Avantix Mobile
 | |
| System information | |
|---|---|
| Full name | Avantix Mobile |
| Machine type | Portable (Conductor/Guard-operated) |
| Type of ticket stock | Continuous roll or fan-fold |
| Manufacturer | Steatite Ltd, Chalgrove, Oxfordshire (manufacturer) Atos (Designer) |
| History | |
| First introduced | 2002 |
| Machine number range | 0002-6106 |
| Window number range | 70 (Common Stock format only) |
| Machines in use | 0 |
| Locations/areas/train operating companies | |
| Current users | See here |
Avantix Mobile ("AVB") is a portable railway ticket issuing system used across the British railway network from 2001 to 2017.
Development
Development started in 2000 by Sema Group plc, as an IT services company which was acquired by Schlumberger Ltd in 2001 and became SchlumbergerSema. The company has since been acquired by France-based IT group Atos, SA.[1] Atos now continues to develop and maintain the system.[2] The first machines were bought and put into use by train operating companies (TOCs) in 2002. By late 2005, market penetration had reached 80%,[2] and as of 2007 SPORTIS has been superseded completely.
The Avantix Mobile system was designed for the Sema Group plc by Printer Systems Limited this included the technique of printing and encoding the magnetic stripe at the same time, the Z-fold ticket pack and the electronic control system with interface to a Casio PDA. The Avantix Mobile housing was designed, developed and engineered by Hyphen Design Ltd, of London. Particular design and engineering challenges were a tamper-resistant PDA retention and ejection mechanism, and a secure loading door latch, to prevent the device spilling ticket stock or batteries if dropped. Hyphen design Design also developed a cartridge design for holding Z-fold or fan-fold ticket stock. With the horizontally mounted cartridge, a stack of 3 or more of the fan-fold stock could easily be drawn into the print head and jam it. The solution was a pad of fine silicone rubber fingers, stuck to the top and bottom internal surfaces of the cartridge, to provide just enough grip on the uneven ticket stack, without putting too much load on the print head.
Avantix Mobile was the successor to the SPORTIS system which had been developed in the mid-1980s for British Rail. SPORTIS was the first fully computerized portable ticketing system for use by on-train staff and Revenue Protection Inspectors, and in other situations, where mobile ticket-issuing facilities are required. However, by 2002, the machines themselves were up to 15 years old, with their underlying technology being several years older, and they lacked the storage capacity for the increasing variety of fares and promotions available on the post-privatisation British railway system.
Avantix Mobile machines were first adopted by TOCs owned at the time by National Express; however, they are now in use across all National Rail-controlled TOCs with the exception of Merseyrail who continued to issue paper tickets until TVMs had been installed at the last few stations on the Wirral line, which did not have any ticket issuing facilities.
Arriva Trains Wales announced in January 2016, that their Avantix machines will be withdrawn after March 2016. The replacement machines will produce paper tickets with no magnetic stripe; instead they will carry a bar code which can be read by some National Rail ticket barriers. As they are not compatible with barriers on the London Underground they will not be accepted for cross-London services on the Underground even if this would normally be included in the fare. A pilot scheme will operate on Cardiff local services from mid-January, however, the tickets issued will not be valid on services operated by other companies, including other Arriva franchises.[3]
Ticket stock
Whereas the former SPORTIS system was only able to print non-magnetically-encoded tickets on flimsy paper rolls, Avantix Mobile could produce tickets both in this format and with magnetic stripe encoding on card tickets with a magnetic stripe. Paper tickets are provided in rolls of 450; card stock comes in "fan-fold" packs of 250 (however, roll-stock is no longer used as magnetically encoded card stock has become the Rail Settlement Plan standard).
Magnetically encoded tickets have the advantage of being able to operate the automatic ticket gates which are used at a large number of National Rail stations throughout Britain, as well as at the majority of London Underground stations.
Paper roll tickets carry the Rail Settlement Plan form number RSP 3594: the same as on post-privatization SPORTIS tickets, as SPORTIS used the same blank stock. Gatwick Express has frequently used dedicated stock, RSP 3594/GA, with a red colour scheme and security background (RSP 3594 is orange with a pale green background). Three types of card stock have been used: two versions with the form number RSP 3599, and one (used most often as of 2007) numbered RSP 9299. On the first version of RSP 3599, each ticket had diagonally cut-off corners, but this later changed to rounded corners as is standard on most other ticket issuing systems. Both of these types had pre-printed headings such as "Class" and "Ticket Type". With the move to "Common Stock" ticketing, where all information is printed by the machine, RSP 9299 stock with no pre-printed headings was introduced. These tickets have always had rounded corners.
