Ticket Barriers in General

[jon0844]

Perhaps they should introduce a new type of platform ticket that expires after, say, 30 or 60 minutes and will only operate the gateline at that station.

Or, introduce a charge for a platform ticket that is refundable (via a machine, so you're not queueing up) within 1-2 hours, thus ensuring people have an incentive to leave the station, the TOC gets some money if someone does use it to pass the gates and also lets you monitor the number of people supposedly saying bye to family that jump on the next Intercity service and hide in the toilet.. !

 

[Aictos]

If anything, there should be two types of platform tickets:

1. A all day platform ticket restricted to that particular station
2. A 30 minute platform ticket restricted to that particular station

Can't be any fairer then that, can you?

With the text clearly stating it is not valid for travel and it is only a platform ticket valid for that specific station.

 

[Mojo]

I think that there should be a machine that issues Platform tickets but the cost of which would be the cost of the ticket to the next station along. You would then return the ticket to the vending machine within 30 Mins and get a full refund.

 

[Aictos]

Mojo, wouldn't mean installing new machines though?

Option 1 would be priced at 30p and Option 2 would be priced at £1 which is reasonable for all as it would be the same for all users.

 

[jon0844]

I think the higher price and a subsequent refund would be the only way to stop a sudden surge of platform ticket sales for people to just get onto the system, as a much easier way than jumping the barriers or climbing over a wall, crossing a track or whatever.

At my station, Hatfield, I'd imagine people getting a platform ticket to get on a semi-fast to King's Cross, then jumping off and using their Oyster.

This idea won't happen though because no TOC is going to invest in a new ticket type with any form of automated machine - for simply allowing people on to the platform to say goodbye to their friends and family. And nobody is going to want to queue up at a major station for 10-20 minutes to get a platform ticket, then queue again for a refund.

 

[Drsatan]

Couldn't existing ticket machines recieve a software update to allow them to sell platform tickets? Better still, ATOC should enforce a unified platform ticket policy on all TOCs, though that probably won't happen.

 

[jon0844]

TVMs won't even sell ticket extensions or certain discounted fares, to avoid fraud, so I do think being able to issue a platform ticket is likely to see hundreds of them being sold each day - and very few people returning through the gate after seeing someone off.

Sorry, but as is usual, the actions of a few affect the many.

 

[Lampshade]

Every time I've asked for a platform ticket, I've been told to just ask the baboon member of staff manning the gates if he'd let me through. At that point I just turn round and walk out because it's at their discretion, which is pretty non existant in most cases (Southeastern and First Great Western being the only notable exceptions, most of them are just miserable). Also, with Stagecoach looming over the ICEC franchise, I better go Valenta hunting at York soon, before they put cattle pens up.

Platform tickets are available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:National_Rail_platfrom_ticket_Kings_Cross.jpg, it's just finding somewhere that will sell them. I'll make a point of asking for one at every station I visit now, even open ones and I'll compare the number I've visited with the number of platform tickets obtained. Last time I was at Kings Cross, I asked for one, knowing that picture existed and the member of staff in the ticket office exclaimed she hadn't sold one for nearly twenty years and had to ask others if they were even still available. Thankfully, the train I wanted to see wasn't barriered as it was a Grand Central service, so I had no problems.

The hardened fare dodger is not going to queue up for 15/20 minutes for a platform ticket when he can go to the machine and get a discounted single to the next station in under 30 seconds or quickly vault/leg it through the barriers when no one is looking - I've even witnessed first hand people simply kicking them open and walking out unchallenged - I highly doubt someone with this level of intelligence is going to want to buy a platform ticket.

 

[Mystic Force]

Often there are unbarriared and barriares stations on the same line all people do it travel between the unbarriared ones. I remember watching an episode of back to the floor when a director of the then WAGN franchise worked as various rail functions including revenue protection at an evening station, they showed a big spike in ticket sales that evening. When he went back to the boardroom they didn't see any reason to provide proper routine checks because it was more exspensive. They got rid of guards so it was there own fault if people were taking advantage of their policy.

Another time I was traveling from enfield lock to exmouth, couldn't get the ticket I needed from the machine, at liverpool st the gates were in use and they were catching a lot of people without tickets most of them in buisness suits not the typical portrayal of a fare dodger, I was waved over to the window where they were penalty faring people. When I got to the window I asked for the ticket to exmouth and was let through, I guess they didn't want the hassel of looking up the fare.

 

[jon0844]

While the stereotypical chav may not have a ticket, and may well be violent, there are certainly no shortage of 'suits' that will play the system if they're able to.

And being regular travellers, they have the benefit of seeing how well protected the network is over a long time - so may well think 'the chances of being caught are slim to none'.

They can also be quite clever, buying cheap tickets to a nearby station then staying on to London - where they can use their Oyster prepay card. On some TOCs, where RPIs aren't given Oyster wands, it's even easier to blag it by just waving your Oyster and insisting it has a season ticket on it.

I know I sound like a broken record, but as time goes on, more and more people join the club of breaking the rules. Why be honest when you see everyone else around you getting away with it, and you feel like the mug for buying a ticket.

Personally, I think gates and regular spot checks (and proper enforcement, not seeing a bunch of kids threatening the RPI being let off with a pathetic warning and no details taken) are a good thing and may help us towards a time when we can loosen up the security a bit, but not so much so that the cycle starts agian.

 

[Drsatan]

From my personal experience, barriers have been installed at stations which in any other case wouldn't warrant a barrier. One Friday afternoon a few weeks ago I turned up at Salisbury station with my bike, only to discover the bastards at SWT had put up ticket barriers. The concourse at Salisbury station isn't particularly big so the barriers caused alot of congestion with people trying to exit the station and those trying to get in. It was left to the sole guy manning the barriers (who looked pretty harassed) to manage the flow. Every now and then one of the barriers closed on someone pulling a suitcase through, therefore the barriers had to be opened to allow this person to pass through.

I don't think ticket barriers should have been installed at Salisbury anyway. Firstly, tickets are checked fairly regularly on the trains anyway. Secondly, the barriers make you feel like SWT only cares about revenue and not your journey. Thirdly, Salisbury's a fairly well off city and fare dodging is an uncommon occurence.

Oh, when on work experience with SWT at Salisbury station in July 2006 I asked one of the members of staff if barriers would be installed there: the response was no since there were too many ways to access the platform. Guess what? The door to the left of the main entrance that lead to the subway's been turned into a fire exit, and the exit from platform one's been closed (no-one used it mind). So there you have it: a saga of how SWT is prepared to **** ordinary passengers off to gain more revenue.

 

[jon0844]

Surely revenue helps pay for the service you're expecting SWT to run?

I do think it's odd why some people moan about a train operator (or anyone in business) wanting to ensure they get money in. I don't see a team of RPIs working on a train station having any effect on the drivers and other station staff running the railway service. Do we lose a driver for every two or three RPIs hired?

Perhaps it's because I pay well over £3k a year that I have this feeling of wanting to ensure revenue IS protected, while others are actually quite happy to know that after 8pm or at weekends, you can probably travel without buying a ticket at all.

I am not suggesting everyone on here thinks that way and accept that there's a certain level of inconvenience with a gateline, but I have never heard of anyone demanding the removal of security at an airport to make it easier to catch a flight. Not strictly the same thing, but not totally irrelevant.

 

[dr_barnowl]

Investment in a smart card system, similar to Oyster, for the whole rail network would also speed up the use of gates too. Few people use paper tickets on the underground, making the gates pretty much fault free.

The gates are primed for it (at least the ones I've seen) ; they have RF pickups at the front edge marked by the "wireless arcs" kind of symbol. I've seen guards applying their card to this area as an override on gates they are manning for people with corrupted magstripes and incompatible season passes.

Mind, the software in the gates doesn't seem to be very rigorous. I've heard anecdotal accounts of people just feeding the same expired day ticket through them for some months and being granted access. This doesn't cut it with a guard on the train, of course.

I suppose the counterpart is that if you're going to use smartcards the train guards also need smartcard readers. Having been a smartcard developer and seen the standards for smartcard travel tickets... let's just say implementing it may take some time.

 

[blacknight]

From my personal experience, barriers have been installed at stations which in any other case wouldn't warrant a barrier. One Friday afternoon a few weeks ago I turned up at Salisbury station with my bike, only to discover the bastards at SWT had put up ticket barriers. The concourse at Salisbury station isn't particularly big so the barriers caused alot of congestion with people trying to exit the station and those trying to get in. It was left to the sole guy manning the barriers (who looked pretty harassed) to manage the flow. Every now and then one of the barriers closed on someone pulling a suitcase through, therefore the barriers had to be opened to allow this person to pass through.

I am of the opinion that gatelines should not be lone manned as gateline becomes just an obstical for lawabiding passengers to pass through. How can one member of staff operate gateline & deal with ticketless passengers if there's no excess window platform side to issue ticket.
Answer they can't & have to ask a potential fare evader to join normal queue at ticket office like they a fare evader going to do that.
Even seen edit where TOC expects same lone working gateline staff complete a TIR whilst running the gateline.
As for problems with luggage & other large items shows mainline stations are ill suited to automation but as you cannot miss them public thinks something positive is being done to combat fare evasion.

 

[jon0844]

The gates at my station will be easy to upgrade to Oyster (or another card system) but they don't have the hardware readers yet - so the staff must use a key to open them manually.

There's only one wide gate which can cause problems when lots of people are trying to pass through from both sides. The gates can be set to 'first come, first served' which means it's green on both sides - but that, obviously, doesn't work very well when it's busy!!

 

[Lampshade]

So answer me this, if they're such a good idea, why are two big cities united in opposition against them?

 

[Waverley125]

i think the problem is barrier-ing urban stations on metro lines against keeping open stations on long-distance routes.

For instance, at Leeds, I'd hope to see an expansion of terminating platforms over the present carpark, so most 'local' services would go in here. With frequent stops there would be no point in onboard checks, so the 'suburban' platforms could be barriered.

The 'intercity' platforms for XC, NXEC, Northern regional services could then be left open, as these would be using onboard checks. Of course, this won't work at all stations where there's no separation, but for some large stations it could work. Barriers also need to be considered in context e.g. at Bristol Temple Meads, where they create a serious bottleneck in accessing the station from the concourse.

 

[Mojo]

The problem there though is exactly how many of these "InterCity" trains actually have long stops between stations? NX/XC services from Leeds, going southbound call at Wakefield which is less than 15 Min away - from Birmingham a lot of InterCity services call at Birmingham Intl or Wolverhampton and from Bristol TM a lot call at Bristol Parkway or Bath, which can be very short journeys.

Another issue is that ticket checks are done on board but tickets are requested from the previous station (except on the first check) which are quite easy to avoid if you don't make eye contact with the guard.

 

[Lampshade]

Here's a quick comparion of stations I've been to:

Manchester Oxford Road - YES, it's a commuter station, it's pretty dreary anyway.

Manchester Piccadilly however - NO, it's busy enough at the best of times without a bottleneck building up. They have the G4S hired goons there for Northern services which is quite enough.

Interesting point, why are TPE supposedly against barriers if they're so effective - they didn't even want the G4S 'barriering' their trains at Piccadilly? That said I travel with them very often and the guards tend to be fairly switched on - and I'd love to see the backlash from locals and real ale connoisseurs should they decide to barrier Stalybridge

London Waterloo - YES, it's largely a commuter station, if you want to meet someone, there's under the clock.

London Kings Cross - the set up is fine, although some idiots think otherwise.

 

[krus_aragon]

Platform tickets are available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:National_Rail_platfrom_ticket_Kings_Cross.jpg, it's just finding somewhere that will sell them. I'll make a point of asking for one at every station I visit now, even open ones and I'll compare the number I've visited with the number of platform tickets obtained. Last time I was at Kings Cross, I asked for one, knowing that picture existed and the member of staff in the ticket office exclaimed she hadn't sold one for nearly twenty years and had to ask others if they were even still available.

That's my ticket there. I was in London with friends, and we wanted to see platform 9 3/4. Rather than try to explain to the barrier sentry, I went to the nearby ticket office and asked for four platform tickets. He advised asking at the barrier, but I insisted on buying them (and then felt silly for handing over a £10 note for 40p of tickets). I fumed when the barriers said 'seek assistance': the irony! Still, the barrier staff explained that J K Rowling got her numbers wrong, and that we wanted to go further along the wall instead. At least wikipedia got an image...

 

[Lampshade]

That's my ticket there. I was in London with friends, and we wanted to see platform 9 3/4. Rather than try to explain to the barrier sentry, I went to the nearby ticket office and asked for four platform tickets. He advised asking at the barrier, but I insisted on buying them (and then felt silly for handing over a £10 note for 40p of tickets). I fumed when the barriers said 'seek assistance': the irony! Still, the barrier staff explained that J K Rowling got her numbers wrong, and that we wanted to go further along the wall instead. At least wikipedia got an image...

I went to see that as well

Did you have many problems getting the platform tickets? For example... did they know what they were?

Hmm, I think it's okay that they say 'seek assistance' for platform tickets, it alerts the platform staff to the fact that people are on the platform legitimately but not travelling and can therefore keep an eye on them to be sure that they're not going to travel. If they do travel, I assume a quick call can be made to the guard/train staff to have them fined/caught en route to the next station.

 

[krus_aragon]

I went to see that as well

Did you have many problems getting the platform tickets? For example... did they know what they were?

I was served by a black-skinned gentleman, who knew what they were; he took a minute or two to find and issue them.

There's sense in setting the barriers to beep, but in this instance I'd bought the platform ticket specifically so I didn't have to explain myself to the staff. A bit of shame and stubbornness on my part?

I'd certainly insist on being sold a platform ticket if I were going to the platforms for more than ten minutes, if only for fear of a staff change at the barriers and being accused of fare dodging.

 

[jon0844]

Neither the original, or new, location of platform 9 3/4 requires going through the gate line! But, at least you got four pretty cheap souvenirs - which are probably worth somewhat more than 10p on eBay!

 

[Lampshade]

Yep, I found that out when I got there. Pity there's nothing between platforms 3 and 4 to mark where it was actually filmed in the movies. Also quite surprised by the amount of people actually going to see it hock:

Anyway, as part of my endless quest to obtain platform tickets (well... not started yet ), I've planned a 10 station tour of the main staffed stations in and around Greater Manchester for the 30th, weather depending. I know some stations where I'm pretty much certain to get one and some I'm not sure of, but we'll see

 

[jon0844]

Yep, I found that out when I got there. Pity there's nothing between platforms 3 and 4 to mark where it was actually filmed in the movies. Also quite surprised by the amount of people actually going to see it hock:

Anyway, as part of my endless quest to obtain platform tickets (well... not started yet ), I've planned a 10 station tour of the main staffed stations in and around Greater Manchester for the 30th, weather depending. I know some stations where I'm pretty much certain to get one and some I'm not sure of, but we'll see

Didn't J. K. Rowling get mixed up with Euston station?

 

[gordonthemoron]

if barriers have been installed at grantham, is it still possible to bypass them by going through the shop like when they do manual checks?

 

[jon0844]

Is there any point having gate lines if there's an easy way to avoid them?

Going to platform 9-11 via platform 8 at King's Cross is incredibly easy, although ONCE I've seen some people standing there to catch people out.

People also use the platform 8/9 join to get bikes on to trains when the restrictions are still in operation in the evening.

 

[stut]

Is there any point having gate lines if there's an easy way to avoid them?

Going to platform 9-11 via platform 8 at King's Cross is incredibly easy, although ONCE I've seen some people standing there to catch people out.

People also use the platform 8/9 join to get bikes on to trains when the restrictions are still in operation in the evening.

You do often see someone there in the morning when a train's due in on platform 9 - or they'll put a crowd control style barrier on platform 8. On
occasion, I've seen them checking tickets rather than blocking it, but that's rare.

Bear in mind that a lot of people with bikes headed to platform 9 are headed to the racks that have been moved there from platform 1. This is mainly
to avoid the crowds, to avoid the 20 questions from gateline staff, and to avoid queuing up at the barriers because you're ticket's been blocked for
30 minutes after using it to get in...

Anybody who thinks the current 9-11 gateline setup is good hasn't queued to leave the platform when two trains come in simultaneously in the morning
peak. Admittedly part of this is all the people waiting for the yet unannounced outbound services blocking the end of the platform...

 

[Mojo]

There are plenty of stations where it's possible to avoid barriers or where there is inadequate staffing at one or more entrances so the barriers can be misused. I'm not going to say how for certain reasons but when at Nottingham a few weeks ago I exited the station by a signposted exit (having never been there before I'd assumed it was the main exit) and was surprised when I returned an hour later (to a different entrance) to be confronted by a gateline manned by 6 members of EMT staff!

 

[Lampshade]

Didn't J. K. Rowling get mixed up with Euston station?

I think so, I was reading the third book the other day and it mentions them 'falling through the solid metal onto platform 9 3/4', whereas Kings Cross is all brick. However platforms 9 and 10 at Euston are also separated by tracks so it might have been Euston but the wrong platforms. Another interesting point is the exterior shots of the station in the films are of St Pancras