Chiltern Railways - Tickets

Good app that would be even better if the times matched the platform, bigger display boards and the rare (if any) announcements in the stations. It would also be helpful if it should the calling stations

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After many months of supposedly consulting, listening and improving... and after all the delays and hype... what a crushing disappointment this is. It is STILL incapable of providing a simple timetable (to look-up, say, when to collect someone who took the 18:50 from Marylebone, or to check tomorrow morning’s train times... without pretending that I want to buy a ticket). Chiltern could have saved hundreds of travellers the need to stuff their pockets with paper timetables every season and what they saved on pointless print would have paid for one on the app. Most regular travellers either have a season ticket, or buy their ticket at the station, so why is the app oriented primarily to sell tickets? This is an insult to regular Chiltern users—many of whom are paying a premium to travel on Chiltern Railways. It has even poorer functionality than the old one and a good deal less than ‘thetrainline’ (which can create a virtual timetable when needed). PS: to add insult to injury, the app will not let you log-in using your existing details unless you happened to have used a ‘special character’ in your previous password!

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This is probably the worst example of app user experience! An even greater fail when the lack of proper testing, zero transfer of user or booking information from the old (top class) app, and loss of functionality in what is supposed to be a ‘new improved! app! FAIL: You can’t log in with old app/website password (if you didn’t use a special character) so forced to change password via website before downloading the app! FAIL: (and illegal) The app doesn’t display the lowest fare option. It will almost certainly be possible to buy a cheaper ‘two singles’ fare if you are travelling peak for one leg and off peak for another leg of your journey. FAIL: The presentation of train time options when purchasing tickets is poor and incomplete compared to old app. FAIL: The navigation to find purchased tickets (“Bookings”) is poor so finding the information needed to collect at ticket vending machine require an additional click through, where you will have to look much harder to find the reference number. FAIL: Checking live train times now presents the times in a view that you have to scroll. FAIL: Chiltern are claiming that this is the cheapest way to buy fares. It is no cheaper than any other app! FAIL: It’s stupid to prevalidate fields before the user even attempts to complete them! Overall, the best move would be to revert to the old app. It’s superior in every way to the new app.

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It’s v e r y v e r y s l o w to load. It’s a truly terrible way to buy and use tickets. The buying process is fiddly...having to select cards and enter an address for tickets deliveries to your phone...? Once a ticket is activated it stays hidden in the app. It’s not possible to add them to Apple wallet or even a widget for a lock screen, so if the app is inactive for ‘x’ minutes when you open it again you then have to go through the ticketing menus and the slow start-up...not very helpful when your trying to get through the barriers to the train or with a big queue of people behind you a Marylebone. Even more frustrating is when it (seemingly at random) logs you out and then you have to re-download and activate the tickets. It’s not possible to delete old tickets, so you end up with a device full of unwanted junk, and it doesn’t even put the most recent ticket at the top of active tickets...it can also put tickets which are valid and in date in the ‘past bookings’ area. As others have said a timetable function would be great...rather than pretending to buy tickets...and it doesn’t show intermediate stations and timings, which can be useful to know...or the platform for departing trains from Marylebone... My guess is, whoever designed the app doesn’t travel by train, and specifically not on Chiltern... Back to paper tickets for me I think.

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The previous app was poor but Chiltern has surpassed itself with this one! Every app developer tries to reduce clicks to purchase. Not Chiltern! They want to increase the time it takes to spend money with them! Frequently used stations are not remembered, frequent requests to login as passwords not remembered, payment is a joke with requirement to select card, enter CVV, enter address (at least inside leg measurement is not required!). Default option is to collect ticket at a machine - how many people want to do this when buying from a mobile!! Then, you have to download, then activate and then show the barcode. Just how much time does the person who designed this app think we have!!!!! How many apps have a rating as poor as this?? Why aren’t you doing something about it???? These are not integration issues (complicated) they are front-end issues and should be easy to sort quickly. Get on with it!!!