Over the past 6 years, no-one has bought a rail ticket from Melksham to Brickett Wood, Bridge of Allan or Bridge of Orchy.   So why are those offered as top suggestions when people are entering a station-by-name on the ticket vending machine?     Where are Bristol Parkway and Brighton, which are the 26th and 42nd most popular destinations as you enter B-R-I....?

Here is what I was offered (on the left) and the most popular destinations - those to or from which tickets have been sold over the past 6 years - on the right.



Sure, the offerings are alphabetic, but wouldn't this be more customer friendly if the offer order was "most popular first", and with those to which tickets have not been sold in recent memory then alphabetic below if there are still gaps?

We can argue as to where Bristol Temple Meads should be listed as it's also on the front panel of ten most popular destinations.

 
There is a similar conversation to be had about the keyboard when collecting pre-paid tickets.   Most people are familiar with the "QWERTY" style keyboard so find the alphabetical version more difficult.

 

I'm sure I've seen the destinations listed on some machines in terms of 'most popular' in the past?

 

Agreed ... and raised the "why QWERY anyway" question ... Google headlines


and so there's an argument to be had that something different - such as alphabetic - should now be adopted, the original reason being out of date. But then this is railway.  Remind me where 4'8.75" came from ...

 

Perhaps ... there are so many different standards / machine types / TOCs around.  I have seen similar offerings to the Melksham machine in other places.   Come the day after nationalisation, and we'll have a miracle of a uniform and logical system [for clarity, the sentence written tongue in cheek]

 

..on a QWERTY keyboard.   

 
Going off at another slight tangent (and I can, because I'm an admin ), there is a human equivalent reliance on familiarity here.

On a couple of occasions, I have used the ticket office at Nailsea & Backwell, on weekday mornings when it is open, on the principle, 'use it or lose it'.

On both occasions, staff were very efficient.  The young lady, from her accent possibly East European, so English was not her first language, had never heard of 'Melksham' or 'Kemble' - but was happy to look them up when I spelled them out for her.  I got the impression she had to type in the full name on her ticket machine, rather than the three letter station codes, which I offered her as an initial suggestion.

CfN. 

 
The old ticket office at Kensington Olympia (KPA) which was the old Motorail one from back in the days of old was staffed by an Ex-BR bloke who was fabulous. He knew everything and was always happy to do odd tickets that others would stuggle with, or check something in the fares manual for you. It has, since becoming an TFL Overground station, been closed and replaced by a portacabin type thing at the other platform entrance and a bank of ticket machines.

My gripe with GWR and their ticket machines at Paddington is that they don’t accept the three letter code for a station which I habitually type in first, before realising that it isn’t showing me my destination. This is really annoying if you’ve just arrived, a little late for the train you’re hoping to get. Also don’t understand why they took the ticket machine(s) away from the Taxi Rank at Paddington. Last time I was there there were HEX ones but not GWR ones, it may have been temporary ans they may have been put back subsequently. Still bloody annoying though.

 
Many years ago (well, twenty, give or take one) we had a similar expert, Dave, in the morning ticket office at Nailsea & Backwell.  That was in the days of Wessex Trains (pah! ), but he was absolutely brilliant: what he didn't know about railway ticketing wouldn't even use up the back of a postage stamp.

CfN.