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London Euston travel centre (and elsewhere)

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Philip

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I went to London last week and on the return home I briefly wandered into the travel centre at London Euston. It was surprising to see only about half a dozen people queuing/at the desk, relative to the station itself which was busy at about 6:45pm on a weekday - the ticket office felt dead.

Is this quite normal now both here and at other big station ticket offices and travel centres, even when the station footfall is high? I could have just hit a quiet time but I would've thought big terminus stations would be back to having long queues for tickets now during the busier times of the day. I work in a ticket office at a fairly busy station but not in the same league as the mainline/terminus stations, yet we are quite busy again now (gone from averaging about 50 tickets per shift 4 months ago to about 120 per shift).

It seems generally accepted that some small outstation ticket offices might either close or have reduced opening hours implemented in the next decade, but how do people see the bigger station ticket offices faring? Personally I'm adopting a 'what will be will be' attitude towards the whole thing, but intrigued to read what others think.
 
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Taunton

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Quite a lot of the former business at Euston, Victoria, etc was made up of overseas visitors, who currently are pretty much disappeared. They have less familiarity with the UK rail websites, can be first time users, and need to have more explanation. This is unlike local stations. I'm sure the same is apparent in New York, Paris, etc.

One would also hope that stations, whatever their size, would be staffed sufficiently such there was not a permanent queue, which more than anything else is a sign that there aren't enough staff on duty.
 

Ianno87

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I went to London last week and on the return home I briefly wandered into the travel centre at London Euston. It was surprising to see only about half a dozen people queuing/at the desk, relative to the station itself which was busy at about 6:45pm on a weekday - the ticket office felt dead.

Is this quite normal now both here and at other big station ticket offices and travel centres, even when the station footfall is high? I could have just hit a quiet time but I would've thought big terminus stations would be back to having long queues for tickets now during the busier times of the day. I work in a ticket office at a fairly busy station but not in the same league as the mainline/terminus stations, yet we are quite busy again now (gone from averaging about 50 tickets per shift 4 months ago to about 120 per shift).

It seems generally accepted that some small outstation ticket offices might either close or have reduced opening hours implemented in the next decade, but how do people see the bigger station ticket offices faring? Personally I'm adopting a 'what will be will be' attitude towards the whole thing, but intrigued to read what others think.

Cambridge is noticeably quieter. Pre-Covid, busy times would see a queue for the ticket machines out of the door, but since Covid I've always been able to walk straight up to a TVM.

Guessing a mix of a drop in overseas tourists needing help, plus a greater takeup of "contact-free" E-Tickets etc
 

Djgr

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I went to London last week and on the return home I briefly wandered into the travel centre at London Euston. It was surprising to see only about half a dozen people queuing/at the desk, relative to the station itself which was busy at about 6:45pm on a weekday - the ticket office felt dead.

Is this quite normal now both here and at other big station ticket offices and travel centres, even when the station footfall is high? I could have just hit a quiet time but I would've thought big terminus stations would be back to having long queues for tickets now during the busier times of the day. I work in a ticket office at a fairly busy station but not in the same league as the mainline/terminus stations, yet we are quite busy again now (gone from averaging about 50 tickets per shift 4 months ago to about 120 per shift).

It seems generally accepted that some small outstation ticket offices might either close or have reduced opening hours implemented in the next decade, but how do people see the bigger station ticket offices faring? Personally I'm adopting a 'what will be will be' attitude towards the whole thing, but intrigued to read what others think.
It's the inevitable drift online, similar to the one that has all but killed off CDs, for example.

I imagine it wouldn't occur to people under 30 to use a ticket office.
 

6Gman

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I would also suspect that at 6.45pm at Euston most people would be starting their return journeys so would already have tickets.
 

Starmill

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Most people making a long distance journey are going to have paid for it in advance, not at the station. Among those who haven't, many will just use their own phone and have no reason to visit a ticket office or ticket machine.
 

Robertj21a

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I've not been in a ticket office for years. Not sure that many people really need to nowadays, unless they are tourists.
 

43066

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I went to London last week and on the return home I briefly wandered into the travel centre at London Euston. It was surprising to see only about half a dozen people queuing/at the desk, relative to the station itself which was busy at about 6:45pm on a weekday - the ticket office felt dead.

Is this quite normal now both here and at other big station ticket offices and travel centres, even when the station footfall is high? I could have just hit a quiet time but I would've thought big terminus stations would be back to having long queues for tickets now during the busier times of the day. I work in a ticket office at a fairly busy station but not in the same league as the mainline/terminus stations, yet we are quite busy again now (gone from averaging about 50 tickets per shift 4 months ago to about 120 per shift).

It seems generally accepted that some small outstation ticket offices might either close or have reduced opening hours implemented in the next decade, but how do people see the bigger station ticket offices faring? Personally I'm adopting a 'what will be will be' attitude towards the whole thing, but intrigued to read what others think.

Ticket offices generally are on borrowed time, especially in the London area. I use my local ticket office on occasion, but that’s because I buy priv. tickets. The majority of time I simply travel in my season ticket and the overwhelming majority of passengers also use these, contactless or oyster.

Ticket offices at major terminals seem better patronised for now. Presumably that’s simply because of the higher footfall meaning there are still a fair number of passengers with obscure ticketing requests, elderly passengers, occasional travellers, and those making higher value long distance walk-up purchases etc.

Over the next decade I’d expect more closures, reductions in staff numbers and those that remain being poorly trained, paid a lot less, and required to walk about helping people using TVMs rather than sitting behind a desk. Even these will dwindle in the longer term as we move towards *everything* being transacted via personal devices.
 

6Gman

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I've not been in a ticket office for years. Not sure that many people really need to nowadays, unless they are tourists.
There are still tickets that can only be purchased from booking offices (or on train).
 

xotGD

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When it takes the thick end of 20 button presses to get a straightforward ticket from a ticket machine at a northern station, plenty of passengers find it easier just to ask the person behind the window and save on the faff.
 

LowLevel

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When it takes the thick end of 20 button presses to get a straightforward ticket from a ticket machine at a northern station, plenty of passengers find it easier just to ask the person behind the window and save on the faff.
A recent conversation with a gentleman who boarded my train at a station with a trial ticket machine that does the "customer friendly" asking 400 questions before completing the sale:

"I can't be arsed with that thing. It won't stop asking me questions and I have to try and pick a train "with availability" despite wanting a flexible ticket, and then it's a till receipt. Can you please sell me an off peak return route any permitted to London Terminals?"

"Yes".

Click click whirr.

Took 10 seconds.
 

HamworthyGoods

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When it takes the thick end of 20 button presses to get a straightforward ticket from a ticket machine at a northern station, plenty of passengers find it easier just to ask the person behind the window and save on the faff.

Or even easier for the majority of people these days - put into an online app the details of the journey they wish to make select the journey and pay for it and an electronic ticket arrives

I imagine it wouldn't occur to people under 30 to use a ticket office.

I've not been in a ticket office for years. Not sure that many people really need to nowadays, unless they are tourists.

A very comparable example of this who goes to a coach station or a plane station to buy a ticket - even less than on the railway, it’s all online.
 

LowLevel

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Or even easier for the majority of people these days - put into an online app the details of the journey they wish to make select the journey and pay for it and an electronic ticket arrives





A very comparable example of this who goes to a coach station or a plane station to buy a ticket - even less than on the railway, it’s all online.

Or, put the details in, see a ludicrously cheap ticket on the screen for a train other than the one they want to catch, pick it anyway and then whinge like anything when the satanic ticket inspector charges them again on presenting their clearly labelled "booked train only" ticket for the train in 9 hours in the middle of the night :lol:

When I started as a conductor there was no such thing as mobile ticketing. It is strange to look back and remember those times! No "I just need to open my emails", "how do I work my app?" "It won't let me buy a ticket" (when the train has already left and they're panicking to complete the transaction they've left open just in case they see an inspector).

The glorious days of only having to deal with "I didn't have time to print my tickets before boarding so I just got on anyway"... a fleeting, happy time.
 

Philip

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Ticket offices generally are on borrowed time, especially in the London area. I use my local ticket office on occasion, but that’s because I buy priv. tickets. The majority of time I simply travel in my season ticket and the overwhelming majority of passengers also use these, contactless or oyster.

Ticket offices at major terminals seem better patronised for now. Presumably that’s simply because of the higher footfall meaning there are still a fair number of passengers with obscure ticketing requests, elderly passengers, occasional travellers, and those making higher value long distance walk-up purchases etc.

Over the next decade I’d expect more closures, reductions in staff numbers and those that remain being poorly trained, paid a lot less, and required to walk about helping people using TVMs rather than sitting behind a desk. Even these will dwindle in the longer term as we move towards *everything* being transacted via personal devices.

Why especially in the London area?

Is your last paragraph about the next decade actually part of the GBR plans or just your own speculation? As far as I know there has been no mention of staff being trained less, paid less or being asked to walk around helping with TVM problems instead of serving at the window.
 

Bertie the bus

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There are still tickets that can only be purchased from booking offices (or on train).
In fact there are tickets you used to be able to buy from TVMs but now can't. In the past I have purchased WM Day Rangers from the TVMs at Crewe. Tried last week and couldn't find the option so I asked a member of staff and she said you can only get them from the ticket office.
 

43066

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Why especially in the London area?

Because virtually everybody in London uses ticketing methods which don’t require a ticket office. Surely that’s abundantly clear?

Is your last paragraph about the next decade actually part of the GBR plans or just your own speculation? As far as I know there has been no mention of staff being trained less, paid less or being asked to walk around helping with TVM problems instead of serving at the window.

It’s my own speculation, but how on Earth do you think it’s going to go?! Look at how things have gone on the underground for an indication of direction of travel.

If you’re a ticket office person, surely you’re now approaching the point where you’ll need to apply for traincrew vacancies, or simply retire.
 

davews

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I always prefer using the ticket office at Martins Heron (when it is open). Especially when I am as usual catching the 0902 train and the new flashy TVM outside won't sell me a Senior Railcard ticket until 0900. I can see the trend but it is still the quickest way.
 

Philip

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Because virtually everybody in London uses ticketing methods which don’t require a ticket office. Surely that’s abundantly clear?



It’s my own speculation, but how on Earth do you think it’s going to go?! Look at how things have gone on the underground for an indication of direction of travel.

If you’re a ticket office person, surely you’re now approaching the point where you’ll need to apply for traincrew vacancies, or simply retire.

The underground ticket office closures happened a good few years ago now and it was a TfL idea rather than a TOC idea. Surely if TOCs wanted to copy the underground idea then they would have done so by now?

How do you rate the security of station dispatch jobs and have you thought whether booking office and dispatch could be combined, rather than having ticket office staff wandering around aimlessly on the platform as you suggest might happen?
 

sd0733

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having ticket office staff wandering around aimlessly on the platform as you suggest might happen?
That seems to be how it works at Birmingham International, there is no ticket office but staff on the concourse with tablets so it isn't that far fetched.
Think at the time it was Done Virgin labelled it the 'station of the future' even back then.
 

Djgr

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Or, put the details in, see a ludicrously cheap ticket on the screen for a train other than the one they want to catch, pick it anyway and then whinge like anything when the satanic ticket inspector charges them again on presenting their clearly labelled "booked train only" ticket for the train in 9 hours in the middle of the night :lol:

When I started as a conductor there was no such thing as mobile ticketing. It is strange to look back and remember those times! No "I just need to open my emails", "how do I work my app?" "It won't let me buy a ticket" (when the train has already left and they're panicking to complete the transaction they've left open just in case they see an inspector).

The glorious days of only having to deal with "I didn't have time to print my tickets before boarding so I just got on anyway"... a fleeting,

The underground ticket office closures happened a good few years ago now and it was a TfL idea rather than a TOC idea. Surely if TOCs wanted to copy the underground idea then they would have done so by now?

How do you rate the security of station dispatch jobs and have you thought whether booking office and dispatch could be combined, rather than having ticket office staff wandering around aimlessly on the platform as you suggest might happen?
Well one issue is whether TOCs have an agenda to close them, the other is whether there will be passengers who choose to use them.

I would suggest that in the longer run these are linked.
 

SargeNpton

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That seems to be how it works at Birmingham International, there is no ticket office but staff on the concourse with tablets so it isn't that far fetched.
Think at the time it was Done Virgin labelled it the 'station of the future' even back then.
There is a ticket office at Birmingham International - it just doesn't look like one. A circular area near the gatelines that looks more like an information desk.
 

datdad

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I've not been in a ticket office for years. Not sure that many people really need to nowadays, unless they are tourists.
Ticket offices at the London terminals are most useful to me. They seem to be the only places I can buy a ticket from the Freedom pass boundary (Zone 6?) to my destination. For example we went to Hastings & Brighton on separate journeys. We both have London 'Freedom' passes and Senior Railcards so go to the Ticket offices to buy the right ticket. I used St Pancras ticket office for the trip on Thameslink to Brighton and then the Charing Cross office for Hastings. The ticket office staff are most knowledgeable about fares & very helpful. Its a right faff not being able to buy such tickets on line but then again I have the time. Viva the Ticket office staff.
 

yorksrob

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There always seems to be a queue at London Victoria whenever I'm buying from there. Charing Cross not so much.
 

Horizon22

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The underground ticket office closures happened a good few years ago now and it was a TfL idea rather than a TOC idea. Surely if TOCs wanted to copy the underground idea then they would have done so by now?

How do you rate the security of station dispatch jobs and have you thought whether booking office and dispatch could be combined, rather than having ticket office staff wandering around aimlessly on the platform as you suggest might happen?

I think the comment was more about how easy it is to pay by contactless or Oyster that takes a lot of "thought" out of the ticket buying process. You only have to top-up an Oyster (and even then you can set it to auto top-up) and not at all for contactless. With the exception of big terminals (who even then could cut down on numbers) over the next decade the "traditional" ticket office will start to go. They ultimately won't go completely because at many places they are the only staff member on site.
 

Pigeon

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I think the comment was more about how easy it is to pay by contactless or Oyster

It is not "easy". It requires the involvement of third party functionality which cannot be assumed to be available. Something over a million people do not have access to it and that number is likely to remain more or less constant for the foreseeable future. It is fashionable these days to treat these people like dirt and not give a monkey's about excluding them from everyday activities, or to just pretend they don't exist at all, but the fashionability does not make the attitude any more acceptable.

Even if you are able to use the contactless thing at all, there is an additional factor that makes it inadvisable: it's horribly scary because you don't know what it's doing. What if you're diddling round London and you think you've got an all-day travelcard but the thing disagrees and instead charges you another fare every time you go through a gateline? And you then find you have to go a week without food because it's eaten all your money? No amount of reassurance that such things "can't happen" is of any help, partly because no reassurance that a computer system "can't" do something terrible is ever credible anyway, and partly because even if the risk is small the potential consequences are too bad to chance it.

Discussions such as this are tremendously worrying because everyone participating does always assume that access to the third party functionality is universal and therefore it is "easier" than a transaction involving only the two parties inherently concerned. Will "I would have paid for my ticket but there was no way to do so" be an acceptable excuse for not having one when challenged? Will it persuade them to give you the day return you wanted instead of a full fare single and a fine on top? It seems far more likely that things will instead develop to the point where trains simply cease to be an available option, and the prospect is anything but reassuring.
 
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The thing about ticket machines is they are all the same, where as staff in ticket offices can be very knowledgeable and helpful, or the complete opposite. I've had situations in the past where at a ticket office I've told the person behind the counter my travel plan and they've suggested a cheaper and perfectly valid option I wouldn't have thought of. Then the next time gone to the very same ticket office when a different person has been on and asked for the same, only to have them refuse to sell it to me saying it isn't valid.
 

Bletchleyite

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Even if you are able to use the contactless thing at all, there is an additional factor that makes it inadvisable: it's horribly scary because you don't know what it's doing. What if you're diddling round London and you think you've got an all-day travelcard but the thing disagrees and instead charges you another fare every time you go through a gateline? And you then find you have to go a week without food because it's eaten all your money? No amount of reassurance that such things "can't happen" is of any help, partly because no reassurance that a computer system "can't" do something terrible is ever credible anyway, and partly because even if the risk is small the potential consequences are too bad to chance it.

If this is an issue (and it is for plenty of people) get an actual Oyster card rather than using contactless. You can then only spend whatever money you've credited onto it.
 

43066

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The underground ticket office closures happened a good few years ago now and it was a TfL idea rather than a TOC idea. Surely if TOCs wanted to copy the underground idea then they would have done so by now?

How do you rate the security of station dispatch jobs and have you thought whether booking office and dispatch could be combined, rather than having ticket office staff wandering around aimlessly on the platform as you suggest might happen?

With apologies, my initial response last night was perhaps a little more bad tempered than I intended it to be!

I think they’d be wandering about in the areas with ticket machines rather than the platforms per se. It would be difficult to combine dispatch with ticketing assistance at most locations as dispatch takes up so much time (and of course shouldn’t be interupted), but perhaps that might be considered at quieter locations.

I suppose some platform dispatch roles are vulnerable in the longer term to further rollouts of DOO, but as always very much location specific.
 

Horizon22

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It is not "easy". It requires the involvement of third party functionality which cannot be assumed to be available. Something over a million people do not have access to it and that number is likely to remain more or less constant for the foreseeable future. It is fashionable these days to treat these people like dirt and not give a monkey's about excluding them from everyday activities, or to just pretend they don't exist at all, but the fashionability does not make the attitude any more acceptable.

Even if you are able to use the contactless thing at all, there is an additional factor that makes it inadvisable: it's horribly scary because you don't know what it's doing. What if you're diddling round London and you think you've got an all-day travelcard but the thing disagrees and instead charges you another fare every time you go through a gateline? And you then find you have to go a week without food because it's eaten all your money? No amount of reassurance that such things "can't happen" is of any help, partly because no reassurance that a computer system "can't" do something terrible is ever credible anyway, and partly because even if the risk is small the potential consequences are too bad to chance it.

Discussions such as this are tremendously worrying because everyone participating does always assume that access to the third party functionality is universal and therefore it is "easier" than a transaction involving only the two parties inherently concerned. Will "I would have paid for my ticket but there was no way to do so" be an acceptable excuse for not having one when challenged? Will it persuade them to give you the day return you wanted instead of a full fare single and a fine on top? It seems far more likely that things will instead develop to the point where trains simply cease to be an available option, and the prospect is anything but reassuring.

I'm not sure where all that came from but seems slightly like an anti-technology rant to me. It is very easy for the majority of end users is what I mean. They just tap in and out as required, and fare capping is also in place. Costs flash up on barriers. All you need is a functional bank-card.

Much easier than ensuring you've got the right ticket on you for the specific train you need and is valid at the time and route you are taking which occurs of much of the rail network. Of course some people don't have bank cards/accounts but these are very low numbers generally & you can still get an Oyster and top-up using cash.
 
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