No, only the ones that try to compensate for a lack of size with voice volume, or act like they are desperate to burn off excess energy and the parents do three fifths of bugger all to attempt to pacify them. It is similar when eating out in a resteraunt, other peoples disruptive children are a nuisance to those who have quite possibly paid a decent price for a pleasant evening out with good food. I can accept that sometimes children will play up/get tired/irritable, but when they do play up, the parents should at least make some effort to calm them down or distract them (I've seen both extremes).
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What's the point in ticket barriers at stations?
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No, only the ones that try to compensate for a lack of size with voice volume, or act like they are desperate to burn off excess energy and the parents do three fifths of bugger all to attempt to pacify them. It is similar when eating out in a resteraunt, other peoples disruptive children are a nuisance to those who have quite possibly paid a decent price for a pleasant evening out with good food. I can accept that sometimes children will play up/get tired/irritable, but when they do play up, the parents should at least make some effort to calm them down or distract them (I've seen both extremes).
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Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Biggest argument there is for family areas in restaurants and family coaches on trains. It'd be hard on a 2-car DMU, but it does surprise me that VTWC haven't put one in on the Pendolinos. Mostly tables, decorate it up a bit and a small soft play area.
TurbostarFan
On Moderation
And others e.g. Greater Anglia use in-house staff who also cannot deal with fare evaders as they have no ticket selling equipment nor training to issue penalty fares or MG11s. This applies to even applies to staff who used to be RPOs as they don't get to use their RPO training whilst working as a Gateline assistant.
chris_in_salop
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I do understand the reasons for barriers, but they are horribly implemented at my local station, Shrewsbury. Three narrow gates, plus a 2-way wide gate, all fitted into the same smallish space as people queueing for tickets (lots of passengers travel to Shrewsbury from unstaffed stations, and arrive without a ticket through no fault of their own).
Lots of conflicting passenger movements as a result, especially with bikes, pushchairs and luggage at the wide gate, especially on a Friday evening.
Not sure how it could be done better though without making major structural changes, as the underlying problem is that the central ticket hall at the station is simply too small for the number of people who use it at peak times.
Lots of conflicting passenger movements as a result, especially with bikes, pushchairs and luggage at the wide gate, especially on a Friday evening.
Not sure how it could be done better though without making major structural changes, as the underlying problem is that the central ticket hall at the station is simply too small for the number of people who use it at peak times.
Japan Rail has a similar arrangement. It also has a fare system whereby you can buy a ticket for Part of your journey and pay the balance to the excess office on arrival.
Which is an attitude I rather like. Got the fare wrong? No problem, you just pay the excess.
Bumbling tourist who's struggling with the balance on his Suica card? No problem, we will help you out.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
When I went to Tokyo as a tourist, the recommendation was that rather than trying to understand the machine one should buy the cheapest fare and "adjust" on arrival.
Yeah, I've read that - I think it's Lonely Planet's standard advice.
In reality, the ticket machines aren't that complex - they just look it because of the scale. In fact, they make it really easy, by giving you a map of the stations you can reach (generally with Latin script somewhere). On top of that, you can just get a Suica/Pasmo card (particularly if you're planning on getting something other than the N'Ex in from Narita) and save yourself a world of hassle.
Esker-pades
Established Member
What's stupid about installing ticket barriers?
I find it strange people would fare evade on long distance services. Do you really think you are going to get away with it on a 3+ hour journey!!
Kite159
Veteran Member
Depends how proactive the train manager is, I've been on long distance trains where there hasn't been a ticket check, or the TM will check tickets on departure from the first station but does a 'disappearing act' afterwards so anybody boarding afterwards gets a free ride if they boarded at an unbarriered station and are heading to London.
A lot of people clearly do, I overheard somebody telling his mate how he travelled from Redhill to Nottingham changing train at Bedford without paying.
GrimShady
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Apart from the fact the totaly ruin the look of stations, their nothing but a pain in the rear end with luggage. Chris Green had the right idea, open stations and on train staff doing the checks.
Superb - except what do you do in this clever modern world with little police back up with the scrotes who say 'nope, not paying, what are you going to do?'.
Make it difficult for that particular breed of knuckle dragger to access the platform in the first place and you've won half the battle.
Esker-pades
Established Member
A: What @LowLevel said.
B: The look of a station is not more important than preventing fare evasion.
C: What's so bad about using ticket gates with luggage?
Nice idea but it's better to prevent people getting on the train without a valid ticket than trying to get payment out of them mid journey.
GrimShady
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They're nothing but an issue for those of us that do pay their fares. Why should everyone else have to suffer? I've lost count of the number of times I've had to wait at the luggage barrier as the staff are busy at the other end resulting in a missed connection. Why not just have ticket inspectors on the platform seen as these the barriers need to be manned anyway?
Then there's the mad rush at both Waverly and Queen Street when the shuttle is announced.
Esker-pades
Established Member
Suffering is really overstating it.
That sounds like a problem with staffing, not with ticket barriers.
I have never encountered that issue, despite frequent travelling.
That sounds like a problem with crowd control, not with ticket barriers.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
I dunno. While England didn't tend to be like that, Scottish stations (in particular Inverness) used to have people queueing single file waiting for the train to open and one person check tickets - it was very civilised compared with the small version of the Euston scrum the barriers cause.
GrimShady
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Figure of speech.
What's the point of they need to be staffed anyway? I have encountered just that scenario multiple times.
It's the barrier that's the route cause of the issue. Especially with arriving and just announced departing services. They should be arranged dynamically. Very often you have two streams of people crossing both out and in.
Esker-pades
Established Member
Because a few members of staff can't control the vast numbers of passengers. With barriers, there can be a few members of staff who deal with problems, while everyone else filters through. It is faster.
Again, that's a problem with crowd control. With crossing streams, I've experienced it with open barriers and that makes the situation worse (in that the streams can't be controlled).
Someone not having a ticket doesn't necessarily mean they're fare evading.
Because you live in a country with a healthy population of chancers and a small minority of unpleasant individuals. This is one of the consequences.
The crowd control problem at such terminal stations is exacerbated by both the late announcement of platforms and the resultant movement of crowds towards the barriers en masse. When they get there the narrow access cannot cope.
St Pancras (EMT) is another example of where this happens. At times the crush is such that all the barriers are flung wide open, presumably on safety grounds. Without the barriers the much wider access then available would solve that.
Noticeable that at the Thameslink part of the station there is no such problem, even though there is a greater volume of passengers, as the barriers are in constant use and not left closed until a large crowd of would be passengers has gathered.
Of course the Thameslink station doesn't have that problem. Every train goes from the same platform, and other than during disruption you want people on the platform, not on the (non-existent) concourse.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
There's also no such problem at Manchester Piccadilly, where despite being a terminus they don't hide the platform numbers so people don't wait on the concourse and leg it when the platform comes up.
Much as I always use RTT to work around it these days, this style of operation belongs in the days of slamdoors. These days, get the train in, get everyone off, lock the doors except the ones you're using to load stuff for the buffet and shove the platform up. If people want to go down and queue by the train, fine, let them.
While I'm sure they absolutely DO NOT do this, they can probably look on the camera and make an educated guess as to whether to ask for a ticket to inspect.
It's like using a lift under manual control. Is it someone old or with bags, or a young fit person that looks more than capable of using the gates/stairs? Sure, they may have a hidden disability, or they may in fact turn out to have no ticket..
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GrimShady
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They seemed to cope just nicely at the London stations in the BR days at places such as Victoria etc.
With regard to streams, I believe the filter effect the barriers have is much worse due to the fact that once beyond the barrier, people continually add to the swelling mass on the platform. It gets to the point where there's no where for the egressing passengers of an incoming service can go. One of the main reasons for this is passengers want to get past the time consuming barrier hurdle when they use to be content with waiting on the concourse. Glasgow Queen Street is noticeable in this regard. This never used to be a situation before the barriers went in circa 2005.
Also, gone are the days of being able to catch your train with minutes to spare. Now we have to wait in huge TVM ques and slow machines with dodgy touch screens. TPE TVMs are particularly bad for this.
Certainly the smooth flow at Queen Street and Waverly has been massively distributed in recent years thanks to these things made worse by all the additional retail spaces on Waverlys concourse.
Contrast everything above to somewhere like York which never has any of these issues until ticket checks commence on racing days.
GrimShady
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In that case they should be punished not everyone else.
Esker-pades
Established Member
Because they weren't as busy....
I've been in exactly in the situation described when barriers were open and people were just allowed through. It is bad crowd control not barriers.
Never actually or you don't remember seeing it?
How many additional passengers pass through in 2019 than in 2005?
Barriers are not more time consuming than going through a human line or any other ticket checking alternative.
Absolutely sod all to do with ticket barriers.
Again, absolutely sod all to do with ticket barriers.
Another explanation could be that these issues only commence when loads of passengers start flooding through?
Your use of purely anecdotal evidence is insufficient. There are other perfectly reasonable explanations or intervening variables (significant increase in passenger numbers, for example) that could explain your observations. Yet, you choose to go for ticket barriers. That is a flawed conclusion.
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