You'd never guess what happened to these ticket machines from
Northern's message on their site:
We are currently experiencing technical difficulties with our self-service ticket machines which mean all have to be taken off-line. We are investigating the issue and are working hard to have the machines up and running again as soon as possible.
We are sorry for any inconvenience this causes. In the meantime we are advising customers to either use our mobile app or website to purchase tickets in advance and, where necessary, to collect those tickets from one of our ticket offices.
Customers who have already bought tickets to be collected at a machine, or who would normally use ‘promise to pay’ slips, should board their booked service and either speak to the conductor or to Northern staff at their destination station.
And the suppliers of the machines plus supporting servers,
Flowbird Transport Intelligence (sic), are still only running an "aren't we the clever ones" piece ending:
Mark Powles, Customer and Commercial Director at Northern, said: “Our new machines provide more options and have greatly improved facilities for customers, particularly at unstaffed stations. The full touchscreen design is modern and intuitive and has a number of features, which means it is accessible for disabled customers too.
We plan to transform and digitise the way our customers pay for travel and this includes our Smart season tickets which can be renewed online any time or at our upgraded ticket machines.”
The terminals mirror tablet and smartphone touchscreen functionality and displays, improving the passenger experience through intuitive presentation of information such as fares, journey planning, running times and station maps. The operating software can also be configured to provide additional public-facing services, including multimodal travel updates, social media posts, news, weather and local area information.
Paul Rogers, Sales and Marketing Director at Flowbird, commented: “The completion of the rollout bridges the gap between on-station retailing and digital ticketing for operators by offering passengers an enhanced ticket purchase experience and real-time information at the point of departure.
“Our smart technology provides a consistent and fast self-service ticketing experience for all Northern customers with 24/7 access. Our flexible platform also provides a basis for further developments as additional functionality is integrated to continuously improve the customer experience.”
But
this story in E&T gives an entirely different impression:
Cyber attack takes Northern Trains’ ticket machines offline
By Jack Loughran Published Tuesday, July 20, 2021
Self-service ticket machines operated by the Northern Trains rail franchise have been targeted by a ransomware attack which has taken many of them offline.
The ticketing system has been offline since last week while an investigation is being conducted, but Northern Trains said that these are the only machines affected.
The operator installed more than 600 new ticket machines across the network earlier this year as part of a £17m scheme to provide passengers with modern touch-screen machines at over 400 stations across the north of England. The servers that operate these ticket machines have now been impacted by the suspected cyber attack.
“This is the subject of an ongoing investigation with our supplier, but indications are that the ticket machine service has been subject to a ransomware cyber attack,” Northern said. It added that no customer or payment data had been compromised and that customers could still buy train tickets online.
Flowbird Transport Intelligence, the supplier of the ticket machines, said it had identified the cyber attack through its monitoring systems. “We immediately instigated our major incident procedure in order to protect other parts of the network and our checks have shown there has been no compromise to any personal data,” a spokesperson said...
