Ticket Office Resource Allocation Inequalities

[Starmill]

During a recent conversation when I was trying to guess which stations had all day vs morning only ticket offices, I and some others thought that Knaresborough would fall into the former category. We were soon put straight: there is no ticket office at Knaresborough. That's despite it serving a fairly large and rather wealthy town, and the station having 331,308
passengers a year, although maybe it would have more counted if it had a ticket office!

Anyway I quickly went to look for the most stark examples I could find of where staff working in ticket offices are being wasted or where they are obviously needed and not present. Merseyside is the obvious place to start for over-staffing, because they staff all of their stations (except Upton, Heswall, Rainford and Meols Cop, which do not have ticket offices) for all the hours trains run.

West Allteron
45,966 12/13 Entries & Exits
Opening Hours:
Mon-Sat 05:55 - 23:50

At the other end of the spectrum

Clifton Down
522,010 12/13 Entries & Exits
No ticket office




Other factors will of course be at play. Clifton Down is probably being overestimated by the methodology as a result of local practice, so I'm told. There are problems with the PTE infill that the ORR methodology acknowledges which may depress West Allerton's figures.

Can anyone think of anywhere else where they are very surprised there is no ticket office? At least Knaresborough has a (crap, Northern Parkeon, no doubt) TVM. Mirfield has 393,088 plus, I would guess, a much larger than average number of faredodgers due to lacking even a machine, and has no ticket office. That is one hell of a lot of tickets being issued onboard.

Any more interesting examples of this sort of inequality? There are of course other reasons why ticket offices are placed and staffed, Mirfield has hardly any room for one practically and the crazy layout would make it impractical for some platforms wherever you put it. There'd be a capital cost of building one too, if one were already there Northern might use it. Some places will have them for political reasons (Merseyside, London) where they have been funded from outside the TOC. And there will be some run by third parties, e.g. Llandrindod had 42,768 passengers last year but is open Monday - Friday 08:45 - 16:45, and Saturday 06:30 - 12:00 although closed on Sundays. Is Carstairs still the quietest station nationally with a ticket office? It's Monday - Saturday 07:20 - 14:24, closed Sundays, and 20,610 passengers last year. Quite shocking really - only in Scotland!

 

[MidnightFlyer]

The two extremes to the best of my knowledge are Isleworth, which has well in excess of a million recorded passengers a year and is unstaffed; and indeed Carstairs.

Edit - Queenstown Road is busier than Isleworth but is gated, despite lacking a booking office. So I guess it depends if you class barrier staff in the same regard as booking clerks.

 

[Altnabreac]

In Scotland the busiest is Livingston North with 924,000 Entries and Exits.

Indeed if you combine the passengers from the 3 stations that serve Livingston (North, South and Uphall) you are looking at around 1.6m entries and exits without a ticket office between them.

Given Livingston is the 7th largest town or city in Scotland (bigger than the cities of Perth, Stirling or Inverness) this is a poor state of affairs considering the volume of passengers.

 

[Taunton]

Can anyone think of anywhere else ........ no ticket office?

Canary Wharf DLR, 17 million pa.

 

[thenorthern]

Livingston North as you say needs one why one was built at Bathgate but not Livingston North is beyond me.

Carstairs as you say tiny station with limited service doesn't need one but I think its just legacy there.

 

[380gk]

Livingston North as you say needs one why one was built at Bathgate but not Livingston North is beyond me.

Carstairs as you say tiny station with limited service doesn't need one but I think its just legacy there.

Because Bathgate has a TE base. TEs across the north electric network pay in their monies at booking offices. Bathgate got the TE base so that drivers and TEs could be based in the same place as the depot.

Bathgate isn't a million miles way from Livi anyway if you desperately needed a booking office.

 

[Paul Duck]

Just going back to the point about Knaresborough, surely it's a great opportunity for a 3rd party to come in and open a ticket office. Surely more than enough passengers to make it viable.

 

[Starmill]

I would think so. Surely there are plenty of things like weekly seasons to Leeds (and longer ones!) that Knaresborough passengers would want?

Is there a space in the station buildings?

Livingston North is an odd one, I would have thought there would be a ticket office there. Is there a machine? I noticed Edinburgh Park was unstaffed too and the machine doesn't accept cash which I think is very shoddy for a station that, although not that busy, serves something fairly important.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Canary Wharf DLR, 17 million pa.

I would imagine Piccadilly Gardens Metrolink does well on that front too, but of course no figures!

All of these locations are furnished with TVMs too. Mirfield and Clifton Down are not.

 

[MidnightFlyer]

Livingston North's case isn't aided by its complex layout. I do believe it is the biggest town in the UK without a staffed railway station.

 

[Altnabreac]

Bathgate was and is slightly busier than Livingston North, when you combine this with the TE base and the constrained site at Livingston you see why the ticket office is in Bathgate.

It's certainly an improvement from the previous situation where the closest staffed stations to Livingston were Haymarket, Linlithgow or Shotts.

Demand at Livingston North and Uphall is suppressed by full car parks by mid way through morning peak. Bathgate has had more spaces added even since the opening of the. Airdrie - Bathgate line.

I'd expect the plans for more parking at Uphall on the North side of the M8 to be dusted off before too long. The Livingston North site is too constrained for any more parking and would be tricky to fit in a ticket office so not likely to see a ticket office anytime soon.

 

[Paul Duck]

I would think so. Surely there are plenty of things like weekly seasons to Leeds (and longer ones!) that Knaresborough passengers would want?

Is there a space in the station buildings?

Think there is space on the York bound platform where it looks like the original ticket office was. Its got a painting on the wall last time I was there of a ticket office.

 

[LowLevel]

I don't think overstaffing is necessarily the right description - the Mersey travel PTE quite sensibly stipulates all stations with the aforementioned exceptions are to be manned during service - they happen to have ticket offices already so there's no point closing them.

West Midlands was the same until Centro lost their co-signatory status when LM got the franchise and promptly set about decimating station staffing hours as a cost saving measure. They didn't move staff out of the offices and into the station though as per London etc - they just left the stations unstaffed instead.

 

[thenorthern]

Don't get get me wrong Bathgate should have had a ticket office built when the Airdrie link was built but I still think when Livingston North was rebuilt and electrified a ticket office should have been built.

 

[Geeves]

I think one comment regarding Mersey Rail area ticket offices is that they have always been there where as the majority of the other stations either demolished the buildings or in the case of Livingston it never had one.

Its hard work to open a ticket office now and with the advent of smartcards in the majority of the PTE areas you can kiss goodbye to any more opening.

I can see quite a few in Greater Manchester getting the chop when it all goes electronic unfortunately! Ive worked at majority of those stations and when the only money coming is is weeklys or local fares to Piccadilly its quite a worry for the future and thats after you have sat there for an hour and half with out seeing a soul!!

 

[Greenback]

Geeves has touche dona valid point. It's not all about footfall, it's also about the types of tickets being sold and the revenue coming in. As mentioned previously, it also costs money to build a ticket office compared to keeping one open when it's already there.

 

[MidnightFlyer]

Indeed, aside from a few one-off projects (e.g. Burnley Manchester Road in connection with the Todmordern Curve services) or cheap and cheerful jobs (e.g. Worle, where a bloke stands in a box with an Avantix) I think the days of restaffing or longer hours are fading. I think London Midland have set the ball rolling that will hit massively within the next five or so years.

 

[Sleepy]

:cry: Think Midnight F. Comments are spot on. TOC are looking to cut down hours where they can on the back of McNumpty report, force people to use TVM more and more.

 

[Greenback]

More people are choosing not to use ticket offices at all. Many, but not all, prefer to use TVM's for simpler purchases (especially if they haven't got a railcard )