Rail Ticket Machines Stress Commuters

Once again, the latest and the greatest in scandal-mongering hot gossip from Anarchy Central’s 24/7 Truth & Rumour Mill – with dispatches hand forged and crafted into bespoke satire to tempt the palates of all budding nihilists and career revolutionaries who carry the immortal bloodline of the rebel sons of Belial.

The UK’s rail travel firms are to be petitioned to radically simplify the operation of automatic ticket dispensing machines after a study commissioned by the Ministry for Wasting Time & Money reported that passengers were being defeated and mentally traumatised by the bewildering jargon and idiotic barrage of misinformation and choices about ticket restrictions they faced when using the computerised devices.

Commuter watchdog POP (Pissed Off Passengers) reported that 90% of travellers preferred to queue to speak to the moronic ticket office staff, despite ticket vending machines being vacant.
This meant waiting times at ticket offices often exceeded the twenty-minute guideline in peak hours with people missing their trains altogether, then saying ‘fuck it’ and either going by bus or heading home again bemired in a sense of personal failure.

Instances have been recorded on station platform CCTV cameras of some passengers becoming so frustrated about which buttons to press next that they were driven to commit suicide by repeatedly smashing their heads into the machine’s screen.

Pissed Off Passengers spokeswoman Fellattia van der Gobble told a reporter from the Self-Harmers Gazette that ticket machines were particularly daunting for blind passengers or those catching a train for the first time - and people buying a different type of ticket from their regular run-of-the-mill commuting variety.
“We had a Mrs Hilda Titwank from Old Trafford trying to buy a £3.80p day return ticket to Bury on the Metrolink line only to be charged £647 quid on her credit card for a ‘super on-peak’ ticket for a Eurostar trip then ending up stranded in Brussels – which made a total bugger of her half-day shopping excursion.”

Conversely Helmut von Braun, technical director of train operator Rattle-Track, one of the first to adopt the new ticket dispensing machines, informed the media “It’s all a load of old bollocks, you don’t have to be a member of Mensa or have a degree in advanced computer technology to use our auto-ticket dispensers. It’s not really rocket science – but a sound knowledge of astrophysics does help.”
“Bear in mind that we train operating companies are in the business of trying to keep our customers happy but there’s not much we can do when 75% of your bog standard British public rail travellers are as thick as pigshit and can’t operate a simple ticket machine.”

Sapphie Dildodo, research director for the Association of Train Operating Companies, pointed out that the Pissed Off Passengers watchdog’s own market research figures indicated that a survey of more than 30,000 rail users revealed 7% were ‘sort of’ satisfied with ticket-buying facilities at stations – which was a vast improvement on the 2005 figure of 0%

Conversely Chantelle McScally, a 16-year old unemployed mother of three, told an interviewer from the Choo-Choo Review “I can’t say me or me mates are really arsed about the new machines or whether the ticket’s on-peak, off-peak, super off-peak or fuck off-peak cos’ we never buy one anyways an’ just show a false i/d card if the Rattle-Track plastic security plods doin’ ticket checks pull yer up.”

Allergy warning: This article was written in a known propaganda-infested area and may contain traces of slight exaggeration, modest porkies and misaligned references.

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