Miscellaneous desk
< November 3	<< Oct \| November \| Dec >>	Current desk >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Miscellaneous Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

November 4

Why do rail inspectors punch tickets?

Why do ticket inspectors on trains punch a hole in the tickets they've looked at, or sometimes scribbble on them? How does it help anyone? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Amisom (talk • contribs) 13:25, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It prevents multiple people from sharing the same ticket. Ian.thomson (talk) 13:32, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

How? The inspector will obviously ask a group each to show their tickets. If they were passing it between them they'd notice. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Amisom (talk • contribs) 13:35, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Imagine we're both a train, but we only have one ticket. I hide in the toilet when the rail inspector comes by. You show your ticket and let him know that he'll have to check mine later when I'm out of the toilet. Now, if he didn't punch it or write on it, you would be able to hand me your ticket after the rail inspector leaves and I could then show him your ticket as if it was my own. Ian.thomson (talk) 13:38, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

We have Ticket punch. Bus stop (talk) 13:39, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Plus, many train tickets are "open" - although they're only valid for one or two journeys, they don't force you to use a particular train. If the ticket isn't punched, what stops me buying an open return - which gives you one outbound and one return journey, but which is valid for 30 days - and just showing it every day for a month? Smurrayinchester 15:23, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

(Also, the ticket punch sometimes doubles as a stamp. It marks the date and the train number, so if for example you want a refund because your train is late, the ticket office can check whether you were actually on the train you claimed.) Smurrayinchester 15:25, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Another reason is that some tickets need to be "validated" before use - typically a multi-use urban commuter ticket. This is usually done by a platform machine, which the passenger uses for themself. An unvalidated ticket isn't valid and would be treated like a ticket inspector as not having a ticket. Validating ensures that the passenger "consumes" one ride from the ticket for each journey and sometimes also that the starting station is recorded, to allow checking of distance on exit (speed of checking usually limits this to automatic systems).

As to why punches are used, rather than stamps, then they're fairly cheap and very reliable. Most cut notches from the edge, rather than punching a hole, as this is mechanically easier and much easier to keep sharp. I have a pair of 1930s ticket clippers which are still in fine working order, although I know they've been sharpened a couple of times at least. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:56, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Also related are the common practices of cancelling stamps and tearing of ticket stubs. The practice in general prevents multiple uses of an item designed for single use. --Jayron 32 17:39, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, even more relevant to the question is the image at right. You can see that there are two kinds of punched tickets here. On the left are multi-use tickets, each punch invalidates one use so the conductors can keep track of when the ticket has no more "uses". On the right are tickets that can be used for the entire train system, where the punches indicate data about the trip; that way the conductor knows when a passenger is supposed to get on, and get off, and how much fare was paid. It should be noted that many public transportation systems have gone all-electronic, using some form of "fare card" instead of punch tickets or tokens as was done in the past. The Washington Metro has had fare cards since 1977, and most other transit systems in the U.S. made the transition to them by the late 1990s/early 2000s. In the UK, they've had the Oyster card since 2003, though they are transitioning to more modern payment systems. --Jayron 32 17:49, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

And the Long Island Railroad, New Jersey Transit (and Metro-North?) are behind and still make holes in tickets. There's no fare control barrier and few right-of-way fences so this is required. Stations are usually far apart compared to a subway (though they still don't always have enough time to check every new passenger between before the next stop so their priority is to keep the cheatable station pairs the less popular/useful ones). The Metrocard was phased-in in the 90s and tokens stopped working in 2003. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 19:15, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

In the UK, before nationalisation in 1948, if you wanted to travel from a station on one railway to a station on a different railway, you sometimes didn't need to buy more than one ticket. Most of the railways offered through ticketing, and since a journey might have more than one possible route (for example, Inverness to Aberdeen, with three possible routes all of which involved two different companies), the railways needed to know which way you went in order for the revenue to be fairly apportioned (by mileage, usually). There were two main types of ticket punch: one (used at the station entry gates) which cut a notch in the edge, and one (used by the guards on the trains) which punched a hole away from the edge. They were both made in various shapes. Single tickets were always collected at the end of the journey, as was the appropriate half of a return ticket. These used tickets weren't thrown away (as they are now) but parcelled up and sent to the railway's headquarters. Staff there would sort the tickets into those where the journey was wholly within that railway, and those that could have involved more than one company. The latter would then be sent to the Railway Clearing House in London, who (from the various types of clip and their positions) could work out just how much of the journey was made over the different railways, and so could inform the railway which originally issued the ticket exactly how much money they owed to the other railway(s). --Redrose64 (talk) 20:02, 6 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

When the railways started passengers notified their journey to station staff, who wrote the details in a book. This is why the process is called "booking", the clerk is a "booking clerk" and the ticket office is a "booking office". 80.44.161.39 (talk) 12:24, 7 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]