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How many National Rail stations don't have gatelines? (estimates welcome)
- Thread starter paulc222
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In 2019 ORR published a worksheet listing the number of automatic ticket gates at each station.Number of Automatic Ticket Gates (ATGs) installed at each station in Great Britain, March 2019
With a very simple count function this sheet suggests that 2,189 stations, or 86% of station in the study, have no Automatic Ticket Gates.
That's brilliant, thanks for finding that. More ungated stations than I expected!
The ORR published a spredadshhet of number of automatic ticket gates installed at each station as a one-off survey in 2019. https://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/media...-each-station-in-great-britain-march-2019.ods
If I sort by number of ticket gates descending, the first data row is row 5 and the first row with a zero is row 352, so that makes 347 stations with automatic ticket gates (interestingly there don't seem to be any stations with only one gate, always either zero or two or more). The first blank row after the data is 2541, so that makes 2189 stations with no automated ticket barriers.
The list is certainly not perfect, some things that may be considered the same station are listed seperately, for example "liverpool lime street" and "liverpool lime street low level" are both on the list. Some stations served by NR but run by LU seem to be missing from the list completely (Farringdon) or listed with a zero (Moorgate). It only counts automatic ticket gates, not manually operated barriers (though it's years since I've seen a proper manually operated barrier, rather than just a member of staff standing around checking tickets) and the list is about about 5 years old now, in that time new stations have opened and it would not surprise me if a few stations have had barriers installed that did not have them before.
Still I don't expect any of these issues to make much difference to the overall picture.
Some of the operators in London and the south east have a large proportion of thier stations gated. If you live in one of these areas you would be forgiven for thinking that gating was the norm.
But in the rest of the country, away from London, only a handful of stations in large towns and cities are gated, the large mass of suburban and rural stations are not.
Edit: seems I was wrong about merseyrail.
If I sort by number of ticket gates descending, the first data row is row 5 and the first row with a zero is row 352, so that makes 347 stations with automatic ticket gates (interestingly there don't seem to be any stations with only one gate, always either zero or two or more). The first blank row after the data is 2541, so that makes 2189 stations with no automated ticket barriers.
The list is certainly not perfect, some things that may be considered the same station are listed seperately, for example "liverpool lime street" and "liverpool lime street low level" are both on the list. Some stations served by NR but run by LU seem to be missing from the list completely (Farringdon) or listed with a zero (Moorgate). It only counts automatic ticket gates, not manually operated barriers (though it's years since I've seen a proper manually operated barrier, rather than just a member of staff standing around checking tickets) and the list is about about 5 years old now, in that time new stations have opened and it would not surprise me if a few stations have had barriers installed that did not have them before.
Still I don't expect any of these issues to make much difference to the overall picture.
I think it varies a lot with where in the country you are.
Some of the operators in London and the south east have a large proportion of thier stations gated. If you live in one of these areas you would be forgiven for thinking that gating was the norm.
But in the rest of the country, away from London, only a handful of stations in large towns and cities are gated, the large mass of suburban and rural stations are not.
Edit: seems I was wrong about merseyrail.
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You’d no doubt find the % of passenger journeys not involving a gated station at some stage is far smaller, due to the numbers starting/finishing at London terminals and other major stations.
Deafdoggie
Established Member
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- 3,092
It includes Beney Arms, Stanlow, Barlaston (?), etc. There's a lot of remote stations out there!
To go off at a tangent, what's the largest unbarried station?
Possibly Edinburgh Waverley (unless they’ve been installed since I was last there).
Sheffield is probably the largest on my patch.
Edinburgh has barriers to most platforms.
Sheffield, York, Preston, Carlisle I would think.
CarrotPie
Member
How well would a station with one ticket gate work? Bi-directional operation? What happens when it breaks?
CarrotPie
Member
Probably Chesham if we were talking about LUL.
Several stations were rebuilt in the early eighties with combined ticket office and (I think) single turnstile. Guessing they controlled entry only after sale or presentation of ticket - “freewheeling” on exit.
BlueLeanie
Member
Largest by passenger numbers, physical area?
Wemyss Bay covers a pretty big footprint.
Deafdoggie
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Probably busiest.
Called a passimeter (maybe thats LT speak). Berwick upon Tweed was so equipped in late 70's.
I wrote a little bit of python code
Which produced the following results:
busiest stations without ticket barriers or with unknown number of ticket barriers
none London Liverpool Street 1
none London Waterloo 3
unknown Stratford (London) 6
unknown Tottenham Court Road 7
unknown Farringdon 9
unknown Whitechapel 14
unknown Highbury and Islington 18
unknown Bond Street 19
unknown Canada Water 23
none London Charing Cross 24
none Barking 28
unknown Canary Wharf 38
unknown West Ham 41
none York 42
none Sheffield 44
unknown Woolwich 47
none Ealing Broadway 48
none Stansted Airport 50
none London Cannon Street 56
none Seven Sisters 61
none Lewisham 63
quietest stations with ticket barriers
54 Prestwick International Airport 1,893
3 Southminster 1,747
6 Edinburgh Gateway 1,289
4 Anderston 1,180
2 Colwyn Bay 1,103
4 East Tilbury 1,050
3 West Horndon 1,043
3 Dagenham Dock 882
11 Edinburgh Park 874
3 Rhyl 799
3 Shoeburyness 787
It's clear some of the entries in these list are either data errors or outdated data. Checking things manually I am pretty confident that the busiest (according to ORR data) station without any ticket bariers is York.
On the quietest station with ticket barriers side, the orr data claims that prestwick international airport has 54 ticket barriers, but that is clearly false and other sources claim it doesn't have ticket barriers at all. Similarly the data claims that Southminster has 3 ticket barriers, but NRE disagrees and google doesn't turn up anything either. So ignoring those two, it looks like the answer for the "quietest station which the ORR data identifies as having ticket barriers" is Edinburgh Gateway.
Code:
#!/usr/bin/python3
import csv
#convert string to integer, tolerating commas
#and treating some special values as a very
#large number
def myint(s):
if s[0] == '[':
return 1000000000000
return int(s.replace(',',''))
pastheader = False
barriercounts = {}
with open('ad-hoc-number-of-automatic-ticket-installed-at-each-station-in-great-britain-march-2019.csv') as csvfile:
reader = csv.reader(csvfile)
for row in reader:
if pastheader:
#print(repr(row))
barriercounts[row[0]] = int(row[2])
if row[0] == 'Station Name':
pastheader = True
pastheader = False
stationlist = []
with open('table-1410-passenger-entries-and-exits-and-interchanges-by-station.csv') as csvfile:
reader = csv.reader(csvfile)
for row in reader:
if pastheader:
#print(repr(row))
stationlist.append(row)
if row[0] == 'Station name':
pastheader = True
stationlist.sort(key = lambda row: myint(row[5]))
outputcount = 0
print('busiest stations without ticket barriers or with unknown number of ticket barriers')
for station in stationlist:
if outputcount > 20:
break
stationname = station[0]
rank = station[5]
if stationname not in barriercounts:
print('unknown '+stationname+' '+rank)
outputcount += 1
elif barriercounts[stationname] == 0:
print('none '+stationname+' '+rank)
outputcount += 1
#else:
# print(str(barriercounts[stationname])+' '+stationname+' '+rank)
# outputcount += 1
outputcount = 0
print
print('quietest stations with ticket barriers')
for station in reversed(stationlist):
if outputcount > 10:
break
stationname = station[0]
rank = station[5]
if stationname not in barriercounts:
pass
elif barriercounts[stationname] == 0:
pass
else:
print(str(barriercounts[stationname])+' '+stationname+' '+rank)
outputcount += 1Which produced the following results:
busiest stations without ticket barriers or with unknown number of ticket barriers
none London Liverpool Street 1
none London Waterloo 3
unknown Stratford (London) 6
unknown Tottenham Court Road 7
unknown Farringdon 9
unknown Whitechapel 14
unknown Highbury and Islington 18
unknown Bond Street 19
unknown Canada Water 23
none London Charing Cross 24
none Barking 28
unknown Canary Wharf 38
unknown West Ham 41
none York 42
none Sheffield 44
unknown Woolwich 47
none Ealing Broadway 48
none Stansted Airport 50
none London Cannon Street 56
none Seven Sisters 61
none Lewisham 63
quietest stations with ticket barriers
54 Prestwick International Airport 1,893
3 Southminster 1,747
6 Edinburgh Gateway 1,289
4 Anderston 1,180
2 Colwyn Bay 1,103
4 East Tilbury 1,050
3 West Horndon 1,043
3 Dagenham Dock 882
11 Edinburgh Park 874
3 Rhyl 799
3 Shoeburyness 787
It's clear some of the entries in these list are either data errors or outdated data. Checking things manually I am pretty confident that the busiest (according to ORR data) station without any ticket bariers is York.
On the quietest station with ticket barriers side, the orr data claims that prestwick international airport has 54 ticket barriers, but that is clearly false and other sources claim it doesn't have ticket barriers at all. Similarly the data claims that Southminster has 3 ticket barriers, but NRE disagrees and google doesn't turn up anything either. So ignoring those two, it looks like the answer for the "quietest station which the ORR data identifies as having ticket barriers" is Edinburgh Gateway.
viscountviktor
Member
Could the York station redevelopment mean they finally get ticket gates?
I doubt it will make any difference. The reason York does not have a gateline is because the city council refused planning permission for a gateline. I am not sure why as Newcastle is a Grade1 listed building and does have a gateline, but i guess it is up to the local council as to whether or not planning permission is granted.
LickeyIncliner
Member
I may be confusing stations, but wasn't the issue at York that the council claim there is a public right of way over the station footbridge?
I know what you are referring to but i think the barrier issue was a separate matter.
Regarding the right of way issue, the entrance near the Railway Museum is locked at night so i would not think it is a right of way.
LickeyIncliner
Member
Thanks for clarifying!
DaventryRabbit
Member
Similar situation at Sheffield with the station footbridge being the main access to the SuperTram Stop.
If it wasn't for this I imagine EMR would have gated it by now (If only after pleas from Northern and XC, who i'm sure must lose their share of revenue here on a daily basis)
More likely because of the pleas from the DFT, who made it a franchise requirement of EMT (yes, trains, not railway) to gate all their stations.
viscountviktor
Member
DfT should do this a lot more with franchisees.
Guilty as charged. Genuinely thought it was the same in the rest of the country (and shocked that it isn't... Hopefully you guys get less fare evasion at your ungated stations than we do here in the mostly ungated London inner-metro services)
brad465
Established Member
Maidstone is Kent's county town with 3 stations, but none of them have ticket barriers. Maidstone East in particular had refurbishment works done a few years ago and still didn't see barriers installed, presumably because the platform and exits' layout there is too awkward. There are also no barriers on any intermediate station between Ashford Intl and Bromley South (not including these 2), or on the Medway Valley line except at the end stations.
pokemonsuper9
Established Member
It was big news to me when Manchester Victoria got gate lines (~2015), but at least it has a lot of them (which still can't keep up with the flow of passengers).
Even some parts of Manchester Piccadilly don't have barriers, instead having people stand there and manually checking.
Wigan Wallgate got barriers (4 + 1 wide one) and they've been nothing but a pain since, turning a previously free flowing exit into a choke point, and now using the lift requires a much more convoluted route.
This really gets on my nerves. Barriers shouldn't be fitted if there's not enough room to fit enough for the number of people using the station. Weston and Bath both come to mind.
Some operators seem to have many stations gated such as SWR for example. Then cross over to GWR who have relatively few.
WMT also seem to not have gatelines at a lot of stations which you might expect, such as the Worcester stations, Stourbridge Junction, Sandwell & Dudley, Tamworth etc.
I find TfW’s network a bit odd. All the ‘main’ South Wales Main Line stations between Newport and Swansea are gated except Port Talbot, and in the north they have Colwyn Bay gated but not Holyhead, Bangor, Llandudno Junction, Llandudno or Wrexham.
WMT also seem to not have gatelines at a lot of stations which you might expect, such as the Worcester stations, Stourbridge Junction, Sandwell & Dudley, Tamworth etc.
I find TfW’s network a bit odd. All the ‘main’ South Wales Main Line stations between Newport and Swansea are gated except Port Talbot, and in the north they have Colwyn Bay gated but not Holyhead, Bangor, Llandudno Junction, Llandudno or Wrexham.