"CJB" wrote in message
...
There is increasing concern that traincos serving London (and
eslewhere around the country) are refusing to accept cash as payment
for tickets from their automatic ticket machines.

This is causing massive disrupution to potential customers especially
those youngsters who do not have a credit card, or in London those
whose Oyster card has run out and cannot be topped up. This situation
also disadvantages thousands of tourists who expect to be able to
purchase train tickets from machines with cash.

In the greater London area the National Rail stations are in what is
termed a 'Penalty Fare Zone.' Travelling within this zone without a
ticket can incur a huge penalty fine. If tickets cannot be purchased
for travel within this zone - even if the automatic ticket machines
are u/s - then 'Permit to Travel' tickets are supposed to be purchased
from another machine for a nominal amount of cash. These tickets then
make the travel legal. The balance of the fare is then supposed to be
paid at the destination. These are the ONLY tickets available for cash
- well used to be.

However despite PTTs being a legal requirement in the Penalty Fare
Zone(s) the Permits to Travel ticket issuing machines are frequently
switched off, or have been removed altogether.

Notices clearly displayed at most stations state that it is a legal
requirement to purchase these special PTT tickets. Yet many (most /
all?) traincos have closed down or removed the PTT machines.

So what is the legal situation whereas the requirement is to purchase
these PTT tickets, yet the machines that issue them have been removed?

Both the National Rail National Conditions of Carriage and the TfL Railway
Byelaws make it clear that the requirement to hold a ticket in a Penalty
Fare Area / Compulsory Ticket Area do not apply if, at the station where the
passenger commenced his journey, there was no ticket office open and no
ticket machine in full working order.

Peter

On May 24, 8:48*am, "Peter Masson" wrote:
"CJB" wrote in message

...

There is increasing concern that traincos serving London (and
eslewhere around the country) are refusing to accept cash as payment
for tickets from their automatic ticket machines.

This is causing massive disrupution to potential customers especially
those youngsters who do not have a credit card, or in London those
whose Oyster card has run out and cannot be topped up. This situation
also disadvantages thousands of tourists who expect to be able to
purchase train tickets from machines with cash.

In the greater London area the National Rail stations are in what is
termed a 'Penalty Fare Zone.' Travelling within this zone without a
ticket can incur a huge penalty fine. If tickets cannot be purchased
for travel within this zone - even if the automatic ticket machines
are u/s - then 'Permit to Travel' tickets are supposed to be purchased
from another machine for a nominal amount of cash. These tickets then
make the travel legal. The balance of the fare is then supposed to be
paid at the destination. These are the ONLY tickets available for cash
- well used to be.

However despite PTTs being a legal requirement in the Penalty Fare
Zone(s) the Permits to Travel ticket issuing machines are frequently
switched off, or have been removed altogether.

Notices clearly displayed at most stations state that it is a legal
requirement to purchase these special PTT tickets. Yet many (most /
all?) traincos have closed down or removed the PTT machines.

So what is the legal situation whereas the requirement is to purchase
these PTT tickets, yet the machines that issue them have been removed?

Both the National Rail National Conditions of Carriage and the TfL Railway
Byelaws make it clear that the requirement to hold a ticket in a Penalty
Fare Area / Compulsory Ticket Area do not apply if, at the station where the
passenger commenced his journey, there was no ticket office open and no
ticket machine in full working order.

Peter

What does 'full working order' mean? If there is a machine which
normally takes cash and cards but at that time is taking cards only
would this be considered to be not in full working order? If another
station had a machine which was only designed to take cards, and was
in full working order, then the situation would effectively be the
same as at the other station, where the machine may, or may not, be
considered to be in full working order.

"Stephen Furley" wrote in message
...
On May 24, 8:48 am, "Peter Masson" wrote:
"CJB" wrote in message

...

There is increasing concern that traincos serving London (and
eslewhere around the country) are refusing to accept cash as payment
for tickets from their automatic ticket machines.

This is causing massive disrupution to potential customers especially
those youngsters who do not have a credit card, or in London those
whose Oyster card has run out and cannot be topped up. This situation
also disadvantages thousands of tourists who expect to be able to
purchase train tickets from machines with cash.

In the greater London area the National Rail stations are in what is
termed a 'Penalty Fare Zone.' Travelling within this zone without a
ticket can incur a huge penalty fine. If tickets cannot be purchased
for travel within this zone - even if the automatic ticket machines
are u/s - then 'Permit to Travel' tickets are supposed to be purchased
from another machine for a nominal amount of cash. These tickets then
make the travel legal. The balance of the fare is then supposed to be
paid at the destination. These are the ONLY tickets available for cash
- well used to be.

However despite PTTs being a legal requirement in the Penalty Fare
Zone(s) the Permits to Travel ticket issuing machines are frequently
switched off, or have been removed altogether.

Notices clearly displayed at most stations state that it is a legal
requirement to purchase these special PTT tickets. Yet many (most /
all?) traincos have closed down or removed the PTT machines.

So what is the legal situation whereas the requirement is to purchase
these PTT tickets, yet the machines that issue them have been removed?

Both the National Rail National Conditions of Carriage and the TfL Railway
Byelaws make it clear that the requirement to hold a ticket in a Penalty
Fare Area / Compulsory Ticket Area do not apply if, at the station where
the
passenger commenced his journey, there was no ticket office open and no
ticket machine in full working order.

Peter

What does 'full working order' mean? If there is a machine which
normally takes cash and cards but at that time is taking cards only
would this be considered to be not in full working order? If another
station had a machine which was only designed to take cards, and was
in full working order, then the situation would effectively be the
same as at the other station, where the machine may, or may not, be
considered to be in full working order.


I take full working order to mean that it can take cash payments in coins or
notes and give change. If it is designed also to take cards but can't it's
again not in full working order, as a passenger can reasonably expect to use
a card and may not have the requisite cash available. In either of these
circumstances I would expect a penalty fare, if issued, to be cancelled, and
I can't see a TOC or TfL daring to proceed with a prosecution as the
magistrates would make their representative look extremely small.

Peter

But this is slightly different to the situation which I described.
What happens if there are two station, one of which has a machine
which is designed to take only cards, and another station has a
machine which is designed to take both cards but due to some defect is
not able to take cash at that time? The facility then provided at
both stations is effectively the same, though while one machine is
fully working it could be argued that the other one wasn't. A
passenger couldn't be expected to know in advance what type of
machines were installed; they might never have used that station
before.

The son of somebody I know was challenged on a train for not having a
Travelcard. He replied that there was no facility to buy one at the
station where he boarded and was then told that there were newsagents
etc. not far from the station, and he should have gone there to buy
one before boarding the train.

On May 24, 2:51*pm, Stephen Furley wrote:

What happens if there are two station, one of which has a machine
which is designed to take only cards

Then it is in full working order if it only accepts cards, although
it's not clear that such machines exist. Cranks who don't carry debit
cards are an increasingly irrelevant portion of society and, rather
like people who complain about processes which require a mobile phone,
there comes a point where it is unreasonable for the rest of us to
subsidise them. Collecting money from coin-operated machines is
savagely expensive, and makes the machines targets for theft.

The son of somebody I know was challenged on a train for not having a
Travelcard. *He replied that there was no facility to buy one at the
station where he boarded and was then told that there were newsagents
etc. not far from the station, and he should have gone there to buy
one before boarding the train.

It's unlikely that RPIs know the law any more than policemen do (cf.
the endless photography debate). Section 2 of the Conditions of
Carriage makes it absolutely clear that the only places you have to
buy a ticket from, if possible, are an open ticket office or a TVM.
You don't have to go and look elsewhere. However, if you boarded a
train without a ticket, made no effort to find the conductor, and got
gripped some time later, then fairly obvious inferences can be drawn
about your intent to pay.

ian

"ian batten" wrote in message
...
On May 24, 2:51 pm, Stephen Furley wrote:

What happens if there are two station, one of which has a machine
which is designed to take only cards

Then it is in full working order if it only accepts cards, although
it's not clear that such machines exist.

In the SWT area, there are a fair proportion of card only machines, but
AFAIAA only where multiple machines are fitted alongside one another. IMX
when there is only one machine it is card and cash, but I have heard of
remote areas of FGW's network where the dual machines were initially
installed but the cash option subsequently removed after to repeated theft
attempts..

Paul S

On May 24, 3:44*pm, "Paul Scott"
wrote:

In the SWT area, there are a fair proportion of card only machines, but
AFAIAA only where multiple machines are fitted alongside one another.

And there are card-only machines in LUL stations, although again only
(in my limited experience) in multiple with more full-service
machines. However, it's an interesting question as to whether if you
have a pair of machines, one of which takes cash (or your preferred
method of payment) and the other of which doesn't, and the "wrong" one
fails, whether that constitutes "full working order". A pair of
machines which together accept two forms of payment might be seen as
one machine which takes both, or as two machines either of which needs
to be working. Presumably, someone with money and time on their hands
will get themselves PF'd, force a testcase and get a resolution.

ian

Paul Scott wrote:

In the SWT area, there are a fair proportion of card only machines, but
AFAIAA only where multiple machines are fitted alongside one another. IMX
when there is only one machine it is card and cash, but I have heard of
remote areas of FGW's network where the dual machines were initially
installed but the cash option subsequently removed after to repeated theft
attempts..

Which brings another combination to the mess - a machine designed to take
both cash and cards but which has had the cash option deliberately switched
off. Is that in "full working order"?

--
My blog: http://adf.ly/4hi4c

On 24/05/2012 15:28, ian batten wrote:

... Cranks who don't carry debit
cards are an increasingly irrelevant portion of society and, rather
like people who complain about processes which require a mobile phone,
there comes a point where it is unreasonable for the rest of us to
subsidise them.

Is a dumb phone adequate for your vision of a conveniently conforming
society or are we all supposed to have smartphones?

I note the rise of adverts where URLs for further information are
deliberately obscured from non-smartphone users:

http://wtfqrcodes.com/


--
Graham Nye
news(a)thenyes.org.uk

On May 24, 7:41*pm, Graham Nye wrote:
On 24/05/2012 15:28, ian batten wrote:

... *Cranks who don't carry debit
cards are an increasingly irrelevant portion of society and, rather
like people who complain about processes which require a mobile phone,
there comes a point where it is unreasonable for the rest of us to
subsidise them.

Is a dumb phone adequate for your vision of a conveniently conforming
society or are we all supposed to have smartphones?

For the problem I was thinking of (SMS parking systems), a standard
phone will do. But eventually, "I don't have a smartphone" (which is
this year's equivalent of "I don't have a television" --- we're
supposed, presumably, to be impressed by your principled stance) will
place you in a set presumed to be economically inactive.


I note the rise of adverts where URLs for further information are
deliberately obscured from non-smartphone users:

No, they've just made a decision that people who don't use smartphones
but who are also a potential market for their product aren't a large
enough set to worry about.

ian