Ticket office closures

[mason200]

I have a friend who works in a ticket office. Now due to health reasons he is not allowed to go on the platform. There must be many staff who have disabilities for various reasons. What would happen to them if they are given platform only work ?

 

[AdamWW]

Many locals seem to prefer to buy or collect tickets because they travel in pairs, or family groups, and e-tickets are hopeless for multiple passengers at gateline barriers.

Interesting.

I suggested above that this might be a problem and the general response was that the person with the phone standing by the barrier swiping from ticket to ticket as each person goes through works fine.

 

[northwichcat]

I have a friend who works in a ticket office. Now due to health reasons he is not allowed to go on the platform. There must be many staff who have disabilities for various reasons. What would happen to them if they are given platform only work ?

By law employers have to make reasonable adjustments for disabilities. However, if they make the ticket seller role redundant and offer a roaming station assistant role as alternative employment, it could mean your friend is instead offered redundancy if the alternative is unsuitable. However, depending on the location there could be alternative roles with the same employer in an office nearby. For example, in the social media team.

If they're concerned they should speak to their union rep, ACAS or citizen's advice.

 

[infobleep]

Unfortunately, the RMTs decision to refuse to negotiate ticket office closures have effectively effectively given the companies carte blanche to do what they like.

There will probably be some job losses, and some stations may become completely unmanned, but it’s going to happen.

The staff would be far better served, and the potential redundancies reduced, if the union would engage in the process to ensure maximum number of posts are retained, and the remaining/replacement jobs work for the benefit of both employees and passengers. In fact, I am personally aware of booking office staff who are desperate to find something else to do because they no longer have sufficient custom to make their job worthwhile.

So should stations with loos, including disabled loos that are only open at certain times of the day or week when staff are working in the ticket office, lose such facilities or should staff be positioned outside the former ticket office to help people? This is on a line without trains that have loos.

 

[Bald Rick]

It makes me worry about disabled people. Those with eyesight issues or those that would struggle to use a ticket machine.

That describes my Dad perfectly, well into his 80s. He buys on the train or online.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It makes me worry about disabled people. Those with eyesight issues or those that would struggle to use a ticket machine.
Sure, they have had to get used to the various unstaffed stations, but getting rid off ticket offices and major stations in cities and towns would be a major blow. I don’t want to be condescending - many disabled people are perfectly capable of using online ticketing. But there are also many who are not.

I don't expect this to happen, but I suspect completely free travel for those eligible for a slightly tightened* Disabled Railcard would be cheaper than keeping booking offices open at smaller stations for those people. It's certainly the route London took.

* I don't get why people are eligible simply because of being deaf in one ear, for example.

Many locals seem to prefer to buy or collect tickets because they travel in pairs, or family groups, and e-tickets are hopeless for multiple passengers at gateline barriers.

This simply isn't true. You just scan one at a time as each person goes through. I've done it with paper tickets with a group of Scouts too, as I didn't trust them not to lose them.

 

[infobleep]

Thinking local to me I can see an argument for de-staffing Redcar Central. The waiting room is only open when the ticket office is (which is typically only between 0700 and 1330) there is only a disabled toilet (which has radar key access so is actually accessible at all times not just when the waiting room is open) and station facilities wise that's about it.

I tend to find when stations are not staffed RADAR key loos are locked out of use or it may simply be that the ones I know of, in part-time manned stations, are accessed from within a building and the building gets locked so still tough.

 

[david1212]

It makes me worry about disabled people. Those with eyesight issues or those that would struggle to use a ticket machine.
Sure, they have had to get used to the various unstaffed stations, but getting rid off ticket offices and major stations in cities and towns would be a major blow. I don’t want to be condescending - many disabled people are perfectly capable of using online ticketing. But there are also many who are not.

If every TVM had a Zoom style link to a remote ticket / enquiry centre most ticket purchase issues would be covered. Harder to cover would be clear directions from the TVM to the platform, lift, toilet etc if whatever initially might be said and indeed happen regarding roving staff the reality was the station became unmanned.

 

[yorkie]

.... e-tickets are hopeless for multiple passengers at gateline barriers.

They aren't. With physical tickets, a group leader may not want to hand them out to group members (especially if they are children) but there is no inherent reason not to give each passenger their own ticket and indeed this should work well with small groups; however if the group leader deems this impractical for any reason, then they can simply stand at the gate and scan each ticket until it is time to scan their own. This is not fundamentally different to a group leader doing the same thing with paper tickets.

If a group leader wants paper tickets, then I can't really see how anyone who was organising such a group would not have access to a printer, to print them. They could even give a copy to each member as well as retaining a copy of each for themselves. Indeed this is exactly what I would do if I was leading a group (and maybe I will do one day).

It makes me worry about disabled people. Those with eyesight issues or those that would struggle to use a ticket machine.
Sure, they have had to get used to the various unstaffed stations, but getting rid off ticket offices and major stations in cities and towns would be a major blow. I don’t want to be condescending - many disabled people are perfectly capable of using online ticketing. But there are also many who are not.

They are entitled to buy on board if there is no useable facility at their origin station. If there is no opportunity to buy on board, then they can pay at the next opportunity. If no opportunity exists then the journey would ultimately be complimentary

I tend to find when stations are not staffed RADAR key loos are locked out of use or it may simply be that the ones I know of, in part-time manned stations, are accessed from within a building and the building gets locked so still tough.

I don't get your point? If a station was completely destaffed, that position clearly wouldn't be tenable.

Presumably you are referring to the staff at Sheffield station booking office….!

Based on my experience of Sheffield station booking office, closing that booking office would actually be a benefit, providing the full range of tickets was available online and/or onboard.

A ticket office that refuses to issue tickets correctly is far worse than having no ticket office and the full range of fares being available through more convenient means.

And as I just pointed out in my edited post above, A wallet doesn't run out of charge !!

Not relevant; you can print a paper ticket and/or hold it on multiple devices and/or bring a battery pack (you could even combine these things for added redundancy)

In contrast, I've lost/misplaced paper tickets on several occasions which over the years has cost me a three figure sum. The way we are heading is for all tickets to be available as e-tickets, and there is no doubt this is what the vast majority of customers want.

So should stations with loos, including disabled loos that are only open at certain times of the day or week when staff are working in the ticket office, lose such facilities or should staff be positioned outside the former ticket office to help people? This is on a line without trains that have loos.

I would expect that more important stations would continue to have a visible staff presence (and those with staff who just stay in the ticket office may have a more visible presence going forward)

 

[yorksrob]

Sweden is well ahead in terms of cashless society, I do think getting rid of ticket machines is not going to happen here for quite some time.

I don't see the attraction of the cashless society, but then again I've said that before.

It also seems a little disengenious to justify removing ticket machines by the low percentage of tickets sold via them when you have already removed them from most stations.

Indeed. By this measure even simple contactless isn't enough for the bean counters.

It's not progress, it's regress.

It's called Nordic minimalism. Little of everything.

I'm imagining a black and white film with an empty ticket office on a deserted shore.

 

[island]

At some point we really are going to have to seriously question how reasonable and sensible it is to expect people to have to pay large amounts of money, and have large amounts of highly personal data amassed by, one or other of two huge multinational corporations - merely in order to operate in the world.

Plenty of smartphones can be obtained at a modest cost, and it’s your choice how much data you choose to give them.

 

[142blue]

I have a friend who works in a ticket office. Now due to health reasons he is not allowed to go on the platform. There must be many staff who have disabilities for various reasons. What would happen to them if they are given platform only work ?

Offered other roles at station or other location

If not happy then after a designated time they will have to leave as they can't fulfill the job

I don't see the attraction of the cashless society, but then again I've said that before.



Indeed. By this measure even simple contactless isn't enough for the bean counters.



I'm imagining a black and white film with an empty ticket office on a deserted shore.

Travelled in Sweden, no issue with rail travel.

Straight forward using OMIO to buy tickets, nominate the train I want based on times and prices and buy the ticket, stored in the app, available to access offline

Ticket has designated carriage and seats

Never struggled there as a country where cash payments are very rarely accepted

Personally feel people need to move with the times especially if continued employment is still on offer versus say fire and rehire

Now the disputes have gone on and on the govt might as well bring in these changes. What is left to do when you are in a state of national dispute anyway

TVMs need to be fit for purpose though

 

[43066]

Why not just print them all at the same place? Your ToD location can be wherever you want it to be.

Why would I want to print anything?

My annual season ticket covers me from my local station into London. Therefore I’ll typically want to buy a ticket onwards from there. If I can jump on my usual train and then buy a ticket which downloads to my phone, that saves me time. If I then have to faff around finding a TVM to print the ticket it would be quicker to buy at my local ticket office.

It works for journeys via TL. It doesn’t for journeys via Southeastern, or some of the more complicated cross London tickets with a Maltese cross that give priv discount via the tube.

Plenty of smartphones can be obtained at a modest cost, and it’s your choice how much data you choose to give them.

Indeed. It has been pointed out many times on here that if you can afford to travel by train these days, you can certainly afford a basic smartphone!

 

[yorkie]

Southeastern dragged their feet but are now in the process of enabling e-tickets for the relevant flows.

 

[43066]

Southeastern dragged their feet but are now rolling out e-tickets.

Thanks, that’s good to know. Typical of that TOC to lag behind!

 

[323235]

I have to admit that whilst I am no fan of the Tory government - the railways needs to move on and embrace contactless tap in and tap off to replace TVM usage and paper tickets.

There’s no reason to use cash in this day and age.

Rangers and Rover tickets should move to e-tickets or be made based on area / zonal specific capping.

Then we can get rid of TVMs as well as ticket offices and the tap of a debit or credit card should be far easier than anything that came before.

Discounts akin to advance fares could be given based on passenger loading based BI systems like we use in the Airports.

The current situation with railway ticketing however is a mash up of the past and slow progress.

 

[yorkie]

Once all tickets are made available as e-tickets, we'll be in a much better position.

I agree that we currently have a mess whereby some tickets cannot be issued as e-tickets; this is wrong. The fact that ticket offices are closing isn't wrong; it's the lack of ability to get all tickets in a suitable format that is wrong.

I've been to many other countries that have been getting this right for years, and I've not had to visit a ticket office in any of the relevant countries (nor would I want to!)

 

[HamworthyGoods]

Once all tickets are made available as e-tickets, we'll be in a much better position.

I agree that we currently have a mess whereby some tickets cannot be issued as e-tickets; this is wrong. The fact that ticket offices are closing isn't wrong; it's the lack of ability to get all tickets in a suitable format that is wrong.

I've been to many other countries that have been getting this right for years, and I've not had to visit a ticket office in any of the relevant countries (nor would I want to!)

However the sticking point is none of those countries have the equivalent of cross London fares, pretty sure the Underground is unique in this. Barcodes don’t work for that without massive gateline expansion the other option is to mirror other countries and make people buy a separate cross city ticket.

 

[AdamWW]

However the sticking point is none of those countries have the equivalent of cross London fares, pretty sure the Underground is unique in this. Barcodes don’t work for that without massive gateline expansion the other option is to mirror other countries and make people buy a separate cross city ticket.

Cheaper than modifying all the gates would be to have machines at London Termini which scan your e-ticket and print out a gate pass.

 

[HamworthyGoods]

Cheaper than modifying all the gates would be to have machines at London Termini which scan your e-ticket and print out a gate pass.

It’s not just modifying the gates that’s the problem - LU has identified the barcode scanning is too slow and the throughput will be insufficient without expanding gatelines.

 

[NARobertson]

Today I bought two tickets at the ticket office at Bristol Parkway, one for £148. I am sceptical about ticket office staff being redeployed to work elsewhere in stations. There are already substantially more staff outside ticket offices in this country than in many European countries, Germany and Switzerland, for instance. Most of the already existing platform staff at stations fulfil only a limited function. I expect if this is proceeded with that the strikes will be intensified, perhaps even an all-out strike. In fact, an all-out strike might be the only way that the wretched situation on the railways, which has now been going on for a year, can be resolved one way or the other.

 

[Romsey]

This is my fear too. It's all well and good getting the former ticket office staff out and about with iPads selling tickets and showing people how to use the machines at busy stations, but at smaller stations which are single-manned with a half hourly or hourly service what's going to happen?

I fear these stations are where we'll see the biggest issues. I can only assume the plan is for them to be left totally unstaffed (as many already are) permanently. Side effects will include closure of warm, secure waiting facilities (the ticket office), loss of toilets that were formerly cleaned and checked by the lone staff member, a general downturn in upkeep and ambience of the station as many staff go to great lengths to improve their stations with floral displays, book exchanges, community projects etc.

Modernisation is fine and necessary, and I totally get the arguments that less people are using ticket offices, but as Scott1 says, there's no real saving in closing the booking office if you aren't laying off the staff who work in it. After all, if you are going to keep the staff and accomodation for them (which is usually in the ticket office itself), you might as well keep the window open and let them sell tickets from it.

I fear we'll see many more unstaffed and unwelcoming stations as a result of this scheme.

You would be suprised how much of the cleaning, flower tending and litter picking is done by station supporters / community rail partnerships at weekends.
Such volunteers can report defects via the station help point with a degree of authority as they are on the station officially. They are not meant to help with travel queries, but a knowledge of the timetable and real time trains can provide the reassurance some passengers need.

Then of course the DfT have their beady eye on saving money there as well!
https://news.railbusinessdaily.com/concerns-for-the-future-of-community-rail-funding/

Cheers, Neil

 

[NARobertson]

I have to admit that whilst I am no fan of the Tory government - the railways needs to move on and embrace contactless tap in and tap off to replace TVM usage and paper tickets.

There’s no reason to use cash in this day and age.

Rangers and Rover tickets should move to e-tickets or be made based on area / zonal specific capping.

Then we can get rid of TVMs as well as ticket offices and the tap of a debit or credit card should be far easier than anything that came before.

Discounts akin to advance fares could be given based on passenger loading based BI systems like we use in the Airports.

The current situation with railway ticketing however is a mash up of the past and slow progress.

It is not for you or anybody else to prohibit other people from using cash. While I mainly use cards since the pandemic, recently I was in a restaurant when their electronic system crashed and the only way I could pay was cash.

 

[Romsey]

Actually our railways have a complex discount system compared to other European countries which give a 50% discount and that's it.
33% discount for railcards
50% for FIP (Foreign railway staff) and some Department of Wales job seekers tickets
75% for active and retired BR conditions staff.
To cope with that there is a much greater level of complexity required in ticket machines.
It's possible to programme machines but how to ensure the correct discount is offered and taken. The local scrotes would press 75% to get a ticket to pass through ticket barriers at major stations.

For local journeys many technology averse folks will give up and use their bus passes in urban areas or not travel at all......

Cheers, Neil

 

[HamworthyGoods]

Actually our railways have a complex discount system compared to other European countries which give a 50% discount and that's it.
33% discount for railcards
50% for FIP (Foreign railway staff) and some Department of Wales job seekers tickets
75% for active and retired BR conditions staff.
To cope with that there is a much greater level of complexity required in ticket machines.
It's possible to programme machines but how to ensure the correct discount is offered and taken. The local scrotes would press 75% to get a ticket to pass through ticket barriers at major stations.

For local journeys many technology averse folks will give up and use their bus passes in urban areas or not travel at all......

Cheers, Neil

Not quite correct, FIP75 is available for active FIP card holders in adjacent countries. For example we get 75% off in France and Belgium.

 

[43066]

I agree that we currently have a mess whereby some tickets cannot be issued as e-tickets; this is wrong. The fact that ticket offices are closing isn't wrong; it's the lack of ability to get all tickets in a suitable format that is wrong.

I do agree with that. It has been inevitable for years and the railway does have to adapt and move with the times.

However, given the current government’s approach to the wider railway, there’s no reason to suppose that this reform will be treated as anything other than yet another opportunity to save costs, without any thought whatsoever given to improving the service passengers receive.

Another concern has to be the complexity of the ticketing system - ticket offices (at least the good ones) can give advice on what ticket is best for any given situation (eg I was offered a weekender rather than two singles last week by my local ticket office). I doubt that level of knowledge will be easily accessible online for those who have no interest in the subject of ticketing, and it likely also won’t be available from a grunting oik in an On Trak hi viz!

It is not for you or anybody else to prohibit other people from using cash. While I mainly use cards since the pandemic. However, recently I was in a restaurant when their electronic system crashed and the only way I could pay was cash.

Businesses are free to go cashless if they wish. There are good reasons for doing so. You are equally free to take your custom elsewhere.

 

[Bald Rick]

recently I was in a restaurant when their electronic system crashed and the only way I could pay was cash.

what if you didn’t have any?

 

[Snow1964]

This simply isn't true. You just scan one at a time as each person goes through. I've done it with paper tickets with a group of Scouts too, as I didn't trust them not to lose them.

I apologise I phrased it badly, didn't mean hopeless, I meant slow, what I meant was if there are 5 people and 5 gates side by side, normally expect people to use them in parallel. Not the method you use of making everyone in your party queue up and use a single gate.

Unfortunatly I have used number of stations where there are only 2 gates in one direction, and if both get groups all trying to find multiple e-tickets on single devices, they are hopeless for speed.

 

[bramling]

what if you didn’t have any?

I’ve seen that one cause problems in restaurants on occasions. There was quite an atmosphere at my regular Indian when there was some issue with card payments. Fortunately the system started working again, just as things were starting to kick off.

 

[Romsey]

It is not for you or anybody else to prohibit other people from using cash. While I mainly use cards since the pandemic, recently I was in a restaurant when their electronic system crashed and the only way I could pay was cash.

Recently I was shopping in a large retail store in my home town about a year ago. They had decided to go card only without any publicity or notices on the doors.
As the purchases totalled only a few pounds I wished to pay by cash. The attitude of two members of staff was "no one uses cash". Effictively like it or lump it.

Products put on the counter with a comment of enjoy your remaining work, because that view isn't customer friendly. I hope your redundancy package is good!
Feeling grumpy I walked out to be followed by a couple of other customers who only had cash.

There is a place for both cash and card. For those budgeting on tight finances real coins and notes allow for a tangible view of available money. For the disnumerate that is very important.

Cheers, Neil