Future of Ticket Office Consultations launched

[DNCharingX]

What would happen to ticket office staff in this case? Would they be re-contracted for Gateline or Platform? (Before those also get removed... wouldn't put it past them).

It would be sad to see ticket offices go, but this is clearly just so they can say "we asked the public", and they'll just press on either way.

 

[A0]

without wishing to veer too off topic, this is not a great comparison, as branch closures came about much more naturally. Online/phone/app banking is genuinely seamless and easy to use, so unless you need to deal with cash then realistically you don't need a branch (to the point where some of the challenger banks never bothered to open any). The Post Office and PayPoint banking schemes fill a lot of the gaps.

By comparison, rail ticketing is nowhere near the stage where they could reasonably close most ticket offices, nor could you ask for a ticket at your local corner shop

Apart from the fact only 10% of tickets are being bought at ticket offices now. The vast majority are being bought online, or from TVM's at the station. The comparison is absolutely relevant.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 5 Jul 2023 ==

There's a general lack of awareness of rail rovers even among railway staff. The TOCs reportedly don't like them. I expect they will eventually (or soon) go (except for Wales and Scotland) as yet another item on the list designed to make rail travel less attractive.

If relatively few are being sold - and yet rail passenger numbers (at least until Covid) were increasing, it doesn't really support your hypothesis that these make rail travel "more attractive".

 

[Mat17]

By comparison, rail ticketing is nowhere near the stage where they could reasonably close most ticket offices, nor could you ask for a ticket at your local corner shop

Totally agree. Rail ticketing is a minefield of complexity. I think every time they try to simplify it they just add more on and don't remove any of the previous options that have been superseded.

 

[Tazi Hupefi]

Apart from the fact only 10% of tickets are being bought at ticket offices now. The vast majority are being bought online, or from TVM's at the station. The comparison is absolutely relevant.

And in addition, just because that average of 10% or so of tickets are being bought at a ticket office, it doesn't mean whatsoever, that those 10% absolutely wish to do so - they may just need showing once how to use an app or TVM and they happily will do so! People are making out, incorrectly, that the low number of people using the ticket office are doing so because they have no alternative or would suffer from some hardship otherwise - and this is just not the case in reality. A good number of that 10% will happily do without a ticket office, and may even find other options more convenient once they start using them.

Yes, the low ticket office use is a headline stat, averaged across everywhere - and there are peaks and troughs at certain stations - but again, just because a station sees a high volume of cash sales at the moment, certainly does not mean that the passengers there are resistant to using other methods, if necessary. In most cases, nobody will care, and they will seamlessly switch to an alternative method, increasingly so as time passes.

 

[Bletchleyite]

without wishing to veer too off topic, this is not a great comparison, as branch closures came about much more naturally. Online/phone/app banking is genuinely seamless and easy to use

And so's online train ticket purchasing for most people. That's how the vast majority are sold now.

Yes, the fare structure is complex, but in reality if you use something like Trainsplit it'll work it all out for you.

 

[jamesontheroad]

Another backward step by the UK, why is everything about cutting in this country.

Is it any different in any other countries? There seems to be far more unstaffed stations in mainland Europe than here in the UK?

Hello from Sweden, population, 10.42 million, 15,000km of railway... and zero staffed ticket offices. Soon, all of SJ's remaining ticket machines will also be gone, since most tickets are bought on the web or by smartphone app.

But Sweden only got here after a long societal shift towards digitalisation. By my guess, Sweden is at least a decade ahead of the UK in this process. We have had a Minister for Digital Development in government since 1994. We've been using a single, unified, national mobile payment app since 2012. From 2010 to 2020 the proportion of Swedes using cash fell from 39 to 9 per cent. I only handle cash once a year, when I need to buy firewood from a farmer who's keeping his side hustle in logs a secret from the tax agency.

When SJ closed the last ticket offices in Gothenburg and Stockholm stations last year, they made exactly the same arguments: that staff would be moved out into the station concourses. Your guess is as good as mine if that promise will hold any water for longer than the operating companies are required to honour it.

Will WHSmith or Costa decide to go into ticket retailing?! Or should I!?!?

If it wasn't so horribly complex there'd be a case for PayPoint/PayZone doing it. That's open up every single corner shop (pretty much) as a booking office.

This is the backstop in Sweden. Pressbyrån and 7Eleven newsagents sell train tickets but with a steep booking fee. There are no Pressbyrån shops north of Luleå and no 7Eleven's north of Uppsala, and absolutely none in rural areas.

/politicalrant/ Ultimately, it's not going to be regular customers or British citizens who are going to be impacted by this. It'll be tourists and visitors to the UK, who will be expected to understand a complex and opaque ticketing system and potentially struggle using cash or foreign debit and credit cards. Along with the end of free movement for EU citizens, it's just going to be another obstacle for tourists to feel welcome when they come to the UK. /politicalrantends/

 

[12LDA28C]

Yes - so can we take it the Chiltern want to close all their ticket offices?

Yes.

 

[Mat17]

How would you travel in Sweden without a mobile phone? Is it possible? I'm just asking out of curiosity if anything.

 

[12LDA28C]

I suspect so, given that there aren't really any major ones bar Marylebone (which won't sell that many as it's mostly a destination) and Moor St (same).

Aylesbury Vale Parkway's one seems even more pointless than Aughton Park - it's basically all commuters on seasons, and those few who aren't are the sort of people who will have a smartphone or at least manage the TVM. It really surprises me that that station was even built with one, the building was probably £200K or so that didn't need spending at all.

Absolutely right. Chiltern should've been able to predict Covid, changes in ticket purchase habits and the latest proposal from the DfT, right? Fancy building a ticket office without that foresight!

 

[A0]

/politicalrant/ Ultimately, it's not going to be regular customers or British citizens who are going to be impacted by this. It'll be tourists and visitors to the UK, who will be expected to understand a complex and opaque ticketing system and potentially struggle using cash or foreign debit and credit cards. Along with the end of free movement for EU citizens, it's just going to be another obstacle for tourists to feel welcome when they come to the UK. /politicalrantends/

But if I can follow your argument to its logical conclusion, then Sweden's change will have impacted tourists and visitors to the country. Last time I checked Sweden was in the EU - so I'm not sure the dig about Brexit is relevant.

The reality is any change like that will affect some more than others - in some ways web apps and TVM's can actually be a better experience for a foreign traveller as they tend to be multi-lingual, so they aren't having to struggle with the language barrier along with everything else.

 

[birchesgreen]

Yes.

Even the one at Marylebone that i've never seen without a queue?

 

[A0]

Absolutely right. Chiltern should've been able to predict Covid, changes in ticket purchase habits and the latest proposal from the DfT, right? Fancy building a ticket office without that foresight!

Precisely - especially as that station opened in (check's notes) 2008..... So over 14 years ago, and would have been planned at least 5 years before that. So planned almost 20 years ago, when the question of the future of ticket offices wasn't where it is today.

Just bear in mind the first iPhone didn't hit the market until 2007 - so the whole future involving 'smart phones' wasn't really known or understood at that time.

 

[12LDA28C]

I can't find any data from Chiltern.

The link to the admittedly very brief statement from Chiltern was given on post #1 of this thread.

 

[185]

Why ? Only about 10% of ticket sales are now made by ticket offices.

90% are using pre-bought tickets online or using at station machines.

The way people buy tickets has changed, the rail industry are now, belatedly, catching up with that and restructuring to support it. It's the same with bank branches, so few people are using some of them it's a waste of resource to keep them open.

That 10% are mostly elderly and the disabled. Those staff at stations also provide information, disabled assistance, security oversight.

Ticket sales are just one part.

Lets get rid of airline staff altogether as not enough coffee has been sold and the plane can fly itself.

I say the rest of England gets on Orkney's bandwagon and joins Norway. A far more sensible proposal than shutting station ticket offices.

Note IT IS shutting them, one busy office I've just checked states they propose "weekly visits by mobile staff"... priceless.

 

[irish_rail]

Will WHSmith or Costa decide to go into ticket retailing?! Or should I!?!?

Hope not. Can you imagine the queues when all you want is a coffee, but someone has a complicated ticket request!
I suspect there will be a backlash to this, and think it will be another nail in the coffin of the worst Government most of us have lived through. Also, if Privs (staff discounted tickets) are not available at the TVMs I suspect staff will just end up not bothering to buy a ticket and ride for free. Can't see many guards penalty fareing railway colleagues.... I've always purchased a ticket, despite the fact many guards let staff go free, but if I cannot buy a Priv rate ticket at the station, I certainly won't be going into the complicated online site to buy one. More revenue lost.

 

[A0]

That 10% are mostly elderly and the disabled. Those staff at stations also provide information, disabled assistance, security oversight.

Ticket sales are just one part.

Lets get rid of airline staff altogether as not enough coffee has been sold and the plane can fly itself.

I say the rest of England gets on Orkney's bandwagon and joins Norway. A far more sensible proposal than shutting station ticket offices.

Note IT IS shutting them, one busy I've just checked states they propose "weekly visits by mobile staff"... priceless.

Bit in bold, can I refer you to @jamesontheroad's post #184, which points out Sweden has already made this change of closing ticket offices. I suspect Norway won't be very far behind in such a measure (if they haven't already done so).

 

[Philip]

In terms of London and Manchester, I take it King's Cross and Oxford Road/Victoria will become the 'ticket retail hubs' for the city centres in retaining their booking offices, on behalf of Euston and Piccadilly respectively which are both planned to close?

 

[A0]

Hope not. Can you imagine the queues when all you want is a coffee, but someone has a complicated ticket request!
I suspect there will be a backlash to this, and think it will be another nail in the coffin of the worst Government most of us have lived through. Also, if Privs (staff discounted tickets) are not available at the TVMs I suspect staff will just end up not bothering to buy a ticket and ride for free. Can't see many guards penalty fareing railway colleagues.... I've always purchased a ticket, despite the fact many guards let staff go free, but if I cannot buy a Priv rate ticket at the station, I certainly won't be going into the complicated online site to buy one. More revenue lost.

Bit in bold - what ? Over about 10% of ticket sales. A change which has already been implemented on the London underground. A change which a country like Sweden has already implemented ?

Frankly, the vast majority aren't interested / don't care. With so many tickets being bought through other channels, ticket offices are an increasing irrelevance.

 

[Bletchleyite]

/politicalrant/ Ultimately, it's not going to be regular customers or British citizens who are going to be impacted by this. It'll be tourists and visitors to the UK, who will be expected to understand a complex and opaque ticketing system and potentially struggle using cash or foreign debit and credit cards. Along with the end of free movement for EU citizens, it's just going to be another obstacle for tourists to feel welcome when they come to the UK. /politicalrantends/

Don't know about you, but when abroad I prefer a TVM, much less pressure on me to speak "foreign" and try to negotiate understanding with a person. TVMs work the same sort of way the world over, I can usually even work them out in an entirely foreign language provided it's normal script (I'd have a job with Chinese).

Even better if I can do it all remotely online before I even go.

I also don't use cash abroad unless the country is primarily a cash culture. I went to Iceland, for one example, for a week, and used no hard currency at all (though curiously Apple/Google Pay weren't a thing, everyone just used the payment card). This is increasingly the norm - people who don't have payment cards don't travel abroad, and even if you *absolutely must* live entirely from cash in the UK your travel agent can sell you a foreign currency prepay card for use abroad. But realistically the sort of people we typically talk about who live simple lives in the UK and only really use cash aren't the sort of people who travel independently at all - if they do go abroad they'll book a package holiday, often all inclusive, at a travel agency.

I don't want to turn this into another cash debate, but foreign tourists using cash only who are going to be buying their own long distance train tickets (rather than putting 20 quid on an Oyster and just Tube-ing around London) basically don't exist.

 

[sor]

And so's online train ticket purchasing for most people. That's how the vast majority are sold now.

Yes, the fare structure is complex, but in reality if you use something like Trainsplit it'll work it all out for you.

the far more useful statistic is how many orange tickets are still being issued, and especially those that simply aren't available in either or both of the 21stC forms (I note I still can't buy a return ticket between two GWR stations on a smartcard, for example, but of course there's the larger perennial issue of cross London tickets). That needs a working ticket machine or ticket office, the alternative is to technically travel without a ticket (even if you have proof of purchase) and have to argue the toss if challenged.

I can't think of a suitable comparison to banking there.

as for the last line, that feels very much like something a Rail Forums member might write. I mostly understand rail ticketing and what split tickets entail, and I find trainsplit's website horribly confusing - but that's for another thread.

Bit in bold - what ? Over about 10% of ticket sales. A change which has already been implemented on the London underground. A change which a country like Sweden has already implemented ?

Frankly, the vast majority aren't interested / don't care. With so many tickets being bought through other channels, ticket offices are an increasing irrelevance.

The essential difference is that TfL made sure Oyster and Contactless were up to scratch before largely abandoning paper tickets, offices and all the rest of it. Their stations typically have more than one machine too. There is also the reality that older people don't have to collide with the changes, as (if a London resident for 60+) they get free travel anyway.

 

[A0]

In terms of London and Manchester, I take it King's Cross and Oxford Road/Victoria will become the 'ticket retail hubs' for the city centres in retaining their booking offices, on behalf of Euston and Piccadilly respectively which are both planned to close?

No - Avanti's website states "Under the plans, customers will still be able to access the same products and services as they do today either on our website, the Avanti West Coast app or at our stations where staff will be on hand to provide support for all ticket types." So there will be somebody on hand to assist with ticket purchases, it just means they won't be sat in a ticket office only selling tickets.

 

[12LDA28C]

Bit in bold - what ? Over about 10% of ticket sales. A change which has already been implemented on the London underground. A change which a country like Sweden has already implemented ?

Frankly, the vast majority aren't interested / don't care. With so many tickets being bought through other channels, ticket offices are an increasing irrelevance.

Apart from the various examples given on this thread which contradict that 10% claim of course. Just because the majority does something, do we force everyone to do the same?

 

[Bletchleyite]

No - Avanti's website states "Under the plans, customers will still be able to access the same products and services as they do today either on our website, the Avanti West Coast app or at our stations where staff will be on hand to provide support for all ticket types." So there will be somebody on hand to assist with ticket purchases, it just means they won't be sat in a ticket office only selling tickets.

It's fairly notable that Avanti's main TIS is tablet based. Often at New St the desks aren't open at all and a member of staff with a tablet and a printer on their belt is wandering around the TVMs. I've not bought a ticket at Euston in years (I do buy singles home with NSE but they're bought on my phone) but I suspect it might be similar there. Which would mean some of these closures have basically already happened, there are just desks there with nobody behind them.

 

[A0]

Not sure where your statistics come from

eg at Paignton, 41.3% at ticket office, 10.5% at TVM, 48.2% online, and for payment 29.2% are in cash (not card)

https://www.gwr.com/-/media/gwr-sc-website/files/Changes-to-Ticket-Retailing-at-GWR-Stations-v2.pdf

"However, the industry argues that only 12% of tickets are now bought at offices, down from 82% in 1995"

Plans for mass closure of railway ticket offices in England confirmed

Announcement by Rail Delivery Group to ‘modernise’ industry will ramp up battle with unions

www.theguardian.com

And I suspect the Graun is reporting Rail Delivery Group figures.

 

[Philip]

No - Avanti's website states "Under the plans, customers will still be able to access the same products and services as they do today either on our website, the Avanti West Coast app or at our stations where staff will be on hand to provide support for all ticket types." So there will be somebody on hand to assist with ticket purchases, it just means they won't be sat in a ticket office only selling tickets.

That doesn't state that they will be selling tickets though, just assisting which could mean helping passengers buying at the TVM or on the app. Staff on the concourse with a tablet won't be doing cash sales and there are still a lot of people who pay with cash, at least in the north. I'm on about staff actually continuing to sell tickets which may be limited to stations which are retaining their ticket office.

 

[Titfield]

Bit in bold - what ? Over about 10% of ticket sales. A change which has already been implemented on the London underground. A change which a country like Sweden has already implemented ?

Frankly, the vast majority aren't interested / don't care. With so many tickets being bought through other channels, ticket offices are an increasing irrelevance.

The most important function performed by the ticket office staff at Wareham Station is the unlocking and locking of the station toilets.

 

[A0]

Apart from the various examples given on this thread which contradict that 10% claim of course. Just because the majority does something, do we force everyone to do the same?

Yes - that's exactly it. Unless the 10% who want a much more costly service to be maintained for their convenience are prepared to cover the additional cost of it.

Try paying in any high street store with a cheque now - virtually none will accept it.

 

[Richardr]

The one thing that doesn't look right to me is having just a 21 day consultation in July. Most consultations are a lot longer than that and not timed for holiday season.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Apart from the various examples given on this thread which contradict that 10% claim of course. Just because the majority does something, do we force everyone to do the same?

Most businesses do, yes. It is generally considered better to let a small amount of "awkward" business go than pay the huge cost of providing for it. Obviously you can't do that against protected characteristics (but adjustments have to be *reasonable*, which means keeping a booking office at a rural station open for one disabled person who uses it *won't* be reasonable, they can just pay the guard) but you can do it for "refuseniks" and businesses often do. Ever tried to pay cash for a Ryanair ticket for example?

(Travel agencies do still exist in small numbers; perhaps one of them booking you an e-ticket, which is easily enough done without any specialist kit beyond a PC and a printer, is going to provide for this very niche market?)

 

[A0]

That doesn't state that they will be selling tickets though, just assisting which could mean helping passengers buying at the TVM or on the app. I'm on about staff actually continuing to sell tickets which may be limited to stations which are retaining their ticket office.

Same difference - if the customer ends up with a ticket, it really doesn't matter if it's done on a TVM or via the App - they could have staff walking around with portable ticket machines similar to those used where tickets are sold on the train.