Avantix B8070, more commonly known as Avantix MultiTicket was a passenger-operated railway ticket issuing system, installed at British railway stations from 1999 onwards. The machines were available as upgrades to the
Ascom B8050 Quickfare
Ascom B8050, usually known by the name QuickFare, is an early example of a passenger-operated railway ticket issuing system, consisting of a series of broadly identical machines installed at British railway stations from 1989 onwards. The mac ...
or as new build.
The machine was developed by
Sema Group
Sema Group plc was an Anglo-French IT services company. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. It was acquired by Schlumberger in 2001.
History
The Company was founded in 1988 by the merger of t ...
, later SchlumbergerSema and then
Atos Origin
Atos is a European multinational information technology (IT) service and consulting company headquartered in Bezons, France and offices worldwide. It specialises in hi-tech transactional services, unified communications, cloud, big data and ...
.
Most machines were withdrawn during 2007 and 2008. The last Avantix B8070 was withdrawn in January 2009. The last B870 was withdrawn in North America by NJ TRANSIT in 2011
Introduction of the Avantix B8070
A pilot Avantix B8070 was trialled at East Croydon railway station during 1998. The first machines in live use went into service on
Thameslink
Thameslink is a 24-hour main-line route in the British railway system, running from , , , and via central London to Sutton, , , Rainham, , , , and . The network opened as a through service in 1988, with severe overcrowding by 1998, carrying m ...
stations, starting with
St Albans
St Albans () is a cathedral city in Hertfordshire, England, east of Hemel Hempstead and west of Hatfield, Hertfordshire, Hatfield, north-west of London, south-west of Welwyn Garden City and south-east of Luton. St Albans was the first major ...
. Other significant deployments followed on
South West Trains
Stagecoach South Western Trains Limited, trading as South West Trains (SWT), was an English train operating company owned by Stagecoach Group, Stagecoach, which operated the South Western franchise between February 1996 and August 2017.
SWT op ...
, at
West Anglia Great Northern
West Anglia Great Northern, commonly shortened to ''WAGN'', was a train operating company in England. It operated the West Anglia Great Northern franchise between January 1997 and March 2004, as well as the Great Northern franchise between Apri ...
stations between
Kings Lynn
King's Lynn, known until 1537 as Bishop's Lynn and colloquially as Lynn, is a port and market town in the borough of King's Lynn and West Norfolk in the county of Norfolk, England. It is located north of London, north-east of Peterborough, no ...
and
Peterborough
Peterborough () is a cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, east of England. It is the largest part of the City of Peterborough unitary authority district (which covers a larger area than Peterborough itself). It was part of Northamptonshire until ...
to
London King's Cross
King's Cross railway station, also known as London King's Cross, is a passenger railway terminus in the London Borough of Camden, on the edge of Central London. It is in the London station group, one of the busiest stations in the United King ...
and on
. Small numbers of machines were deployed at other stations including
Leeds
Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by populati ...
,
Manchester Piccadilly
Manchester Piccadilly is the principal railway station in Manchester, England. Opened as Store Street in 1842, it was renamed Manchester London Road in 1847 and became Manchester Piccadilly in 1960. Located to the south-east of Manchester city ...
and
London Paddington
Paddington, also known as London Paddington, is a London station group, Central London railway terminus and London Underground station complex, located on Praed Street in the Paddington area. The site has been the London terminus of services pro ...
.
Machines. Avantix
tannsulyn.dsl.pipex.com
Details of the machine
The user interface comprised an ATM style display screen with hardware buttons for selecting menu items displayed on each side of the screen.
B8070 machines were fitted with an industrial PC connected to the UK rail wide area network. This offered a significant advantage over the B8050 in support terms giving the ability to connect to each machine from a central location and :
* update fares
* change the tickets on offer
* diagnose faults
A significant advantage of the Avantix B8070 over the Ascom B8050 was the ability to handle credit-card payments. Initially this was by reading the magnetic stripe of the credit-card, but this was updated to handle Chip and PIN Chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) is a type of immunoprecipitation experimental technique used to investigate the interaction between proteins and DNA in the cell. It aims to determine whether specific proteins are associated with specific geno ...
cards with the addition of a Hypercom Chip and Pin card reader and pin pad.
The software application could handle tickets to all GB destinations, however, to reduce scrolling through lists of stations, these were in practice limited to 200 most popular destinations from the station, plus all of the London Underground
The London Underground (also known simply as the Underground or by its nickname the Tube) is a rapid transit system serving Greater London and some parts of the adjacent ceremonial counties of England, counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and He ...
destinations.
Ticket stock
Avantix B8070 offered the standard centre stripe mag encoded orange CCST stock for singles and returns, and also the green season ticket stock. Receipts were printed on a white tally roll.
Branding
Several train operating companies took the opportunity to customise the front of the machine with branded graphics.
References
{{British railway ticket machines (computerised)
Fare collection systems in the United Kingdom
Travel technology