Foot passengers travelling on Wightlink’s Fastcat service will soon be met with a new way to check in for travel thanks to a £500,000 investment by the cross-Solent operator. Wightlink is introducing check in gates at its Ryde Pier Head and Portsmouth Harbour terminals. From March, customers will be able to scan their own ticket at the new check in gates, eliminating the need for a staff member to manually scan each ticket during the boarding process. However, there will be no job losses when the gates are installed. It’s said that this new way of travelling will make the service easier and quicker to use. An e-ticket or pass, QR code, paper ticket or pass will still be required and can be booked in advance or on the day from the self-service ticket machine, or at the Customer Service Point. Wightlink has confirmed that all port facilities will still be available after check in and staff will still be on hand for those who require assistance. A spokesperson for Wightlink has said:
“Wightlink is investing half a million pounds in automated entrance gates for foot passengers at its Portsmouth Harbour and Ryde Pier Head foot passenger terminals. “They will come into use later in the year. The new gates will recognise rail tickets with barcodes or QR codes as well as Wightlink paper and online tickets and passes. People with rail tickets with magnetic strips and foot passengers travelling in a large group will have their tickets scanned manually by Wightlink staff. “Once customers have passed through the electronic gates, they will be able to relax in the passenger lounge until their FastCat is ready for boarding”.
and I wonder how many adults will buy child tickets or senior citizen tickets and then scan themselves through – there is no way that their gates will be able to differentiate between child/adult/senior
Thanks for the discount advice 😉
It’s said that this new way of travelling will make the service easier and quicker to use
how can it possibly be quicker – staff members simply “bleep” the ticket now, which takes about a second.
This is about jobs being lost from terminals
So what will happen if you have one of the traditional through travel rail tickets printed on card that don’t have a scanning code on them that are issued at train ticket offices and platform ticket machines?
As it says above, all you need to do is see a member of staff and they will beep you through like they do ATM
Read the article.
It will delay boarding as people struggle to get their cases through the gate.
This really is the most ill-thought-out policy and I would urge Wightlink to reconsider.
This is only being implemented to cut staff wages. It will not speed up loading. But this idea was implemented years ago at rail stations across the country. All that happens is dishonest people “jump” the barrier. All the savings on staff wages is lost in revenue.
But what makes this even more serious, is that, (God forbid), one day there could be an incident which requires the rescue of passengers at sea. The A.I. on the boarding gate says there’s 100 people aboard; 100 rescued; job done. But the half a dozen people “clever” people who avoided paying for that trip might prove fatal for the half dozen innocent people overlooked in the rescue.
AI my arse. The scanner records the people who have scanned their tickets and stores digital records. Hardly any need for AI as any simple database from the ’80s can cope with that task. Stupid people seem to think that everything involving computers is AI now because they lack any I.
Nobody is “jumping barriers” in train stations Jane, don’t lie on the internet.
Also even now with the ticket scanners, they still count the people on with a clicker at the boat entrace, so that won’t change.
yes they do – people i have spoken to said, that they scan a ticket and then at least two run through the gate on one ticket, before it has time to close.
Hovertravel scan tickets, which removes 1 from the seat count, then passengers are clicked several times and this still results in too many passengers or empty seats, no reason to think this will be any different
I suggest you Google “jumping train barriers”; watch as many videos of people jumping train barriers as you like; then consider taking back your rude accusations of my lying on the Internet.
Jumping the barrier might happen very rarely on the crowded London underground or the New York subway but can you really see it happening at the Wightlink terminal in Ryde? Get real.
Unfortunately I have witnessed athletic thieves jump the ticket barrier three times. Each time, there’s never been anyone to report it to! I think it’s a very bad idea. When I travel with my wheelchair, on holiday, I have a lot of bags attached to my chair so I struggle through the barriers! Not happy! I think it will hold the boat up!
Is this on the internet? Christ, I had no idea.
Jumping barriers is a common occurrence, there is more than one way of doing this, a far more discrete method is to tailgate with a strategically placed bag or newspaper. Not that I know how to do this 😉
It would be nice if they could put a train ticket machine at the top of the pier , I get my ticket as a combined ferry and train ticket and it’s so inconvenient having to go to the other end of the pier just to print my ticket , the train line doesn’t give you digital tickets either
I think that you can select to collect your train tickets when you get off the ferry in Portsmouth.
Only kidding. It is a pain in the butt as you say. If you book through the National Rail website, I think you can get digital tickets.
Why could they not invest that money in paying staff a decent wage, so there were enough staff to man the Fadtcats for the timetable they are meant to run? Not suddenly decide due to “staff shortages blah blah” many planned journeys have bedn shelved your customers would be far more appreciative
If it means lower fares, bring it on.
Hahahahahah best joke in ages, probably be an increase on the carss
So passengers can go and relax in a lounge prior to boarding. Wightlink will be hoping to sell more food and drink and further boost their profits.
More loss of important human-human interaction. Progress is really regression in disguise.
Well, they may not cut a job just yet but it’s OBVIOUSLY cost driven. It’s a business. How much does a ticket person get paid. £23k a year? They need 14 hours cover per day. Each side. So 4 of them? Plus pension? £100k? These new machine will pay for themselves in 5 years.
Not yet. But inevitable they will require less staff over time. Soon the boats will be driven by AI using radar, sonar and GPS. Hopefully then it’ll become more reliable.
Sounds just like the supermarket self serve tills, no job losses on day1 but once they are bedded in you can guarantee the staff numbers will be cut. Hopefully like the self serve tills they will make losses when everyone buys child/OAP tickets 😀
Ok self service check outs now self service check ins . Let hope there is member staff. when 5 of u on one ticket or pushing wheelchair and suitcase