Barriers at Glasgow stations

I hate to sound like I'm laying into ScotRail again for no reason, but witnessed another frustrating incident at Charing Cross this morning: eastbound and westbound services arrived at around the same time, meaning the (tiny) entrance/exit area was quite busy, with upwards of 30 people queuing to buy tickets.

Staff member then opens all barriers and waves the crowd through, saying "Everybody just head through the gates please," meaning of course that a large number of people obviously not in possession of tickets (because they were waiting to purchase!) leaving the station. No attempt was made to stop them doing so or to provide even a cursory ticket examination.

I imagine this was a health & safety decision, given that rather a lot of people were making their way upstairs and the queue was obstructing them, although I'd dispute it was dangerous in any way.

So I have to wonder:

1. Does this happen every time there are two trainloads arriving at the same time? It's hardly uncommon for this to be the case!
2. Given the above, you'd imagine that the crowd management work that was inevitably done as part of barrier-ing the station in the first place would take peak loads into account - evidently not.
3. What's the legal position of someone who then leaves the station without purchasing a ticket? To be fair, many of them won't have had the opportunity, but they did have to walk past the ticket office window in order to exist. Do they get a pass to do so because they were advised to by a member of staff?

There's loads of fare evasion around the Glasgow stations so I can certainly see why barriers are required, but I'm not sure what the point is is they're inadequately specced to manage passenger flows!

matthewmacleod said:

3. What's the legal position of someone who then leaves the station without purchasing a ticket? To be fair, many of them won't have had the opportunity, but they did have to walk past the ticket office window in order to exist. Do they get a pass to do so because they were advised to by a member

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Health and Safety could very well be a reason that barriers maybe opened with little warning, Overcrowded platforms pose such a potential hazard.

But to answer your third point, passengers who walk past the last point of purchasing a ticket could find themselves on the receiving end of a 5 3a prosecution, it's fare evasion plain an simple. If a gateline assistant opens the barriers it does not relieve the passengers obligation to pay their fare.

I find that a number of stations which are totally unsuitable for ticket gates are now being fitted with them, and often in inappropriate locations where crowds are concerned. In addition at some other locations the number of gates being installed is wholly inadequate.

This is not helped by the E2 Gate (http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/stations/sjp/CHC/images/photos/800/o1468-0000158.jpg) which is the most common of all new installations since 2004 but is absolute garbage, taking much longer to process customers than the E1 Gate (http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/stations/sjp/CST/images/photos/800/o1593-0010207.jpg), or the original P Gate (http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/stations/sjp/ZFD/images/photos/800/o3528-0000031.jpg). The latest design is also much more vulnerable to fare evasion than the previous.

Charing Cross (Glasgow) scares me to death when it's busy. The platforms are just not built to cope with the crowds. I'd even say, from my own experience, Charing Cross gets more passengers (around the rush hours) than Queen Street gets.