Mass cull of ticket offices

[33C]

And they have the nerve to send us on customer service courses.......

[KeithMacdonald]

9 minutes ago, Wheatley said:

For the TPE stations the (proposed) staffing times are all listed in the linked consultation document. 

 

Who the hell ever knows about "consultation documents"? That's a classic part of corporate PR spin to say "we had a consultation period". Typically before reducing the quality of the service.

 

11 minutes ago, Wheatley said:

they'll be on the website or posted at the station. 

 

Just what we all need, another assumption that 100% of the population has access to the internet, or visits the station in advance.

 

[david.hill64]

Presumably the penalty fares regime will have to change too. The helpful GWR site advises that you will be able to buy your ticket on the train or at your destination station. One would hope that you would not be penalized for so doing.

 

I would also hope that whatever is in force is applied universally.

[John M Upton]

They just finished spending five million quid on a brand new ticket office for Crawley.

 

The paint isn't even dry and the poster has gone up announcing it's closure....

 

They tried the ticket office staff roaming the concourse with mobile equipment thing at some stations down here a few years ago with a proviso that they could return to the ticket office if needed, needless to say it lasted about a week...

 

All the industrial action quite frankly is pointless now, they are just going to do it anyway. 

 

[phil-b259]

4 hours ago, Wheatley said:

At Skipton, Keighley, Shipley, Wilmslow and others the booking office staff leave the office to dispatch LNER and Avanti services, then return to selling tickets. On shorter trains the conductors self-dispatch. 

Don’t forget that at lots of stations the booking office (or a part thereof) will also be the staff mess room etc for platform staff which would a ping for why the impression may be that booking office staff simultaneously sell tickets and do train dispatch (nothing to stop one person being qualified in both roles but quite clearly they can only do one job at a time and if the train service is not to be delayed then retailing of tickets has to stop well before the train requiring dispatching arrives.)

 

However down my way on GTR station dispatch staff (where provided) are quite clearly totally separate from ticket office and gateline staff - dispatch staff ONLY do train dispatch while those selling tickets remain ticket offices. 

Edited July 6, 2023 by phil-b259

[John M Upton]

Thameslink services on the Brighton main line are now 100% self dispatch by the driver using DOO cameras, no involvement by platform dispatch staff whatsoever.

 

Southern and Gatwick Express are still dispatched by platform staff at the usual key locations though.

[Wheatley]

8 hours ago, 33C said:

Posted, yes, maybe, IF they can cover three shifts with rest day/overtime working.

 

Which is no different to covering several ticket offices with a finite number of GPR/RDR staff, same as now. And most ticket offices are not three shifts, a lot round here are only one (0600-1400 or thereabouts. 

 

8 hours ago, KeithMacdonald said:

 

Who the hell ever knows about "consultation documents"? That's a classic part of corporate PR spin to say "we had a consultation period". Typically before reducing the quality of the service.

 

 

Just what we all need, another assumption that 100% of the population has access to the internet, or visits the station in advance.

 

 

So how do you find out when the ticket office is open now ? ESP ? I wasn't suggesting that in several months from now passengers would be consulting an ancient consultation document, I was merely pointing out that (for TPE at least) your question was partly answered in the consultation document where the existing and proposed staffing times are listed, and in a lot of cases (not all)  there isn't a lot of difference. 

 

6 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

Don’t forget that at lots of stations the booking office (or a part thereof) will also be the staff mess room etc for platform staff which would a ping for why the impression may be that booking office staff simultaneously sell tickets and do train dispatch (nothing to stop one person being qualified in both roles but quite clearly they can only do one job at a time and if the train service is not to be delayed then retailing of tickets has to stop well before the train requiring dispatching arrives.)

 

However down my way on GTR station dispatch staff (where provided) are quite clearly totally separate from ticket office and gateline staff - dispatch staff ONLY do train dispatch while those selling tickets remain ticket offices. 

 

At busier stations that's exactly what happens. Dispatchers dispatch, TO staff sell tickets and there may or may not be an RO2 or R/S'A' doing other stuff. But at the stations I mentioned, where dispatch is only required for longer trains, the TO staff do it as required and they fall within the Safety Critical training and competence regime for that purpose. 

[Mike_Walker]

Regarding the question as to how passengers will know when staff are on duty, the GWR website, at least, has always shown the opening hours of ticket offices and the closure document shows the proposed staffing hours which on our local line are the same.  Therefore, if this goes ahead I would expect to see this information continued.  Just look under "station facilities".

[31A]

I have looked randomly at a few of the Train Operators' web sites and the ones I've looked at all point out that the proposals do not mean that any stations that currently have staff in attendance, will become unstaffed, contrary to the impression that many people seem to be getting.

 

For example (my bold):

 

Greater Anglia:

 

https://www.greateranglia.co.uk/consult

 

The key elements of Greater Anglia’s proposals are as follows:

The plans would provide a more modern and flexible service for customers

There would still be someone to help with ticket queries and information at all the stations covered by the proposals (with specific hours varying by station) and the ability for customers to speak direct to the Greater Anglia Customer Contact Centre in Norwich via a ticket machine for guidance or advice

Passenger Assist arrangements would still apply, with additional mobile assistance teams providing extra support

No station would become unstaffed as a consequence of the proposals and other station facilities, such as waiting rooms and toilets, would be unaffected.

 

South Eastern:

 

https://www.southeasternrailway.co.uk/help-and-contact/get-in-touch/ticket-office-consultation

 

 

There is wide variation across the 180 stations we serve, of different opening times and staff available at our 142 ticket offices. At the conclusion of Southeastern’s consultation the following is proposed: 

At 14 of our busiest stations on the network Travel Centres will be provided offering a combination of travel information and ticketing solutions. You can find a full list of travel centres below. 

At Southeastern’s medium and larger sized stations, where it is agreed that ticket offices are no longer required, they will be closed. Overall, these stations will have fewer staff, but they will be better able to support our customers following enhanced training and being empowered to assist people face-to-face. 

At our smaller stations, where the only staff currently on the station is the person in the ticket office, if agreed that the ticket office will be closed, our staff there will be available to provide a wider range of customer support. 

At 18 of these smaller stations, where vacancies have resulted in a temporarily unstaffed station, these stations will be restaffed as staff are deployed where they are most needed.  

At 27 stations which are unstaffed stations, customers will continue to have a mobile assistance team (to provide accessibility support) and much better self-service retail options such as e-ticketing.

Every station currently staffed will continue to be staffed. 

 

And each TOC provides lists which give by station the proposed hours of staff attendance.  In many cases these are longer than the current Ticket Office opening hours - I suspect these are at busier stations which currently have platform staff as well as ticket office staff.

 

 

[Reorte]

10 minutes ago, 31A said:

No station would become unstaffed as a consequence of the proposals and other station facilities, such as waiting rooms and toilets, would be unaffected.

And how long do you think that'll last for?

[Hesperus]

19 hours ago, 33C said:

Imagine, if you will, stations on a busy, suburban route, line speed 75mph, no canopy, limited lighting, a dark pedestrian approach, no ticket office or staff, just a "customer" help point and a dot matrix, if working, indifferent cctv monitoring. This is a dangerous environment. The only member of staff you may see is the driver, for miles, and miles....and they want driverless trains too. Why do the passengers allow this, why do the media pillory Union members campaigning against this? No staff, no wage bill, no unions and an APP for everything. Why are the health and safety executive even allowing this to happen? A simple, drunken fight on a train, can cause hours of delay because there is only the driver to deal with it. Everyone else is miles away.......

 

Wouldn't the dark and dangerous environment part refer more to using the station in the evening?  Our ticket office closes mid afternoon (as many do ) leaving the station effectively unstaffed through the hours that antisocial behaviour is more likely.

 

It will be a shame if our ticket office closes but if savings have to be made I would prefer it to be here than cutting the train service.

 

Removing the dead hand of the DfT from decision making on the railways would probably save far more money though.  

[Mallard60022]

4 minutes ago, Reorte said:

And how long do you think that'll last for?

That's an open question and meant in a nice way I am sure? If not, how is Steve supposed to know the answer to that? Or anyone else for that matter. 

I think your question is valid, but it could be taken the wrong way Reorte!

Phil

[Reorte]

6 minutes ago, Mallard60022 said:

That's an open question and meant in a nice way I am sure? If not, how is Steve supposed to know the answer to that? Or anyone else for that matter. 

I think your question is valid, but it could be taken the wrong way Reorte!

Phil

Fair point, it was intended as an open question rather than a personal "give me an answer" one.

[KeithMacdonald]

2 hours ago, Wheatley said:

So how do you find out when the ticket office is open now ?

 

RTFM - our ticket office is never open - it was removed many years ago.

[Michael Hodgson]

20 hours ago, melmerby said:

I'm not surprised by this announcement.

 

Using Birmingham New Street as an example, you can see the massive drop in footfall at the manual service counters.

Whereas 10 years + ago there would be huge queues, now it is virtually deserted.

 

over 50 years ago the queues at New Street were so bad that I used to get my tickets from Brum in the booking office at Longbridge Station on the Halesowen line - which only ever had workmens trains and even those had ceased a decade earlier !   The staff were not sitting around twiddling their thumbs though, they dealt with railway payroll and other admin, so selling a ticket to a real passenger was the highlight of their week!

[melmerby]

I wonder what percentage of stations currently have a ticket office and/or staff.

Most of the smaller ones don't.

e.g. Whitlocks End (nearest station with car parking) which only has ticket machines, nothing else, had 117,000 entries/exits in the 2021/22 figures

 

[Reorte]

4 minutes ago, melmerby said:

I wonder what percentage of stations currently have a ticket office and/or staff.

Most of the smaller ones don't.

e.g. Whitlocks End (nearest station with car parking) which only has ticket machines, nothing else, had 117,000 entries/exits in the 2021/22 figures

Oh there are quite of few of them, and I've used plenty myself (even more if you account for a lot of staffed stations only being part time staffed). It sort of does the job but I definitely feel it's a much lower standard of service. And that's as someone without any needs that having staff on hand would help with.

[wombatofludham]

2 hours ago, Hesperus said:

It will be a shame if our ticket office closes but if savings have to be made I would prefer it to be here than cutting the train service.

 

At the risk of going off piste, there are some routes where fewer, longer trains are needed to free up resilience capacity and to aid operation at our multifarious flat crossings (unlike the Netherlands which has for the most part grade separated most critical junctions).  Pre Covid the Birmingham Cross City was every ten minutes at the core, yet when it opened, every 15 minutes was a four fold increase in service.  New Street was already operating at above the capacity it was designed for.  Does Birmingham to London really need "inter city" services at 20 minutes frequency and "semi fasts" at half hourly?  There was a mad rush shortly after privatisation (although BR had been steadily increasing frequencies) to buy into the "car drivers need frequency to compete with the turn up and go convenience of the car" mantra of some transport planners (I worked with them and it was almost Holy Writ) which coupled with Railtrack wanting to maximise revenue by selling slots means the railway is more congested and any delay just snowballs.  In some cases, although not all, fewer, longer trains would still offer a good frequency, often better than when loco-hauled in BR days, but still provide a good level of service and capacity.  It also wouldn't hurt some operators to use their automatic couplers a bit more to run multi-portion trains which split and combine according to traffic.  That would also save money and free up paths.

All that said, the biggest waste of money is the artificial internal market and the re-charging regime forced on the rail industry by the neither fish nor fowl privatisation that isn't, with DfT meddling and mismanagement like the hugely expensive IEP contracts.

[Michael Hodgson]

20 hours ago, Mallard60022 said:

I'm sorry but I truly believe that this DFT has almost no idea how to run a Railway system; or more controversially, this particular Government and many of the TOC's. There are exceptions such as Hull Trains but they have no Station Responsibilities as far as I'm aware? This whole situation is ill thought out and typically generic instead of specific.

The only decent comment I've heard from the Political side is that Ticketing MUST be simpler. 

Phil

What makes you think the DFT wants to run any railways?

Most of their work is for the road lobby, and they of course have gone native.

 

Politicans see railways in different lights

• those in the Home Counties get nothing but grief from consitituents irate about cancellations, strikes and late running
• those based a moderate distance from London travel by car and never catch a train, can't see what all the fuss is about
• those from the North East or Scotland use long-distance services to get to Westminster, but never catch a suburban train
• those from the more rural consituencies think there haven't been any meaningful services in their area since Beeching
• senior ones are chauffeured in a minsiterial limo anyway

The last Transport Minister to show a positive attitude to the railways in this country is now doing TV programs every night and he's only half-British anyway!

[Michael Hodgson]

4 minutes ago, wombatofludham said:

Pre Covid the Birmingham Cross City was every ten minutes at the core, yet when it opened, every 15 minutes was a four fold increase in service.  New Street was already operating at above the capacity it was designed for.  Does Birmingham to London really need "inter city" services at 20 minutes frequency and "semi fasts" at half hourly?  There was a mad rush shortly after privatisation (although BR had been steadily increasing frequencies) to buy into the "car drivers need frequency to compete with the turn up and go convenience of the car" mantra of some transport planners
 

I'm pleased it's a lot better than when I lived in Northfield the service was all of two or three 2-car trains a day.  It didn't go out the other side, but the few people who used it didn't want to go there anyway.

On the other hand, the 61/62/63 bus was something like a 2 minute frequency down the Bristol Road.

[big jim]

My main concern at a personal level is when I want to travel with my bike, I use it for work and sometimes don’t know which train I’ll be travelling on as plans change last minute etc, I need a bike reservation and ticket on avanti services which I have to get get from a manned ticket office (I can get them into 5 mins before departure time), it’s not so bad when booking tickets in advance on line as I can add the reservation there but will walk up bike space reservations be possible from the supposed ‘customer champions’ I very much doubt it

Occasionally I’m booked to travel pass on my duty pass to a diagrammed start or end location, occasionally I take my bike with me on those jobs too and visit the booking office to book the bike reservation showing them my duty pass (sometimes days before where booked trains are known), assuming they did make it possible for the machines to issue bike reservations then would I need to provide a ticket or reservation number to allow me to reserve a space, not possible with a duty pass

Another thought I’ve just had is if they allowed the machine to let anyone make a bike reservation without proof of a ticket then what’s to stop someone just booking up a block of bike spaces on a number of trains throughout the day (or week even) thus preventing others from booking one of the limited spaces

[Michael Hodgson]

21 hours ago, AY Mod said:

 

Look on the bright side. It'll stop Nobank Nigel travelling too far.

That should keep happy if he can't go to Europe.

[Michael Hodgson]

21 hours ago, Phil Parker said:

 

Or do DFT not want foreigners on our nice British trains?

 

And go home telling their friends how difficult it is to use British Trains as well as how much more expensive our tickets are than they pay at home?

[caradoc]

21 hours ago, woodenhead said:

Glasgow Central is Network Rail led by Avanti, so NR are closing these ticket offices not Avanti.

 

Maybe I have missed something, but why would NR be involved in ticket office closures? It is not AFAIK their responsibility!

 

[Michael Hodgson]

20 hours ago, 31A said:

 I can't see any mention on their web site of this being intended to be a short term arrangement.

... yet.

 

Web sites are easily amended to move the goalposts when they want to cut costs further.