The orange-coloured tickets used on Britain's railway had been unchanged for almost 30 years since 1986 (left example below) when the British Rail APTIS (Accountancy and Passenger Ticket Issuing System) system was introduced. Although the old format was adequate there were several criticisms of the presentation of information. Perhaps the tipping point in making the case for major change was that they did not include seat reservations so these had to be printed separately, which obviously made purchasing time longer (also using more stationery and ink) and caused problems with ticket checks where the passenger may have thrown away either the ticket or the reservation for an Advance Purchase ticket forgetting both were needed. In addition passengers tried to insert them into ticket barriers, slowing down other passengers.
To overcome the limitations of the old-style tickets, the train companies (with encouragement from the Department for Transport) have introduced a new layout (officially known as the National Rail 2014 Ticket) for information on the same stationery. They have allowed the seat reservation to be printed on the ticket but, despite the advances in printing technology over 30 years, they have not introduced colour (to speed up checking e.g. child or time-restricted tickets in a different colour) or printing on both sides of the ticket (to convey useful information such as valid routes and times). Even with the lack of new printing features, the new layout (right example below) still requires changes to a lot of ticket machines across Britain's railway and has not been fully rolled-out across the network yet. Worse still, there are multiple variants of the layout depending on the ticket machine supplier.
The revised format gradualy introduced since 2014 is supposed to be "cleaner and fresher" but has generated much criticism.
Railfuture has described it as "cluttered and poorly laid out" with the use of lower-case rather than upper case for key information such as station names and date being a major mistake. One should not have to get out a pair of reading glasses to know whether they are looking at the outward or return ticket. In his regular column in RAIL magazine, rail fares and services expert Barry Doe (who was then a Railfuture Vice President) wrote "the redesign has been appalling and they are universally hated by staff and public alike" (RAIL issue 796 March 2016).
Criticism includes the use of small print, use throughout of lower case, and irrelevant information. Staff spend more time than previously to check if tickets are valid. It seems that the views of staff and passengers were not sought before implementation - not a unique experience on the railway!
There is a suberb article (dated January 2018 and titled Practically Redesigned: British Train Ticket), which looks in great detail at the design of the 'tangerine ticket' that was launched back in 1986. It makes some sensible suggestions for layout changes. In particular Railfuture supports the separation of information to be read by the ticket examiner ('Inspection'), by the passenger (esseential journey information) and the ticket office staff (where a refund is needed) or accounts department (when claiming expenses). The administrator information is rarely read and should, as suggested, be in the smallest typeface size at the bottom. Railfuture makes a suggestion that the article does not cover: also include the three-character station code next to the station name, as these days many people use websites and apps so awareness of these codes, as a time-saver, should be raised.
Railfuture has also analysed the format of the new ticket to work out what information is important as the following diagram shows.
Below are some examples of a clearer ticket layout designed by Railfuture - pick the ticket type from the drop-down list. Your thoughts would be appreciated - please email Paul Hollinghurst.
The following shows how a revised rail ticket could look:
Railfuture believes that its alternative format shown above overcomes the main deficiences in the new format, which contains the right information but is very cluttered and poorly laid out:
- Too much prose; this wastes space reducing font size and increasing clutter - do we really need to print 'for details ask staff' on the front of every ticket
- Unnecessary indentation
- Footnote information scattered in the body of the ticket which would be better placed at the end
- Important information mixed in with infrequently checked information, push the latter to the start and end and leave the centre of the ticket for the most important.