Avanti ticket machines confuse Japanese passengers

Although its new Hitachi built trains are running smoothly,that's more than can be said for train operator Avanti West Coast's ticket machines, which are causing confusion with Japanese passengers, who are used to the kind of efficiency that sees a driver reprimanded for being just a few seconds late.

In early May a Japanese passenger complained to the operator that the Japanese translation used on their ticket machines at Rugby station was confusing – Avanti promising to fix it. It was asking if the ticket is for an adult or child, but both say child.

Two months later and the same passenger complained to Avanti again – after the operator had promised to fix the glitch. “I was in Birmingham New Street Station recently, and this still was not fixed. I was with a friend traveling in the UK who only speaks Japanese, and this was very confusing for him”

He went onto say that the company had, when translating English to Japanese,  also confused singular and plural when it came to booking multiple tickets and that it didn't appear to know the difference between Japan the country and Japanese people.

Drawing on internal 'secret' reports and candid staff interviews, the 'A Funny Thing Happened on the Train' series of books are a funny, fearless and sometimes shocking narrative of rail travel in the UK. They also cover the history (in a lively way!) of the stations and lines featured, along with approximately 200 colour photographs in every book. The first two best selling books in the trilogy are  https://www.chimewhistle.co.uk/shop/p/a-funny-thing-happened-on-the-train-to-london and  https://www.chimewhistle.co.uk/shop/p/afunnythinghappenedonthetraintothemidlands Both now down to very limited stock.