Excess baggage payments are usually done at the check-in counter; baggage does not require a ticket.
A passenger will not normally ever need to visit an airline ticket desk unless they miss their flight. Even then, their functions are able to be done by airline lounge staff, telephone agents or - with some airlines in the USA - with automated machines in gate areas.
I have never ever used an airline ticket office in over 300 flights.
I'm pretty sure easyJet and Ryanair redirect you to the ticket counter to pay for excess fees. Unless it's changed very recently.
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We all seem to be up on accessibility and whatnot in this day and age, yet the default position seems to be to expect everyone to go online. It doesn't really matter how small the proportion of people who lose out will be. If the railway is supposed to be accessible to all, that should include those who have low computer literacy or can't afford an internet connection as well.
Low computer literacy isn't a disability, it's something that can be taught. So to me the best way is to provide funding to get everyone a connection and a simple device (e.g. an Android tablet with a simplified OS - you don't have to use a PC or Mac which will be more complex) and training to use it.
Anyone who cannot use the Internet is at a serious disadvantage in society - so let's remedy that. Anyone who refuses is voluntarily shutting themselves out of vast swathes of society - their loss - just like people who refused to use the telephone 50 years ago, and no doubt those who opposed the printing press before that.
Exceptions have to be made for those with disabilities, but a ticket office at every station is not likely to be the most effective way of providing that.
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try Euston station on a Saturday morning. 57 million people and 2 staff with i pads. It is even more chaotic than it ever was.
As there is a tourist centre upstairs on the concourse, wouldn't it be be better that they just parcel everyone off up there?
A sign on the wall in front of the escalators pointing to it might help.
The major stations where tourists enter the system are a different case to the vast majority of central London stations which are mainly destinations, not origins (and thus few ever require ticketing services there) and to local stations outside the centre which are used by locals who use them day in day out and know how to use them. Funnily enough, the provision at those stations is different - it just seems it isn't being managed right.
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This seems like a pointless idea to me. If you going to have staff, far better to have them at the counter with access to all the information that a passenger might need, and allowing passengers to form an orderly queue, than having them wandering around lugging machinery that doesn't even do what their work station would have done.
I do think a customer services counter makes sense - but also that the default, to keep queues down, should be that you only go there if you are really stuck. A Dutch style fee for tickets issued there, maybe £1 per passenger, might do. Exceptions would be made for those with disabilities, naturally.
