All railway ticket offices in England to close?

[HST274]

There is a breakdown by gender, political class, region... if that's what you mean?

 

[Pacerfan142]

I believe this is true as I have heard many staff behind the ticket counter saying that the ticket office at Stockport railway station will be closing in a few years.

 

[py_megapixel]

There is a breakdown by gender, political class, region... if that's what you mean?

There's a breakdown of the results by those things, but there's no indication of the distribution of the overall sample.

For example, for all we know the 2516 adults surveyed consist of 2000 18-24 year olds, 200 25-49 year olds, 300 50-64 year olds and only 16 65+ year olds. (Those are just made up numbers for the sake of example, but you get the drift)

I believe this is true as I have heard many staff behind the ticket counter saying that the ticket office at Stockport railway station will be closing in a few years.

If this is the plan then they'll have to get the ticket machines sorted first, as they are currently unusable (literally - when I used one I found some areas of the touchscreens so unresponsive that it wasn't possible to enter certain station names on the keyboard)

 

[Trackman]

A Northern boss in 2019 said ticket offices would not close but may stop selling tickets in a Q&A meeting with the public, the press quickly picked up on this.
Thinking about it; Some stations with ticket offices on their network could close quite easily (not that I want them too!) .. Farnworth springs to mind in the first instance.

I'm just trying to think of an instance of when I've seen someone at the ticket window at Hither Green station, I would hazard a guess it's 85% Oyster/contactless pax as it's commuter land. I don't go at peak times, maybe there's a few people.. dunno.
I went once went about 7 years ago for an add-on ticket, booking clerk said 'I bet I don't sell one of these ever again!' saying that, as posted previously they need to be on the ball with new TVM software updates as a lot of them are confusing to start with for Joe Public.

 

[py_megapixel]

Well till roll is cheaper but I would hardly say its better. Why can't we get rid of the BR tribute act orange borders and background and print CCST with Aztec codes.

I don't believe there's enough space to fit the code and all the requisite printed information.

A Northern boss in 2019 said ticket offices would not close but may stop selling tickets in a Q&A meeting with the public, the press quickly picked up on this.

Which leads to the obvious question - would that make them actually ticket offices or not?

Also, if they are keeping an office open, then what would be the saving in having them not able to issue tickets?

 

[Justin Smith]

The problem is there doesn't seem to be a breakdown of the demographics of the people surveyed, which makes the survey pretty much useless.

Why so ?

 

[py_megapixel]

Why so ?

Because there's no point in having the answer to a question which is a matter of opinion unless you know who's been asked.

To give an extreme example, if the question was "How often do you make use of a pensioner's bus pass?" then the results are likely to be vastly different depending on which age group and social demographic you ask!

 

[tomuk]

You Gov have just conducted a poll regarding the public's attitude to rail ticket office closures

It is available at:

Would you support or oppose getting rid of manned ticket offices at most railway stations? | Daily Question

Would you support or oppose getting rid of manned ticket offices at most railway stations?

yougov.co.uk

Looking at the breakdown on their website the consensus across the various demographics is pretty similar. Those surveyed don't support ticket office closures. Males and Conservatives being slightly more in favour of closures. Those in London and South East no more inclined to support closures then elsewhere despite oyster and the lack of ticket offices on LUL. The 18-24 oddly skew to don't know, maybe just unengaged youth or maybe they don't know what ticket offices are die to e-tickets and contactless.

As this is being asked on the day of strikes amongst other strike related questions I would think there is a bit of 'don't kick someone when their down'

 

[Bletchleyite]

Because there's no point in having the answer to a question which is a matter of opinion unless you know who's been asked.

To give an extreme example, if the question was "How often do you make use of a pensioner's bus pass?" then the results are likely to be vastly different depending on which age group and social demographic you ask!

The question is also framed negatively. It doesn't outline any positives, e.g. "Would you like to retain guards on trains, funded by the moving of ticket retail to ticket machines, online and apps?" is a question not unlikely to be asked on Merseyside and is likely to get a "yes".

 

[Trackman]

Which leads to the obvious question - would that make them actually ticket offices or not?

Also, if they are keeping an office open, then what would be the saving in having them not able to issue tickets?

I was thinking the same thing.
It's like: We sell crisps, but you have to go the vending machine to buy biscuits.

 

[Justin Smith]

Because there's no point in having the answer to a question which is a matter of opinion unless you know who's been asked.

To give an extreme example, if the question was "How often do you make use of a pensioner's bus pass?" then the results are likely to be vastly different depending on which age group and social demographic you ask!

I do not agree with you that the results of the survey are meaningless because the age of those surveyed was not given. The only way that argument would have validity is if you assume all younger people now will not change their minds and then "in 20 years (or whatever) there should be a majority in favour of shutting ticket offices".
Well my answer to that is we will take another survey in 20 years and see.

 

[HSTEd]

Myself I think disposable smart cards (perhaps with a few pence deposit on them) are the better option than barcode tickets.

With how good digital cameras are now and how expensive train tickets are I feel there are significant security issues if they are just printed.

We're at the point where you might be able to photograph passengers tickets and beat them through the gate line.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Myself I think disposable smart cards (perhaps with a few pence deposit on them) are the better option than barcode tickets.

With how good digital cameras are now and how expensive train tickets are I feel there are significant security issues if they are just printed.

Were at the point where you might be able to photograph passengers tickets and beat them through the gate line.

If you felt that was genuinely likely, giving people the option to have a named ticket would be a decent fix. If it did happen, showing ID would prove you were the genuine passenger.

It is however fairly far fetched unless you stand there waving your barcode around.

 

[py_megapixel]

If you felt that was genuinely likely, giving people the option to have a named ticket would be a decent fix. If it did happen, showing ID would prove you were the genuine passenger.

It is however fairly far fetched unless you stand there waving your barcode around.

Since phone screens tend to be illuminated while a printed piece of paper is not, surely it must be possible to design a barcode scanner with additional sensors that can tell whether it is being shown a phone or a print-out. If this were fitted to gatelines, and if it were possible to flag in the data that a ticket was sold pre-printed, then gates could simply reject those tickets if it detected that they were being shown on a phone.

The main disadvantage I can think of is that you wouldn't be able to create a backup of your ticket by taking a photo of it, but if we assume that everyone who wants a mobile ticket will buy in a website/app then it's unclear why anyone would do that, so it's a worthwhile tradeoff in my opinion (then of course there's the question of the cost of new scanner hardware).

 

[Philip]

I think a better idea would be to retain a ticket office or travel centre at major terminal and city stations, albeit smaller and perhaps with just one window. It may also be a good idea to have the biggest station within a small region to keep a ticket office open to act as a 'go to' place for people who no longer have a ticket office at their local outstation.

Another thing to consider is that most major stations already have the duties of this new role covered by existing staff; subcontracted cleaners already in place; supervisors there for announcements, to answer general queries and deal with problems and to ultimately look after the station; dispatchers to dispatch trains; gateline staff to work the barriers.

At major stations the only real exclusive role the ex-booking office clerk would have is looking after the TVMs and answering ticket queries.

 

[tomuk]

Another thing to consider is that most major stations already have the duties of this new role covered by existing staff; subcontracted cleaners already in place; supervisors there for announcements, to answer general queries and deal with problems and to ultimately look after the station; dispatchers to dispatch trains; gateline staff to work the barriers.

At major stations the only real exclusive role the ex-booking office clerk would have is looking after the TVMs and answering ticket queries.

I think the idea is that the booking office clerks get put in the same pool as all the other station staff. i.e. there is one new multipurpose station 'agent' grade made from which savings can be made.

 

[RPI]

The proposal to move staff out of the ticket office is sensible to a degree, the only thing I would add is for them to have a mobile ticket machine too, would help at busy times and for the few complicated tickets.

 

[Justin Smith]

We have the same issue here as we do with many other companies who want to get rid of staff and replace them with IT.
The fact is that the best and fastest way to find out pretty much anything is by speaking to someone who knows what they are talking about (though I accept they do actually have to know what they are talking about ! ). In fact, no matter how good IT gets, I cannot see that ever changing.
So getting rid of those people DOES give a worse service to the customer, but employing them costs more.

 

[SynthD]

A lot of customers have replaced the staff with IT. It’s now the company catching up with that.

 

[The exile]

Those same people manage to book an easyJet or Ryanair flight online using a surprisingly similar user interface.

Some of them might - but buying an airline ticket is not something you usually need to do on the spur of the moment when you’re out and can’t ask a friend to help you - as opposed to catching the train home because you’re tired and it’s raining.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Since phone screens tend to be illuminated while a printed piece of paper is not, surely it must be possible to design a barcode scanner with additional sensors that can tell whether it is being shown a phone or a print-out. If this were fitted to gatelines, and if it were possible to flag in the data that a ticket was sold pre-printed, then gates could simply reject those tickets if it detected that they were being shown on a phone.

The main disadvantage I can think of is that you wouldn't be able to create a backup of your ticket by taking a photo of it, but if we assume that everyone who wants a mobile ticket will buy in a website/app then it's unclear why anyone would do that, so it's a worthwhile tradeoff in my opinion (then of course there's the question of the cost of new scanner hardware).

The whole point of an e-ticket is that it can be shown in any form.

This is an utter non-issue. It sits up there with the theory that people would go around waving POS machines with enhanced aerials at peoples' pockets while walking down the street and make contactless payments to themselves. This sort of non-issue is often used to justify not doing something that person doesn't like. I accept that a bit of till roll is inferior to a CCST ticket, but if it saves money so fares/subsidy don't have to go up quite as much then I'm all for it.

(This sort of "justification" was used to rubbish my proposal for e-ticketing on here years ago, which, it turned out, was remarkably similar to the one that was implemented - indeed the one they went with was slightly less secure in some ways!)

Some of them might - but buying an airline ticket is not something you usually need to do on the spur of the moment when you’re out and can’t ask a friend to help you - as opposed to catching the train home because you’re tired and it’s raining.

Hardly anyone does that either. I assume you're talking about people who cycled/walked into town and are catching the train back because the weather is a bit rubbish? You'll get that on the likes of Merseyrail but not really elsewhere.

The fact is that the best and fastest way to find out pretty much anything is by speaking to someone who knows what they are talking about (though I accept they do actually have to know what they are talking about ! ). In fact, no matter how good IT gets, I cannot see that ever changing.

And therein lies the problem with your typical small booking office (and some of the larger ones too) - they don't. All they ever do is sell returns to the nearby big city, and so they don't know about stuff like excesses, Permitted Routes and the likes.

It comes down to this - I'm paying someone to use an online UI that I can use. That's not good use of my money.

 

[Trainbike46]

Hardly anyone does that either. I assume you're talking about people who cycled/walked into town and are catching the train back because the weather is a bit rubbish? You'll get that on the likes of Merseyrail but not really elsewhere.

I've done this exact thing on rural east anglia lines, but it's still a non-issue: you just buy a ticket from the TVM, or if it's out of order/you want to pay cash, you buy a ticket from the guard. Closing ticket offices doesn't affect this, because it would regularly start at a small station where there isn't a ticket office to begin with

 

[Bletchleyite]

I've done this exact thing on rural east anglia lines, but it's still a non-issue: you just buy a ticket from the TVM, or if it's out of order/you want to pay cash, you buy a ticket from the guard. Closing ticket offices doesn't affect this, because it would regularly start at a small station where there isn't a ticket office to begin with

Yes, true. One thing I have done is cycled to the Scout campsite in north MK but then taken the train back from Wolverton because I was too lazy to cycle back/it was raining/whatever. There is a booking office at Wolverton but it's mornings only, so when I've done this I have generally bought from the TVM.

Now we have a copy of the proposals (it's upthread somewhere) it is very clear that removing TVMs is not the plan, and that (while my opinion may happen to differ) processes to accept cash will remain, so neither of these are concerns and are really separate discussions*, to which my answer to both is "not yet, but possibly at some time in the future".

* i.e. "Should cash acceptance cease on the railway", to which I'd say "not now, but probably in about 10 years' time, and possibly phased by region/TOC", or "Should it be mandatory to purchase a ticket before boarding a train even if no facility is provided to do so at the station", to which I'd say "not for the foreseeable future, but who knows about what could replace TVMs in maybe 20 years' time?". 20 years is a long time in tech; I doubt anyone who hadn't played with the French Téletel system** would have suspected what the Internet would do before the mid-90s at least.

** A Viewdata based online service in France which was well ahead of its time and gave a significant insight into the future, but outside of niche stuff like bulletin board systems and the likes of Campus 2000 in education there was no idea such a thing might work in the UK.

 

[HSTEd]

The whole point of an e-ticket is that it can be shown in any form.

This is an utter non-issue. It sits up there with the theory that people would go around waving POS machines with enhanced aerials at peoples' pockets while walking down the street and make contactless payments to themselves. This sort of non-issue is often used to justify not doing something that person doesn't like. I accept that a bit of till roll is inferior to a CCST ticket, but if it saves money so fares/subsidy don't have to go up quite as much then I'm all for it.

(This sort of "justification" was used to rubbish my proposal for e-ticketing on here years ago, which, it turned out, was remarkably similar to the one that was implemented - indeed the one they went with was slightly less secure in some ways!)

Tickets are order of magnitude more valuable than contactless payments and requires far less in the way of equipment to exploit.

But I except that allowing the purchases to encode a name into the ticket is a reasonable defence in that case.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Tickets are order of magnitude more valuable than contactless payments and requires far less in the way of equipment to exploit.

Yer wot? Most railway tickets I purchase are far below £100 in value, which is the contactless limit.

But I except that allowing the purchases to encode a name into the ticket is a reasonable defence in that case.

There are multiple potential benefits of allowing this as an option, e.g. you could allow reprints of lost tickets against production of ID at, er, a ticket office (!)

If buying a ticket where you don't know who it's for you could decline the option, of course, but then you don't get that added protection. Most people buying tickets know who they are for.

 

[Watershed]

You Gov have just conducted a poll regarding the public's attitude to rail ticket office closures.

It is available at:

Would you support or oppose getting rid of manned ticket offices at most railway stations? | Daily Question

Would you support or oppose getting rid of manned ticket offices at most railway stations?

yougov.co.uk

In summary, regarding ticket office closures, this survey of 2516 GB adults done on Jun 21, 2022 found that:

• 19% strongly support or tend to support
• 60% strongly oppose or tend to oppose
• 21% don't know

On the website, there is a more detailed breakdown by Region, Gender, Politics, Age and Social Grade.

I don't doubt that these percentages are approximately right, though I am always wary of polls, as whilst you can adjust for age/gener/political inclination, you can't easily adjust for the fact that the kind of people who fill out online surveys aren't representative of the entire population.

The bigger issue is that the outcome would probably be quite different if the question were framed as "would you want booking offices to close if it meant fares could be cut by 5%?" (exaggerated, obviously, but you get the idea).

 

[HSTEd]

Yer wot? Most railway tickets I purchase are far below £100 in value, which is the contactless limit.

Didn't we enter the world of £1000+ tickets a couple of years ago?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Didn't we enter the world of £1000+ tickets a couple of years ago?

Most tickets aren't worth that. And you aren't going to know as a miscreant whose is.

 

[Ken H]

Do all TVM's have a key pad where you can enter a PIN? Plastic cards need to have a chip and pin transaction every so often to re-validate the person with the card is the account holder. That can cause card transactions to fail, but that can be remedied by doing a chip and pin transaction.
So there should be a minimum standard that all ticket machines should be able to chip and pin. Some foreign cards need chip and pin and wond do wireless in the UK.

 

[skyhigh]

Do all TVM's have a key pad where you can enter a PIN?

Yes.