Gibson ticket machine

It was in use from 1953 until 1993, was designed by former London Transport Superintendent of fare collection at LT's Effra Road ticket machine works, George Gibson.

[1] The LGOC was so desperate to solve the problem that in 1877, they ran a competition for solutions with a £1000 prize, but none of the 671 entries (including one from famous magician John Nevil Maskelyne suggesting use of serial numbers on tickets) met all of the conditions.

[3] In the Bell Punch system, numbered tickets colour-coded to a specific value were selected from a set in a rack carried by a conductor.

The machine stored the chads (punched circles) which could later be counted, and the value of the tickets sold calculated and compared against the takings from the conductor, to stop fraud.

It was still not impervious to some forms of fraud - some conductors, when handing in their machine, would claim that their counter was broken to account for the missing cash (that they had actually pocketed)[6] The Gibson used a very different system.

[7] The latter also meant that companies was no longer had to account for an asset that needed to be audited, as the paper rolls have very little worth in comparison to a pre-printed ticket that could be stolen/pilfered.

[8] By October 1958 Bell Punch machines on LT had been completely replaced (Poplar and West Ham trolleybus depots being the last to use them).