Future of Ticket Office Consultations launched

[michael8]

"Is there evidence of increased levels of rudeness at stations which are already operated in this manner e.g Cambridge North?"

Not sure about rudeness, and there are too many variables to be able to compare one station with another in this way. However, I would hazard a guess that a staff member behind a screen at a ticket office is far safer from assault than that same staff member on the platform or elsewhere in the open areas of the station.

A quick Google search for "assault of railway staff" shows a disturbing list of results for recent assaults, all of which seem to have happened at the gateline or elsewhere in the "open" areas of the stations.

The safety and wellbeing of station staff should be a priority, and I say that as a passenger who doesn't work in the industry. Yet another reason why these plans are ill-advised in my opinion and should be resisted. Make all products available online, and continue to give travellers the choice of how we wish to buy our ticket.

And - since I've never had the opportunity to say so - if any ticket office staff read my post, please know how much I have appreciated your hard work, advice, good cheer, jokes, encouragement, smiles, and everything else you have done to make travelling by train a joy over the years. Thank you sincerely.

In other news:
18 July 2023
To the Rt Hon Mark Harper MP, Secretary of State for Transport

Hello Mark,

I strongly object to the plans to close ticket offices at stations on a number of grounds, and would like to point out some flaws in the reasoning used.

• The claim is made by the RDG that 12% of tickets are bought at ticket office windows. In a country where 990 million passenger journeys were made in the year 2021-22, this equates to over 118 million purchases at a ticket office per year, a not insignificant number.
• The 12% figure will vary wildly from ticket office to ticket office - I understand the inevitability of closure for an unprofitable ticket office where one customer per day is served, but this is clearly not the case for an enormous number of offices where usage remains high and indeed much higher than 12%.
• If the option of using a ticket office is removed, and all customers are forced to use alternative ways to buy a ticket (such as online or at a machine, with or without staff assistance), it does not necessarily follow that the 12% of users (118 million journeys) will switch to buying their tickets through the new methods. They may instead switch mode of transport or decide not to travel as much, which would lead to a gross loss of revenue for the railways. The customer will always do what is most convenient for them, and that is an individual choice.

I do apologise in advance if my own mathematics skills are lacking and you find a mistake in my calculations, but I strongly believe that I am correct in claiming that statistics are being misused to form a cost reduction strategy in response to your request. I understand that this is a complicated and emotive issue and I end my email with the hope that we can work together to find a solution that works for everyone.

Yours as ever,


Michael

Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/rail-factsheet-2022/rail-factsheet-2022#:~:text=Rail passenger journeys in Great,the year ending March 2019.

If you think this post is interesting, please reply

 

[Krokodil]

Reports come in from all over the country

Which still means nothing. There are 1,007 ticket offices across the country (not sure if this figure is England or GB). You could be seeing reports from 100 ticket offices distributed across the country and that's not even 10%. Even that only needs to be one grumpy clerk per office which might have up to a dozen other staff. You could just as easily say that reports of bad car driving come in from all over the country, it doesn't mean that bad drivers are in any way representative of motorists generally.

it's not "just reglect repeated reports of a few bad eggs" (whatever that means).

I hope that you never make a typo and miss it when proof-reading. I'd hate to think that people are this rude to you. The word should have been "reflect".

 

[janb]

Can you elaborate on the ticket and journeys made? It doesn't sound like this would be something that ticket offices would typically advise on.

As someone in the trade I can assure you that whilst it is not an everyday question, it is very much something we would typically advise on.

 

[The exile]

2. You can buy it, but it gets issued on bog-roll stock, which I really can't see lasting a year.

Thanks to an emergency ticket office closure I am currently experiencing my first “bog-roll” season ticket. The QR code works about 40% of the time and the print is already disappearing on the bit that tells you where it’s valid - I think I’ll be lucky if the ticket lasts the week!

 

[yorksrob]

Thanks to an emergency ticket office closure I am currently experiencing my first “bog-roll” season ticket. The QR code works about 40% of the time and the print is already disappearing on the bit that tells you where it’s valid - I think I’ll be lucky if the ticket lasts the week!

OMG, a bog roll season ticket !

 

[The exile]

OMG, a bog roll season ticket !

Fortunately only a weekly - but as it’s a Bristol freedom pass it’s having to be waved at bus drivers as well. Fortunately it hasn’t yet had to be out in the rain….

 

[Krokodil]

OMG, a bog roll season ticket !

Weeklies have been available on PRT stock since it was introduced. I've never seen one that was in the condition described, not if it's tucked into one of the blue wallets - you can spread them between two adjacent pockets, with the ID in the third, it protects them perfectly well.

 

[yorksrob]

Fortunately only a weekly - but as it’s a Bristol freedom pass it’s having to be waved at bus drivers as well. Fortunately it hasn’t yet had to be out in the rain….

Weeklies have been available on PRT stock since it started. I've never seen one that was in the condition described, not if it's tucked into one of the blue wallets - you can spread them between two adjacent pockets, with the ID in the third, it protects them perfectly well.

I suppose we should be grateful its only a weekly !

 

[The exile]

Weeklies have been available on PRT stock since it started. I've never seen one that was in the condition described, not if it's tucked into one of the blue wallets - you can spread them between two adjacent pockets, with the ID in the third, it protects them perfectly well.

That assumes that you’re able to get a new ticket wallet to replace the one that is giving up the ghost. With ticket office closed by falling masonry, none available. My blue wallet lost its 3rd pocket months ago - the two that remain have the slots facing the same way.

 

[Krokodil]

That assumes that you’re able to get a new ticket wallet to replace the one that is giving up the ghost. With ticket office closed by falling masonry, none available. My blue wallet lost its 3rd pocket months ago - the two that remain have the slots facing the same way.

Why not write to the operator? It would be interesting to hear their response. They may even post one out.

 

[The exile]

Why not write to the operator? It would be interesting to hear their response. They may even post one out.

Too much hassle - I’ll just get my next one at the other end!

 

[thedbdiboy]

"Is there evidence of increased levels of rudeness at stations which are already operated in this manner e.g Cambridge North?"

Not sure about rudeness, and there are too many variables to be able to compare one station with another in this way. However, I would hazard a guess that a staff member behind a screen at a ticket office is far safer from assault than that same staff member on the platform or elsewhere in the open areas of the station.

A quick Google search for "assault of railway staff" shows a disturbing list of results for recent assaults, all of which seem to have happened at the gateline or elsewhere in the "open" areas of the stations.

The safety and wellbeing of station staff should be a priority, and I say that as a passenger who doesn't work in the industry. Yet another reason why these plans are ill-advised in my opinion and should be resisted. Make all products available online, and continue to give travellers the choice of how we wish to buy our ticket.

And - since I've never had the opportunity to say so - if any ticket office staff read my post, please know how much I have appreciated your hard work, advice, good cheer, jokes, encouragement, smiles, and everything else you have done to make travelling by train a joy over the years. Thank you sincerely.

In other news:
18 July 2023
To the Rt Hon Mark Harper MP, Secretary of State for Transport

Hello Mark,

I strongly object to the plans to close ticket offices at stations on a number of grounds, and would like to point out some flaws in the reasoning used.

• The claim is made by the RDG that 12% of tickets are bought at ticket office windows. In a country where 990 million passenger journeys were made in the year 2021-22, this equates to over 118 million purchases at a ticket office per year, a not insignificant number.
• The 12% figure will vary wildly from ticket office to ticket office - I understand the inevitability of closure for an unprofitable ticket office where one customer per day is served, but this is clearly not the case for an enormous number of offices where usage remains high and indeed much higher than 12%.
• If the option of using a ticket office is removed, and all customers are forced to use alternative ways to buy a ticket (such as online or at a machine, with or without staff assistance), it does not necessarily follow that the 12% of users (118 million journeys) will switch to buying their tickets through the new methods. They may instead switch mode of transport or decide not to travel as much, which would lead to a gross loss of revenue for the railways. The customer will always do what is most convenient for them, and that is an individual choice.

I do apologise in advance if my own mathematics skills are lacking and you find a mistake in my calculations, but I strongly believe that I am correct in claiming that statistics are being misused to form a cost reduction strategy in response to your request. I understand that this is a complicated and emotive issue and I end my email with the hope that we can work together to find a solution that works for everyone.

Yours as ever,


Michael

Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/rail-factsheet-2022/rail-factsheet-2022#:~:text=Rail passenger journeys in Great,the year ending March 2019.

If you think this post is interesting, please reply

Whilst it's useful to make your general views known, the objections that carry most weight are those objecting to specific proposals from an actual user. So a person with accessibility issues living at x will have a much greater impact when objecting if they can show that their ability to travel from there will be seriously impaired by the proposal. In many ways it is similar to the Beeching closures - any general campaigning to save branch lines was useless - focussed local objections from actual users were what mattered.

 

[Silenos]

Can you also clarify what you mean by "...in your view, ignorant and surly..."; whose words are they and is this an attempt at a strawman argument?

You stated in #591 ‘in my experience customers can be treated very poorly at stations when asking to be re-routed; I have very rarely had a good experience’; you have subsequently reiterated several times that you are aware of very many bad experiences and that these constitute the tip of the iceberg; you have stated that ticket office staff are often unaware of valid tickets and fares.

I put it to you that these frequent ‘bad experiences’ can therefore only be because either the staff in the ticket office are not sufficiently aware of the ticketing system, in which case they are ignorant, or they are being deliberately obstructive, in which case you are saying that they are surly. No other construction is possible. My point is that neither condition would be remedied by placing these staff on the platform or the gate line.

Personally I don’t have a view that all ticket offices should be saved or that all should be abolished, and am open to arguments on both sides, but I dislike punching down at a group of workers with rather less money and negotiating power than say the train drivers (not that it should happen to drivers either).

 

[ainsworth74]

I mean here are two examples from our very own Forum of people getting rubbish service from ticket offices:

https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/rtv-validity-for-plusbus.252957/#post-6357949 (refused an RTV to purchase a PlusBus)

https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/civ-protection-with-a-euro-high-saver-return.232913/ (initially sold a more expensive ticket than required)

Does it happen all the time? No probably not. I'm sure for every story of poor service there is doubtlessly a story of good service. I remember getting a £10 railcard issued by Redcar Central ticket office (a perk of holding a Gold Card). The clerk had clearly never heard of a Gold Card before (what with the nearest station it would be valid at being two odd hours away) but was happy to spend a bit of time poking away at their machine and then consulting their training manual to find the way to issue it for me. On another occasion I went to Cardiff Queen Street ticket office and asked for a return to some station somewhere on the Valleys and the clerk instead proactively offered me some sort of rover (the details escape me now as it was probably five years ago) which was slightly cheaper and offered more validity.

But poor service happens often enough that you cannot also say on a blanket basis that ticket offices provide the best customer service and always sell the best tickets for the journey. The reality is that just fixing the present situation in aspic is not sustainable. Personally I think the plan as it exists is completely incoherent and an utter mess. Some ticket offices should shut, that's the reality. Some ticket offices should be retained, perhaps with a smaller number of counters and more floor walking staff and TVMs. Perhaps some ticket offices should remain broadly as they do now.

It is however not helpful for anyone to argue from either extreme of "NOT A SINGLE TICKET OFFICE MUST CLOSE" nor "ALL TICKET OFFICES SHOULD CLOSE" or similar sorts of positions.

 

[Krokodil]

It is however not helpful for anyone to argue from either extreme of "NOT A SINGLE TICKET OFFICE MUST CLOSE" nor "ALL TICKET OFFICES SHOULD CLOSE" or similar sorts of positions.

Unfortunately those arguing for the latter have galvanised those of the former persuasion into action. If a few minor offices shut RMT would have struggled to mount much opposition, the government could have slipped it quietly through. Even RMT knows that some don't justify themselves. Going all-in and proposing sweeping closures - including the likes of Euston and Piccadilly - means that any closures at all will be bitterly fought over.

But poor service happens often enough that you cannot also say on a blanket basis that ticket offices provide the best customer service and always sell the best tickets for the journey

Everything is relative. Ticket offices do (on average) provide better service than online. As for TVMs, you could employ Basil Fawlty and get better customer service.

Ticket offices sell 12%, TVMs 2% and online much of the rest (I'm not sure how many are sold by onboard staff, it's not going to be much on most trains). The proportions of passengers with various types of wrong ticket do not reflect those figures. Most errors are made by people purchasing online (as you'd expect as most tickets are bought there), but a disproportionate number are made by those purchasing from the TVM.

 

[WelshBluebird]

It is however not helpful for anyone to argue from either extreme of "NOT A SINGLE TICKET OFFICE MUST CLOSE" nor "ALL TICKET OFFICES SHOULD CLOSE" or similar sorts of positions.

Maybe the government should have taken that advice first given some of what has been suggested by the consultation!

 

[Silenos]

Everything is relative. Ticket offices do (on average) provide better service than online. As for TVMs, you could employ Basil Fawlty and get better customer service.

Ticket offices sell 12%, TVMs 2% and online much of the rest (I'm not sure how many are sold by onboard staff, it's not going to be much on most trains). The proportions of passengers with various types of wrong ticket do not reflect those figures. Most errors are made by people purchasing online (as you'd expect as most tickets are bought there), but a disproportionate number are made by those purchasing from the TVM.

In addition, I’m not sure we would be justified in assuming that poor service is at least as likely as good, which seems to be the default assumption of @yorkie and @ainsworth74. While I defer to their knowledge and experience, if ticket offices are selling 118 million tickets a year, and 50% of the time the service is poor or inadequate, that would be 59 million cases a year. For the sake of argument, if only 1% of those resulted in a complaint, that would be 590,000 complaints a year. So I would respectfully ask them whether the number of cases they see and are aware of really support that level of service failure?

 

[yorkie]

In addition, I’m not sure we would be justified in assuming that poor service is at least as likely as good, which seems to be the default assumption of @yorkie and @ainsworth74.

Can you please not put words into my mouth? If there is something I've said you disagree with, please quote it and state your view.

While I defer to their knowledge and experience, if ticket offices are selling 118 million tickets a year, and 50% of the time the service is poor or inadequate, that would be 59 million cases a year. For the sake of argument, if only 1% of those resulted in a complaint, that would be 590,000 complaints a year. So I would respectfully ask them whether the number of cases they see and are aware of really support that level of service failure?

You've clearly not read my posts properly, or you have fundamentally misunderstood what I've said.

You stated in #591 ‘in my experience customers can be treated very poorly at stations when asking to be re-routed; I have very rarely had a good experience’; you have subsequently reiterated several times that you are aware of very many bad experiences and that these constitute the tip of the iceberg; you have stated that ticket office staff are often unaware of valid tickets and fares.

Yes those things have all happened and continue to do so.

I put it to you that these frequent ‘bad experiences’ can therefore only be because either the staff in the ticket office are not sufficiently aware of the ticketing system, in which case they are ignorant, or they are being deliberately obstructive, in which case you are saying that they are surly. No other construction is possible.

I've said what I've said; if you wish to use alternative language in your own descriptions, that's entirely your choice but I've not used the words you have come up with.

My point is that neither condition would be remedied by placing these staff on the platform or the gate line.

But if you made all transactions possible online, then those of us (i.e. the majority) who prefer to book online won't need to experience refusal to issue valid tickets!

There is no good reason not to enable all transactions online these days... is there?

Personally I don’t have a view that all ticket offices should be saved or that all should be abolished, and am open to arguments on both sides, but I dislike punching down at a group of workers with rather less money and negotiating power than say the train drivers (not that it should happen to drivers either).

It's not about "punching people down" but clearly there is a move towards online sales. But the rail industry is dragging its feet by making some products difficult or impossible to buy online and there are numerous reports and experiences of ticket offices not consistently sell the products they should be selling and/or do not consistently providing accurate information. This is not an acceptable situation. I doubt all problems will be solved, but if we can get everything available online, that would go someway to improving matters.

There also needs to be more assurances of the position that if there is no facility to buy the ticket(s) you require, you may board the train and pay at the first opportunity. The rail industry is shooting itself in the foot by not reassuring people who think they are unable to travel from unstaffed stations if facilities are not available.

 

[Silenos]

It is however not helpful for anyone to argue from either extreme of "NOT A SINGLE TICKET OFFICE MUST CLOSE" nor "ALL TICKET OFFICES SHOULD CLOSE" or similar sorts of positions.

That is an entirely reasonable and sensible position. And more, I suspect that most of us, regardless of which way we might weight the outcome, would probably agree that the government and TOCs have not gone about this in a particularly helpful or enlightening way - we may yet again end up with the characteristic fudge that suits nobody.

Can you please not put words into my mouth? If there is something I've said you disagree with, please quote it and state your view.

You've clearly not read my posts properly, or you have fundamentally misunderstood what I've said.

Given the frequency of your diatribes against ticket office staff that seems particularly pointless.

 

[yorkie]

If I've said something "against ticket office staff" that you dislike, use the quote button and let me know why you disagree and what your thoughts are.

 

[Silenos]

If I've said something "against ticket office staff" that you dislike, use the quote button and let me know why you disagree and what your thoughts are.

See #1903

 

[yorkie]

See #1903

See #1908

Furthermore #1903 does not actually quote any of my posts (other than the one asking you to do so); please use the reply button to generate the actual quote of the post(s) you disagree with and state why you disagree with them.

 

[Silenos]

Yes those things have all happened and continue to do so.

Indeed, but the question is how frequently they occur vis-a-vis other methods of payment. If you are aware of a controlled study to support the frequency of bad experiences at ticket offices as a proportion of all encounters, I should be most happy to see it, otherwise it is at best uncontrolled observational data, which is notorious for bias.

There also needs to be more assurances of the position that if there is no facility to buy the ticket(s) you require, you may board the train and pay at the first opportunity. The rail industry is shooting itself in the foot by not reassuring people who think they are unable to travel from unstaffed stations if facilities are not available.

But the evidence is not encouraging in that regard, is it? If I recall correctly, do some TOCs not have a reputation for effectively demanding money with menaces?

 

[yorkie]

Indeed, but the question is how frequently they occur vis-a-vis other methods of payment

In plain English, what are you actually saying?

. If you are aware of a controlled study to support the frequency of bad experiences at ticket offices as a proportion of all encounters, I should be most happy to see it, otherwise it is at best uncontrolled observational data, which is notorious for bias.

Evidence of bad experiences is available on multiple threads on this forum; I've also experienced it myself (a lot less these days as I can do nearly all transactions online) and have experience of complaints which may not get reported anywhere.

But the evidence is not encouraging in that regard, is it?

What exactly is your argument? Are you denying that these problems exist?

If I recall correctly, do some TOCs not have a reputation for effectively demanding money with menaces?

While some actions of TOCs could be seen as that (in perhaps a similar way that an unfairly issued fare may be seen by some as a fine), I don't think there is any realistic chance you would actually be able to secure a conviction for this. Of course, if you wish to use those words and prefix it with "effectively", that's entirely your prerogative. But I would not word it that way.

 

[cav1975]

Ticket offices sell 12%, TVMs 2% and online much of the rest (I'm not sure how many are sold by onboard staff, it's not going to be much on most trains). The proportions of passengers with various types of wrong ticket do not reflect those figures. Most errors are made by people purchasing online (as you'd expect as most tickets are bought there), but a disproportionate number are made by those purchasing from the TVM.

If that's a correct stratistic I'm surprised that the govenment isn't planning to remove all the ticket machines rather than close the ticket offices.

 

[Krokodil]

Evidence of bad experiences is available on multiple threads on this forum

The plural of "anecdote" is not "data".

 

[tomuk]

If that's a correct stratistic I'm surprised that the govenment isn't planning to remove all the ticket machines rather than close the ticket offices.

The use of TVM varies at SouthEastern for example TVM usage is 9.5% at stations within the Oyster Area and 30% at their other stations with ticket offices. Ticket office sales are 2.8% and 20% respectively.

 

[HSTEd]

If that's a correct stratistic I'm surprised that the govenment isn't planning to remove all the ticket machines rather than close the ticket offices.

The operating costs of all ticket offices will be far more than 6x the operating costs of all TVMs.
It doesn't matter if TVMs don't sell that many tickets because they cost very little to run, especially now they aren't going to be using credit card-type ticket stock.

And if payments on TVMs are mostly card based they won't even need emptying of cash that regularly.

 

[ainsworth74]

Unfortunately those arguing for the latter have galvanised those of the former persuasion into action. If a few minor offices shut RMT would have struggled to mount much opposition, the government could have slipped it quietly through. Even RMT knows that some don't justify themselves. Going all-in and proposing sweeping closures - including the likes of Euston and Piccadilly - means that any closures at all will be bitterly fought over.

Certainly, the TOCs, implementing the wishes of their DfT masters, have done a spectacular poor job. A sensible approach would have been to go after ticket offices like my own Redcar Central. Small stations which have only one shift before moving on to larger ticket offices in larger settlements open for longer. Salami slice your way to where you want to be but clearly someone felt they could get to the desired end state, closing the majority of ticket offices, in one leap.

In addition, I’m not sure we would be justified in assuming that poor service is at least as likely as good, which seems to be the default assumption of @yorkie and @ainsworth74.

That's not what I said and I'm not sure what I said gave you the idea that it's my "default assumption"? What I said was:

But poor service happens often enough that you cannot also say on a blanket basis that ticket offices provide the best customer service and always sell the best tickets for the journey.

I've been fairly pragmatic in my view of what should happen to the retail space and ticket offices. I do think that the supporters have an overly rosy view of ticket offices and to try and bring some balance to that I would point out that there are plenty of negative interactions to go with the positive and neutral. I also happen to think that the proposed closure programme is bonkers, it goes too far, too quickly, and without sufficient preparatory work including, critically some form of fares reform, the expansion of TVMs to more stations in greater numbers, and firmer protection of passengers rights to be able to board trains without penalty in the event they cannot buy the ticket required from the available machines.

So I would prefer it if you didn't just assume that you know what my views are on the matter.

That is an entirely reasonable and sensible position. And more, I suspect that most of us, regardless of which way we might weight the outcome, would probably agree that the government and TOCs have not gone about this in a particularly helpful or enlightening way - we may yet again end up with the characteristic fudge that suits nobody.

Oh yes they've clearly ballsed up and underestimated the strength of feeling and traction it would gain outside of the railway bubble and I highly suspect we're on course for some sort of fudge.

 

[Krokodil]

Certainly, the TOCs, implementing the wishes of their DfT masters, have done a spectacular poor job. A sensible approach would have been to go after ticket offices like my own Redcar Central. Small stations which have only one shift before moving on to larger ticket offices in larger settlements open for longer. Salami slice your way to where you want to be but clearly someone felt they could get to the desired end state, closing the majority of ticket offices, in one leap.

The Government have mishandled the whole industrial dispute. If they had listened to the TOC MDs they could have sorted out a pay rise before inflation took hold, then negotiated on conditions. Instead they dithered before going in like a bull in a china shop.