E-Tickets

[Anderson]

Over at Flyertalk, a British couple on a USA tour reports getting an e-mail from Amtrak today advising that their on-going Amtrak reservations have been canceled due to a no-show on an Acela trip. They were, in fact, not a no-show, and rode the Acela. Someone or something fouled up with the scanning. Now they are trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together.

Amtrak really has to put an end to this "no-scan, cancel" nonsense. Amtrak is not an airline.

I've got a trip coming up that involves six different trains. Suddenly I'm very glad that I booked seperate reservations whenever I'm boarding a sleeper, only making 'guaranteed' connections to coach. With 'no-scan cancel,' even if they screw up and cancel a segment, it will be a lot easier to get a seat than a room when I show up at the ticket window at my connecting station, because I did, in fact, board the train to that station.

Amtrak needs to solve this problem, ASAP. I know hindsight is a dangerous thing, but it is really hard to believe that no one picked up on this 'minor' detail.

First, I'd really like to know what dingbat thought a system-wide rollout coming on the heels of the main trial being on an isolated line was a good idea.* That's probably why this wasn't caught...you just didn't have that many connections, and in all likelihood, any and all connections required a non-e-ticket.

Second, and I know I'm being harsh here, but I would love to know if that person still has a job with Amtrak, and if so, why.

*There are no direct connections to/from the Downeaster.

Edit: Another thoguht, but IIRC most airlines had an extended period where they had both e-tickets and paper tickets (the latter eventually got surcharged and then phased out). I'm guessing that this helped "paper over" any issues in this vein. Why Amtrak didn't consider something like this for a year or two is beyond me.

Also, while we're on this /lovely/ topic, I'm actually going to contact an attorney preemptively to see if a botched scan (or a ditzy conductor missing me in a sweep) resulting in a cancelled reservation is grounds for a lawsuit (I think there's a pretty good case that Amtrak is the negligent party in such a situation). Don't get me wrong, I love Amtrak dearly and will fight to keep them around...but God Almighty help me if this happens in the middle of a trip, I will gladly sue them over this.

 

[jis]

Over at Flyertalk, a British couple on a USA tour reports getting an e-mail from Amtrak today advising that their on-going Amtrak reservations have been canceled due to a no-show on an Acela trip. They were, in fact, not a no-show, and rode the Acela. Someone or something fouled up with the scanning. Now they are trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together.

Amtrak really has to put an end to this "no-scan, cancel" nonsense. Amtrak is not an airline.

A prudent thing to do until Amtrak gets its act together might be to call Amtrak several hours into each segment to verify that Amtrak thinks you actually are on the train that you are on, and if they don't, inform them that you are on the train. What a bloody pain! Of course if you have separate reservations for each segment then this is unnecessary, as also it is for the last segment of an itinerary. After they get sufficient number of such calls they may decide that there is a cost associated with this oversight.

This is a typical example of what happens when IT processes are put in place without adequately thinking through failure modes in the environment within which the IT process is supposed to operate. Too often people just think through the main path while failing to take into consideration the various exception/failure paths adequately.

BTW, the prudent workaround covering most cases is also very simple. Do not cancel anything until there are two no shows, assuming of course that it is highly unlikely that someone would be missed twice. Alternatively after the first no show send an email notifying of the no show and asking for verification if the segment was traveled from the ticket holder. If no response is forthcoming and there is no show on the second segment, then proceed to cancel. Not perfect, but should catch almost all.

 

[Anderson]

Over at Flyertalk, a British couple on a USA tour reports getting an e-mail from Amtrak today advising that their on-going Amtrak reservations have been canceled due to a no-show on an Acela trip. They were, in fact, not a no-show, and rode the Acela. Someone or something fouled up with the scanning. Now they are trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together.

Amtrak really has to put an end to this "no-scan, cancel" nonsense. Amtrak is not an airline.

A prudent thing to do until Amtrak gets its act together might be to call Amtrak several hours into each segment to verify that Amtrak thinks you actually are on the train that you are on, and if they don't, inform them that you are on the train. What a bloody pain! Of course if you have separate reservations for each segment then this is unnecessary, as also it is for the last segment of an itinerary. After they get sufficient number of such calls they may decide that there is a cost associated with this oversight.

This is a typical example of what happens when IT processes are put in place without adequately thinking through failure modes in the environment within which the IT process is supposed to operate. Too often people just think through the main path while failing to take into consideration the various exception/failure paths adequately.

BTW, the prudent workaround covering most cases is also very simple. Do not cancel anything until there are two no shows, assuming of course that it is highly unlikely that someone would be missed twice. Alternatively after the first no show send an email notifying of the no show and asking for verification if the segment was traveled from the ticket holder. If no response is forthcoming and there is no show on the second segment, then proceed to cancel. Not perfect, but should catch almost all.

Remind me why I am taking the train again? Oh, right...to relax on the way. Seriously, while I know that is a prudent course to take, that sort of effort makes me want to just not travel. Or give someone else my business until Amtrak gets their act together.

The problem with your (not bad, I might note, and atually pretty well thought-out) way of handling things is that on LD trains, email is spotty-at-best, and even on corridor trains with Wi-Fi...well, let's just say that the Acela certainly seems to be trying to imitate dial-up much of the time.

 

[jis]

Remind me why I am taking the train again? Oh, right...to relax on the way. Seriously, while I know that is a prudent course to take, that sort of effort makes me want to just not travel. Or give someone else my business until Amtrak gets their act together.

I would recommend a cross country bicycle trip instead :lol: healthier and slower, more time to take in the scenery and all that and no tickets to buy and get scanned and what not

An automobile could work too. Other than that your only choice would be those dreaded airlines or the Hound!

 

[Ryan]

First, I'd really like to know what dingbat thought a system-wide rollout coming on the heels of the main trial being on an isolated line was a good idea.* That's probably why this wasn't caught...you just didn't have that many connections, and in all likelihood, any and all connections required a non-e-ticket.
Second, and I know I'm being harsh here, but I would love to know if that person still has a job with Amtrak, and if so, why.

My memory may be a little foggy, but I'm pretty sure that e-tickets rolled out on other routes before the system-wide rollout.

 

[The Davy Crockett]

First, I'd really like to know what dingbat thought a system-wide rollout coming on the heels of the main trial being on an isolated line was a good idea.* That's probably why this wasn't caught...you just didn't have that many connections, and in all likelihood, any and all connections required a non-e-ticket.
Second, and I know I'm being harsh here, but I would love to know if that person still has a job with Amtrak, and if so, why.

My memory may be a little foggy, but I'm pretty sure that e-tickets rolled out on other routes before the system-wide rollout.

In either case, the no-scan cancel issue is a real cluster !

 

[jis]

First, I'd really like to know what dingbat thought a system-wide rollout coming on the heels of the main trial being on an isolated line was a good idea.* That's probably why this wasn't caught...you just didn't have that many connections, and in all likelihood, any and all connections required a non-e-ticket.
Second, and I know I'm being harsh here, but I would love to know if that person still has a job with Amtrak, and if so, why.

My memory may be a little foggy, but I'm pretty sure that e-tickets rolled out on other routes before the system-wide rollout.

The issue is that they were introduced in isolated route segments, which did not cover the possibility of transferring from one train to another on the same itinerary using e-tickets too much, and especially so involving high value, hard to get accommodation. So the consequence of mis-scans and consequent cancellation of an itinerary was minimal and hence unlikely to be detected or affect anyone. The worst that could happen was someone does not get credited AGR points for a segment, and frankly, it is not clear if there are a significant number of people who are not either on this forum or FlyerTalk who give a rats rear and about such a fiasco.

OTOH people do care if the rest of their itinerary gets canned due to a conductor's or system's mistake, and one that is not that hard to make either.

BTW, I believe Anderson is being a bit melodramatic and over the top when he talks of continued employment or not of the one responsible etc., and I bet he knows it too In any case such an action won't help solve the problem nor prevent something like this from happening again. It would only make Anderson feel good.

 

[Ryan]

Oh, I don't disagree that the testing could have been more extensive and the rollout done somewhat slower.

But if you're calling for people to be fired and preemptively talking to lawyers, it's important to get the facts right, and the jump wasn't directly from "single route not physically connected to the rest of the network" -> "systemwide rollout", which is what Anderson seems to think.

 

[jis]

Oh, I don't disagree that the testing could have been more extensive and the rollout done somewhat slower.

But if you're calling for people to be fired and preemptively talking to lawyers, it's important to get the facts right, and the jump wasn't directly from "single route not physically connected to the rest of the network" -> "systemwide rollout", which is what Anderson seems to think.

In that you are correct. As I said I think he is going a bit over the top.

 

[PRR 60]

My memory may be a little foggy, but I'm pretty sure that e-tickets rolled out on other routes before the system-wide rollout.

The trials were first on the Downeaster, then later on the Capitol Corridor, the San Joaquins, Pacific Surfliner, and the City of New Orleans. While it is possible to transfer between the Capitol Corridor to the San Joaquin, it likely does not happen very often. With the others, the trial offered no opportunity to transfer to another trial route. The ability to test the process for transferring passengers was quite limited.

Sometimes in the planning for work like this, the people involved in the planning make assumptions that certain actions are 100% certain with no allowance for real world variences. It sounds like that assumption was made for scanning of boarding documents. That is a good assumption for airline travel, but is certainly is not a good assumption for rail travel with sometimes haphazard ticket collection and scanning. The problem is that the consequences of a failure in the scanning process was laid on the passenger.

Amtrak at times is not very nimble in reacting to problems like this. I'm hoping they move out of character and get this fixed.

 

[Trogdor]

My memory may be a little foggy, but I'm pretty sure that e-tickets rolled out on other routes before the system-wide rollout.

The trials were first on the Downeaster, then later on the Capitol Corridor, the San Joaquins, Pacific Surfliner, and the City of New Orleans.

The Surfliner was not part of the trial. It rolled out with the rest of the system.

Still, I agree there is a problem with the fact that connections weren't really tested before the auto-cancel issue occurred. I know this issue was raised, including at a NARP meeting of some sort with an Amtrak representative present (I wasn't at that meeting, but a friend discussed the meeting with me afterwards).

I always thought the auto-cancel after a missed scan was a dangerous thing, for this very issue.

 

[yarrow]

Remind me why I am taking the train again? Oh, right...to relax on the way.

we have a cross country amtrak rt coming up in 4 weeks. our first train trip since taking the canadian cross canada and return in april. after the level of service and customer concern via offered i'm a little leery of placing myself in amtrak's hands again

 

[jis]

Remind me why I am taking the train again? Oh, right...to relax on the way.

we have a cross country amtrak rt coming up in 4 weeks. our first train trip since taking the canadian cross canada and return in april. after the level of service and customer concern via offered i'm a little leery of placing myself in amtrak's hands again

In all likelihood you will do just fine, like most passengers do. The sample of discussions you see here is one among knowledgeable people who are informed about things that did not work, and analysis of why it is so and how it could be fixed. That should not suggest that it works in most cases. In addition if you take a few prudent steps like I suggested above, there should be no reason to fear that things will not work out. So relax and enjoy, would be my recommendation, which is what I do on my trips, and so far I haven;t had any [problem this year in the 7,000 or so miles that I have traveled so far in over a dozen segments, including many connecting ones.

 

[yarrow]

Remind me why I am taking the train again? Oh, right...to relax on the way.

we have a cross country amtrak rt coming up in 4 weeks. our first train trip since taking the canadian cross canada and return in april. after the level of service and customer concern via offered i'm a little leery of placing myself in amtrak's hands again

In all likelihood you will do just fine, like most passengers do. The sample of discussions you see here is one among knowledgeable people who are informed about things that did not work, and analysis of why it is so and how it could be fixed. That should not suggest that it works in most cases. In addition if you take a few prudent steps like I suggested above, there should be no reason to fear that things will not work out. So relax and enjoy, would be my recommendation, which is what I do on my trips, and so far I haven;t had any [problem this year in the 7,000 or so miles that I have traveled so far in over a dozen segments, including many connecting ones.

well, i have 77,000 amtrak miles. have had my share of good trips and bad. i admit to not being knowledgeable about e-ticketing but regard myself as somewhat knowledgeable about passenger trains and amtrak. so don't give me your little lecture

 

[jis]

well, i have 77,000 amtrak miles. have had my share of good trips and bad. i admit to not being knowledgeable about e-ticketing but regard myself as somewhat knowledgeable about passenger trains and amtrak. so don't give me your little lecture

Oh my! Testy aren't we? OK Sorry. Withdrawn. :help:

 

[CHamilton]

Wow. I missed this discussion while at the PDX micro-gathering this past weekend. I can attest that it would be easy to miss having one's ticket scanned. When I got on 508 last night, I was hungry, since the train left PDX an hour late. Experienced passengers are used to not waiting for having tickets lifted before heading to get food. I high-tailed it to the bistro to beat the line that I knew would form, and ate a burger in the table area of the bistro between PDX and VAN. I heard the assistant conductor tell the conductor that all of the tickets in business class had been scanned, even though she hadn't gotten mine. But when I walked by her, she recognized that she hadn't yet scanned my ticket, and did so on the spot.

In my case, it would not have been a disaster if my ticket hadn't been scanned, since it was the last leg of the reservation, but I sure wouldn't want to lose a reservation in the middle of a complex itinerary!

FYI, here's what e-tickets look like as printed from the ticket counter at SEA.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

This sounds like an issue with Amtrak having a little too much confidence in the staff's ability to process everything exactly as intended and/or not making use of determined testers who have mapped out as many potential complications as possible and are intentionally trying to expose as many problems as possible. If all you test are soft and easy examples then all you'll get are soft an easy results. Proper testing requires more than just following the business process flow chart. You need testers who are willing and able to subvert the normal process and throw as many wrenches into the works as possible. Not every potential problem needs to be fixed before deployment, and no system is truly error free, but there is no reason this should have not be discovered during the design stage and resolved during the testing stage. An issue this big making it into the production roll-out is both surprising and unfortunate.

 

[johnny.menhennet]

An issue this big making it into the production roll-out is both surprising and unfortunate.

I agree. It sure does reflect poorly on Amtrak. I would hope for some vouchers at least for distress and negligence. Very unfortunate, but in all honesty, there would not be many ways to have figured out issues like this in the testing phase that occurred. There were two corridor trains in Cali that participated, the CONO, and the Downeaster. When you had any segment on one of those but also on another without eticketing, you would receive paper tix for the whole trip. If you focused the initial testing to a specific hub area, then it might've worked better because you could see how it would handle connections. For example, if they wante to do it on the Cap Corridor and the SJs, then they could roll it out on the CS and CZ as well. Or do it on all of the trains operating out of Chicago or something along these lines.

 

[Shanghai]

I recently took the Silver Meteor (97 & 98) to Florida and back. I had an E-Ticket that contained both

legs of the trip. We had separate tickets for my wife and I. When the conductor scanned my wife's ticket,

which was on top of my ticket, I watched and he did not scan my ticket. I advised the conductor that my

ticket was under my wife's ticket and he told me that it was not necessary for him to scan my ticket that

the scan of my wife's ticket would record both tickets. I am monitoring my AGR account to see if my points

show up for the trip. Also, the monetary amount of the ticket that previously was printed on the stub does

not show up on the E-Tickets which makes it unhandy to determine the point value for AGR on paid tickets.

 

[The Davy Crockett]

I recently took the Silver Meteor (97 & 98) to Florida and back. I had an E-Ticket that contained both

legs of the trip. We had separate tickets for my wife and I. When the conductor scanned my wife's ticket,

which was on top of my ticket, I watched and he did not scan my ticket. I advised the conductor that my

ticket was under my wife's ticket and he told me that it was not necessary for him to scan my ticket that

the scan of my wife's ticket would record both tickets. I am monitoring my AGR account to see if my points

show up for the trip. Also, the monetary amount of the ticket that previously was printed on the stub does

not show up on the E-Tickets which makes it unhandy to determine the point value for AGR on paid tickets.

That is a new angle. Hopefully the conductor knows what he is talking about!

As for the monetary amount of the ticket not being on an e-ticket, I'm thinking that Amtrak would say it is not there because, unlike paper tickets, e-tickets have no cash value.

 

[Aaron]

That is a new angle. ...

Not really. I've posted a couple of times on this forum, including at least once in this thread regarding a question you asked about multiple e-ticket printouts and whether or not they're available or necessary. To recap: When you print out tickets from a Quik-Trak or a ticket window, the printer automatically spits out one for each passenger on the reservation. However, the code on each ticket printout is the same. The code that's scanned on the e-ticket, whether from the smartphone app or the PDF that's emailed to you or the tickets picked up from a Quik-Trak or a ticket counter is just your reservation number. When the conductor scans the code, that reservation number is used to lookup your reservation on his phone. A screen then pops up listing all the passengers on the reservation. The conductor can check in one or all passengers from that screen.

I assume that the ticket printers print out individual tickets just to avoid any possible issues with separated parties and overzealous gate agents and things like that. However, every ticket that's printed out for your party is virtually identical. On my last trip, we had multiple e-tickets, but my wife's ticket wasn't any more her ticket than my ticket was mine. They were both tickets for our reservation, and either would have worked equally well for "getting our tickets lifted" on the train.

Disclaimer 1: Now, I'm making the big assumption that Shanghai was saying he had two ticket printouts, one with his name and one with his wife's name, but that they were both purchased together as part of the same reservation. If he was saying that he purchased the two tickets separately, like separate reservations at different times, paid for separately, and the conductor could scan them both in with one scan, yes, that is a new angle, indeed. In that case, nothing I said above is applicable, and I'm a real ass for making the assumptions that I did.

Disclaimer 2: For the pedantic: I'm glossing over the slight differences between the types of e-ticket printouts, like the fact that the Quik-Trak and ticket window printouts have bar codes and the PDF and smartphone apps have QR codes. Also, the PDF has the purchase date encoded into the QR code also, but that seems like irrelevant information as far as lifting your ticket on the train goes.

 

[The Davy Crockett]

Disclaimer 1: Now, I'm making the big assumption that Shanghai was saying he had two ticket printouts, one with his name and one with his wife's name, but that they were both purchased together as part of the same reservation. If he was saying that he purchased the two tickets separately, like separate reservations at different times, paid for separately, and the conductor could scan them both in with one scan, yes, that is a new angle, indeed. In that case, nothing I said above is applicable, and I'm a real ass for making the assumptions that I did.

And I am assuming they had separate reservations...

...but I'm not going to be as hard on myself as you are on yourself. :lol:

EDIT: But then again, if they were in a sleeper, yes, they should be the same reservation... Ooops! :blush:

 

[johnny.menhennet]

I recently took the Silver Meteor (97 & 98) to Florida and back. I had an E-Ticket that contained both

legs of the trip. We had separate tickets for my wife and I. When the conductor scanned my wife's ticket,

which was on top of my ticket, I watched and he did not scan my ticket. I advised the conductor that my

ticket was under my wife's ticket and he told me that it was not necessary for him to scan my ticket that

the scan of my wife's ticket would record both tickets. I am monitoring my AGR account to see if my points

show up for the trip. Also, the monetary amount of the ticket that previously was printed on the stub does

not show up on the E-Tickets which makes it unhandy to determine the point value for AGR on paid tickets.

Luckily for me I never need to worry about how many points I get. I've never had points deposited in my account over 100, so my balance is still on a hundreds. After I registered, my grandma had thrown away our stubs from the Colorado trip, and since then all of my trips around SoCal have been less than $50. The trip between Chicago and Boston did not get credited to my account and despite filing multiple missing points requests never came, and it would've turned out to be 100 points as well, so I didn't worry too much. In the past year, I've had three trips that haven't been credited.

 

[Shanghai]

I recently took the Silver Meteor (97 & 98) to Florida and back. I had an E-Ticket that contained both

legs of the trip. We had separate tickets for my wife and I. When the conductor scanned my wife's ticket,

which was on top of my ticket, I watched and he did not scan my ticket. I advised the conductor that my

ticket was under my wife's ticket and he told me that it was not necessary for him to scan my ticket that

the scan of my wife's ticket would record both tickets. I am monitoring my AGR account to see if my points

show up for the trip. Also, the monetary amount of the ticket that previously was printed on the stub does

not show up on the E-Tickets which makes it unhandy to determine the point value for AGR on paid tickets.

Luckily for me I never need to worry about how many points I get. I've never had points deposited in my account over 100, so my balance is still on a hundreds. After I registered, my grandma had thrown away our stubs from the Colorado trip, and since then all of my trips around SoCal have been less than $50. The trip between Chicago and Boston did not get credited to my account and despite filing multiple missing points requests never came, and it would've turned out to be 100 points as well, so I didn't worry too much. In the past year, I've had three trips that haven't been credited.

Johnny, you should call AGR and ask them to credit your account. Often times they can key up your info

and find your ticket number and post your points. I keep a spreadsheet of my travels and if they are paid

or AGR. I hate to think you did not get proper credit for your paid travels.

Check you PM's.

 

[PaulM]

An issue this big making it into the production roll-out is both surprising and unfortunate.

Very unfortunate, but in all honesty, there would not be many ways to have figured out issues like this in the testing phase that occurred.

I disagree. Long before testing, the minute a suit came up with the idea of cancelling a downstream segments if a prior one was not scanned or it did not correctly update the system, what used to be called a systems analyst should have asked what if ....? You really don't have to test this. You know it will occur.

Incidentally, when I used the word system, I was not making a distinction between business and IT. A system is a system.