Future of Ticket Office Consultations launched

[Halwynd]

Just one last thought on this from me...

It must be difficult and uncertain time for many booking office staff. Yes, I've come across one or two who were a bit miserable or unhelpful, but that's just typical of society in general. The vast majority I've come across have been polite and helpful, providing a skilled and useful service for their passengers. I can see one or two have posted in this thread, others might just be reading it. If you are one of them I just want to offer you my support and thanks for the service you provide and sincerely hope that what is proposed does not happen.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Maybe not - but perhaps there's a business opportunity here for the various travel agent chains to offer that ? Hays Travel as the largest have over 400 branches nationwide and there are a total of ~3,500 Travel Agent branches in the UK now.

Not a bad idea. You sit down and work it all out with someone who is knowledgeable and enthusiastic, taking the time needed. Totally different from many booking offices.

Could it be viable for a travel agent to set up in places like Manc Picc? The idea isn't new, Wasteels branches used to be common in eastern Europe. They'd probably need to charge a fee, but people happily pay that to Trainline for basically doing nothing.

 

[A0wen]

Yep

We both quoted the same thing. I said with sight loss - as did you

My partner was finally diagnosed as being partially sighted after a considerable time and deterioration. For much of that time (before official confirmation) she had many of the same struggles she has now - without the use of supportive aids

I don't doubt that there are others in the same position

In terms of cost saving ISTR you suggesting a figure of £1 billion around to buy railcards for the blind and partially sighted. If I have that wrong - apologies.

What are the projected savings on the closing of ticket offices (I haven't readily found a figure) so we can compare

Bit in bold - I did say £ 1bn - but that was a worst-case, wet finger in air figure. It was on the basis you have 340,000 registered blind and an average season ticket price is £ 3200 with all 340k spending the £ 3200. The reality is few will spend anything like that - you can probably give a guide, but how much does your partner spend on rail tickets in a normal month ? If it's less than £ 250 - then there's one who won't be spending that amount.

 

[frodshamfella]

According to LNWR..Acton Bridge which has not had a ticket office for years, and only recently received a ticket machine, will " see an enhanced staff presence" . I'd be amazed if that happens . Same for Hartford which has a ticket office, but is often shut.

Not a bad idea. You sit down and work it all out with someone who is knowledgeable and enthusiastic, taking the time needed. Totally different from many booking offices.

Could it be viable for a travel agent to set up in places like Manc Picc? The idea isn't new, Wasteels branches used to be common in eastern Europe. They'd probably need to charge a fee, but people happily pay that to Trainline for basically doing nothing.

It was common place to have British Rail appointed travel agents at one time, I worked in several and was highly involved issuing rail tickets.

 

[AlterEgo]

Maybe not - but perhaps there's a business opportunity here for the various travel agent chains to offer that ? Hays Travel as the largest have over 400 branches nationwide and there are a total of ~3,500 Travel Agent branches in the UK now.

The commission on ticket sales for travel agencies is so low I can't see any of them wanting to become a ticket office. A non-starter.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It was common place to have British Rail appointed travel agents at one time, I worked in several and was highly involved issuing rail tickets.

It was probably made harder by the move to more expensive ticketing technology rather than just being able to write it out on a pad. However, that is reversed back with etickets - it could simply be done with a website and a laser printer.

The commission on ticket sales for travel agencies is so low I can't see any of them wanting to become a ticket office. A non-starter.

People pay Trainline extra fees for basically doing nothing, so it's not at all far fetched that they might be willing to pay a travel agent a similar fee, or even a higher one, for making the experience far nicer.

 

[A0wen]

Not a bad idea. You sit down and work it all out with someone who is knowledgeable and enthusiastic, taking the time needed. Totally different from many booking offices.

Could it be viable for a travel agent to set up in places like Manc Picc? The idea isn't new, Wasteels branches used to be common in eastern Europe. They'd probably need to charge a fee, but people happily pay that to Trainline for basically doing nothing.

Bit in bold - not what I had in mind. The travel agents don't want to be faffing around selling tickets from Wolverton to Cheddington. But for Advances or long distance tickets for those who actually want to deal face to face with somebody, it would seem to be a more sensible solution. I'm sure in the past some travel agents used to sell both rail tickets and National Express coach tickets.

The commission on ticket sales for travel agencies is so low I can't see any of them wanting to become a ticket office. A non-starter.

Again - not a replacement for ticket offices per se - but a channel for long distance / advance type tickets for those who wish to buy face to face.

 

[DanNCL]

'Journey Maker' joins 'customers' (much in use in Australia, despite government-owned V/Line surveying passengers and finding only 12 per cent liked 'customer' as "the word") and 'guest' (yuk - used by rail operator Journey Beyond that runs 'Indian Pacific', 'The Overland' and 'The Ghan', and which is now owned by USA's Hornblower Cruises) as another description I intensely dislike.

Anyone who has paid for a service is a 'customer'. If they've paid for a train journey they're also a passenger, but they're a customer of the company(s) providing the service, customer is therefore an accurate and valid description.

You can cross Germany, Austria, Poland and Switzerland off of your list for a start, I've used booking offices in all four.

Seconded for Austria. Last Autumn I used the ticket office at Leoben Hbf, a station much smaller than some of those planned to lose ticket offices in the UK, and they were excellent. A machine wouldn't have been able to answer my question.

 

[Starmill]

The lack of sales of pre departure advances by Northern ticket offices would have had no impact whatsoever on the decisions announced the other day in the consultation. Avanti are closing all their offices, WMR are reducing down to six hubs across the west midlands, Northern are reducing to 19 from 147. There will be no ticket office at Manchester Piccadilly or Euston or New Street. It is for want of a better phrase it is a scorched earth policy. Ashton-Under-Lyne or Barnsley or any other proposed Northern ticket office selling a few thousand extra tickets that have been made online only is completely irrelevant. If you believe that Northern management have manipulated sales deliberately to sway the process you are being ridiculous.

Well that's not what I actually said is it? I was pointing out that ig was wrong to say that ticket offices aren't able to sell tjese tickets, and that it's a choice to remove the sales channel because it's a predetermined conclusion that the ticket offices will be closing. Lower sales figures are just a side benefit.

 

[syorksdeano]

Signed the petition at Sheffield this morning, and quite a few people after me signed it.

 

[NeilCr]

Bit in bold - I did say £ 1bn - but that was a worst-case, wet finger in air figure. It was on the basis you have 340,000 registered blind and an average season ticket price is £ 3200 with all 340k spending the £ 3200. The reality is few will spend anything like that - you can probably give a guide, but how much does your partner spend on rail tickets in a normal month ? If it's less than £ 250 - then there's one who won't be spending that amount.

Definitely quite a bit less than £250.

Reduced by having a senior railcard too - although I have a sneaky feeling she hasn’t got a new one yet

What about the savings from ticket office closures. Have you seen any figures?

 

[ChrisC]

Not a bad idea. You sit down and work it all out with someone who is knowledgeable and enthusiastic, taking the time needed. Totally different from many booking offices.

Could it be viable for a travel agent to set up in places like Manc Picc? The idea isn't new, Wasteels branches used to be common in eastern Europe. They'd probably need to charge a fee, but people happily pay that to Trainline for basically doing nothing.

Travel agents selling the full range of rail tickets is not a new thing.
There used to be an independently run travel agent near me, very much a husband and wife run business, from which I used to buy most of my rail tickets during the 1970’s/80’s. They were fantastic and very knowledgeable and would sort out the best fares for complex journeys, even in those days, including split ticketing. This was of course before the days of the internet and so they had the huge old fares manual books. I had relatives living down on the Isle of Wight and they would sort out the best fares from Nottingham to Shanklin including the ferry crossing and issue me the tickets. Sometimes I would leave it with them for a few days to give them time to find the best fares. My tickets were then hand written from one of those books which included the carbon paper to enable them to keep a copy. They also used to be able to sell tickets for the old Merrymaker day excursions by train.

 

[Philip]

Bit in bold - not what I had in mind. The travel agents don't want to be faffing around selling tickets from Wolverton to Cheddington. But for Advances or long distance tickets for those who actually want to deal face to face with somebody, it would seem to be a more sensible solution. I'm sure in the past some travel agents used to sell both rail tickets and National Express coach tickets.

Well what's the point in hiring in travel agents to basically perform the same job as railway ticket office staff, based at a ticket desk themselves, when you may as well just retain the ticket office and its staff?

 

[akm]

Something I've not seen discussed here yet: when TfL closed its ticket offices, and moved the staff out into the public side of the station, those staff were given dedicated tablets and/or access to staff-only function on TVMs, so that every function that previously *required* a ticket office machine could still be done.

Is this going to happen on NR? Is this talked about in any of the consultation documents?

 

[ainsworth74]

Well what's the point in hiring in travel agents to basically perform the same job as railway ticket office staff, based at a ticket desk themselves, when you may as well just retain the ticket office and its staff?

Doesn't cost the railway anything I would presume is the idea.

 

[KGX]

I totally agree with all the comments that the closure of ticket offices, a political decision, is another factor in making rail travel even more unpleasant. We welcome many people from all the over the world, a lot of people from the USA have no idea how to use trains. I can understand little stations losing their office like Hebden Bridge but Birmingham New Street, Liverpool Street? Are they crazy?

There perhaps could be a few stations listed to purposely compromise on...
Alternatively you could be looking at a set-up like Eurostar with help/info points by the TVMs. The international travellers seem to manage without a ticket office there.

 

[A0wen]

Doesn't cost the railway anything I would presume is the idea.

That and convenience - chances are people have a travel agents closer than their local station.

It costs the railway a commission to the vendor - but that may be less than the cost of operating ticket offices.

Plus most travel agents are already open 6 days a week for ~7 hours which is more than many ticket offices are.

 

[Philip]

Doesn't cost the railway anything I would presume is the idea.

There's a good chance it will cost the railway credibility because I'm fairly confident they won't receive anything like the correct level of training on ticketing, which will obviously have a negative impact both on passengers and the railway itself with more people travelling with invalid tickets or paying more than they should. If people think ticket offices don't often offer good service, it'll be a lot worse if shops or travel agents are left to do it.

 

[John Luxton]

Would the model that MerseyRail put in place work, whereby the ticket office is combined within a shop?

Seems a good idea only problem I can see is that passenger wishing to catch train gets stuck in a queue behind people buying sweets etc.

I had this happen to me not on Merseyrail but at Blaenau Ffestiniog on the Ffestiniog R a few weeks ago.

The connection with Conwy Valley is quite tight and the Conwy Valley Line train was a couple of minutes late. On entering the kiosk there was a queue of people waiting to buy sweets and ice creams and souvenirs and only one person on duty.

I gave up, spotted the guard and spoke to him, he came round later to issue a ticket.

 

[D6130]

I've also always found the staff at Wilmslow station very helpful, happy to give advice when they can and also happy to accept my word if they don't know or at least be prepared to look things up.

The same goes for Hebden Bridge and Todmorden....but Halifax rather less so, unfortunately.

The owners of the station cafe at Hebden are pushing the online petition against the closure proposals very forcefully and handing out the consultation leaflets to customers.

 

[A0wen]

There's a good chance it will cost the railway credibility because I'm fairly confident they won't receive anything like the correct level of training on ticketing, which will obviously have a negative impact both on passengers and the railway itself with more people travelling with invalid tickets or paying more than they should. If people think ticket offices don't often offer good service, it'll be a lot worse if shops or travel agents are left to do it.

Right - so a travel agent that sells holidays, flights, car hire to destinations around the world isn't going to be able to sell an "advanced" rail ticket from London to Birmingham correctly........

From a Travel Agent's perspective they'll have a vested interest in getting it right - because their reputation relies on it. Corner shops / convenience stores I agree, but I would only envisage them selling 'basic' 'A' to 'B' tickets.

If you think current rail ticket office staff are so well trained, I think your confidence is misplaced......

Suggest you read post # 775 by Yorkie https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...ltations-launched.251120/page-26#post-6302826

 

[43066]

Anyone who has paid for a service is a 'customer'. If they've paid for a train journey they're also a passenger, but they're a customer of the company(s) providing the service, customer is therefore an accurate and valid description.

It’s very popular on here, but is fairly nauseating.

Passenger is more useful/accurate as it includes everyone travelling aboard a train, not just those who have paid for tickets, so staff members travelling pass, those who have had tickets bought for them etc.

That and convenience - chances are people have a travel agents closer than their local station.

None of the proposed changes have anything whatsoever to do with passenger convenience.

 

[A0wen]

None of the proposed changes have anything whatsoever to do with passenger convenience.

So selling 'advance' tickets or long distance tickets via Travel Agent would offer a benefit, No ?

Especially as in a small town where even now the ticket office might only be open from 6am - 11am, 5 days a week, the local travel agent is open 9am - 5pm, 6 days a week.

 

[cuccir]

By chance, I had a circumstance yesterday where the LNER TVMs and App at Durham wouldn't sell me the cheapest available ticket for the next train.

It was a late running TPE morning service, and I wanted an Anytime TPE Only Single from Durham to Newcastle. There were no other TPE peak services that day that I could select, and it wouldn't present the option of an Anytime ticket to me for the off-peak services. If the machine or App have a completely open, ticket look up/selector feature, then I couldn't find it. The train had been delayed at Leeds, so the time that it was due at Durham had been known for well over an hour, and I'd planned my journey to the station accordingly.

By the time I worked out that I couldn't buy the ticket that I wanted, I didn't have time to go to the ticket office on Platform 1 (I'd arrived 10 minutes before the train was due and entered via Platform 2, so I'd left plenty of time to use the TVMs that were there). So in this case, if the new system were in place and genuinely worked, I'd have actually been able to buy the ticket that I wanted from the staff who were on Platform 2 - and who could see that there was a TPE train due in about 7 minutes and would have been able to sell me the ticket.

In the end, I realised I could log onto the LNER website and select a later TPE train; the website does still have the function of allowing you to buy an Anytime ticket for an off-peak service, so I was able to get what I wanted though it was quite a long-winded approach.

The devil then really is in the detail isn't it? If there's enough knowledgeable staff around at stations to sell tickets where needed, but also to help with other duties, then I think it could in principle be a better system. And hopefully train companies can continue to improve TVMs to allow people to buy the tickets that they want (I emailed LNER about this incident). However, experience with the rail industry leaves me slightly sceptical as to whether or not these two things really will happen.

 

[43066]

So selling 'advance' tickets or long distance tickets via Travel Agent would offer a benefit, No ?

Especially as in a small town where even now the ticket office might only be open from 6am - 11am, 5 days a week, the local travel agent is open 9am - 5pm, 6 days a week.

No benefit whatsoever. Who the hell uses non online travel agents these days!? If I want to buy a train ticket I’ll do it either online or at a station (which I have to visit anyway to make a train journey).

 

[yorkie]

And if the train is DOO

The operation of the train is irrelevant; some Guards are non-commercial and do not issue tickets (e.g. Merseyrail and SWR inner suburbans), while driver only operated trains on some routes have some of the most proactive staff I've ever seen, such as on Scotrail in the Strathclyde area. Lumo, Southeastern (including High Speed), GTR (Southern/GX) and others have trains which are driver only operated but have an OBM/OBS or similar.

or the guard doesn't have a ticket machine (as per the majority of guards on SWR)? Free trip and yet more lost revenue to the railways presumably.

Indeed but that is not the customers problem; even if the train has a Guard you may not be in the relevant portion, which is often the case on Northern / TPE services which consist of multiple sets.

Any customer service will require decent training.

I've always found Leed's ticket office to be very knowledgeable and helpful.

Others may fall short, but that would seem to be an argument for better training, rather than closing ticket offices !

You are never going to reach the levels of training that we would desire; it is simply not going to happen! But why do they need to be hidden away in offices?

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the current system, I certainly don't want to go down the Sweden route of no one to be found anywhere. We should discount that as a national policy.

Are you sure it's the case that no-one is to be found anywhere? What journey(s) did you experience this on?

 

[D6130]

From a Travel Agent's perspective they'll have a vested interest in getting it right - because their reputation relies on it. Corner shops / convenience stores I agree, but I would only envisage them selling 'basic' 'A' to 'B' tickets.

How do travel agents who have existing offices on certain stations (e.g. Chester-le-Street and Ledbury) get on with rail ticket sales? It must be worth their while, otherwise they wouldn't be selling them.

 

[A0wen]

No benefit whatsoever. Who the hell uses non online travel agents these days!? If I want to buy a train ticket I’ll do it either online or at a station (which I have to visit anyway to make a train journey).

Now let's replace 'non online travel agents' with 'non online rail ticket sellers'.......

 

[43066]

The operation of the train is irrelevant; some Guards are non-commercial and do not issue tickets (e.g. Merseyrail and SWR inner suburbans), while driver only operated trains on some routes have some of the most proactive staff I've ever seen, such as on Scotrail in the Strathclyde area. Lumo, Southeastern (including High Speed), GTR (Southern/GX) and others have trains which are driver only operated but have an OBM/OBS or similar.

But those are the exception. The majority of DOO services operating have no onboard staff whatsoever. The Southeastern staff (excluding high speed) will all be guards.

 

[KGX]

In the end, I realised I could log onto the LNER website and select a later TPE train; the website does still have the function of allowing you to buy an Anytime ticket for an off-peak service, so I was able to get what I wanted though it was quite a long-winded approach.

The LNER app would also give you this option. Whole transaction shouldn't take more than 30 seconds on the app.