On 14 Dec, 15:38, Andy wrote:

On Dec 14, 1:18*pm, Mizter T wrote:

(big snip)

I can't really see any benefit of issuing 'virtual tickets' on
smartcards which are purchased at booking offices or TVMs over issuing
paper tickets, but perhaps I'm just not being imaginative enough. I
guess single journey extensions to smartcard season tickets could also
be applied to the smartcard, instead of being issued as paper tickets.

I seem to recall seeing somewhere that one of the ideas is the virtual
carnet. Buy 10 tickets for a journey, taken at irregular intevals, but
only pay for 8. This is something that should be relatively simple to
setup with smartcard ticketing.


Aha, I knew I wasn't being very imaginative. Of course - a smartcard
carnet - that sounds workable. Passengers would just need to validate
their smartcard at their starting station to 'activate' the carnet, as
it were. Pre-ordered carnets could be picked up from the validators
too. Dunno how it would work when it came to breaking journeys though
- I suppose one easy answer, from SWT's point of view at least, is
that it wouldn't!