Mass cull of ticket offices

[Geep7]

10 minutes ago, petethemole said:

The afoorementioned SWR guard was of the opinion that it's part of a long term plan to close the railway system. 

Somehow, i've been getting that feeling for a little while now..... I just hope it's unfounded worrying on my part....

[Geep7]

18 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

 

Question: If you are a tourist, what are the chances you can navigate a Britrail Ticket App? I've used ticket machines abroad, but also the office when confused.

 

Or do DFT not want foreigners on our nice British trains? Perhaps they might like to mention this in the tourism adverts...

This was exactly one of my first thoughts when I saw this in the news.

[woodenhead]

13 minutes ago, petethemole said:

The afoorementioned SWR guard was of the opinion that it's part of a long term plan to close the railway system. 

 

1 minute ago, Geep7 said:

Somehow, i've been getting that feeling for a little while now..... I just hope it's unfounded worrying on my part....

And replace it with what?

 

Trains provide a very efficient, green and safe mode of travel and will continue to do so.

 

What might change is the number of people involved in providing that service and perhaps they may attempt to close some lines, but even of late the direct of travel for the railways has been one of expansion not contraction.

[31A]

The different operators seem to be putting a different spin on this.

 

I looked at LNER; of their stations at which they currently provide the ticket office, those at Berwick, Durham, Darlington, Retford, Newark, Grantham and Wakefield Westgate are intended to be closed, or repurposed, with those at Edinburgh Waverley, Newcastle, York, Doncaster, Peterborough and King's Cross remaining open with roughly similar opening hours to now.  I can't see any mention on their web site of this being intended to be a short term arrangement.

 

https://www.lner.co.uk/globalassets/lner2233-wfr-information-booklet---digital-v12.pdf

 

At those where the ticket office is to close:

 

"We therefore plan to repurpose
the Ticket Office at Retford Station
and make it more accessible, with a designated meeting point and Customer Service area.

To support these changes we will upskill our colleagues to bring them closer to customers. This means enhancing our retail offering with floor walking, mobile equipment and an enhanced Customer Information Point."

 

Buying a ticket at York station last week, there was a small queue at the Travel Centre where two positions were open, but a member of staff was acting as a Floor Walker and asked if anyone wanted tickets for today.  I did, and she sold me one using her mobile equipment, so not so very different to what is being proposed for the future, and what will presumably happen at their stations in future,

 

In fact, in terms of being able to buy a ticket from a human, this could be an improvement on the present situation as the ticket offices at their smaller stations are now only open in the mornings, and after that although the stations are still staffed for Train Despatch and Passenger Assistance purposes, the 'platform staff' don't (as far as I know) at the moment have any way of selling you a ticket.

 

Also of note, this just reflects what has been happening in various other European countries for a long time; there have been no station ticket offices in Sweden for many years, and I have read recently they are taking away ticket vending machines from their stations as these now only account for a very small proportion of sales.  I don't believe there are any station ticket offices in Holland, and in Germany they are becoming increasingly rare; just some examples I'm aware of.

 

All of which is not to say I approve of it, speaking as an ex Booking Clerk who purposely avoids self service tills in shops (as I never seem to be able to use them properly) and although I am a smart phone user I don't generally use it to buy things!  I do know it's possible to buy tickets on line or phone, but as someone said earlier, it has always seemed much easier to go to a ticket office and ask someone.

 

[phil_sutters]

With a larger proportion of travel being increasingly for leisure rather than commuting or business, surely there will be more people using the railways who have less knowledge of the network, the ticketing and pricing structures etc. If you want to encourage these to fill the gap left by the working-from-home brigade make life easier for them.

Our ticket office is open mornings and early afternoons and sees a fair amount of activity. As a seaside town with a large South Downs tourist hinterland, the staff deal with many foreign visitors unfamiliar with UK railways and we have an above average population of retired people. The one member of staff on duty also empties the bins, updates the leaflets and posters and keeps the station tidy. Will those tasks be done by a mobile hit squad? Judging by the appalling standards of the town's toilet cleaners who work on that basis that will be another fine mess.

[Wickham Green too]

42 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

Greater Manchester will be going the same way with a combined bus, tram and train Oyster type system - actually looking forward to it, ...

I've yet to find any sensible electronic way to go beyond 'my' London Oyster area ..... totally impossible on a ticket machine though can be done on line IF you know the boundary station and book from there ................. and I always wonder if I have to choose a train that actually stops at the boundary !

[melmerby]

52 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

Greater Manchester will be going the same way with a combined bus, tram and train Oyster type system

West Midlands have been doing one for some time. (using the ITSO system IIRC)

[melmerby]

7 minutes ago, Wickham Green too said:

I've yet to find any sensible electronic way to go beyond 'my' London Oyster area

There's no reason why a travel card can't be made to operate countrywide.

It does if it's an OAP pass and they use the same system as the West Midlands travel card.

[woodenhead]

And with all TOCs under DfT control now, perhaps over time there will be a simplification of apps for purchasing tickets, at the end of the day it all goes to the DfT now with the TOCs getting a management payment.

[BernardTPM]

2 hours ago, Mike_Walker said:

I am totally opposed to this proposal and Mark Hopwood and I have had some pretty heated "discussions" over it.  It might be DafT driven, but if Mark is anything to go by, the TOCs are enthusiastically embracing it.  Mark seems to think we should conduct all our business in every field on our smartphones and those that don't are crusty old dinosaurs.

He sounds like an arrogant git.

[lmsforever]

The next national strike  will there be anything left on our railways?

[Mike_Walker]

8 minutes ago, BernardTPM said:

He sounds like an arrogant git.

Having known him well for more than 30 years those are not words I would use to describe him, he's certainly not arrogant or a git.  However, like many of his generation, he fails to appreciate that not everyone lives their lives completely on line or wants to.  

 

Also, he's implementing DfT instructions as he's contractually required to even though he's one of the few in the industry that can argue with the DfT.  This is entirely DfT driven but by making the TOCs make the public announcements they hope it will deflect public anger from the government.

[BernardTPM]

Fair point Mike, but I loath mobile phones so things like this really anger me. Yes, the real gits are those directing from above.

[Wheatley]

I've no intention of multi-quoting half a dozen posts and I've only read the Northern document, but don't conflate 'ticket office' staff with all the other station staff. There is nothing in the proposals to replace or remove gateline staff, dispatchers, supervisors, porters (yes there are still some), Customer Information Point staff, floorwalkers, cleaners or any other 'non-sitting behind a counter selling tickets' role. Some of the reporting would have you believe that even major stations will be a staff-less wasteland of feral schoolies, pick pockets and neds, that isn't the case.  

 

 

[33C]

28 minutes ago, lmsforever said:

The next national strike  will there be anything left on our railways?

" mummy, what's a railway? "

[Steamport Southport]

7 minutes ago, Wheatley said:

I've no intention of multi-quoting half a dozen posts and I've only read the Northern document, but don't conflate 'ticket office' staff with all the other station staff. There is nothing in the proposals to replace or remove gateline staff, dispatchers, supervisors, porters (yes there are still some), Customer Information Point staff, floorwalkers, cleaners or any other 'non-sitting behind a counter selling tickets' role. Some of the reporting would have you believe that even major stations will be a staff-less wasteland of feral schoolies, pick pockets and neds, that isn't the case.  

 

 

 

Most of those stations on the Northern list only have ticket office staff who do everything though. 

 

We are talking about mostly suburban stations with two platforms rather than multi platform termini.

 

At my local station I think there are three or four regular staff who work in shifts with others occasionally filling in from other local stations.

 

In other words they are going unmanned.

 

 

Jason

[Trainshed Terry]

Closure of ticket office is just another way of increasing the shareholders payments. This idea needs to be stopped going by the lack of investment the TOC have put back into the railway.

 

Terry

[mcowgill]

4 minutes ago, Trainshed Terry said:

Closure of ticket office is just another way of increasing the shareholders payments. This idea needs to be stopped going by the lack of investment the TOC have put back into the railway.

 

Terry

 

My understanding is that's no longer the case, since Covid the TOC now gets a management fee for running the service, the DfT bears the cost of the operation and therefore takes the benefit of cost savings.   Shareholders won't see any gain from cost cutting.

 

Martin

[wombatofludham]

I get somewhat annoyed when I hear the usual "older people will be disadvantaged because they are less likely to be able to access or use tech" trope trotted out.  My aunt, born 1944, is a net junkie and has no problem booking complex continental tours or ordering on line.  I'm an oldie at 60 but given my first computer was a Sinclair ZX Spectrum, I think I understand tech.  By the same token I have two friends just turning 50 who do not have a smart phone and never want one.  So let's cut the ageist nonsense and say there are digitally disadvantaged people for whom a person is an essential means of explaining what they want, at all ages, including youngsters who have may have some form of a learning disability which complicates their ability to use machines or make them unsure when using on line ticketing, poorer people of all ages who may not have the latest tech, people whose first language is neither English or Welsh, or people whose eyesight struggles with machine screens.  Age isn't the issue, competence and physical or mental ability can affect any age.

Midland Metro began with ticket machines and we were assured by the franchisee that the ticket machines they supplied would work and be robust.  They didn't last long and were replaced with conductors.

Doing away with ticket offices is wrong.  What the wonks of Marsham Street don't realise is that train travel, for many, is less familiar than taking a plane.  They may be fine with on line booking, but when presented with multiple ticket prices, the need to change trains and all that UK train travel imposes on someone more used to driving or going to an airport to get to another, or if they need to change planes, it being all handled for you relatively seamlessly, they just go "**** that, I'll drive", especially as motorists only take into account the direct cost of fuel for a journey, at which point the machine generated fare will for the most part seem a lot more than a couple of tanks of petrol or diesel.  Many moons back, I was contacted by a friend to work out a journey from Stafford to York, and gave him two choices, one with a single change in Birmingham, and one via Stockport and Stalybridge (we are talking the days of BR when there was a regular service) and pointed out that it would probably be cheaper via Stockport, but to ask at the booking office.  However, what I didn't factor into the plan was neither of the friends had ever - ever - used a train previously, despite being into their 20s.  So, being more used to single leg pricing on buses, they thought they had to buy a single ticket for each leg of the journey, so very nearly missed the 5 minute cross platform connection at Stockport.  This is the level of inexperience with train travel amongst the leisure and pleasure market.  If it's complicated, they will drive.  No computer based system will ever be able to think out of the box to save someone a few pounds, as the booking clerk at Newhaven did for me a few years back, or ask questions to find out exactly how Mr or Mrs Numpty intend to travel rather than what the computer thinks they have asked for.

I know this sounds as patronising as the age issue, but many people really don't understand railways, and why should they, many people don't use them, but might want to try it to allow them to booze and cruise for an evening out.  If the ticket purchase was complicated, to the point the highlighted "best price" came with so many restrictions it wasn't valid on the train they want so get fined for the wrong ticket, then the station is unstaffed and a hang out for local gangs who are doing anti social things on the platform, their inexperience is going to cost them and guarantee a boom trade for local taxis next time they want to booze and cruise.

The system should be designed around the needs of the most vulnerable, train illiterate potential traveller, to comply fully with the requirements for service providers laid out in the Equality Act, and made as simple to use as the local bus or the car.  Relying on ticket machines designed to be as complicated as a programming flow chart because that's how the designers think, or apps which show too many options and never seem to be in synch with each other price wise whilst de-staffing stations is not making the system simple and effective.

[stivesnick]

A couple of new comments / thoughts on the subject 

 

The GWR web-site information on the changes includes the number of tickets actually sold at each station and provides a % of total sales. 

I have not seen this on other operators so far - so people should pester the DfT to get this data provided for all stations.

 

People should also be asking for an accessibility assessment - there could be a breach of disability regulations. 

 

There does appear to be a lot of inconsistency between train operators, Greater Anglia and keeping ticket offices at some of their major stations whereas GWR want to close ticket offices at similar size stations. Such inconsistency should be questioned. 

 

Interesting that Reading Green Park station that opened recently does have a ticket  office which will soon be closed - so that was a waste of money!

 

Just listening to the Minister on the radio - he is saying only 10% of sales - the data on the GWR web-site tends to suggest more than this. 

 

Regards 

 

Nick 

[Oldddudders]

1 hour ago, 31A said:

Also of note, this just reflects what has been happening in various other European countries for a long time; there have been no station ticket offices in Sweden for many years, and I have read recently they are taking away ticket vending machines from their stations as these now only account for a very small proportion of sales.  I don't believe there are any station ticket offices in Holland, and in Germany they are becoming increasingly rare; just some examples I'm aware of.

France is going the same way. In the last few years ticket offices have had shorter hours at best. A couple of weeks ago I travelled via Le Mans, and the ticket office was closed - a battery of machines is available. This is a city of 200k residents and a large hinterland of communities beyond that. And the SNCF website, like many French sites, is pants, unconnected with being in a different language. The good news is that the UK Trainline is happy to sell me an online ticket for travel in France. Because of my former employment, I do not need to buy railway tickets in the UK, but the Trainline seems to me to be very helpful and does what it says on the tin. Journey Planner, which I use for train info, similarly gets to offer a sale very quickly, I find. 

 

[Mallard60022]

29 minutes ago, wombatofludham said:

I get somewhat annoyed when I hear the usual "older people will be disadvantaged because they are less likely to be able to access or use tech" trope trotted out.  My aunt, born 1944, is a net junkie and has no problem booking complex continental tours or ordering on line.  I'm an oldie at 60 but given my first computer was a Sinclair ZX Spectrum, I think I understand tech.  By the same token I have two friends just turning 50 who do not have a smart phone and never want one.  So let's cut the ageist nonsense and say there are digitally disadvantaged people for whom a person is an essential means of explaining what they want, at all ages, including youngsters who have may have some form of a learning disability which complicates their ability to use machines or make them unsure when using on line ticketing, poorer people of all ages who may not have the latest tech, people whose first language is neither English or Welsh, or people whose eyesight struggles with machine screens.  Age isn't the issue, competence and physical or mental ability can affect any age.

Midland Metro began with ticket machines and we were assured by the franchisee that the ticket machines they supplied would work and be robust.  They didn't last long and were replaced with conductors.

Doing away with ticket offices is wrong.  What the wonks of Marsham Street don't realise is that train travel, for many, is less familiar than taking a plane.  They may be fine with on line booking, but when presented with multiple ticket prices, the need to change trains and all that UK train travel imposes on someone more used to driving or going to an airport to get to another, or if they need to change planes, it being all handled for you relatively seamlessly, they just go "**** that, I'll drive", especially as motorists only take into account the direct cost of fuel for a journey, at which point the machine generated fare will for the most part seem a lot more than a couple of tanks of petrol or diesel.  Many moons back, I was contacted by a friend to work out a journey from Stafford to York, and gave him two choices, one with a single change in Birmingham, and one via Stockport and Stalybridge (we are talking the days of BR when there was a regular service) and pointed out that it would probably be cheaper via Stockport, but to ask at the booking office.  However, what I didn't factor into the plan was neither of the friends had ever - ever - used a train previously, despite being into their 20s.  So, being more used to single leg pricing on buses, they thought they had to buy a single ticket for each leg of the journey, so very nearly missed the 5 minute cross platform connection at Stockport.  This is the level of inexperience with train travel amongst the leisure and pleasure market.  If it's complicated, they will drive.  No computer based system will ever be able to think out of the box to save someone a few pounds, as the booking clerk at Newhaven did for me a few years back, or ask questions to find out exactly how Mr or Mrs Numpty intend to travel rather than what the computer thinks they have asked for.

I know this sounds as patronising as the age issue, but many people really don't understand railways, and why should they, many people don't use them, but might want to try it to allow them to booze and cruise for an evening out.  If the ticket purchase was complicated, to the point the highlighted "best price" came with so many restrictions it wasn't valid on the train they want so get fined for the wrong ticket, then the station is unstaffed and a hang out for local gangs who are doing anti social things on the platform, their inexperience is going to cost them and guarantee a boom trade for local taxis next time they want to booze and cruise.

The system should be designed around the needs of the most vulnerable, train illiterate potential traveller, to comply fully with the requirements for service providers laid out in the Equality Act, and made as simple to use as the local bus or the car.  Relying on ticket machines designed to be as complicated as a programming flow chart because that's how the designers think, or apps which show too many options and never seem to be in synch with each other price wise whilst de-staffing stations is not making the system simple and effective.

Absolutely classic post. Brilliant.

Phil

[IWCR]

I  always  use  a  ticket  office  where  possible,   generally  not  a  simple  one  train  journey,  often  several  possible  routes,  normally  a  return  and  not  train  specific  (travel  times  unknown).  I  dont  have  the  "Railway  Knowledge"  to  know  myself  which  way / operator / time  is  best  for  my  specific  journey.  I  want  to  ask  someone  and  get  the  relevant  advice,

I  have  never  found  the  Ticket  Window  empty,  always  a  queue  so  there  must  be  a  demand  for  these,  often  some  of  people  are  not  actually  buying  a  ticket  but  are  making  some  sort  of  enquiry,  ( no body  else  to  ask).

I  do  not  possess  a  mobile  phone  and  have  no intention  for  buying  one,  yes  I  would  be  happy  using  a  Ticket  Machine  with  advice  from  a  Floorwalker  but  you  and  I  both  know  there  will  be  no  such  animal.  I  can  use  a  PC  for  Tickets  etc  but  as  with  the  Ticket  Machines  it  is  not  easy  to  follow  the  system  to  actually  get  what  you  want.

 

Pete

[Wickham Green too]

1 hour ago, melmerby said:

There's no reason why a travel card can't be made to operate countrywide. It does if it's an OAP pass and they use the same system as the West Midlands travel card.

I've no idea how your West Midlands travel card works but my London Over Sixties card allows me to travel out as far as Surbiton, Swanley or West Drayton, for instance, without further expenditure - and then my Seniors Railcard gives discounted rail travel everywhere else ...... the interface between the two can be problematic ! ( Of course if you ask the 'Journey Planner' for a fare from - say - Surbiton to Woking it'll only give you the times of trains that stop at Surbiton ! )

[APOLLO]

4 hours ago, newbryford said:

 

What the list from Northern doesn't make clear is that their services will use stations that are operated by other TOCs and very likely to retain ticket offices

Manchester Piccadilly, Preston, Crewe and Stockport are obvious examples

 

The list from Northern states that the ticket office at Wigan Wallgate will remain open 7 days / week with a slight reduction in hours, while across the road at Wigan North Western (Avanti & Northern trains) the ticket office will close.

 

Will Avanti / Northern passengers travelling from North Western be able to buy tickets at Wallgate ?

 

Brit15