Digital Tickets

[Gordyola]

Like you, I've spent many years in system design and development and I'm 100% in agreement with you. You don't just introduce something like this when you've got a perfectly good existing solution that no one is complaining about. Nothing is broke and therefore it doesn't need to be fixed. The way to approach this is to invite people to pilot it but give them a killer app or reason for using it. For me, that would be the ability to easily pass your ticket on to someone connected to you at the touch of a button, rather than piss about with handing over cards and getting them back.

If you want to introduce something like this, there needs to be a good reason for it, which needs to be clearly communicated to the users. "Because we want to" isn't a good reason. They've still not learned the lesson that we at City Matters have been banging on about almost since the day we started, which is communication has to be timely, clear and structured with the end-user very much in mind. What recent history says to me is that it won't be any of those things.

Might not be broken but that isn’t a reason to not improve
Sending 30k cards out to people they go missing, people loose them, forget them, just think of the queues at the ticket office giving out paper tickets The messing around when cards are lost a digital card is so much easier to administrate If they loose their phone then it’s just a case of downloading the app on new phone and logging in It will be easy to facilitate the generate of a code to pass to a friend The security of NFC requiring some authentication
People rarely forget their phones when they go out compared to forgetting cards Bettwr for the environment no plastic no fuel in transporting and delivery We don’t know yet how it’s going to be introduced my guess is it will be optional with early adopters getting some extras points
Let’s wait and see

 

[Eccles Blue]

Having had problems with my (new) computer this week due, I think, to a faulty battery I am not so sure that this all singing all dancing newish NFC system will be the ideal solution that some seem to think. But who am I to know?
I do know that if they haven’t sorted out the DD bank problem yet, after over a week or so, I’m not over optimistic about getting into the stadium easily! I guess I’ll just go very early to the first few matches. :-)


Being a glass half full person helps me a lot in my endeavours.

 

[Citizen of Legoland]

Might not be broken but that isn’t a reason to not improve
Sending 30k cards out to people they go missing, people loose them, forget them, just think of the queues at the ticket office giving out paper tickets The messing around when cards are lost a digital card is so much easier to administrate If they loose their phone then it’s just a case of downloading the app on new phone and logging in It will be easy to facilitate the generate of a code to pass to a friend The security of NFC requiring some authentication
People rarely forget their phones when they go out compared to forgetting cards Bettwr for the environment no plastic no fuel in transporting and delivery We don’t know yet how it’s going to be introduced my guess is it will be optional with early adopters getting some extras points
Let’s wait and see

It's broken. The tech behind these cards has been compromised for years.

 

[goatinho]

i managed to eventually get through and a very arsey guy said they would send plastic cards out

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

Might not be broken but that isn’t a reason to not improve
Sending 30k cards out to people they go missing, people loose them, forget them, just think of the queues at the ticket office giving out paper tickets The messing around when cards are lost a digital card is so much easier to administrate If they loose their phone then it’s just a case of downloading the app on new phone and logging in It will be easy to facilitate the generate of a code to pass to a friend The security of NFC requiring some authentication
People rarely forget their phones when they go out compared to forgetting cards Bettwr for the environment no plastic no fuel in transporting and delivery We don’t know yet how it’s going to be introduced my guess is it will be optional with early adopters getting some extras points
Let’s wait and see

There are a number of good reasons for changing things. They're inefficient, complex, costly, don't meet user needs or there's a tangible benefit in introducing something new (among others).

I'm fine with it if the club tell us clearly why they want to introduce mobile ticketing and we're happy it's going to work reliably. But even introducing this will mean many are excluded from using it whereas the plastic seasoncard could be used by everyone from a 5-year old to a 95-year old. So the club are going to be faced with a significant number of exceptions straight away. And if it proves to be consistently problematic, people are going to reject it.

 

[LucahArchie10]

Worked well for the last home game although you have to download the ticket to your Google pay which gave you your bar code to zap in instead of your season card, easy for me but there were loads not holding there phones correct & women or adults over 60 I would say panicking no patience just holding up a small queue imagine 50.000 fans going to be a fucking nightmare also the IPHONE didn't show a bar code but they got in OK, I also guess you won't be able to pass on your card or sell on only to City if only going to your phone email that's registered?

 

[manchester blue]

You have to provide some type of bio metric to pay either finger print or face with passcode as back up, if your phone allows access to the NFC without a level of security then get a new one

It does that's why I said unlocked. :)

 

[Eccles Blue]

Worked well for the last home game although you have to download the ticket to your Google pay which gave you your bar code to zap in instead of your season card, easy for me but there were loads not holding there phones correct & women or adults over 60 I would say panicking no patience just holding up a small queue imagine 50.000 fans going to be a fucking nightmare also the IPHONE didn't show a bar code but they got in OK, I also guess you won't be able to pass on your card or sell on only to City if only going to your phone email that's registered?

I’m a woman and I’m over 60 but I didn’t panic! I just put my paper ticket on the reader and wow I was in in seconds!!
Of course I’d arrived at the time stated on my ticket so maybe that helped? I heard that a lot of the hold ups were caused by lots of people arriving at the same time because they’d been for a drink? Far be it for me to be sexist or ageist or even drinkist but I guess it must be the done thing if you are doing it. JMHO :-)

 

[GortonBlue62]

It's broken. The tech behind these cards has been compromised for years.

I'm not trying to be deliberately awkward about this, but could you explain what you mean by that.

The mental model I have of the current system is that the card will have some kind of unique identifier on it. When I wave it near the sensor at the turnstile that identifier will link to a backend system, where all the relevant details are checked; so for example it's an FA cup tie and I'm on the relevant cup scheme and there was no problem with my payment etc.

So I'm assuming the card is relatively dumb and my existing card would last many years. It never needs reprogramming because all the relevant data is held on back end systems and that data changes when I interact with the club's backend systems (renewing, relocating, joining schemes etc.).

I could be totally wrong about this but would be interested to know if that's not how it works.

 

[Norbiton]

I’m a woman and I’m over 60 but I didn’t panic! I just put my paper ticket on the reader and wow I was in in seconds!!
Of course I’d arrived at the time stated on my ticket so maybe that helped? I heard that a lot of the hold ups were caused by lots of people arriving at the same time because they’d been for a drink? Far be it for me to be sexist or ageist or even drinkist but I guess it must be the done thing if you are doing it. JMHO :-)

I arrived at the time I was supposed to but by the time I’d found the one perimeter gate open up by Asda and joined the very unCOVID safe throng trying to get through it seemed like all 10000 were in the same place at the same time. It took a few goes to have the ticket on my phone read at the turnstile as the light didn’t seem to change colour the way it did with the plastic cards.