Durham, ticket barriers removed

[edwin_m]

The question is, do barriers to an extent 'enable' bad practice and 'discourage' the acquisition of knowledge by staff.

No doubt the barrier staff could be trained in the arcane ticketing system to the same level as on-train conductors, but that would cost money. They also have to know ticket restrictions applying on all routes to and from that station, whereas a conductor might only work a limited number of those routes. Another issue may be that they may be needing to clear the queue of punters so don't want to spend time sorting out anything complicated - whereas a checker on a train is often under less immediate pressure.

 

[takno]

No doubt the barrier staff could be trained in the arcane ticketing system to the same level as on-train conductors, but that would cost money. They also have to know ticket restrictions applying on all routes to and from that station, whereas a conductor might only work a limited number of those routes. Another issue may be that they may be needing to clear the queue of punters so don't want to spend time sorting out anything complicated - whereas a checker on a train is often under less immediate pressure.

I think the problem is more that in the absence of relevant knowledge too many barrier staff assume that you are wrong/lying/trying to cheat the railway. That may be because they get from the wrong motivation from management, they are poorly paid and of a correspondingly low quality, or just because only seeing tickets that the barrier has already rejected means that a greater proportion of the tickets they see are invalid. Either way they regularly seem to offer up abuse and intimidation which puts passengers off the railway, and rarely actually protect much revenue since most times they will let you with nothing more than a mouthful.

 

[yorkie]

I think the problem is more that in the absence of relevant knowledge too many barrier staff assume that you are wrong/lying/trying to cheat the railway. That may be because they get from the wrong motivation from management, they are poorly paid and of a correspondingly low quality, or just because only seeing tickets that the barrier has already rejected means that a greater proportion of the tickets they see are invalid. Either way they regularly seem to offer up abuse and intimidation which puts passengers off the railway, and rarely actually protect much revenue since most times they will let you with nothing more than a mouthful.

I find this can be very true in the London area, where valid tickets can too often result in accusations that the ticket is invalid, but is extremely rare at places like Leeds, where most tickets are accepted without question (even obviously invalid ones).

 

[xotGD]

Putting the staff aside, the actual barriers and technology employed at the station must be one of the worst on the national network

I have found that if you pop out to the shops at Leeds, the barriers won't let you back in, but if you hang around the shops, then there isn't a problem. Presumably there is a minimum time that needs to elapse before the barrier will accept you ticket back on to the platform but there doesn't appear to be a sensible reason for this to be the case. If the system can't differentiate between exiting twice and reentering, it needs to be sorted.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I have found that if you pop out to the shops at Leeds, the barriers won't let you back in, but if you hang around the shops, then there isn't a problem. Presumably there is a minimum time that needs to elapse before the barrier will accept you ticket back on to the platform but there doesn't appear to be a sensible reason for this to be the case. If the system can't differentiate between exiting twice and reentering, it needs to be sorted.

Just ask the staff. I've never had "popping out to the shops" refused on any type of ticket whether BoJ was allowed or not.

De-facto, a BoJ bar is really a bar on starting/ending short on heavily discounted tickets and on overnight BoJ. Not on half an hour to buy a sandwich and a can of Coke.

 

[Crossover]

I have found that if you pop out to the shops at Leeds, the barriers won't let you back in, but if you hang around the shops, then there isn't a problem. Presumably there is a minimum time that needs to elapse before the barrier will accept you ticket back on to the platform but there doesn't appear to be a sensible reason for this to be the case. If the system can't differentiate between exiting twice and reentering, it needs to be sorted.

Sounds like "passback" - in theory it is meant to stop a ticket being used then passed across the barrier for someone else to use, but I think it can affect going opposite ways through a barrier line. I have experienced this issue at quite a number of stations

 

[D6975]

Sounds like "passback" - in theory it is meant to stop a ticket being used then passed across the barrier for someone else to use, but I think it can affect going opposite ways through a barrier line. I have experienced this issue at quite a number of stations

Happened to me at Marylebone - went on the platform to take a phot of a 68 and the barriers wouldn't let me back out. I was on a 1-6 travelcard.

 

[johntea]

I could write a novel on the state of play with 'reject passback' at the Leeds barriers!

So far I figure :

'Normal' rail ticket that involves a connection at Leeds say Headingley - Shipley = Will let you out and back in again about 15 minutes later

Ticket stock MetroCard (If they still exist!) = As above

MCard = Can get back in at any time as you 'check out' of the barriers then 'check in'

Northern mTicket (App) = Will let you out of the barriers but 'reject passback' no matter when you return...apparently a known problem that they're working to resolve!

 

[Starmill]

Installations at Durham, Newark North Gate and Grantham were totally ridiculous and I'm glad they're gone. They restricted passenger flow and caused congestion and inconvenience, and issues whenever there was a bike or wheelchair that needed to get through.

The installation at Peterborough on the other hand was entirely appropriate as there are unstaffed trains from there and it may not be possible to check all tickets even on trains with a guard. If they would just have actually had the gates closed...

They didn't create problems with flow nearly as much as the ones at Grantham or Newark so removing those is odd.

 

[LowLevel]

Peterborough may well be retained I guess - I'd heard a mess room rumour that they're going but that may be wrong. Either way they're a waste of time as they're often open or alternatively people are just let through presumably if they cause enough hassle about running late and wanting to buy on board as it's not their problem.

 

[Skimble19]

Barriers are being removed at Durham,Newark NG and Grantham , definitely not Peterborough


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Glad to hear Peterborough won't have its barriers removed. Would be nice if they could actually staff it properly though, along with the VTEC managed barriers at Kings Cross!

 

[takno]

Glad to hear Peterborough won't have its barriers removed. Would be nice if they could actually staff it properly though, along with the VTEC managed barriers at Kings Cross!

The barriers at Kings Cross are pointless except on the suburban platforms, and are a significant impediment to the operators which allow you to buy on the train. They seem to have been largely abandoned anyway so hopefully they'll be gone when the suburbans go into the Thameslink core, if not sooner

 

[sheff1]

I find this can be very true in the London area, where valid tickets can too often result in accusations that the ticket is invalid, but is extremely rare at places like Leeds, where most tickets are accepted without question (even obviously invalid ones).

At Leeds it is the barriers which flash up a message which states categorically that your ticket "is not valid at this location" when it is. As you say, the staff will accept pretty much anything - in my experience, they rarely seem to look at the ticket at all.

 

[anti-pacer]

Wakefield Westgate's barriers seem to be always open.

Pointless!

 

[scotraildriver]

When Scotrail installed barriers at Glasgow Queen St and Central revenue went up by around £6m per year! Thats alot of fare dodging.

 

[takno]

When Scotrail installed barriers at Glasgow Queen St and Central revenue went up by around £6m per year! Thats alot of fare dodging.

Barriers make sense to cover suburban routes where trains are full and standing and there isn't much time between stations. They are inconvenient though for a host of reasons, so it's unfortunate when longer distance trains are also impacted, since ticket checks are easily done on the train. The situation at Waverley is much better with just the bays barriered.

Incidentally, at the time the barriers were installed there were more trains run and a general increase in passenger numbers, as well as plenty of fare rises. Is the 6 million figure a like-for-like measure, or does it capture all of those things and claim them as successes for barriers?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Talking of barriers, I noticed this week that the new VT ones at Manc Picc are very easily circumvented, as I did so completely by accident (while holding a valid ticket) and then realised how obvious it was as to how you might deliberately do it.

A box ticking exercise?

I genuinely don't get why the whole station wasn't barriered along the concourse window line in co-operation between all the TOCs.

 

[Haywain]

I find it astonishing that the barriers at Wakefield Westgate can't even cope with my zone3 plastic metro card. Probably due to this poor design, they are open most of the time and their installation must rate as one of the most pointless wastes of money on the modern railway.

I agree that it is poor design. You would think that anyone choosing to introduce smart ticketing in a specified area such as West Yorkshire would take the trouble to ensure that all stations with barrier lines are suitably equipped to deal with that system. You might also question who should be footing the bill for that.

 

[DelW]

Happened to me at Marylebone - went on the platform to take a phot of a 68 and the barriers wouldn't let me back out. I was on a 1-6 travelcard.

That's unusual, in my experience at least - when I'm doing 'unusual' trips around London, I normally choose to buy a paper travelcard to avoid the problems that can arise if using Oyster PAYG, which can easily get confused and result in unresolved journeys. So far I've never had problems with either quick re-entry or quick re-exit when using paper travelcards.

 

[Iskra]

Wakefield Westgate's barriers seem to be always open.

Pointless!

They are manned in the peaks everyday* M-F. But if you always visited the station between 11-3 then you would find them open all the time.

*subject to enough staff being available, which there are most of the time.

Returning to the original topic, the removal of barriers at some of the smaller ECML stations may be down the the unsafe levels of congestion/platform crowding they can cause, especially at Durham.

 

[bb21]

I'm not convinced they get people through them faster than the old staff working at manual barriers though, and they do seem to use less-qualified people to run them.

You are not going to like this.

Barriers are not supposed to compete on speed with anything. One useful feature of barriers is that they regulate passenger flow.

Obviously they should not be too slow, but they are not supposed to be faster than this or that.

 

[NotATrainspott]

Once the platform extension works are done at Waverley, platforms 6, 7, 11 and 12 will all be barriered. It's going to be interesting, to say the least, because three full length (i.e. ICEC) and one 8-car length platform will share one fairly small set of barriers right in the middle of all of them. I wouldn't be surprised if the ICEC services were preferentially routed into platforms 1 and 5 so that long-distance passengers won't have to mix with commuters.

 

[edwin_m]

The situation at Waverley is much better with just the bays barriered.

Glasgow Central (quoted in the quoted post) is similar, with the long platforms 1 and 2 which most long distance services use being unbarriered. The shorter Transpennine sets often use one of the other lower-numbered platforms but whenever I've used one they just open a gate and let everybody through.

 

[LowLevel]

Don't forget though there are other elements to barriers than just ticket checking (mainly incidental) - they're a major deterrent to casual anti social behaviour like drug taking or cottaging in toilets, vagrants and beggars hanging around. Random scummers are also far more easily dealt with by keeping them off the trains in the first place rather than trying to deal with them when they're on - while personally I'd rather enjoy giving an unsuspecting belligerent fare evader a t key to the face (standard move in the old days) and then dumping them in the most unfortunate location possible - sadly this is frowned up nowadays and consequently if say someone makes it around at Piccadilly and I get to them between Oxford Road and Warrington and they say 'Not paying, make me', there's nothing I can really do about it, unless it's the odd occasion a BTP squad happens to be traveling aboard the train to a football job or similar.

 

[takno]

You are not going to like this.

Barriers are not supposed to compete on speed with anything. One useful feature of barriers is that they regulate passenger flow.

Obviously they should not be too slow, but they are not supposed to be faster than this or that.

There doesn't seem to be a lot of saving in that case, since 1 or 2 staff were able to manually check all the tickets for a large proportion of the day before, and they seem to have that many people standing around the barriers now.

I've always just assumed that both the Scottish and national governments have raised barriers to a quasi-religious symbol and thrown them into franchise agreements to prove that *at least they are doing something*, and they are *harnessing the power of new technology*. If the trains don't go any faster, the signalling is still clapped-out old tat from the 60s, and you can't manage to string up wires at a decent rate then you have to stick in a visible box of tricks somewhere.

 

[takno]

Once the platform extension works are done at Waverley, platforms 6, 7, 11 and 12 will all be barriered. It's going to be interesting, to say the least, because three full length (i.e. ICEC) and one 8-car length platform will share one fairly small set of barriers right in the middle of all of them. I wouldn't be surprised if the ICEC services were preferentially routed into platforms 1 and 5 so that long-distance passengers won't have to mix with commuters.

Interesting. Will the sleepers be moving over to platform 2? seems like 2 and 19 will be the best platforms with 5&6 extending out to get in between the buildings and platform 7

 

[BMIFlyer]

Talking of barriers, I noticed this week that the new VT ones at Manc Picc are very easily circumvented, as I did so completely by accident (while holding a valid ticket) and then realised how obvious it was as to how you might deliberately do it.

A box ticking exercise?

I genuinely don't get why the whole station wasn't barriered along the concourse window line in co-operation between all the TOCs.

Fair point raised here. The whole of the station is to be barriered. The next platforms to be done will be 1-3 and will be manned by TPE staff. Then the remainder will be done and manned by Northern staff.

At the moment, all platforms have staff manning the access doors usually when the VT barriers are manned, to give all platforms a barrier so to speak.

With regards to other stations and barriers, Dewsbury and Manchester Airport stations will both receive barriers too in the near future.

Personal opinion is that Warrington Central needs them as does either Preston and or Lancaster too.

 

[Starmill]

At the moment, all platforms have staff manning the access doors usually when the VT barriers are manned, to give all platforms a barrier so to speak.

A significant proportion of these staff are Northern's Carlisle security contractors...

They also don't cover the other entrances to the station.

 

[NotATrainspott]

Interesting. Will the sleepers be moving over to platform 2? seems like 2 and 19 will be the best platforms with 5&6 extending out to get in between the buildings and platform 7

All I know is that barriers are included (see Edinburgh City Council planning application 16/05341/PA). With the escalator being moved to run parallel to the main north-south footbridge/walkway, the ticket gateline will run from the end of the southern ramp to the lift, with the gap between the lift and the end of platform 6 being fenced off. Platforming arrangements aren't discussed but it would make sense to try to minimise the use of barriered platforms for the long distance services. In this case I think it's not the concept of barriers that's the problem but the fact that there would be so few of them, and so awkwardly placed, for a full trainload of passengers from platforms 6 and 7.

 

[Crossover]

Fair point raised here. The whole of the station is to be barriered. The next platforms to be done will be 1-3 and will be manned by TPE staff. Then the remainder will be done and manned by Northern staff.

At the moment, all platforms have staff manning the access doors usually when the VT barriers are manned, to give all platforms a barrier so to speak.

With regards to other stations and barriers, Dewsbury and Manchester Airport stations will both receive barriers too in the near future.

Personal opinion is that Warrington Central needs them as does either Preston and or Lancaster too.

Any indication of where Dewsbury will get barriered, as I can't see any sensible place without causing one problem or another. I'm also not sure if the bridge forms a right of way between the two sides of the station, too?