Future of Ticket Office Consultations launched

[JW4]

If you seriously believe the "consultation" is not a sham - just a cut-and-paste box-ticking exercise - then how about this magnificent promise from London Northwestern.

One of its currently unstaffed stations, which has no ticket machine, will now have a regular staff presence. The consultation promises: "This station will see an enhanced staff presence. Staff from our new mobile teams will be deployed here on a flexible basis to undertake customer service, passenger assistance, safety and general upkeep duties."

And this bustling metropolis? Polesworth.

Yes, Polesworth, the station with one train per day in one direction only.

So the likes of Birmingham New Street, busiest station outside London, will have no ticket office but, hey, all is going to be wonderful as Polesworth's thronging mass of commuters will now have hands-on staff to see them on their way.

So if you believe that, then obviously the consultation is entirely genuine and all the proposals are extremely sound.

Bordesley, with 1 train per week when Blues aren’t playing says hold my beer.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Is there anything that would stop someone from setting up a business, let's call it "Ticket Offices Ltd", to take over the ticket offices as a wholly independent retailer not aligned to any single TOC or the DfT and which earns a commission, say 5%, on every ticket sold?

 

[43066]

If you seriously believe the "consultation" is not a sham - just a cut-and-paste box-ticking exercise - then how about this magnificent promise from London Northwestern.

One of its currently unstaffed stations, which has no ticket machine, will now have a regular staff presence. The consultation promises: "This station will see an enhanced staff presence. Staff from our new mobile teams will be deployed here on a flexible basis to undertake customer service, passenger assistance, safety and general upkeep duties."

And this bustling metropolis? Polesworth.

Yes, Polesworth, the station with one train per day in one direction only.

So the likes of Birmingham New Street, busiest station outside London, will have no ticket office but, hey, all is going to be wonderful as Polesworth's thronging mass of commuters will now have hands-on staff to see them on their way.

So if you believe that, then obviously the consultation is entirely genuine and all the proposals are extremely sound.

Bordesley, with 1 train per week when Blues aren’t playing says hold my beer.

The net result of these changes will be fewer customer facing staff, and more stations having no staff members at all, for more of the time.

Such outages are both rare and limited in time - it's not a reason to block progress.

“Progress” in this context meaning “destaffing of stations”.

 

[island]

Is there anything that would stop someone from setting up a business, let's call it "Ticket Offices Ltd", to take over the ticket offices as a wholly independent retailer not aligned to any single TOC or the DfT and which earns a commission, say 5%, on every ticket sold?

Not in theory, though such a business would need to pay rent to Network Rail for the use of the premises, business rates, staff wages, etc. etc.

 

[Millasan]

If you seriously believe the "consultation" is not a sham - just a cut-and-paste box-ticking exercise - then how about this magnificent promise from London Northwestern.

One of its currently unstaffed stations, which has no ticket machine, will now have a regular staff presence. The consultation promises: "This station will see an enhanced staff presence. Staff from our new mobile teams will be deployed here on a flexible basis to undertake customer service, passenger assistance, safety and general upkeep duties."

And this bustling metropolis? Polesworth.

Yes, Polesworth, the station with one train per day in one direction only.

So the likes of Birmingham New Street, busiest station outside London, will have no ticket office but, hey, all is going to be wonderful as Polesworth's thronging mass of commuters will now have hands-on staff to see them on their way.

So if you believe that, then obviously the consultation is entirely genuine and all the proposals are extremely sound.

The public consultation is a scam. The only ticket offices open from Greater Anglia are the major ones: Liverpool St, Norwich, Cambridge, Ipswich, Stansted Airport, Chelmsford and Colchester. They propose to close 47 ticket offices. However my station Shenfield is also one of the busiest and TFL also uses some of our routes.

"Under the plans, staff would undertake a ‘customer host’ role, providing advice about the best and cheapest fares and supporting passengers with other queries and accessibility needs, rather than being confined to the ticket office." Why not keep the ticket office open if there are staff around?

 

[Krokodil]

but it also shows that simply closing ticket offices doesn’t actually make staff more visible, especially if there are fewer of them…

I don't think that anyone on here really is gullible enough to sincerely believe the spin about "this is to make staff more available for customers". Having a central point at bigger stations where you know that there should be staff available to answer questions - whether a ticket office or an information desk at a major terminal - is long-proven best practice. Having someone (who probably measures 5'1") milling about on a crowded concourse does not help passengers because they can't find them.

This is about staff cuts, improving the passenger experience doesn't even figure.

 

[johncrossley]

"Consultation" is not the same as "negotiation". Consultation does not mean that responses have to be taken into account. That would be negotiation. However, there is a small possibility that ideas brought forward during consultation can change the proposals.

 

[Krokodil]

"Consultation" is not the same as "negotiation". Consultation does not mean that responses have to be taken into account. That would be negotiation. However, there is a small possibility that ideas brought forward during consultation can change the proposals.

It's more or less a tickbox sham then, in other words.

 

[BAFRA77]

As a non-enthusiast - I did listen to the Railnatter episode on this - was very well explained and argued about the sham this "consultation" is and suggestions of what can be done - have we heard anything from those big players outside of TOCs - as in Rail Media and head of NR etc?

 

[johncrossley]

It's more or less a tickbox sham then, in other words.

Are they pretending that the consultation is anything more than a consultation? Do they imply that it is actually a negotiation? Does it say anywhere that if enough people complain, the proposals will be withdrawn?

 

[Angmering1974]

Is there anything that would stop someone from setting up a business, let's call it "Ticket Offices Ltd", to take over the ticket offices as a wholly independent retailer not aligned to any single TOC or the DfT and which earns a commission, say 5%, on every ticket sold?

I would be very surprised if the Government didn’t already have a plan for them and their pals to profit from the closed offices through some commercial venture.

 

[kkong]

LNER ran a trial a few years ago. Unfortunately there isn't sufficient space to fit an appropriate sized barcode onto the CCST ticket as well as all the other printed information that is needed. If the barcode is made smaller then there are difficulties scanning it. If the print fone is reduced in size to maintain the barcode size then this creates other issues.

I do think it's a shame a solution couldn't be found. A CCST ticket is so convenient to pop into a wallet or card holder. Paper Till Roll tickets wouldn't be so bad if, when folded in half, were the same size as CCST.

I would prefer for tickets to be printed on a piece of paper of credit card size.

I've posted this example (from Slovakia) on the forum previously.

I am not sure what is unique about GB rail tickets that the same approach can't work here.

 

[bramling]

OK fair enough but it clearly is the case at many other stations, including my own.

Which is something the industry should have managed and/or addressed many years ago. However like many issues management fail to address them, often tarring all staff with the same brush, then at some point carry out a big “review” where everyone gets screwed over.

It’s actually almost tantamount to workplace bullying, that staff can come to work, do their best to perform faultlessly, yet still get treated exactly the same as someone who takes the piss at every opportunity. Then people wonder why elements of the industry are truly toxic.

The proposals state there will be more staff available to give face to face help, so on the face of it, yes. But I know we can't trust train companies or the DfT to behave in a manner

I wouldn’t be betting too much on that one, especially given how things have gone on TFL with a similar change programme. And with the booking office proposals we can add this rancid rotten government pulling the strings as well.

 

[Hadders]

Interesting to read a letter to the editor in one of the Sunday papers today complaining about the closure of ticket offices and how it will prevent them from travelling by train.

They then go on to say what an enjoyable and easy journey they had by National Express coach from Manchester to London and they would travel by coach in future.

I wonder how they booked their coach tickets. Are there any National Express ticket offices these days?

 

[johncrossley]

I wonder how they booked their coach tickets. Are there any National Express ticket offices these days?

You can get them from post offices, plus agencies in various bus stations as well as other travel agencies. There are still dedicated ticket offices in Victoria Coach Station and some other major coach stations.

 

[1D54]

I wonder how they booked their coach tickets. Are there any National Express ticket offices these days?

Certainly one at the main bus station in Leicester.

 

[WesternBiker]

You can get them from post offices, plus agencies in various bus stations as well as other travel agencies. There are still dedicated ticket offices in Victoria Coach Station and other major coach stations.

You beat me to it! National Express still enables you to buy from the driver, too.

The fact you can also buy National Express tickets from Post Offices and other agents - not quite sure how that works, but one wonders why it can't be done for rail? I suspect the complexity of the fares system may have something to do with that?

On which point, that isn't something that has been mentioned a lot on this thread - the whole process of purchasing from sources other than ticket offices would be a lot more palatable if we had simpler ticketing... the two seem to go together for me.

 

[CyrusWuff]

I wonder how they booked their coach tickets. Are there any National Express ticket offices these days?

I think they've still got one at Golders Green, though it moved from the bus station to the corner of Golders Green Road a few years ago.

Other than that, Victoria Coach Station has a ticket office, but that's run by Transport for London.

A number of Post Offices and travel agents also sell National Express tickets.

Elsewhere it's just TVMs or buy as you board (subject to space being available) if you haven't booked in advance.

 

[johncrossley]

The fact you can also buy National Express tickets from Post Offices and other agents - not quite sure how that works, but one wonders why it can't be done for rail? I suspect the complexity of the fares system may have something to do with that?

The last time I bought a ticket in a bus station some years ago they just seemed to use their own customised version of the website which was very similar to how you would book it yourself, and the "ticket" was a piece of A4.

 

[WesternBiker]

The last time I bought a ticket in a bus station some years ago they just seemed to use their own customised version of the website which was very similar to how you would book it yourself, and the "ticket" was a piece of A4.

Interesting. The key thing in that case is to have a barcode or QR code the barrier or ticket inspector can read - as with those at airports (lots of people still print out paper airline tickets).

 

[Typhoon]

It's often not that straightforward for front-line staff to report these things, although it most certainly should be, and as you imply ticket vending machines not working should be treated as a priority for reporting. It is possible for these to be reported directly by the public using the company's social media or in Southeastern's case WhatsApp direct message on 07866002690. If none of these options are convenient the customer relations telephone number should do it, or you could try the help point but likely they won't be able to help. Of course this also doesn't guarantee any report making it to the right place, which, I guess is the main concern here.

Thanks for that.

I have used the help point several times (mostly in frustration), they get 9 out of 10 for apologising but little for anything else. They just seem equipped with a script, anything not on the script, they are stuck. I don't blame them, they are just telling me what they have in front of them (a description of the situation as it should be), while I am telling them what the situation actually is.

It doesn't actually affect me much, I assume the machine won't be working and usually buy a ticket at a staffed station the previous day (or buy a ticket on-line and pick it up at the staffed station). Others it does, I came across a man photographing the out-of-order machine and the closed ticket office (it should have been open); his son had been unable to buy a ticket, had got on the train, where his details had been taken by Revenue Protection and told he would be facing a fine; it may have happened the previous day, I am afraid I just nodded along, he didn't seem to be in a mood for a discussion. If I can alert someone it might avoid such situations. Unfortunately, if the customer relations assistant I spoke to the other day is typical, I don't hold out much hope. Fortunately, Network Rail, the on board staff member, and station staff did have a clue when I was travelling last week.

 

[Starmill]

Thanks for that.

I have used the help point several times (mostly in frustration), they get 9 out of 10 for apologising but little for anything else. They just seem equipped with a script, anything not on the script, they are stuck. I don't blame them, they are just telling me what they have in front of them (a description of the situation as it should be), while I am telling them what the situation actually is.

It doesn't actually affect me much, I assume the machine won't be working and usually buy a ticket at a staffed station the previous day (or buy a ticket on-line and pick it up at the staffed station). Others it does, I came across a man photographing the out-of-order machine and the closed ticket office (it should have been open); his son had been unable to buy a ticket, had got on the train, where his details had been taken by Revenue Protection and told he would be facing a fine; it may have happened the previous day, I am afraid I just nodded along, he didn't seem to be in a mood for a discussion. If I can alert someone it might avoid such situations. Unfortunately, if the customer relations assistant I spoke to the other day is typical, I don't hold out much hope. Fortunately, Network Rail, the on board staff member, and station staff did have a clue when I was travelling last week.

It is deeply frustrating I agree and sadly there's very little that an honest traveller can actually do about it beyond continuing to do as you do and hoping for the best.

If you were travelling to and from the same station on a frequent basis you could go down the road of noting the date and time the machine is out of order and a brief description of what it says. Then once you have several months of this history sending that in to Southeastern and trying to get your MP to write letters enquiring about the reason for the poor reliability and clarifying the company's policy on live status updates for ticket vending machines. However that's far more work than one person could reasonably be expected to do. Really the company should just have >99% uptime of the machine.

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

I think they've still got one at Golders Green, though it moved from the bus station to the corner of Golders Green Road a few years ago.

Other than that, Victoria Coach Station has a ticket office, but that's run by Transport for London.

A number of Post Offices and travel agents also sell National Express tickets.

Elsewhere it's just TVMs or buy as you board (subject to space being available) if you haven't booked in advance.

TfGM Travel Shops (e.g. Shudehill in Manchester City Centre) sell National Express (and Megabus) tickets. Chorlton Street Coach Station used to have a poxy two position ticket / enquiry counter - not sure if it survived COVID. I'll have a look when I'm in town tomorrow.

 

[yorkie]

I would prefer for tickets to be printed on a piece of paper of credit card size...

Many people share your dislike of till roll style tickets, but it's been covered in various threads, such as:

Will the traditional magnetic strip paper ticket be phased out?

With gates being updated for codes, mobile and e-tickets etc; just wonder how much life the traditional ticket has left? If it's phased out and someone doesn't have a mobile or print-at-home, I suppose the ticket machines and offices will provide a simple code on paper to be scanned at the gate?

www.railforums.co.uk

Paper tickets with Aztec barcodes versus TfL.

This rather assumes that RDG consulted and got the agreement of TFL before the Aztec Code tickets were introduced. Im reliably informed that some TOCs had introduced the tickets before there was even unanimous agreement amongst the RDG TOCs on the basis of own TOC cost savings which is what led...

www.railforums.co.uk

Paper tickets looking a bit retro

You appear to be posting on an Internet forum. Wouldn't down the pub suit you better, or a railway club? It’s not exactly hypocritical to choose to do some things digitally, while advocating that other things (or even the same things) shouldn’t have to be done digitally.

www.railforums.co.uk

(and probably a lot more!)

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 Jul 2023 ==

.... if we had simpler ticketing... the two seem to go together for me.

Feel free to post any proposals you have in the appropriate forum section; so far no-one has yet been able to offer a solution that ticks all boxes, but maybe you can be the first to do so!

Which is something the industry should have managed and/or addressed many years ago. However like many issues management fail to address them, often tarring all staff with the same brush, then at some point carry out a big “review” where everyone gets screwed over.

It’s actually almost tantamount to workplace bullying, that staff can come to work, do their best to perform faultlessly, yet still get treated exactly the same as someone who takes the piss at every opportunity. Then people wonder why elements of the industry are truly toxic.

I'm not quite sure what this has to do with the changes at stations such as York; if you ask people if they preferred the old layout to the new, I am sure some traditionalists would prefer the old, and they'd probably disproportionately make themselves heard the loudest! But the clear reality is that the new Sainsbury's is very popular and much, much more used than the (hidden away, and far smaller) ticket office is. York ticket office used to be incredibly busy, with long queues and now it's absolutely tiny, and when I've seen it, used very little.

Do bear in mind that the prevelance of e-ticketing varies massively in different parts of the country; we are ahead of the curve here in York, with all the relevant operators embrasing e-tickets and having done so for a long time.

I wouldn’t be betting too much on that one, especially given how things have gone on TFL with a similar change programme. And with the booking office proposals we can add this rancid rotten government pulling the strings as well.

If the argument is not against what is being promised, but that there is distrust that we will get what is promised, I do understand that; after all, we've seen that so many times.

But the harsh reality is that train ticket retail has changed a lot and continues to do so; some places are much further ahead than others, but change is happening, and the industry has to adapt. Doing nothing is not an option. There are arguments over what we should do, and separately to that whether we believe any promises regarding what will happen.

Is there anything that would stop someone from setting up a business, let's call it "Ticket Offices Ltd", to take over the ticket offices as a wholly independent retailer not aligned to any single TOC or the DfT and which earns a commission, say 5%, on every ticket sold?

This has been done, but making it profitable would be almost impossible!

 

[Krokodil]

Are they pretending that the consultation is anything more than a consultation? Do they imply that it is actually a negotiation? Does it say anywhere that if enough people complain, the proposals will be withdrawn?

Well "consultation" implies that they want to hear people's opinions, and we know that's not true...

 

[A0]

"Consultation" is not the same as "negotiation". Consultation does not mean that responses have to be taken into account. That would be negotiation. However, there is a small possibility that ideas brought forward during consultation can change the proposals.

Or, more importantly, it may highlight something which has been overlooked and lead to mitigations.

It's more or less a tickbox sham then, in other words.

A silly response. Who do you think the rail industry should "negotiate" with and on what basis?

There aren't job losses as part of this, so negotiation with the unions isn't needed.

Passengers ? Well given almost 90% of ticket sales are made using TVMs or online / apps, passengers / customers have already voted with their feet.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 Jul 2023 ==

Well "consultation" implies that they want to hear people's opinions, and we know that's not true...

Again, balderdash.

There are plenty of people who either agree with or are ambivalent about these changes. That tickets are being overwhelmingly being bought on line / on app / at TVM means customers have already moved away from using ticket offices - not forced to move. In the same way people are happy buying airline tickets online or a mutitude of other activities which used to be done face to face.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 Jul 2023 ==

It is deeply frustrating I agree and sadly there's very little that an honest traveller can actually do about it beyond continuing to do as you do and hoping for the best.

If you were travelling to and from the same station on a frequent basis you could go down the road of noting the date and time the machine is out of order and a brief description of what it says. Then once you have several months of this history sending that in to Southeastern and trying to get your MP to write letters enquiring about the reason for the poor reliability and clarifying the company's policy on live status updates for ticket vending machines. However that's far more work than one person could reasonably be expected to do. Really the company should just have >99% uptime of the machine.

Bit in bold - it is worth pointing out that a 99% uptime, means a machine could be down for 3 days a year and still meet that.

I imagine such machines are remotely monitored to highlight when they have a problem - not a difficult thing to include in their desogn if it isn't already done.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 Jul 2023 ==

I would be very surprised if the Government didn’t already have a plan for them and their pals to profit from the closed offices through some commercial venture.

So in the spirit of challenging tinfoil hat conspiracy theories such as this - why did TFL progress with a similar change which a Labour mayor didn't reverse. And why has Sweden, usually cited by the centre left as the kind of society the UK should be like, actually gone further and closed all ticket offices and more or less phased out paper tickets entirely ?

Who's "mates" benefitted from those out of interest ?

 

[bramling]

I'm not quite sure what this has to do with the changes at stations such as York; if you ask people if they preferred the old layout to the new, I am sure some traditionalists would prefer the old, and they'd probably disproportionately make themselves heard the loudest! But the clear reality is that the new Sainsbury's is very popular and much, much more used than the (hidden away, and far smaller) ticket office is. York ticket office used to be incredibly busy, with long queues and now it's absolutely tiny, and when I've seen it, used very little.

To be fair, I haven’t been to York in some while, so haven’t seen what’s gone on there. But if we’re saying that the ticket office has been made into an afterthought then that’s clearly a poor piece of planning and/or design on someone’s part.

Do bear in mind that the prevelance of e-ticketing varies massively in different parts of the country; we are ahead of the curve here in York, with all the relevant operators embrasing e-tickets and having done so for a long time.

I wouldn’t know what an e-ticket is, and (for the time being at least) have no desire or need to know! But I’m quite happy having a piece of credit-card sized card to fit in my wallet, this works well for me, irrespective of where it might originate from. I see no reason to clutter up my phone with stuff, there’s already too much on there.

If the argument is not against what is being promised, but that there is distrust that we will get what is promised, I do understand that; after all, we've seen that so many times.

I’d say it’s both. But I certainly mistrust and have little faith in any promise that this change will deliver anything positive. One only has to look at TFL’s very similar change programme to see an extremely negative outcome. Does anyone seriously think TFL’s “fit for the future” has delivered an improvement? If so I’d be interested to hear why they think that.

But the harsh reality is that train ticket retail has changed a lot and continues to do so; some places are much further ahead than others, but change is happening, and the industry has to adapt. Doing nothing is not an option. There are arguments over what we should do, and separately to that whether we believe any promises regarding what will happen.
This has been done, but making it profitable would be almost impossible!

I would agree that there is scope for ticketing to be looked at for sure, but this drives a steamroller through everything. Again, just as happened with TFL, and where it was amply demonstrated that if you drive a steamroller through something you will end up with a messy outcome.

 

[Krokodil]

A silly response. Who do you think the rail industry should "negotiate" with and on what basis?

Please show where I used the word "negotiate". Why are you putting words into my mouth?

Passengers ? Well given almost 90% of ticket sales are made using TVMs or online / apps, passengers / customers have already voted with their feet.

And the other 12% haven't (I'm aware that doesn't add up to 100%, but that's because of your iffy figures, not mine). In places such as Barnstaple the proportion of passengers buying from the booking office is as high as 45%. Why should their wants and needs be overlooked? Many (probably around half) of the 88% board at stations where there is already no booking office so they don't have a choice, they haven't necessarily voted with their feet.

Percentages are meaningless in any case. The lower percentages include London Terminals where a small percentage of millions of people is still a six or seven figure sum.

Booking office staff provide other services than mere ticket sales. They provide travel advice to passengers, open and clean toilets and waiting rooms. They deter ASB. That will go. Stations will become unstaffed, waiting rooms & toilets will be permanently locked. Anyone who claims that this isn't about cutting staffing is a liar.

 

[py_megapixel]

Does anyone know what's going to happen to PTE tickets that are only issued at stations, such as Merseytravel Saveaways and GMPTE Traincards?

 

[Gaelan]

Does anyone know what's going to happen to PTE tickets that are only issued at stations, such as Merseytravel Saveaways and GMPTE Traincards?

Nothing happens to Merseyrail, because it's not a DfT TOC and therefore not subject to these changes. I'm less sure about Manchester, but I assume GMPTE-run ticket offices (which I believe are a thing? I've been in Manchester for all of 10 minutes) are in a similar position.