If I have a season ticket between two stations (not travelcard ..opposite
way, in fact), can I use this season ticket to get off at any station
inbetween without incurring any trouble with ticket barriers? I mean, if I
had Waterloo to Brighton season ticket, could I use this same ticket to go
to Wimbledon?

I'm guessing it should be okay, but am wondering whether the barriers are
clever enough.

Thanks

"elyob" wrote in message
...
If I have a season ticket between two stations (not travelcard ..opposite
way, in fact), can I use this season ticket to get off at any station
inbetween without incurring any trouble with ticket barriers? I mean, if I
had Waterloo to Brighton season ticket, could I use this same ticket to go
to Wimbledon?

I'm guessing it should be okay, but am wondering whether the barriers are
clever enough.

There are no valid routes from London to Brighton that pass through
Wimbledon so you could not exit there. However you could use your season
ticket to exit at stations on a valid route, eg East Croydon.

Peter Smyth

Peter Smyth wrote:
"elyob" wrote in message
...
If I have a season ticket between two stations (not travelcard ..opposite
way, in fact), can I use this season ticket to get off at any station
inbetween without incurring any trouble with ticket barriers? I mean, if I
had Waterloo to Brighton season ticket, could I use this same ticket to go
to Wimbledon?

I'm guessing it should be okay, but am wondering whether the barriers are
clever enough.

There are no valid routes from London to Brighton that pass through
Wimbledon so you could not exit there. However you could use your season
ticket to exit at stations on a valid route, eg East Croydon.

Even though the ticket is valid at East Croydon (or any other
intermediate station on a permitted route), the automatic barriers may
well not open. I believe the barriers have trouble with the limited
amount of information that can be conveyed on the ticket's magnetic
strip, and can't interpolate validity of tickets that aren't coded to
directly relate to that station.

I guess it would be possible, with a software upgrade to the barriers,
for a routing guide check to be carried out on obscure tickets - which
would probably take significantly longer than just rejecting the ticket
and telling you to seek (human brain) assistance!

On Fri, 8 Sep 2006 17:25:09 +0100, "elyob"
wrote:

If I have a season ticket between two stations (not travelcard ..opposite
way, in fact), can I use this season ticket to get off at any station
inbetween without incurring any trouble with ticket barriers? I mean, if I
had Waterloo to Brighton season ticket, could I use this same ticket to go
to Wimbledon?

Not at Wimbledon as not line of route but as said elsewhere you could
get off at East Croydon or Gatwick or Haywards Heath.

I'm guessing it should be okay, but am wondering whether the barriers are
clever enough.

There are quite severe limitations as to what can be coded on the back
of a ticket and what the gates can recognise. I used to fully understand
what LUL did on this but I am completely out of date with respect to the
TOCs and how they have tried to cope with the explosion of ticket gate
coverage across the country. As stated in another post it is possible
that your ticket may be rejected and you'd be directly to deal with a
humanoid to let you out of the station - not ideal but I've not heard
that the TOCs have funded a full respecification of the magnetic stripe!

--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

Paul Corfield wrote:

There are quite severe limitations as to what can be coded on the back
of a ticket and what the gates can recognise...

I'm not sure why this is relevant. Surely as long as the ticket carries
basic information such as:

- start point
- end point
- operator (or 'any')
- route (in the sense of the small number of options actually available
for that journey, e.g. 'not London' or 'any reasonable')
- start date
- end date
- adult/child

the logic to permit or refuse passage can be in the gate (or more
precisely its controller) - I assume recent gate installations have a
reasonably decent Windows PC or equivalent on board, so this can't be
too hard to achieve, can it?

Steve Adams

Peter Smyth wrote

"elyob" wrote
[...]
I'm guessing it should be okay, but am wondering whether the
barriers are
clever enough.

There are no valid routes from London to Brighton that pass through
Wimbledon so you could not exit there. However you could use your
season
ticket to exit at stations on a valid route, eg East Croydon.

But you might have to go to the manual gate, since, as the OP suggests,
the barriers are not always smart enough.

Years ago, the Clapham Junction barriers would not allow exit on a
season ticket on my way back from London to Surrey but this has now
been fixed. More recently on returning to Woking from Bournemouth the
SDR would not allow exit at Farnbrourgh (Main)'s barriers.

--
Mike D

wrote:

Even though the ticket is valid at East Croydon (or any other
intermediate station on a permitted route), the automatic barriers may
well not open. I believe the barriers have trouble with the limited
amount of information that can be conveyed on the ticket's magnetic
strip, and can't interpolate validity of tickets that aren't coded to
directly relate to that station.

My Gillingham (KEnt) - London terminals season is valid for travel
to any station between those two points, but it won't even open the
barriers at the next station, Chatham, and I have to show it to the
gateline staff.

Roy