Diary of a Railway Temp: FasTIS Thoughts

Well the FasTIS installation programme is nearly complete, so I figured I'd share my thoughts on the system.

As always with new technology, there are good things and bad things, so let's start with the good, in no particular order:

A major improvement over previous systems is that FasTIS lets you enter the number of railcards right at the journey input screen. So if, for example, you have 5 Adults, one with a Network Railcard, one with a Young Persons, one with a Senior and 4 Children, you can quite happily say that when you're setting up the journey.

Coupled with the above, it works out the best combination of discounts for the journey. So for the example given, it'd suggest GroupSave 4 (4 Adults for the price of 2), 1 Adult at the Young Persons or Senior Railcard rate, and 4 Kids for a Quid.

GroupSave is applied automatically where appropriate, though it can be overridden if the group isn't returning together.

Once you've defined your journey details, you get a screen showing all of the applicable fares, with the cheapest ones highlighted, times of the next two trains, and any supplements you can add (e.g. AAA, Weekend First, Buffet Vouchers, Cycle Fees, etc.)

If applying a 'manual' discount, such as Disabled but no Railcard, you no longer have to remember the discount codes, as FasTIS gives you an alphabetical list to choose from.

And now for some of the disadvantages:

FasTIS doesn't offer a Ticket on Departure facility, so if someone books a ticket through Telesales/the Internet and can't collect it from a Self-Service Machine, a FasTIS equipped station still has to phone the relevant supplier to check the status of the booking and/or arrange for the details to be faxed through so they can issue replacement tickets.

Doing "in-boundary" Travelcards and tube/DLR only tickets is counterintuitive as you have to specify a journey from a London terminal to another London terminal to get the fares, rather than from a London terminal to the appropriate zones.

Whilst GroupSave is usually applied automatically, it isn't for Travelcards unless you put the destination as the appropriate Zones.

In a similar vein, children accompanying Travelcard holders within London can either travel for free (if they're under under 11) or for £1. Other issuing systems (except APTIS and SPORTIS) manage this by having an 'extra' discount type for Accompanied Children. FasTIS doesn't have this feature.

Coupled with the above, though this more applies to London area stations, Transport for London do 16-17 and Student Oystercards, which offer the holder discounted tickets. Again, other TIS handle this as a discount type, but FasTIS doesn't.

Fares for bus add-ons and leisure attraction admission seem to be totally random as to whether they appear or not, and if they do appear, it's random as to whether they're correct or not.

Wasn't sure whether to put this as an advantage or a disadvantage, but I figured the cons outweighed the pros. As part of the Season Ticket issuing procedure, FasTIS has an integrated Season Ticket Database, which is a good thing. However, said database is populated with Electoral Roll data (and old Electoral Roll data at that), which admittedly speeds up adding new customers, but surely raises ethical issues, doubly so given how old the data is. (For what it's worth, our old Season Ticket Database just had access to the PAF to speed up address entry).

FasTIS has its own codes for stations that you can use instead of the NLC, CRS code, or typing in the name. Said codes, however, bear absolutely no relation to any of the others for the stations. London, for example, is 182 on FasTIS, whereas the NLC is 1072.