"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message , at 16:48:39 on Mon, 30 Jun
2014, Kevin Ayton remarked:
More difficult is if you have trips to different destinations loaded
as
vouchers. Say you live in Grays and have vouchers for both Southend
and
London, because you anticipate visiting both soon (and not necessarily
knowing in which order). Which voucher should it swap for a ticket?

Order is apparently important. From
http://www.c2c-online.co.uk/customer...c2c-smart-faqs "PLEASE
NOTE: Tickets can only be used in the order in which they were
purchased".

That still doesn't help with deciding if a pax who travelled from home
(A) to work (X) on a return ticket and has just purchased a ticket from
X to B, is starting his journey to B or his return to A.

We could, of course, come up with some rules to resolve every such
conflicts, but that, I would suggest, would make user reluctance to use
such tickets reach the stratosphere

That very problem was solved with version 2.1.4 of the ITSO Technical Spec
and the changes to the specification of the TYP24 IPE - sorry to get
technical, but you don't have much option with ITSO!

Suppose you have a number of rail tickets, encoded as ITSO TYP 24 products
on you card, and you make a journey....

- at the point of initial validation (the entry gate), a list of the
potentially valid tickets on the card is written to the "Transient Ticket"
on the card.
- at subsequent valdiations - whether on train, at an intermediate
station, or at the final exit gate - that list is examined, and any
tickets that are not valid "here and now" are removed from the list.
- on final exit if the number of potentially valid tickets is 1, then we
are done. If it is zero there will be an excess or penalty to pay, with a
manual procedure to be follwed. If the number is greater than once then
again a manual procedure will be required. BUt that should only happen in
a small number of degenerate cases.

A lot of this is set out in an RSP document (RSPS3002 IIRC) which some
former colleagues mine helped to author a few years ago.

Hope that helps

It all sounds very sensible, no it really does.

Are C2C implementing this, and if so why are they disseminating
misinformation to their customers?

just because it's in the spec doesn't mean that it has found its way into
the software

tim


--
Roland Perry

In message , at 15:28:02 on Thu, 3 Jul
2014, tim..... remarked:
The A to X ticket was bought before the X to B ticket so the return
portion of the A to X ticket gets used when he enters X.

how does that help if the pax is actually going to B?

It doesn't, which is the issue.
--
Roland Perry

On Thu, 3 Jul 2014 15:32:50 +0100
Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 15:28:02 on Thu, 3 Jul
2014, tim..... remarked:
The A to X ticket was bought before the X to B ticket so the return
portion of the A to X ticket gets used when he enters X.

how does that help if the pax is actually going to B?

It doesn't, which is the issue.

I never thought ticketing systems could get any more idiotic, but it looks
like I was wrong. This sounds like a master class in technology for its own
sake and to hell with the passenger.

--
Spud

On Thu, 3 Jul 2014 15:09:33 +0000 (UTC),
d wrote:
I never thought ticketing systems could get any more idiotic, but
it looks
like I was wrong. This sounds like a master class in technology for
its own
sake and to hell with the passenger.

I am broadly inclined to agree. Oyster made a lot of sense, as does
the contactless development of it, but it does not apply at all well
to longer distance journeys. I remain of the view that barcode based
(with future NFC expansion) print at home and mobile tickets would
have been a better development.

Neil

--
Neil Williams. Use neil before the at to reply.

"Neil Williams" wrote in message
.net...
On Thu, 3 Jul 2014 15:09:33 +0000 (UTC), d
wrote:
I never thought ticketing systems could get any more idiotic, but
it looks
like I was wrong. This sounds like a master class in technology for
its own
sake and to hell with the passenger.

I am broadly inclined to agree. Oyster made a lot of sense, as does the
contactless development of it, but it does not apply at all well to longer
distance journeys. I remain of the view that barcode based (with future
NFC expansion) print at home and mobile tickets would have been a better
development.

TBH, I doubt that anyone involved thinks that this technology expands to
long single distance tickets.

that is just a stupid (set of) politician's wishes

But it is good technology for season tickets and by not rocking the boat at
this point there is probably 5 years further development in rolling that out
amongst all of the London (and other) commuters

tim

On Thu, 3 Jul 2014 19:10:35 +0100, "tim....."
wrote:
But it is good technology for season tickets

Yeah, I will give it that. Potentially for carnets and the likes as
well.

Neil

--
Neil Williams. Use neil before the at to reply.