E-Tickets

[johnny.menhennet]

All of you guys who recently bought tickets are saying that you want them to be switched over to eTickets. I know that they are new, but for nostalgia's sake, I would want to get the last paper tickets while I still can. Who knows if they'll ever be printed in the same fashion again?

 

[amtrakwolverine]

I was at a station today picking up new tickets and turning in the old ones for a modified reservation and I got paper tickets.

 

[afigg]

I caught a glimpse of the iPhone scanner program they run for the eTickets. Looks very interesting. It looks like it shows how many get on at that station, how many are getting off, and My third guess would be how many total after tickets are collected.. But one must the question if tickets are cancelled after an "All Done" button is hit and there is someone boarding at say PHL who was going to board at WIL what would happen then if the ticket is cancelled out?

If the ticket is not scanned in after departing WIL, I think they would have a different entry than a formerly canceled reservation. Besides someone getting on at the next station down the line from the station they booked - which I expect happens frequently - there is also the possibility that the conductor or AC missed someone as they walked through the train. I'm sure the crew sometimes pick up tickets from people they overlooked a stop or two later. Of course, for a train departing BOS to NYP, the tickets are not picked up until after Backbay. Just log the reservation as not found and wait several stops or a fixed length of time before canceling it. One would hope that all such issues have been worked out in the test roll-out phases.

Will July 30 become known as eTicket or E day? For someone departing from the larger stations with Quik Traks or ticket windows, eTicketing is not that big a deal, although it will provide flexibility and save time in the concourse. The benefits will be more significant for passengers departing from the stations without QT or ticket agents. eTicketing may also attract more younger passengers who find the concept of getting printed tickets so last century.

 

[amamba]

Another exciting update - I was poking around at some reservations I made online for future travel, and there is now an option to "send travel doc" at the top as a yellow button next to the other choices of modify trip or cancel trip. When that is clicked, you can then have your eticket emailed to you.

Pretty cool!

But I still find it strange that I wasn't able to get an e-ticket when making a reservation today with an e-voucher with customer relations. Oh well.

 

[Eris]

Like amamba, I see that I can "send travel docs" and it will email me the eticket... I wonder if I do that if I'll *also* be able to scan my reservation barcode at the quicktrack machine to get a paper ticket (or use the reservation number at a metrolink station machine).

 

[Ispolkom]

Another exciting update - I was poking around at some reservations I made online for future travel, and there is now an option to "send travel doc" at the top as a yellow button next to the other choices of modify trip or cancel trip. When that is clicked, you can then have your eticket emailed to you.

Pretty cool!

But I still find it strange that I wasn't able to get an e-ticket when making a reservation today with an e-voucher with customer relations. Oh well.

Oddly, I only have the "send travel doc" button on 6 of 7 future reservations. The odd one out is a September two-segment trip that starts with a bus.

 

[PRR 60]

Another exciting update - I was poking around at some reservations I made online for future travel, and there is now an option to "send travel doc" at the top as a yellow button next to the other choices of modify trip or cancel trip. When that is clicked, you can then have your eticket emailed to you.

Pretty cool!

But I still find it strange that I wasn't able to get an e-ticket when making a reservation today with an e-voucher with customer relations. Oh well.

Oddly, I only have the "send travel doc" button on 6 of 7 future reservations. The odd one out is a September two-segment trip that starts with a bus.

The bus is the issue. Right now, only a handful of California bus routes are e-ticket enabled. All other bus routes, including most California buses, require paper value tickets. If any segment on an itinerary requires a paper ticket, the entire itinerary must use paper tickets.

 

[printman2000]

I just pulled up my reservation I made this morning before e-ticket option was available. On the iPhone app it showed me an eticket barcode. So I guess it was automatically converted since I did not choose to have tickets mailed.

 

[Misty.]

Either that or it e-ticketing went up unofficially last night Made a Gathering-related reservation last night and pulled it up in the app today, where it showed me the barcode.

 

[amamba]

Oh wow. Just went into the iPhone Amtrak app and it does show the e-ticket barcode/QR code for upcoming reservations that I booked months ago. The only one that doesn't have the code is the one I paid for with my e-voucher. It still says "paper ticket required" over where the code would be.

 

[transit54]

Either that or it e-ticketing went up unofficially last night Made a Gathering-related reservation last night and pulled it up in the app today, where it showed me the barcode.

They definitely seem to have converted existing reservations. I had a reservation months ago that I was able to get a travel document and barcode for today.

I believe that a year or two ago, in preparation for print-at-home eticketing, modifications were made so that ARROW created some sort of an electronic reservation each time a ticket was booked. Essentially, all Amtrak did today was enable the ability to generate a boarding document from that electronic reservation (instead of a standard ticket) and enable the scanning infrastructure. So it makes sense that we can pull up our old reservations electronically. I apologize for speaking so vaguely about technical aspects of this - I just don't have the details in front of me at the moment, nor do I remember exactly where I saw this information.

 

[Ryan]

Oh wow. Just went into the iPhone Amtrak app and it does show the e-ticket barcode/QR code for upcoming reservations that I booked months ago. The only one that doesn't have the code is the one I paid for with my e-voucher. It still says "paper ticket required" over where the code would be.

Hey, that's awesome! I just checked the app and found the same thing! Sweet!

 

[SubwayNut]

Well I'm currently aboard Lincoln Service Train #301 going down to St Louis (stopped waiting for a Metra train just beyond the interlocking with another railroad where the train stops following the orange line) This morning as I was going down to Union Station I noticed a QR code activated for the reservation in the app, along with my trip back to New York. I did stop at a QuickTrak machine and got an electronic travel document as expected. I made a point of showing my iPhone to the gate agent when boarding and had to scroll down so she could see the train number. On board when the conductor came through it was about 50-50 paper which were ripped and eTickets as I even noticed an online print-out.1

 

[deathcabforchristina]

If you go to your reservation page and click 'send traveL doc' a PDF e-ticket will be sent to your email. I just did it.

 

[TrainLoverJoy]

Do I have this straight?.......whatever I print from Amtrak (whether old reservation before July 30 or future reservation) I can go to Quik-Trak kiosk and get an "old size" ticket? I don't want to carry around an 8x11 inch piece of paper and I don't have a smart phone.

 

[Ryan]

You are correct. QT machines will spit out the same ticket stock with a barcode on it.

 

[printman2000]

Do I have this straight?.......whatever I print from Amtrak (whether old reservation before July 30 or future reservation) I can go to Quik-Trak kiosk and get an "old size" ticket? I don't want to carry around an 8x11 inch piece of paper and I don't have a smart phone.

I suppose all you really need is the QR code to be scanned. If an 8.5x11 piece of paper is too much, you can cut it out and carry it in a wallet.

Or, you could just fold the piece of paper.

 

[printman2000]

You are correct. QT machines will spit out the same ticket stock with a barcode on it.

Not to nit pick, but it may be worth pointing out that we might want to change our habit of saying barcode when talking about e-tickets. The e-tickets do not use barcodes, they use QR codes which are the funny looking squares. I do not know how important it is to differentiate, but there could be confusion.

Looking at mine, the QR code simply contains the reservation number and the date the reservation was made.

 

[Ryan]

I don't know, this looks an awful lot like a bar code to me:

(from here)

 

[printman2000]

I don't know, this looks an awful lot like a bar code to me:

(from here)

You are sure right! I stand corrected.

Come to think of it, I guess QT machines and the ticket agent printers cannot print QR codes. I guess the iPhones can scan QR or barcodes.

So I guess the print at home will be QR and the print at station will be barcode.

 

[AlanB]

So I guess the print at home will be QR and the print at station will be barcode.

You guess correctly!

 

[PerRock]

Most mobile devices (like the iPhones they're using) can read both barcodes & QR Codes. Some barcode-type scanners (the red laser thing you see at the supermarket checkout) can read QR codes as well. The big reason for the switch to QR codes is: they can store more information then a regular barcode, and they are more design-friendly (you can constrain them to a specific size), they are also easier for a mobile-device camera reader to read then a barcode (the can still read barcodes, it just might take a bit longer or need a second scan).

peter

 

[printman2000]

Some barcode-type scanners (the red laser thing you see at the supermarket checkout) can read QR codes as well.

peter

Laser scanners work in one long line and pick up the bars and gaps to get their information. I do not think a laser scanner can read a QR code.

 

[PRR 60]

Some barcode-type scanners (the red laser thing you see at the supermarket checkout) can read QR codes as well.

peter

Laser scanners work in one long line and pick up the bars and gaps to get their information. I do not think a laser scanner can read a QR code.

Laser scanners also cannot read a code from a smartphone screen due to the reflective property of the screen. An optical scanner is used for scanning from a phone. The iPhone add-on device used by Amtrak has both capabilities.

 

[jacorbett70]

Most of my tickets have the "send travel doc" option meaning they are now e-tickets. Exceptions: In addition to one with a Thruway bus trip, my Maple Leaf trip to Toronto was not converted. Quik Trak was not offered presumably due to the VIA RAIL segment.