travel around without showing a pink photocard.

A trial is ongoing for Reading - Paddington commuters to only issue their smartcard without a photocard and a move away from issuing them generally.

However, as not all TOCs are singing from the same page at the moment, GWR strongly recommends you retain either your existing pink photocard, or have at least a photocard number because:

1. Booking seasons online currently requires the photocard number.
2. Other TOCs require you to have a separate photocard if travelling on their services or using their ticket issuing facilities.
3. Your GoldSTAR history up to now is stored under your photocard number, your smartcard needs to be back-linked to your existing photocard else you lose any charter discounts on renewals.
4. If you ever want or need to return to CCSTs, you need a photocard.
5. The current version of STARmobile is not compatible with smart and will only work with a photocard.

Something's launched?

"New smartcards for Bristol area"

Mark

https://www.railmagazine.com/news/network/2022/09/22/new-smartcards-for-bristol-area

Something is launched but that little article hardly tells us what it is let alone how it works.

I'll be one of these (http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=26636.0). It wasn't exactly clear what that was about either.

A broader question.

We are having a foreign visitor. They are arriving at Luton Airport and travelling to Cambridge, the Smart ticket map says no problem with options of

Smartcard
m-Ticket
e-Ticket

They then wish to go from Cambridge to Falmouth, to which the Smart ticket map says "Smart ticketing is not yet available for this journey." If I dig deeper it can manage PAD to FAL. Does this mean there is no "inter-region" smart ticketing?

For somebody with English as a second language the whole business of split ticketing (presumably you can have smart split tickets) might be asking a bit much. The getting to Reading bit should be relatively easy?

TfL do not accept national rail smart tickets, with the exception of Travelcards on smartcards.  Therefore the Any Permitted cross London fare cannot be offered.

This issue also indirectly affects other fulfillment methods.

e.g. for stations trailing Paper Roll Ticket (PRT) if the ticket includes cross-london transfer or is a travelcard it will be issued on CCST (Credit Card Sized Ticket) stock. For mobile/e-tickets these will be forced to Ticket on Departure (i.e. collection).

This is due to the lack of barcode readers on the LU gates.

...and the lack of barcode readers on LU gates is due to TfL not unreasonably expecting someone to fund the expense of installing them, and providing the background infrastructure to connect to the system that tells the gate what journey(s) the ticket is for and letting it check that the same barcode hasn't been photocopied/printed/screenshot multiple times for use by several people.
Smartcard reading is rather simpler physically as the current readers can read them.  It does though need someone to prepare a whole shedload of data customised for each LU station so the gate can understand what it's read, and making sure to get it right because with a smartcard you don't have the fallback (imperfect though it often is) of simply reading what is printed on the front of the ticket and using a bit of common sense.

Fast forward to 2024, and from GWR we now have an extended area for the Bristol PAYG area.

https://www.gwr.com/your-tickets/smart-tickets/payg/bristol (https://www.gwr.com/your-tickets/smart-tickets/payg/bristol)

Checking a journey, Bath Spa to Stroud, the PAYG option is quoting £30.30 for a single and then states '£8.70 cheaper than an Off-Peak day single. £13.50 cheaper than an Anytime day single.'

The fares for that journey on brfares.com don't support that though - and if the passenger needs e.g. a day return Bath Spa - Stroud, that's listed on brfares.com as £33.60 (or £25.60 off peak). Perhaps the PAYG fare checker is returning only the fares for anytime travel and having paid that £30.30 for a peak time single the system will charge the passenger £3.30 should they return same day... but it all feels a bit... hairy. And I'm puzzled by those '£8.70 cheaper than a ...' examples.

Mark

How does "pay as you go" work for first class travel?