One day travelcards and collection from fastticket machines

Until recently, it has been possible to purchase an in-boundary one
day travelcard (one with a London station as the origin) on a
trainline-derivative booking site and then collect it from a
fastticket machine. This now appears to have changed.

On the website, I was told:

"Unfortunately collection from a Self-service Ticket machine is not
permitted for this ticket."

so I queried this. The response I got from the customer services
department was:

"I am sorry to inform you that a Self Service Ticket Machine option is
not available for London Day Travelcard.

Since the London Day Travelcard does not get dispensed from the Self
Service Ticket Machine, our website does not give this option. In this
case, you can purchase the London Day Travelcard from the station."

This is clearly nonsense as I can buy a one-day travelcard from a self-
service machine at any station within the boundary with that station
as the origin. So I went back and made this point. The response I
got was:

"I would like to inform you that according to the industry policy
rules, London Day Travelcards cannot be dispensed from a Self Service
Ticket Machine. Furthermore, I have passed the details to our
Development Team for review. We appreciate you taking the time out to
share your thoughts with us."

I can appreciate that "industry policy rules" may be trying to tackle
some sort of fraud (i.e. people buying an in-boundary travelcard from
an out-boundary station without a ticket to the boundary) but is this
really the case? Where are these rules?

I think I can still buy one online to be posted to me provided I give
enough notice.


Jonathan

j.p.harris@talk21.com wrote:
> Until recently, it has been possible to purchase an in-boundary one
> day travelcard (one with a London station as the origin) on a
> trainline-derivative booking site and then collect it from a
> fastticket machine. This now appears to have changed.

<snip>

> "I would like to inform you that according to the industry policy
> rules, London Day Travelcards cannot be dispensed from a Self Service
> Ticket Machine. Furthermore, I have passed the details to our
> Development Team for review. We appreciate you taking the time out to
> share your thoughts with us."
>
> I can appreciate that "industry policy rules" may be trying to tackle
> some sort of fraud (i.e. people buying an in-boundary travelcard from
> an out-boundary station without a ticket to the boundary) but is this
> really the case? Where are these rules?
>

That's a new one on me! The only "rules" I can think of are those in
"The Manual" (formerly Section K of the NFM) that state:

<quote>

'In-Boundary' [Off-Peak Day Travelcards]:

The origin station on the ticket must be located within the Fare Zones
that the ticket is being issued for.

Tickets issued to start at a station within the Travelcard area must not
include travel to a station outside the Travelcard area.

Tickets are valid for travel from 0930 Monday to Friday on the date
shown on the ticket, and can only be issued at stations:-

+ on the day of travel – from 0930 Monday to Friday (excluding Public
Holidays), except where trains are timed to depart at or soon after 0930
when they may be issued before 0930. This will normally be after the
departure of the last restricted train, but where the train service
operator allows they may be sold before then.

+ in advance – from 0930 Monday to Friday, any time at weekends, and
Public Holidays, up to 7 days in advance of the day for which the ticket
is dated.

</quote>

I'm guessing they're referring to the first rule there, as there's no
way they can guarantee that you'll collect the ticket from an TVM in the
relevant Zonal Area, and the TVMs can't do remote origin, so they apply
a blanket ban.

Cheers,

Barry

On 17 Sep, 16:08, Charles Ellson <char...@ellson.> wrote:

> On Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:47:26 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T
>
> (snip)
>
> >As ever it's difficult to discuss the potential holes in ticketing
> >without also flagging them up to those who might wish to take
> >advantage.
>
> I doubt if that particular fiddle is any secret.
>

By its very nature it can't be a secret - as I said in a post
upthread, working this through is "hardly beyond the realm of most
peoples capacity for logical thought" - however I've never seen or
heard or read about it anywhere, and despite my earlier comment most
people don't spend a lot of time thinking about such things.

That said, any fiddle that relies upon this is fairly limited in its
scope, and what's more it is unknown whether there are any
countermeasures and if so what they are, e.g. if a ticket is pre-
encoded for use on a particular day of the week, or on an odd or an
even date etc etc.

On Wed, 17 Sep 2008 09:09:28 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T
<mizter.t@> wrote:

>
>On 17 Sep, 16:08, Charles Ellson <char...@ellson.> wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:47:26 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T
>>
>> (snip)
>>
>> >As ever it's difficult to discuss the potential holes in ticketing
>> >without also flagging them up to those who might wish to take
>> >advantage.
>>
>> I doubt if that particular fiddle is any secret.
>>
>
>By its very nature it can't be a secret - as I said in a post
>upthread, working this through is "hardly beyond the realm of most
>peoples capacity for logical thought" - however I've never seen or
>heard or read about it anywhere, and despite my earlier comment most
>people don't spend a lot of time thinking about such things.
>
>That said, any fiddle that relies upon this is fairly limited in its
>scope, and what's more it is unknown whether there are any
>countermeasures and if so what they are, e.g. if a ticket is pre-
>encoded for use on a particular day of the week, or on an odd or an
>even date etc etc.
>
IMU it would have become encoded (in terms of applying a date) the
first time it passed through a ticket barrier at an Underground
station. AFAIAA bus inspectors only have Oyster card readers and Mk1
eyeballs so presumably a 1-day Travelcard would have to be taken to a
station unless someone has been specially armed with a magnetic card
reader.

On 17 Sep, 23:31, Charles Ellson <char...@ellson.> wrote:

> On Wed, 17 Sep 2008 09:09:28 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T
>
> <mizte...@> wrote:
>
> >On 17 Sep, 16:08, Charles Ellson <char...@ellson.> wrote:
>
> >> On Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:47:26 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T
>
> >> (snip)
>
> >> >As ever it's difficult to discuss the potential holes in ticketing
> >> >without also flagging them up to those who might wish to take
> >> >advantage.
>
> >> I doubt if that particular fiddle is any secret.
>
> >By its very nature it can't be a secret - as I said in a post
> >upthread, working this through is "hardly beyond the realm of most
> >peoples capacity for logical thought" - however I've never seen or
> >heard or read about it anywhere, and despite my earlier comment most
> >people don't spend a lot of time thinking about such things.
>
> >That said, any fiddle that relies upon this is fairly limited in its
> >scope, and what's more it is unknown whether there are any
> >countermeasures and if so what they are, e.g. if a ticket is pre-
> >encoded for use on a particular day of the week, or on an odd or an
> >even date etc etc.
>
> IMU it would have become encoded (in terms of applying a date) the
> first time it passed through a ticket barrier at an Underground
> station. AFAIAA bus inspectors only have Oyster card readers and Mk1
> eyeballs so presumably a 1-day Travelcard would have to be taken to a
> station unless someone has been specially armed with a magnetic card
> reader.
>

Yes, I understand all that - I was pondering the notion that whilst
these tickets will not be encoded with a specific date, shopkeepers
might be issued with several batches of tickets - each batch being pre-
encoded so as only to be valid according to some criteria, for example
only on Mondays or only on even or odd dates - therefore the
shopkeeper would have to ensure that whatever ticket they sold to the
customer came from the appropriate batch.

Such a 'countermeasure' would mean that there would at least be an
element of uncertainty introduced over whether a ticket gate would
accept a particular ticket (unless of course the fiddler had worked
out how this scheme worked). Of course the advantages of any such
scheme must be offset against the (hardly unlikely) possibility that a
shopkeeper might get muddled up and issue the wrong ticket stock for a
particular day to a customer, which would mean that quite legitimate
passengers could get caught up in the web of suspicion.