They could probably close more if they didn't persist with an outdated method of electronic ticketing (m-tickets) and adopted e-tickets. M-tickets need to be abolished.
It's certainly a change to the job. However, the railway's role isn't job provision, it's providing a train service. If a particular role is no longer necessary for that purpose, offering the staff a different one on the same money is entirely reasonable. If they would prefer an indoor office-type job, time for them to consider moving to one.
But having someone in a single central location where there are multiple possibilities to sell tickets seems to tick more boxes than wandering aimlessly on a platform or concourse.
The solution there is simple, and is coming at some TOCs already. You have a button on the TVM connected to a call centre who put the ticket through for you. All you have to do is pay. Some will also have video so you can see each other too. This way one ticket office employee can cover lots of stations at the same time. Much more affordable.
I can just imagine how that would work with a little old lady wanting to painstakingly go through all options for a return to Scarborough ("Ooh it's SO expensive) and someone at another station desperate to avoid being fined for a journey they can't buy at the ticket machine also wanting to be served by the same staff member.
We should be working to ensure ALL tickets are available on smartphones, or loadable onto ITSO cards, and then the little old ladies can have their peace and discuss Scarborough to their heart's content.
ScotRail has confirmed that the proposed ticket offices planned for closure - Cartsdyke, Clydebank and Woodhall - will remain open for at least two years while ScotRail carries out a review to consider whether new housing and incentives for businesses by local authorities will increase ticket office sales.
I wonder if that includes any kind of other commercial outlet that allows tickets to be bought, either at the station or close by. I don't know the geography of the stations concerned and whether or not a shop selling tickets - as has been proposed elsewhere - would actually make sense,