Reliability of Quik-Trak machines

[BCL]

I've had some issues with a few machines at a place I use a lot.

I remember back when 10-ride tickets were considered "live" I had one printed out at a QT kiosk. It made noises and all of a sudden stopped and an out of order message came up on the screen. I actually pulled out the ticket after it had been partially printed as it was stuck in the roller. It was weird too, with 3/4 of it legible (but the edge somewhat faded). The 1-10 numbers were there, but the bar code wasn't there. I couldn't figure out what to do, but after calling guest relations I was told to just try and use it. So I did, getting lots of comments from conductors that they'd never seen anything like it before. They just looked up my reservation number each time.

So recently I've been trying to use the machines for assorted things. One particular machine will never recognize my AGR card (seems to recognize something was inserted), but will recognize credit cards. Another machine next to it used to be reliable, but it simply doesn't do anything when my AGR card goes in.

Is this typical? I use a lot of unstaffed stations, and I like to at least print out my tickets on Amtrak ticket stock. This is getting kind of frustrating, but at least I've got options like the Amtrak app or print at home.

 

[Steve4031]

I've had similar issues with agr card. But never a problem with printing tickets.

Sent from my iPhone using Amtrak Forum

 

[SubwayNut]

My biggest ticketing incident was once when I was trying to pick up a 4 segment multi-city ticket out in Southern California using a Metrolink TVM and it got through about two of my tickets before spitting out a note that send the transaction couldn't be completed and to send everything to the refund department in Philadelphia or contact Amtrak. I was boarding this trip to Northern California at Burbank Airport and had decided to try picking up my tickets the day before at a Metrolink TVM while railfanning that system on a weekend pass and had to pass through Union Station on the way back to where I was staying already.

Needless to say when I brought the half-printed itinerary and receipt back to Union Station it took the agents nearly a half-hour with them reading the ARROW manual before they figured out how to reissue my trip the next day. Good thing I didn't have a train to catch

 

[Ryan]

I had a nearly similar incident in Chicago.

I had a 2 leg itinerary (CHI-WAS-BWI - incidentially the one that Matt and I met you on) and about halfway through the first ticket the ink started fading. By the midpoint of the second ticket, it was just blank ticket stock.

Took it over to the ticket counter and it took a very frustrated ticket lady about 15 minutes to reissue the tickets. She tried to blame me saying that the Quick-Trak machines weren't made to print AGR redemption tickets.

 

[Bob Dylan]

I've been fortunate that my AGR Card works in the Quik-Traks ( I have received a New One Annualy since joining in 2008)

The problem I've observed is that lots of time these old technology machines are Out of Order or Malfunction while printing a ticket!

Just today the Austin Agent joked with me about the Quik-Trak there which is frequently out of order and requires a repair person to come fix it!

I don't have a Printer @ Home so either use my Phone or print my e-ticket when I Catch the Train! I have EZ access to a staffed station which is open 14 Hours a Day with 2 Trains so its not as vital to me as a Busy Big City Station with Long Lines or an Unstaffed Station with a Quik-Trak!

 

[JayPea]

I have had less than stellar success with the Quik-Trak in Spokane. Few things were as annoying as making an hour trip one way to Spokane during the day (the ticket office is only open during the night) only to find the machine out of order. And why, you ask, would I not get my tickets from the agent in Spokane prior to boarding?? Because many of my trips I've taken I actually boarded elsewhere, from stations with no ticket agent on duty nor Quik-Trak machine. That happened to me several times. Nowadays with E-tickets and my printer at home the point, thankfully, is moot.

 

[oregon pioneer]

Thanks for the heads-up about Quik-trak reliability issues. I rely on the machines for some trips, since I live in a spot where it's a four- or five-hour drive to the NEAREST staffed station, and some of my trips end with our infamous little bus that does not have the capacity to scan e-tickets.

On our last vacation, in fact, I used a Quik-trak mid-trip to print out the coupons for the final segments, NOL to Bend, Oregon (everything else was e-tickets). And yes, Ryan, that part of our trip was an AGR redemption. I can't remember where the Quik-trak was that we used (maybe CHI, maybe WAS), but it worked flawlessly. On future trips, I will be proactive about getting them printed, just-in-case, ha, ha!

JayPea, I agree, e-tickets and home printing work great. As long as that's enough to get you on Amtrak it's what I prefer!

 

[JayPea]

Another time, a few years ago, on a trip I did board in Spokane, the EB was going to be about 5 1/2 hours late. So I left home with the rising sun (the sun begins to rise right around 3AM at the end of June here, which is when I took this trip), stopped off at my favorite Denny's for breakfast, and got to the station about 5:30AM. This was just prior to E-Ticketing, and when I went to print my tickets, saw the dreaded Out of Order on the screen........again. :angry: Then it was full-blown panic as the ticket counter was closed!!!!!! It was after-hours for the ticket office to be open. Ohhhh noooooo Mr. Bill!!!!!!!! Fortunately, though, because the EB was so late, the ticket agents had stuck around for a little while after hours. One of them happened to wander up to the ticket counter. After he "fixed" the machine by a hard slap to the side of it ( a high-tech solution at its best :lol: ) he printed my tickets. I think this was the last trip I took before the advent of E-tickets.

I must say on the few occasions I've had to use Quik-Trak machines elsewhere, such as in Chicago last fall when the CZ arrived in Chicago too late for my uncle and I to connect to the Cardinal, and we'd had to change our reservation enroute, they have worked fine. Just in Spokane have I had trouble.

 

[Steve4031]

Think I'm cured of using quick trak.

Sent from my iPhone using Amtrak Forum

 

[afigg]

In the FY14 capital budget, there is a $4.4 million project to upgrade the existing Quik Trak machines. The project description doesn't say whether they will replace the printer, but I figure they would do that as part of a technology refresh. Of course, they could make the QT machines less reliable. Although I rarely ran into serious problems using them prior to eTicketing.

Text of budget document description on the project: (the inconsistent spelling of Quik-Trak vs Quick Track is in the document as is the typo for "top". Amtrak needs better proofreaders).

Quick Track Hardware Upgrades
Existing Quick Track kiosks, which date from 2007, will be out of PCI compliance in April 2016. Refresh of current kiosks will permit Amtrak top replace obsolete hardware. The new Quik-Trak kiosks will use state-of-the-art technology to provide continued high levels of customer service with a full range of transactions such as eTicket document issuance, remote agent capabilities, reservations purchase, and support of customers’ needs to exchange, refund and upgrade reservations and permit checked baggage in the self-serve environment. These kiosks will continue to meet requirements for accessibility to passengers with disabilities in compliance with section 508 of the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) and California state law requirements.

 

[BCL]

I do worry about the possibility that with the machine that isn't working someone might have installed a card skimmer. I don't really care if someone gets my AGR number, but a credit card number is another issue.

I've used one machine where over the course of 18 months has always had a missing line where the scanning code prints and more recently two missing lines. It still scans fine since PDF417 is designed with redundancy and 1D bar codes are fine even with lines across the code. You'd think someone would test it during every service and replace the print head.

If they're getting new machines, my request would be an option to use a smart card (EMV) equipped credit card or even move AGR cards to the standard. Someone could read all the data and it's useless with all the various encryption and handshaking required.

 

[oregon pioneer]

I'm kind of confused by the mention of using AGR cards, credit cards, etc with Quik-trak machines. I *think* that the only thing I have ever scanned at a Quik-trak to get my tickets printed is the barcode on my reservation email. Can someone explain the purpose for scanning the cards?

 

[BCL]

I'm kind of confused by the mention of using AGR cards, credit cards, etc with Quik-trak machines. I *think* that the only thing I have ever scanned at a Quik-trak to get my tickets printed is the barcode on my reservation email. Can someone explain the purpose for scanning the cards?

You can purchase a ticket using the machines, or print out a ticket that's already been purchased. Buying a ticket is pretty self-explanatory, but first a valid credit card has to be read by the card reader first before it will allow that.

You can also print or reprint a ticket. If you use a credit card that's been used to purchase a ticket, inserting and having it read will pull up any reservations made with that card. Also - any valid credit card will start the machine, even if no open reservations were purchased with the card. It gives options to pull it up with the reservation number, AGR number, or other options I don't recall. Inserting and having an AGR card properly read immediately pulls up the reservations attached to the AGR account, and the option to pull up reservations by res # also pop up.

And the other thing you can do is use a bar code at the reader to pick up a live ticket. I don't think this works any more for 10-rides or monthlies that are eTickets. You can still pull up the reservation by swiping a credit card or AGR card and finding the reservation though, but that's an eTicket.

 

[afigg]

If they're getting new machines, my request would be an option to use a smart card (EMV) equipped credit card or even move AGR cards to the standard. Someone could read all the data and it's useless with all the various encryption and handshaking required.

If the Quik-Trak machines are being "refreshed" or replaced in large part to remain compliant with credit card security requirements, I expect that would also include the capability to read EMV chip equipped credit cards. The major credit card companies have announced plans to issue cards with the EMV chips. As for the AGR card, no idea when Amtrak would update the card technology.

There are still a lot of stations that don't have Quik-Trak machines. There are requirements for internet access, secure location, staffed station limiting which stations can get QT machines. With the advent of eTicketing, NYP, WAS, and probably a few of the other major stations don't need as many QT machines. Are there any plans to either relocate the excess QT machines to small market stations or buy enough new QT machines to deploy them to more stations?

 

[BCL]

I had a nearly similar incident in Chicago.

I had a 2 leg itinerary (CHI-WAS-BWI - incidentially the one that Matt and I met you on) and about halfway through the first ticket the ink started fading. By the midpoint of the second ticket, it was just blank ticket stock.

Took it over to the ticket counter and it took a very frustrated ticket lady about 15 minutes to reissue the tickets. She tried to blame me saying that the Quick-Trak machines weren't made to print AGR redemption tickets.

It's not "ink" per se, but I'm guessing you were searching for a way to explain it. This is thermal card stock similar to most airline boarding passes these days. Actually - at airports often the boarding passes these days are printed in thin paper and not some sort of card stock.

The key to printing on these things is that the print head produces heat, which then causes the paper to turn dark. Leaving printed thermal paper in the sun will often cause it to fade. The background will get darker, and the printed area will get lighter.

I think the issue I saw (and probably what you saw) was that the roller that presses the card stock against the print head failed/released. If the paper isn't placed right against the head, it simply won't print reliably.

 

[BCL]

If they're getting new machines, my request would be an option to use a smart card (EMV) equipped credit card or even move AGR cards to the standard. Someone could read all the data and it's useless with all the various encryption and handshaking required.

If the Quik-Trak machines are being "refreshed" or replaced in large part to remain compliant with credit card security requirements, I expect that would also include the capability to read EMV chip equipped credit cards. The major credit card companies have announced plans to issue cards with the EMV chips. As for the AGR card, no idea when Amtrak would update the card technology.

There are still a lot of stations that don't have Quik-Trak machines. There are requirements for internet access, secure location, staffed station limiting which stations can get QT machines. With the advent of eTicketing, NYP, WAS, and probably a few of the other major stations don't need as many QT machines. Are there any plans to either relocate the excess QT machines to small market stations or buy enough new QT machines to deploy them to more stations?

Along my normal commute, there are 4 unstaffed stations with QT, 2 staffed stations, and 2 unstaffed stations without QT. With the latter, one is supposed to be able to buy a ticket on board without the 25% penalty. I did that just once (to see what it was like) and the conductor kind of chewed me out for wasting his time. He asked if I had internet access at home and/or a smart phone, which I did for both. He was really ticked off when I told him that I buy my tickets that way all the time.

Frankly - a lot of them aren't exactly in the most secure location. Richmond, CA is indoors next to the staffed BART station, but there are assorted people hanging out there. Berkeley and Great America are both so close to the street (and both stations are below overpasses) that one could walk 20 feet to get to the QT machines from a car. The Fremont machine is indoors in the waiting room of the old Centerville station, but that's really unstaffed. They have issues with homeless people sleeping inside, but I don't think they care much about the machines. That leaves the Oakland Coliseum and Hayward stations without machines. Hayward has no shelter (I think) but I'm wondering why OAC doesn't have a machine other than the possibility that they don't trust the neighborhood (technically East Oakland).

 

[Barciur]

I did that just once (to see what it was like) and the conductor kind of chewed me out for wasting his time. He asked if I had internet access at home and/or a smart phone, which I did for both. He was really ticked off when I told him that I buy my tickets that way all the time.

Are you serious? That's pretty terrible and shouldn't happen.

 

[BCL]

I did that just once (to see what it was like) and the conductor kind of chewed me out for wasting his time. He asked if I had internet access at home and/or a smart phone, which I did for both. He was really ticked off when I told him that I buy my tickets that way all the time.

Are you serious? That's pretty terrible and shouldn't happen.

He was lecturing me that his primary duty was to the efficient running of the train and the safety of the passengers, and that the couple of minutes it was taking was time he wasn't spending on those duties. But then he spent some time explaining how to read the receipt when I asked.

I have had conductors tell me that pulling tickets isn't a primary concern. Something about missing a passenger not being a real issue, but that missing a signal could get them in trouble.

 

[Barciur]

I have had conductors tell me that pulling tickets isn't a primary concern. Something about missing a passenger not being a real issue, but that missing a signal could get them in trouble.

Contrary to that, I was riding on an overcrowded westbound Pennsylvanian on Sunday and there was no more coach room so a couple of us went to the cafe car. The conductor was very friendly and was cracking jokes with everyone and asked me if I'm a snowboarding champion :giggle: :hi: but anyway, somebody asked him if they get people sliding through without a ticket because of that many people and his response was: "not on my train they don't. I ain't that kinda guy, nobody rides without a ticket on MY train"

 

[Alexandria Nick]

The key to printing on these things is that the print head produces heat, which then causes the paper to turn dark. Leaving printed thermal paper in the sun will often cause it to fade. The background will get darker, and the printed area will get lighter.

Lots of receipts are printed that way too, which is a concern for storage of a receipt if its, like, a TV one you kept or something.

I had a receipt I'd put behind the visor in my car (no idea why, what a strange place to put it) and after a summer up there, it had turned completely black. it was kinda neat looking.

Can't say I've ever had a negative experience with Quik-Track machines though. Aside from "I had to put my card in three times" which isn't really a problem in my book. Every card reader in the world doesn't have a 100% success rate.