…… you may receive it. And we did on 16 May 2010; the day we started using the new ERG Ticket Systems TP5000 ticket machines. A week after their introduction I posted my first impressions adding that I’d “update my opinions having used the machine for longer”.

It’s now 3 months later so this is my updated opinion which isn’t very different to my first impressions. I’ve still not been able to discover much to enthuse over apart from the immediate impression I had that “Finding adult day tickets of the numerous types, child tickets, family tickets, week tickets etc. is now much easier”. The overwhelming problem, for me, is the number of key presses required to issue a ticket. There are several steps required to issue a ticket, the first is to ensure that the ticket machine is already set to your current location, I’ve not included any key presses to set that since the machine should already be correctly set. As I drove our Winchester to Guildford route today I counted the the presses required to issue either a single or return ticket from Winchester to Guildford. It’s 7 using the new machine compared with 3 using the older Wayfarer. If the next passenger to board also wants a ticket for the same journey it’s 2 key presses for the new machine against 1 for the Wayfarer. The next passenger then wants only to travel to Alton (half way to Guildford) which is 5 key presses which used to be 4. If the next passenger wants Guildford again it’s 7 key presses again. Because each route has a varying number of stops the key presses required to issue a ticket using the ERG TP5000 compared with key presses to issue the same ticket using the Wayfarer is not constant. However, I think it’s fair to say that the new machines require about double the number of key presses to issue a single or return ticket when compared with the older machines.

Have a careful look at each key board.

Don’t the Wayfarer buttons look more ‘business like’ and easier to hit? Very, very importantly it’s got a proper numeric keypad, compare that with the TP5000 where numeric input is via the two wavy vertical columns, 1 – 5 vertically down the wavy left column and 6 -0 vertically down the wavy right column! Every keypad I use – telephone, calculator, computer keyboard. chip and pin machine, cash dispenser etc has a regular numeric keypad like the Wayfarer. It’s very difficult and odd to input numeric data using the TP5000’s dual function wavy vertical columns. The other obvious difference just looking at the photos is the neat, nice, solid looking squareness of the Wayfarer buttons compared to the varying sizes and shapes on the TP5000.

The second worst feature of the ERG machines is the display in which numbers/characters are formed from pixels. The background is light grey and the illuminated pixels dark grey. Dark grey print on a light grey background doesn’t give the greatest clarity, especially in bright light. The old machines used an LCD display in which sectors were activated to display a number, these sectors were solid black against a very light background. Much better.

I could write a lot more but it’s too late now. We wished for new machines and received them!