Ticket Vending Machine at Chippenham - choice of front page options

[whole diary]

[grahame]

Do you know how - on Google - the majority of people will follow and find what they want on the front page.   How does that work for Ticket Vending Machines?

I travelled up from Chippenham to London last Thursday afternoon.   Long queue at the one of three counters open, so I used the TVM^▸ (Ticket Vending Machine).   Front page offers me London tickets - peak and offpeak, and with and without various London Underground Travel Card options.

Now - I happened to know that there's something called a super offpeak which is cheaper than any of the options which was offered on the front page, and I managed to find a "please give me more options" button and navigated my way to the ticket I wanted.

I would have thought that there was quite a heavy super-off peak traffic at that time of day.  My question - how is it decided what goes on the front "splash" page? 

Does it seem a little naughty to be offering peak tickets at a time of day that they're unlikely to be needed, and yet not offering the best deal for the mid-afternoon?  I suggest that many occasional travellers aren't aware of  "super offpeak", and would probably have assumed that they needed the offpeak ticket, at a higher price than they needed to pay.

[ellendune]

I used a TVM^▸ (Ticket Vending Machine) at Cologne Hbf a couple of years ago.  First it asked where I wanted to go and when(default being now!).  Then it listed the trains and gave fares for each.  Then I selected a train and it sold me a ticket. easy!  It took a couple on minutes.

Why can't TVM's here be so easy.

[Chris from Nailsea]

Probably the same ticket machines - Scheidt and Bachmann hardware (German efficiency) - but let down by cheap ATOC^» (Association of Train Operating Companies See - here) software here in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) versions?

[thetrout]

Maybe they assume people will return during the Evening Peak so hence displaying more flexible tickets.

Also AFAIK^▸ (as far as I know) the ticket machines at Chippenham (Except the one in the London side Car Park) are the ones from the days of Great Western Trains

[grahame]

Maybe they assume people will return during the Evening Peak so hence displaying more flexible tickets.

Maybe .. but there are 23 super-offpeak trains from Chippenham to London per day, 3 offpeak and 8 peak.   In the reverse direction, there are 10 peak, 8 offpeak and 16 super offpeak.   And if you go to London late in the afternoon so you can't leave on your return before 5 p.m., you have a choice of 5 peak services, 6 super offpeak and just ONE offpeak at 19:00.

But the whole "which services are peak?" question from Chippenham was sufficiently frustrating for us to draw up a chart:
   http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=9506.msg98941#msg98941

From 08:00 to 09:55 in the morning on a Monday to Friday, there is every reason to offer off peak on the front page. from then until around lunchtime, you could argue that it should be offered for people returning before the eveing peak (trains between 15:30 and 16:30 back from Paddington). Later in the day, it looks like someone's trying to hide the cheapest fare that many people will want for an evening out and mislead them into paying more than they need - sorry, but to much of Jo Public it is misleading.

I may have asked before and got a "no", but has anyone done any analysis on the tickets that people have bought and are travelling on, and worked out how many are on the most appropriate (i.e. best value) tickets and how many have spent more than they need?

P.S. - I'm not suggesting that the Open (should that be capitalised?) return shouldn't always be on the front page - with Chippenham tickets valid for a month after purchase, there will always be quite a few people who may come back on these 10 busiest services, even another day.   It also gives people the knowledge of the open fare to help them make the buying decision that's right for them.

[thetrout]

I agree it is definitely misleading!

I'm wondering if it's the software on those machines. Because the TVM^▸ (Ticket Vending Machine)'s at Bath Spa do display Super Off-Peak Tickets to Paddington on the front screen to London, however they don't show you the considerably cheaper option via Salisbury

Further to that, if you ask for the Cheapest ticket to London, you'll be sold a Super Off-Peak Ticket to Paddington. They won't offer the via Salisbury option unless you specifically ask for it!

[JayMac]

Further to that, if you ask for the Cheapest ticket to London, you'll be sold a Super Off-Peak Ticket to Paddington. They won't offer the via Salisbury option unless you specifically ask for it!

Yep. I've asked a similar question of staff at Bristol Temple Meads. I knew what ticket I was after but thought I'd see what was offered when asking, "Cheapest day return fare to London please". I, too was offered a Super Off Peak Return, route 'Any Permitted'.

This goes against the impartial retailing rules, but I fully understand why I wasn't offered the cheaper route. It's unlikely that the incorrect fare is being offered deliberately. More a case that the fares structure is so complex that even the best trained staff will make mistakes.

Of course I know that it's even cheaper to ask for an origin station on the Severn Beach Line, or (as I recently learned) Bristol Parkway or Yate, when wishing to travel to London via Salisbury. This is true of all origin stations from the Bristol area, Bath, Trowbridge, Westbury, Salisbury and Andover and all shacks in between