Southeastern - Policy on opening gate line when station is busy

[itsjamierawr]

Every Saturday for the past 3 years I've been using Canterbury West there has always been queues out of the door for the 2 ticket office windows & 3 ticket machines, usually with wait times of upwards of 15 minutes. So if you arrive in reasonable time for your train you can still end up missing it because you queue for a ticket - something southeastern hasn't done anything about in those 3 years.

Usually, when a train arrives the gate line staff open the barriers and tell everyone to buy on board the train - but that you must find the guard to do so. Today, they did that but then closed them again after a minute. One man walks up, having been queueing for 15 minutes only to give up because his train arrived, asked politely to be let through to buy on board only to be told he "wasn't quick enough and we've shut the gates now." He then calmly asked why this was the case and mentioned that a result he's going to be delayed over half an hour to an hour waiting for the next one only to have the staff rudely argue with him (at this point I got my ticket, walked through and waited for my train so didn't hear the rest).

My questions are: 1) what is the policy on opening the barriers at times like this - is there a time limit where they won't let you through to buy on board even if the train is in the platform?

2) Southeastern now have a new policy for buying a ticket on board where they will only sell anytime tickets, would that mean all these people who walked through wouldn't be allowed to buy discounted tickets even though they're following the staff instructions?

 

[RJ]

Strictly speaking, Southeastern don't have to do anything. Even if you have to wait an hour to buy a ticket, if they decide they don't want to let you through without a ticket then your choice is wait or abandon the journey.

Staff will probably put the blame on you for not planning your journey 6 months in advance and sorting your tickets out before the day of travel.

Sorry to say that this is one of the rubbish aspects of travelling by rail. At my station I can give written authority to travel and ensure a message is paged out to stations and revenue if there are unacceptable waiting times, but then we're very pro customer service in my particular corner of the world.

 

[adrock1976]

Regarding the length of time to wait to be served when purchasing a ticket, is it mentioned somewhere that the maximum time that is reasonable to wait is no more than 10 minutes?

I seem to recall that this is or was the guidelines possibly from the Association of Train Operating Companies or the DfT.

 

[Joe Paxton]

Regarding the length of time to wait to be served when purchasing a ticket, is it mentioned somewhere that the maximum time that is reasonable to wait is no more than 10 minutes?

I seem to recall that this is or was the guidelines possibly from the Association of Train Operating Companies or the DfT.

From the Ticketing & Settlement Agreement (pp. 176-177):

6-36, (4) Queueing times

(a) Each Operator must use its reasonable endeavours to ensure that no-one has to queue at its Impartial Points of Sale (that are not Internet Sites, Telephone Sales Offices or Sites) to Purchase a Rail Product for more than five minutes during times of peak demand or for more than three minutes at any other time (or any shorter period(s) specified in its Passenger's Charter).

(b) For these purposes, that Operator may determine, on a reasonable basis, the times of peak demand applicable to each of its Impartial Points of Sale.

(c) Unless the Authority agrees otherwise, the times of peak demand applicable to each Impartial Point of Sale must be prominently displayed at a location nearby that is accessible to members of the public at all times.

That, at least, is the theory!

FAQ from TransportFocus - Can I board a train if the ticket office queue is too long?

 

[Ianno87]

Arguably, Southeastern have displayed "reasonable endeavours" if all ticket windows are open and all TVMs are working.

 

[MichaelAMW]

Arguably, Southeastern have displayed "reasonable endeavours" if all ticket windows are open and all TVMs are working.

But not if have allowed the same situation to persist for a long time (OP: "Every Saturday for the past 3 years..."), with no effort made to provide facilities that are adequate to keep the time down to five minutes.

 

[Ianno87]

But not if have allowed the same situation to persist for a long time (OP: "Every Saturday for the past 3 years..."), with no effort made to provide facilities that are adequate to keep the time down to five minutes.

Depends on how much said facilities would cost, especially if it involves modifying the station building (especially if it is listed).

There's also an argument as to whether it is value for money to provide such facilities just to ease a couple of busy hours on a Saturday morning.

 

[455driver]

I would have thought that after a few times I would try to find a better way to get a ticket, either a day or two before or something like that.

 

[kieron]

There's also an argument as to whether it is value for money to provide such facilities just to ease a couple of busy hours on a Saturday morning.

Give them a big enough penalty to make it value for money, then?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Arguably, Southeastern have displayed "reasonable endeavours" if all ticket windows are open and all TVMs are working.

Not really. Adding more windows might not be "reasonable", but adding more TVMs certainly would in my book, as they are much cheaper and take up far less space.

Or if it's only at specific times, a revenue squad could be deployed with hand-held ticket machines.

 

[jon0844]

Have Govia told staff to stop queue busting? Even if there's a large queue at Hatfield, I rarely (if ever) see gateline staff offer to sell tickets.

Back in the FCC days they often did.

Or is it up to staff to decide?

 

[RJ]

Have Govia told staff to stop queue busting? Even if there's a large queue at Hatfield, I rarely (if ever) see gateline staff offer to sell tickets.

Back in the FCC days they often did.

Or is it up to staff to decide?

Doubt it's a company wide policy. Where I previously worked, certain RPIs would regularly queue bust, but a stop was put to that due to commission costs. In the end they got rid of those RPIs and re-employed them on new contracts which didn't include any commission on sales.

 

[itsjamierawr]

Doubt it's a company wide policy. Where I previously worked, certain RPIs would regularly queue bust, but a stop was put to that due to commission costs. In the end they got rid of those RPIs and re-employed them on new contracts which didn't include any commission on sales.

This is actually what they used to do a couple of years ago and it worked rather well since you could have 1 or 2 RPIs + the 2 ticket desks selling walk up tickets then the 3 machines free for people collecting (which is also a contribution to the problem since you get passengers unfamiliar with purchasing tickets taking a while at the machine or people trying to collect tickets online and taking a while typing in the code).

To be fair, there isn't much space for another machine unless it went outside under the canopy at the front since the layout inside is already bad for queue management - that could also help, 3 queues - 1 for ticket office (walk up tickets), 1 for collection (from the 2 machines) 1 for card only/collection (from the other machine that's on it's own on the other side of the ticket hall).

 

[infobleep]

This is actually what they used to do a couple of years ago and it worked rather well since you could have 1 or 2 RPIs + the 2 ticket desks selling walk up tickets then the 3 machines free for people collecting (which is also a contribution to the problem since you get passengers unfamiliar with purchasing tickets taking a while at the machine or people trying to collect tickets online and taking a while typing in the code).

To be fair, there isn't much space for another machine unless it went outside under the canopy at the front since the layout inside is already bad for queue management - that could also help, 3 queues - 1 for ticket office (walk up tickets), 1 for collection (from the 2 machines) 1 for card only/collection (from the other machine that's on it's own on the other side of the ticket hall).

Some stations have ticket machines outside. Haywards Heath is one such station but it's by no means the only example. It also have ticket machines inside too.

 

[Joe Paxton]

Sounds like they could perhaps do with installing a collection only TVM at Canterbury West.