issuing tickets anytime/any window atoc rules ?

[hughesfowler]

Apologies if this question seems a little vague and I am sure that its been sort of asked before but can not find.

The station i work at has an excess window and other windows. Can I refuse to sell tickets on my excess for say advanced journeys etc, railcards etc or does atoc rules say any ticket window has to be able to sell any ticket for any jounrey at anytime.

Sorry if seems a bit vague but full clarifiaction from someone in the know would be helpfull regarding the atoc rules

 

[RJ]

Why are you asking this on a railway forum? Surely you should be asking your manager/team leader/whoever pays your wages?

 

[Greenback]

Is the excess window part of the main ticket office or seperate? How many windows are normally open at any one time, including the excess window?

 

[hughesfowler]

3 windows most of day, excess is seperate, RJ, one feels among friends here and perhaps one can not always go along the route you state which I concur would be the correct procedure.

 

[Greenback]

The advice on here is probably better as well!

I think that more than half the windows (51%?) must sell all types of tickets, and those that don;t must be clearly marked. I know that at Reading we sometimes had a window that was only used for London travelcards, but that wa sonly when we had 9 windows open!

I'll see what I csn find...

 

[Clip]

Is your excess window not the other side of the barrier lines though? Ours - where we have them - are before you can get out of the platforms - hence the term 'excess'

 

[hairyhandedfool]

Greenback is right in that the main office must have 51% of windows selling all tickets and those not selling all tickets must be clearly marked as such, for example "advance tickets only". I'm not certain how the excess window fits in to this though as they are normally the 'wrong side' of the barrier.

I would suggest you speak to your training dept. or retail manager (depending who you get on better with). Your station/office manager will probably be unaware of the full situation (that is my experience anyway) or just as vague as this.

 

[Daniel]

I don't know about the rules, but on the excess windows on LUL I refuse to sell all fares, only the ones for which the excess is there, (fare paid, extensions, etc). The reasons for this are that a). I have seen customers "jump the queue" by entering on a travelcard, for example, and trying to top-up for their extension at the excess, and also that there is no chip-and-pin unit on the excess.

 

[Greenback]

I couldn't find the exact quotes, but HHF has backed up the 51% rule, which I think has been mentioend on here a couple of times previously since I joined the site last year.

I agree that where I have seen Excess Fares windows they have normally been on the platform side of the gateline. Provided the window is clearly marked as 'Excess Fares' and there ar eother 'normal' windows available, then I wouldn;t expect a fullr ange of tickets to be sold from one.

I have to say I am intrigued as to the reason behind the question, but I quite understand that the OP may not be in a position to reveal it!

 

[yorkie]

Providing other windows are available, I think a window for excess fares should not be selling Advance fares. It's not fair on other customers.

That said, if someone wants a straightforward ticket for the next day (e.g. I could be staying at Burley park, passing through Leeds and be asking for a ticket for the next day to avoid large queues) that takes hardly any time to process, that does seem reasonable to sell that, whereas someone wanting an Advance ticket for a specific train at the cheapest price, they really shouldn't be blocking the queue for excess fares, they should use the ticket windows that are provided for that sort of query.

 

[RJ]

The problem with Advance fares is that people will turn up at the window and take up anything up to an hour of the clerk's time whilst they deliberate over the price, times, make phone calls to check the provisional plan is ok, general uming and ahing etc after which they decide they then don't want a ticket.

When I wasn't old enough to have a card to pay online, I always looked up Advance fares online then was at Waterloo Travel Centre in less than an hour to buy the best ticket I had seen. I never knew they could be issued from anywhere otherwise I'd have gone to my local. Some people wanting Advance tickets do know which trains they're catching which is a massive help as it takes me less than 30s to input the origin/destination, date/time, tap into the reservation system and scan all available fares.

 

[Tom B]

When I wasn't old enough to have a card to pay online, I always looked up Advance fares online then was at Waterloo Travel Centre in less than an hour to buy the best ticket I had seen. I never knew they could be issued from anywhere otherwise I'd have gone to my local. Some people wanting Advance tickets do know which trains they're catching which is a massive help as it takes me less than 30s to input the origin/destination, date/time, tap into the reservation system and scan all available fares.

I have taken to doing precisely this - after some problems with the online system (and the impossibility of getting through to NXEC on the phone) I took to looking up the tickets online, writing the details down, going down to Waverley and handing them a piece of paper saying "I'd like to buy this ticket please". The only disadvantage is the lack of 11% discount on some tickets.

 

[hughesfowler]

Thanks everyone for your usual prompt replies, been a great help to me, as said amongst friends here, unable to say why original question in open forum but you guys have helped me no end. Thanks again