Gate line staff

[Gooner18]

What are gate line staffs role ? Is it simply just to open the gates when a ticket does not work or are they meant to have some kind of revenue control ?
I only ask as the amount of people that just barge through the barriers is becoming ridiculous now at least 5 people on every train I get on. The gate line staff do nothing, not even a challenge in fact most of them just look or even hear the bleep noise and look the other way. So , what’s the actual point in having them ? It seems a pointless role

 

[district]

It depends TOC by TOC.

In a lot of cases, they are to provide customer service, assist people using the automatic ticket barriers, and to promote safety of the Gateline area, and aren’t involved in revenue protection (collection maybe).

Some TOCs, or in some circumstances, Gatelines will be staffed by Revenue Inspectors, Railway Enforcement officers, SIA security guards, customer service agency staff who aren’t licensed to operate the gates and others. Their powers, and scope of role, can sometimes include dealing with anti social behaviour and fare evasion, but it is difficult to say for sure without knowing who they are.

If it is a single member of staff on the Gateline it is likely to be a member of customer service staff, likely told to observe and report fare evasion, but otherwise not to get involved. Even if the single person was a Revenue Inspector (or similar), there is very little they can do about push throughs on their own anyway.

 

[Surreytraveller]

The basic point of Gateline staff is to assist when anyone gets trapped in the gates. Gates are not to be left operational if unattended (even though this seems to occur all over the network) in case anyone becomes trapped in them.
Some staff have better training than others, so are able to be of more assistance with ticketing issues

 

[Gooner18]

It depends TOC by TOC.

In a lot of cases, they are to provide customer service, assist people using the automatic ticket barriers, and to promote safety of the Gateline area, and aren’t involved in revenue protection (collection maybe).

Some TOCs, or in some circumstances, Gatelines will be staffed by Revenue Inspectors, Railway Enforcement officers, SIA security guards, customer service agency staff who aren’t licensed to operate the gates and others. Their powers, and scope of role, can sometimes include dealing with anti social behaviour and fare evasion, but it is difficult to say for sure without knowing who they are.

If it is a single member of staff on the Gateline it is likely to be a member of customer service staff, likely told to observe and report fare evasion, but otherwise not to get involved. Even if the single person was a Revenue Inspector (or similar), there is very little they can do about push throughs on their own anyway.

So they might as well get rid of just gate line role as it’s pointless. It can be done be someone who is revenue control / inspector who can also operate the barriers as let’s be honest just operating the barriers is not going to be rocket science!

At the moment there seems to be no deterrent and its certainly getting worse because of this , we all may as well not buy a ticket at this rate

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 25 Nov 2024 ==

The basic point of Gateline staff is to assist when anyone gets trapped in the gates. Gates are not to be left operational if unattended (even though this seems to occur all over the network) in case anyone becomes trapped in them.
Some staff have better training than others, so are able to be of more assistance with ticketing issues

So it is really a pointless/ redundant role that should be merged in with a proper ticket/ revenue inspector

 

[sheff1]

In my experience at places as diverse as St Pancras, Nottingham, Bridgend, Plymouth, Southampton, Gloucester and Merstham for starters, their role seems to be to suggest (at best) that people travelling with perfectly valid tickets are attempting to travel illegally based solely on the fact that a ticket has been rejected by the barrier. The idea that a barrier might reject a valid ticket is beyond them.

Conversely, at various other stations the role seems to be to open the gates when a ticket rejects without even looking at the ticket.

 

[Surreytraveller]

So it is really a pointless/ redundant role that should be merged in with a proper ticket/ revenue inspector

That's not what I said. They are required to be there for safety reasons.
If you upskill the staff, you would have to pay them more and provide training, which would cost money.
There is a trend within the industry of de-skilling staff, hence why a lot of gatelines are staffed by agency staff

 

[Pompey00]

I’m a Gateline assistant myself, we are mainly there for customer service , checking tickets if they aren’t working and safety of the people using the gates directing them to the correct ones if needed. We aren’t allowed to challenge them only advise to get tickets if they haven’t got one and report fare evasion.

Every so often when we do ticketless survey we are more into checking tickets as the gates are set up to reject certain tickets such as ones with discounted price due to railcards so its constant looking at tickets.

But like I say we can just report it as we get told to put our self in any danger and that revenue on the trains and stations will catch them. Plus we don’t get paid enough to be abused or attacked because of the wrong ticket or them not having one.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 25 Nov 2024 ==

So they might as well get rid of just gate line role as it’s pointless. It can be done be someone who is revenue control / inspector who can also operate the barriers as let’s be honest just operating the barriers is not going to be rocket science!

At the moment there seems to be no deterrent and its certainly getting worse because of this , we all may as well not buy a ticket at this rate

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 25 Nov 2024 ==



So it is really a pointless/ redundant role that should be merged in with a proper ticket/ revenue inspector

They wouldn’t hire loads of revenue to do Gateline as their roles are to stay at stations doing their job or on trains

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 25 Nov 2024 ==

Plus revenue have the power to penalty fare or take someone to court and also ask for personal details about the person like names , address, age etc we are not allowed to.

 

[Mag_seven]

I’m a Gateline assistant myself, we are mainly there for customer service , checking tickets if they aren’t working and safety of the people using the gates directing them to the correct ones if needed. We aren’t allowed to challenge them only advise to get tickets if they haven’t got one and report fare evasion.

Every so often when we do ticketless survey we are more into checking tickets as the gates are set up to reject certain tickets such as ones with discounted price due to railcards so its constant looking at tickets.

But like I say we can just report it as we get told to put our self in any danger and that revenue on the trains and stations will catch them. Plus we don’t get paid enough to be abused or attacked because of the wrong ticket or them not having one.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 25 Nov 2024 ==


They wouldn’t hire loads of revenue to do Gateline as their roles are to stay at stations doing their job or on trains

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 25 Nov 2024 ==

Plus revenue have the power to penalty fare or take someone to court and also ask for personal details about the person like names , address, age etc we are not allowed to.

I think that sums up the situation nicely - there is now no need for any further discussion.