Tickets issued from British Rail's APTIS system had a considerable amount of detail, presented in a consistent, standard format. The design for all tickets was created by Colin Goodall. This format has formed the basis for all subsequent ticket issuing systems introduced on the railway network – ticket-office based, self-service and conductor-operated machines alike.
Much of the following summary is therefore applicable to the other systems featured in the "British railway ticket machines (computerised)" section.
Colours
The coloured bands at the top and bottom varied as follows: Orange: standard tickets (Rail Settlement Plan No 9399) Green: Weekly season ticket Grey or blue: Monthly or longer, but not annual, season ticket (stronger material) Gold: Annual season ticket (stronger material)
Features
1: Class of travel
Either First (1ST) or Standard (originally shown as 2ND; when Second Class was renamed Standard Class in 1988, the abbreviation became STD, as shown here).
2: Ticket type
Up to sixteen characters. SUPERSAVER RTN, shown here, is a common type: a cheap-rate ticket for longer journeys, valid for one month but with time restrictions. Hundreds of different ticket types have been seen; many have been short-lived.
3: Number of passengers
Usually only one adult or one child per ticket (hence the headings in the singular). Group tickets can be issued for any number and combination: the number is shown in words up to NINE, but above this figures are used (for example, 17***, with asterisks to prevent fraudulent filling of spaces with other numbers).
4: Portion indicator
Travel tickets can be singles (SGL), the outward portion of a return (OUT) or the return portion of a return (RTN). Some tickets issued for special trains and charters were single-portion returns showing OUT&RTN, although ordinary tickets for scheduled services were never issued in this format. In the illustrated example, this is the journey back to Bradford-on-Avon. The distinction between the two portions of a return ticket is required because certain ticket types have different restrictions for the outward and return portions. For example, Savers allow a break of journey on the return portion, but not the outward portion; also the outward portion must be on the date shown, but the return portion can be on days within a month of the date shown.
Clause 17 of the National Rail Conditions of Carriage states that "A return ticket (including a two-part return ticket) is only valid for the outward journey shown on that ticket if the ticket is completely unused. You may not use the outward part of a return ticket after you have used the return part." This is to prevent the 'reversing' of tickets where a cheaper ticket can be bought by travelling in the opposite direction (e.g. purchasing a return OUT of London, when actually travelling in to London).
5: Status code
If this field is blank, one adult is travelling at full fare. Any form of concession causing the fare to be reduced will be shown here – examples are: CHILD SNR (SNRCZ on early APTIS) – Senior Railcard NSE – Network Railcard Y-P or 16 - 25 (Y - P on early APTIS) – Young Persons Railcard PRIV – railway staff privilege card CHPRV – privilege card for dependent child of railway staff LACON – various local authority concessions NDEAL – New Deal Photocard GOLDC – Annual Gold card HMF – HM Forces Railcard CHHMF – Child Dependent of HM Forces Railcard Holder
6: Date
Always in DD.MMM.YY format, where MMM is a three-letter abbreviation of the month's name. Non-standard abbreviations were used for some of the months, in order to make it harder to fraudulently alter a ticket's validity. These are shown below in italics:
JNR, FBY, MCH, APR, MAY, JUN, JLY, AUG, SEP, OCT, NOV, DMR.
7: Advance dating indicator
If an A is present next to the date, the ticket was bought before the date of travel. Standard travel tickets can be bought up to one year in advance.
8: Serial number
A number unique to each individual transaction. OUT and RTN pairs of tickets have the same number – in the above example, the OUT ticket from Bradford-on-Avon to Leamington Spa would also be numbered 08661.