Philip
On Moderation
But you could argue even that would be 'half-baked' as they would still have to pay the staff for the revenue protection role.
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Tazi Hupefi
On Moderation
Hang on- you do realise that the overwhelming majority of stations in the UK are totally unstaffed already, some not even with CCTV - and most never have had staff (or certainly not in modern times) - and yet we don't hear of bandits and crooks accosting every man and their dog every day, do we?
Nicholas Lewis
Established Member
They would make the staff costs back on my line as well as providing a visible presence on the train reinforcing confidence in travel.
I think you're probably buying into the Government PR message on the news today that 'this is simply about moving staff from behind the glass'.
If you follow the links to each operator in the first message of this thread where they say what is planned at each station, you will see that most stations are to close the ticket offices and most of those have a message next to them with words to the effect of permanent staffing there will end but roving customer assistance staff will travel between this station and others.
I wouldn't take it that all stations which currently have a ticket office as their only method of staffing are going to have a gate line or staff booth fitted for staffing over the same hours as this is obviously not what is planned and is more of an understandably mis-interpretation of what the government are putting out to the media.
The sceptical would say it could have been deliberately planned to go out on the day the NHS turned 75 and King Charles visited Scotland in order to attract minimum possible publicity.
Searching on YouTube will bring up a member briefing by Mick Lynch available on YouTube to all from today where you will hear him mention redundancy notices.
Where would that ever simply be a case of 'moving staff out from behind the glass' as the government are putting out?
After all, if it's not a cost cutting exercise at the end of the day then what is it? Moving staff from behind the glass into the ticket hall is not going to achieve any cost saving.
Hang on, you do realise I'm speaking from experience and not just making this up. The majority of staffed stations are in towns and cities with much larger populations and footfall to the stations themselves than the unstaffed stations. They generally have heavier rail traffic through them as well which will contribute to increased delays when something does go pear shaped as it often does.
This isn't just about getting staff from behind glass and on to platforms. It's a culling exercise and less eyes on the ground will result in safety being significantly hampered.
Yes, almost everyone does buy their tickets online. Those figures are a relative drop in the ocean. 600,000 tickets sold at Paddington ticket office should be read against Paddington having nearly 50 million entries and exits on the surface NR lines alone. If we say, oh, charitably, 20 million departing journeys a year from PAD, that’s about 3% of tickets. You are digging your own argument’s grave.
The argument for staffed stations must revolve around safety, security and accessibility for vulnerable users.
I don't think I can. I don't drive, I don't go abroad and, although I have a National Identity Card, it expired over 60 years ago. If you can encourage them to change the rules, I would be grateful.
Maybe I've just been lucky but I can think of stations (Canterbury West, Faversham, Herne Bay, Margate) which have been absolutely fine. I'm not sure I would say 'great' but the staff have responded to sometimes quite complex queries (by me, and others), often giving more information than requested (for instance, a faster or cheaper alternative), taking time to check their answers. Doubtless there are duff staff, there are in every profession, but there are good ones, too!
Good point. Can I second that?
I’d agree with that, and sadly it’s likely that all of those will be adversely affected by these changes due to the inevitable destaffing (as per the survey on TfL closures I linked to upthread). Of course none of the savings will be passed on to the passenger. So for passengers it’ll vary from no impact to a negative impact.
I’m certainly in favour of reform, but not in the slash and burn way this is likely to be implemented.
My 16 year old son bought his 16-25 railcard online, which included uploading a photo of him from his phone.
Your issue is you don't had ID which can be validated against - which puts you in a very small group of people. That limits you in several ways, but it's your choice that's doing that, not a shortcoming of the system.
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Because you don't pick examples to support the argument you are advocating?.........
But that's not much help as an analysis unless we know how many of those 20 million journeys are on season tickets or other multi-use tickets.
'Almost everyone buys their tickets online' may well apply to some stations, but I've been looking carefully at what happens at Ely over the past year and significantly more than 50% of arriving passengers either use the ticket office or the TVMs before passing through the barriers.
Some of these stations where it says they plan to close the ticket offices, are in large towns of above 70,000 population and would judging by what's been put out, leave such towns with the removal of a permanent basis of staffing (excluding the proposed roving mobile assistance staff) probably for the first time in history since those stations were opened.
For example, a friend of mine from down in the Midlands pointed out that Lichfield Trent Valley and Lichfield City are both proposed to have their ticket offices closed with the proposal saying words to the effect that these stations would be staffed only by mobile roving staff.
I mean, a city like Lichfield with no permanent staffing for either of their stations? And on a mainline too.
geordieblue
Member
There is a difference between making valid comparisons and making invalid comparisons.
A small group of people in which various protected characteristics are likely to be overrepresented - which is the beginnings of an indirect discrimination case... (Which groups of people are most likely to be ineligible to drive, unable to travel abroad?) So it is a shortcoming of the system.
The slash and burn idea is just a political foil, the government will claim to concede and “listen” and abandon some of the more mental changes, while pressing ahead with the rump.
Lichfield has a population of 35,000.
St Albans by comparison is 82,000 and one of its stations is already unstaffed.
600,000 tickets means roughly 1,600 tickets sold per day (ignoring Christmas and Boxing Day). The Paddington ticket office is open for around 16 hours per day so they're, very roughly, issuing around 100 tickets an hour. It's certainly not nothing but considering the volume of passengers at Paddington (23.8m National Rail for 2021/22 excluding interchanges and LU) it doesn't really feel like all that much. Of course these are all hideously rough estimates but I'm really not convinced that it's quite as a compelling argument as you suggest. Not sure it's sensible for Paddington to not have any ticket office at all either to be fair but 600,000 at a station the size of Paddington really isn't that many.
Exactly.
It impacts the vulnerable, and some might suggest might negatively impact those of a very young, very old age, women traveling alone etc etc. I know my sister's wouldn't want to travel alone at night in their city if those stations lose their proper staffing presence. It's the only reason they feel safe standing outside at 8pm on a winter's night.
Well the national average is about 88% of sales are done away from a ticket office, and it’s unlikely that Paddington in contactlessland and with a long distance intercity TOC serving it would be below average in that respect.
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Well quite.
Ok another two from the Midlands I have been told about, how about Stratford Upon Avon and Reddich?
One of them is a major town and a major tourist hub.
Will you not admit this is slightly too drastic?
No - because that group of people are not prevented from having suitable photo ID, they've just chosen not to. Somebody not choosing to have something doesn't equal discrimination. If it was only driving licence, for example, then those with health conditions which preclude holding a driving licence would be able to claim discrimination, but it isn't.
Interestingly you need to provide the same ID when applying for an ENCTS bus pass.
It does seem somewhat concerning that so many posters are happy to advocate the de-staffing (by permanently based staff) of large numbers of stations but are still seemingly happy with private profit continuing to be stripped out of the operation while the actual service itself is being willed along to even lesser standards.
I mean I've heard of Tories not wanting to keep public services where they run at a loss, but most of these operators are still running at a profit which is then extracted to private companies.
Surely the first thing to be cut should be the profit not levels of service and staffing?
If there's no financial risk for the business, no outside investment, no need to conduct marketing, and the staff running the operation would remain there even if the owners left, why don't they just bite the bullet and take them in house and reap the saving on the profits which they could keep and would no longer be extracted?
I mean I've heard of Tories not wanting to keep public services where they run at a loss, but most of these operators are still running at a profit which is then extracted to private companies.
Surely the first thing to be cut should be the profit not levels of service and staffing?
If there's no financial risk for the business, no outside investment, no need to conduct marketing, and the staff running the operation would remain there even if the owners left, why don't they just bite the bullet and take them in house and reap the saving on the profits which they could keep and would no longer be extracted?
squizzler
Established Member
I wonder how many of the opponents of eliminating ticket offices are also those who defend the Beeching cuts, preach the necessity of getting rid of wagonload freight, and all the other mid twentieth century changes that had much more irreversible effect on the physical network, just because it is now history and accepted as normal and inevitable?
As for the loss of ticket offices, I remain sanguine, on one condition. Fares reform needs to come first, so the ticketing options are intuitive enough that someone totally unfamiliar with train travel can grasp the product on offer in a reasonable amount of time without needing to talk through face-to-face with a sales agent.
Look at the brutalist railway architecture of the West Coast Mainline after electrification in the 1960s; Euston famously did not have seating because it was not felt needed on the modern and frequent express service. Whatever your feeling about the loss of historic architecture that was entailed, there is no doubt the upgrade built a modern streamlined railway in the place of the old steam driven one. If the means had existed to get rid of ticket counters then, they would have.
As for the loss of ticket offices, I remain sanguine, on one condition. Fares reform needs to come first, so the ticketing options are intuitive enough that someone totally unfamiliar with train travel can grasp the product on offer in a reasonable amount of time without needing to talk through face-to-face with a sales agent.
Look at the brutalist railway architecture of the West Coast Mainline after electrification in the 1960s; Euston famously did not have seating because it was not felt needed on the modern and frequent express service. Whatever your feeling about the loss of historic architecture that was entailed, there is no doubt the upgrade built a modern streamlined railway in the place of the old steam driven one. If the means had existed to get rid of ticket counters then, they would have.
bramling
Veteran Member
This is my view. Surely it comes across as more professional having the member of staff working from an office, rather than a free-for-all happening in a cold and windswept booking hall? At my local station there’s already a number of strip heaters above where the gateline staff stand, which are on for most of the year, so hardly efficient. Likewise being based in an office it is much easier for staff to find information.
But, hey, what do we all know, the politicians know best. It would be nice if we could get some of them out from Westminster a bit more!
But is this really about ticket offices though? Yes that is the guise in which the cuts are being sold. But what about where these closures mean the de-staffing of major numbers of stations because their ticket office is the only way these places are staffed? For many stations on the lists, it doesn't say that the staff are to be moved onto the ticket hall. It says words alluding to the permanent staffing presence at the station ending and it will be covered by roving assistance staff.
Who is this alleged "private profit" going to?
All TOCs have been on fixed management fee contracts since March 2020, with profits/losses going to the Treasury.
Again, where are they saying the ticket staff will be moved onto the ticket hall on other duties?This is my view. Surely it comes across as more professional having the member of staff working from an office, rather than a free-for-all happening in a cold and windswept booking hall? At my local station there’s already a number of strip heaters above where the gateline staff stand, which are on for most of the year, so hardly efficient. Likewise being based in an office it is much easier for staff to find information.
But, hey, what do we all know, the politicians know best. It would be nice if we could get some of them out from Westminster a bit more!
By far the bulk on the list suggest the ticket office will close and the staffing presence will be provided by mobile staff covering a group of stations.
I’m not sure I follow - are you suggesting the plan is to have staff not assigned to a station, and not routinely staffed?
Are.you saying First Group are making no profit in the railways then? Why are they still operating?
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Yes. Not all obviously.
Click some of the toc links in the first post, slide down and select some different stations. The inter regional and suburban operators will give you the best indication.
This is incorrect and has been since covid for all tocs and a good number before that too.
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