National Rail Ticket Redesign

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A few days ago I came across Peter Smart’s boarding pass redesign project which aims to offer a solution to the currently confusing structure of boarding passes (Peter Smart is also the creator of 50 problems in 50 days). While I was reading through his brilliant observations, comfortably seated in a train, I suddenly realized something: train tickets are awful too.

Train tickets and boarding passes share exactly the same issues:

- key information is hard to find
- no clear hierarchy of information
- all the data are printed out in a confused structure

So, here is my attempt.

Step1 – Helping ticket machines

First of all, let’s combine all tickets into one. Now all the data are unified in just one space and in a more intuitive way. In order to have a cost-effectively solution, there are no colors involved but just the black ink. The orange border as well as the little icons, the number and type of ticket will be preprinted. The font used is the most used one Helvetica.

Step2 – Helping passengers

The new ticket displays all the information in a logical sequence and clear format. Everything is in a chronological order, from the start of your journey until you’re on board.

The use of small graphical elements help drawing the attention to the most important information and increase readability.

The type of ticket is in the top left corner as it is important to know if you have a single or return ticket but it’s not in preeminent position.
The ticket number is also on the top but it’s visually demoted and put on the top right corner out of the way from all the key information, useful only to inspectors.

Step3 – Helping inspectors

For inspectors, the useful side is the back one where it’s printed a QR code with all the information and the name of passenger.
Endorsements box and Terms and Conditions appear below the magnetic stripe.