That's the one; there's one of these which has been rendered out of service (however with a sign that makes it sound permanent), and a full machine which is still in place. Ironically there used to be two of the working machine until they replaced one with the slimline machine that seemingly is being decommissioned!
Same at Doncaster, the two above the northern staircase have been taken out of service.
A ticket on any National Rail Smartcard is valid just as if it was a CCST think of it as a shopping bag you don't need a Tesco bag to shop in Tescos you can use a F&M one if you so wish.
They've been switched off since March and many others across the route have already been removed.
We're reducing numbers before the replacements go in.
I'd hate to spoil the surprise sorry.
That shopping bag analogy only holds for ITSO purchases at a ticket office or self-service machine. The own-issuer restriction for online ITSO purchases is just like Tesco (hypothetically) preventing use of non-Tesco bags.
The vast majority of travellers making journeys wholly within the London area have used Oyster or Contactless for years (though granted that's partly due to the price differential for buying a physical ticket) and most other ticket sales are now online (a shift accelerated by the pandemic.)
And that is plenty. I rarely see anybody using the TVMs when I pass through the station, although I used the one on the car park side yesterday (for ToD). On that side of the station there is also the staffed ticket office which usually has one or two windows open and, if it is closed, the staff at the barriers issue tickets as well. On the DART side, the TVMs on the upper level seem to be used only lightly and the traffic at the ground level barriers makes the car park side look busy, so one TVM on that level is plenty.
By "little robots" I assume that you mean ticket gates? At ungated stations, they are called platform validators.
Nothing to do with Luton Airport Parkway which has 3 gate lines all operated pretty much round the clock. Theres one standalone validator by the "night gate" on the DART side but I don't know if that gate has ever been used.
Do you mean this kind of thing?
Perhaps not since the DART station building opened but during the works I once used it to commence a smartcard day return. It must have erroneously ended it instead because on arrival at St Albans my Key failed to operate the gates!
No; up here in Yorkshire, the vast majority overwhelmingly choose e-tickets.
Exactly this! The vastly higher usage of TVM/CCST at places like Croydon, compared to (say) Yorkshire, is because of various factors such as cross-London, Travelcards etc.
Ee bah gum tickets surely?
That's no redundancy apart from that set out in post #43.
You'll be arriving back to the side of the station that still retains 3 TVMs, a number that is more than adequate.
It's like you haven't read the whole thread. There is no shortage of facilities to buy tickets even though a very high proportion of passengers use contactless or eTickets bought online.
