Commuter left stunned after needing FOURTEEN tickets for simple trip

[whole diary]

[Btline]

A railway passenger was left stunned after she needed a staggering 14 tickets just for a simple return train trip.
Project manager Rachel Woodward, 28, booked the easy journey from Leeds to Leicester online, only to be bamboozled by a huge pile of paperwork.
When she arrived at the station she was shocked and confused when the machine spewed out 14 separate tickets for the ^16.50 trip - plus a receipt.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2164884/Train-passenger-buy-14-TICKETS-complete-simple-round-trip-Leeds-Leicester.html#ixzz1yvZRfnKD

[EBrown]

Good job she didn't split her tickets!

[Super Guard]

At what point did it say anything about her being a commuter, or was it just adding to the excessive drama that you had to add to yet another post of yours?   

[John R]

Btline thinks commuter and passenger are synonymous.  Here's a helpful summary to enable anyone confused to use the correct word next time. A commuter is always a passenger (in the context of train journeys), but a passenger is not necessarily a commuter. (And in the case given is highly unlikely to be.)

[readytostart]

Tomorrow's Daily Hate Mail headline: Passenger left stunned after paying ^59 for a walk up return, getting her bike refused and having to stand because she didn't have a reservation! Swings and roundabouts.

[inspector_blakey]

Btline, I've said this before but it seems to have fallen on deaf ears.

Your "schtick" involving trawling around for news articles then posting them here with all sorts of hyperbole about tired/enraged/cash-strapped/hard-done-by/oppressed/downtrodden commuters became unfunny, tedious and irksome a long time ago. And I get the feeling that it's not just me who is getting ever-more irritated by it. Please cut it out. It may have been mildly amusing once or twice. Through incessant repetition it's now frankly boring and annoying. Change the record.

[Milky Bar Kid]

who really cares that she had 14 tickets?! i mean the bike itself had 8 and was a bike reservation really needed, probably not. Typical daily mail wasting paper with these stupid stories!

[grahame]

who really cares that she had 14 tickets?! i mean the bike itself had 8 and was a bike reservation really needed, probably not. Typical daily mail wasting paper with these stupid stories!

The long-standing concerns about complexity in the system must also be addressed. We believe strongly that buying a rail ticket should be a straightforward transaction, not an obstacle course; and that passengers should be able to choose confidently from a range of fares, finding the best one for their journey without having to understand every nuance of the fares and retail structure.

Who said that (second quote). Does it tally with 14 bits of cardboard for a journey?

As I undertand it, it wasn't 14 tickets.   At least one was a receipt 

[6 OF 2 redundant adjunct of unimatrix 01]

So it was a simple trip which she had made complicated by taking a bike and reserving seats.....

[Rhydgaled]

So it was a simple trip which she had made complicated by taking a bike and reserving seats.....

But:

• Why couldn't the seat reservations be printed on the travel tickets (or the reverse side)?
• Why couldn't there have been just one return ticket for the bike, why did it need one for each train (even the passenger only had one outbound and one return ticket)?
• Alternatively, why couldn't there have just been reservations for the bike, perhaps with an indication of the price paid (if bikes aren't free) for the bike on the reservation card (so 4 'tickets' for the bike instead of 8 'tickets')

[6 OF 2 redundant adjunct of unimatrix 01]

The seat reservation should be on the ticket I totally agree, however if you did adding more text to the same ticket would confuse others.... Can't win :-)

As for the bike well one is to be attached to the bike to help identify its owner the other is to say the bike is yours, both legs could probably be done on two tickets instead of four but would no doubt be lost after a bike ride

Is the complaint the number of tickets or the amount of confusion it causes? Sorry I'm not clicking a daily fail link as I do not want them to embed cookies in my browser, and I am not buying the paper itself as I find the number of pages confusing

[eightf48544]

Whatever you say 14 bits of cardbord for 1 journey fails the KISS^▸ ('keep it simple, stupid!') test.

Keep It Simple Stupid

[6 OF 2 redundant adjunct of unimatrix 01]

Not saying I disagree, but it's been the same for years it's not a new shocking policy

[Btline]

Actually Graham, it was 14 plus a receipt!

Initially I thought the article was going to be about the fact that he had had to split 7 times to get a cheaper fare...

Btline, I've said this before but it seems to have fallen on deaf ears.

Yawn - the entirely of my OP^▸ (Original Poster / topic starter, or Off Peak, depending on context) is a quote from the DM^▸ (Dilton Marsh) (including the "commuter" title, which appears to have been changed now). Moan at them, not me. Or ignore. I actually found the DM's description of the TVM^▸ (Ticket Vending Machine) "spewing" out tickets to be an amusing image. It is an interesting article and raises interesting points for members of this forum to discuss - as it happening above. Of course, feel free to not enter discussion but to moan if you have the time.

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Many of the comments left by readers say that smartcard ticketing is the way forward, but is this the case for bikes? Would you have to touch your bike into each train so it could check you had a reservation?

[old original]

two things

1) who actually gives a flying ....
2) got a bike?   -  ride it you lazy ........