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All railway ticket offices in England to close?

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Whistler40145

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What % of train journeys that you personally make where you have no visibility of a conductor?
I see them operate doors and occasionally check tickets

Late at night especially on Manchester Piccadilly to Blackpool North services I've hardly ever had my tickets checked
 

pt_mad

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I’ve only sampled a handful of stations in Sweden, but some late at night due to sleeper train delays and I didn’t experience any anti-social behaviour, but temperatures of -9 are probably quite off putting to youths. It may well be more of an issue in the more urban Stockholm area or possibly in the summer, which I didn’t experience beyond the Central station.

If you got rid of/re-deployed ticket office staff it doesn’t necessarily follow that anti-social behaviour will rise. It could release those staff to more ‘floating’ roles within stations which could actually deter anti-social behaviour across a wider area. Alternatively, cost savings could allow more BTP officers/security to be present at more stations, which possibly more passengers may find beneficial. Here in Italy, my local station doesn’t have any Trenitalia staff, but it does have a permanent railway police presence instead.
Some great ideas but the current plans which have been widely reported are to save circa £600 million from staffing wern't they?

Any ideas of floating roles or more police could well be a drop in the ocean even if they did happen.

What I can say from a personal point of view re anti social crime in quiet urban or semi urban locations during hours of darkness, is that I personally feel miles better when there are staff present in any form.

Whenever I've stayed out late in Blackpool on the weekend when the lights are on, the stewards at the tram stops make waiting there bearable. They seem to calm down any over boisterous behaviour by just being visible there. If they weren't there, sometimes I think I'd have to wait a hundred yards down the prom until I could see the tram until I went and stood at the actual stop because of some of the groups you see waiting there.

My parents would never use the train after say 7 or 8 o clock for fear of crime. De-staffing any more locations just isn't going to help with the fear of crime. Merseryrail stations without any staff in darker hours just aren't going to scream out that they're safe for anyone who's a little less confident or vulnerable in any way. We should be aiming for an environment where all people of all sexes and anyone vulnerable should be able to be without chance or fear of crime. De staffing some locations just wouldn't help with this imo.
 

theageofthetra

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Ironic about Flowery Field, I was on the Glossop line last weekend and a group of teenage girls sat behind me were remarking how cute the station name sounded when we stopped there.
Put a ticket machine on the train as plenty of other countrys do.
 

DelayRepay

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My parents would never use the train after say 7 or 8 o clock for fear of crime. De-staffing any more locations just isn't going to help with the fear of crime. Merseryrail stations without any staff in darker hours just aren't going to scream out that they're safe for anyone who's a little less confident or vulnerable in any way.

Where I used to live, that was exactly the time when there wouldn't be staff available - the ticket office was only open until lunch time.

I agree a visible staff presence is useful but in a lot of cases the ticket office isn't providing that (I know Merseyrail ticket offices do). And I guess there is a safety aspect - it would not be fair to take staff out of their ticket office and expect them to provide a security guard type role.
 

Bletchleyite

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I haven’t yet found a way with my paper delay repay vouchers whilst online, or at my local stations TVM. But I can post on this forum even if buying a ticket with vouchers is too cryptic for me.

So perhaps @Bletchleyite would be kind enough to give a step by step dummies guide for people like me, or accept non ticket office transactions are only useful for sub-set of ticket issuing

Paper delay repay vouchers need to be abolished.

Where I used to live, that was exactly the time when there wouldn't be staff available - the ticket office was only open until lunch time.

I agree a visible staff presence is useful but in a lot of cases the ticket office isn't providing that (I know Merseyrail ticket offices do). And I guess there is a safety aspect - it would not be fair to take staff out of their ticket office and expect them to provide a security guard type role.

If a security guard is needed, employ one. More use than someone hidden behind glass in a booking office fairly remote from the platforms (as most Merseyrail ones are).
 

bicbasher

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As an outsider to this - why can't there just be a mass expansion of contactless?
It works so well in London. Train, tube, bus, whatever, hop on, hop off, and you get charged at 4am or whatever as per your use.

Going outside London feels like stepping back in time 25 years, especially busses!
I couldn't agree more. I've had over a decade of using Oyster and then contactless and on the whole, it takes out the kerfuffle of getting on a train, especially once it was introduced to NR stations. Gradually phasing paper tickets was a masterstroke by making Oyster cheaper than paper tickets and then on London's buses making them cash free worked, although I admit I had reservations, but contactless has largely resolved the issue of not having enough credit on Oyster along with weekly Bus Pass and Travelcard caps.

Clearly ticketing on NR needs to be less complex than it is currently and hopefully smartcards and some form of contactless payment on the gateline/validator will go some way towards that.
 

pt_mad

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Where I used to live, that was exactly the time when there wouldn't be staff available - the ticket office was only open until lunch time.

I agree a visible staff presence is useful but in a lot of cases the ticket office isn't providing that (I know Merseyrail ticket offices do). And I guess there is a safety aspect - it would not be fair to take staff out of their ticket office and expect them to provide a security guard type role.
This is another issue as well.

Some people suggest the ticket selling role behind a window is outdated so the staff should be out on the station floor.

But if we look at some of the smaller stations, where are they to stand and what are they to do? They would presumably need welfare facilities if they're to be permanent employees based there, so you'd need the ticket office building itself to remain. Presumably they'd be allowed a seat if they're there all day for four or five days a week. Maybe somewhere to write things down. Somewhere to print a customer assistance list and monitor CCTV. This is sounding strangely like a customer window with a chair behind it. Basically a ticket office without the ability to sell tickets?
 

Iskra

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Some great ideas but the current plans which have been widely reported are to save circa £600 million from staffing wern't they?

Any ideas of floating roles or more police could well be a drop in the ocean even if they did happen.

What I can say from a personal point of view re anti social crime in quiet urban or semi urban locations during hours of darkness, is that I personally feel miles better when there are staff present in any form.

Whenever I've stayed out late in Blackpool on the weekend when the lights are on, the stewards at the tram stops make waiting there bearable. They seem to calm down any over boisterous behaviour by just being visible there. If they weren't there, sometimes I think I'd have to wait a hundred yards down the prom until I could see the tram until I went and stood at the actual stop because of some of the groups you see waiting there.

My parents would never use the train after say 7 or 8 o clock for fear of crime. De-staffing any more locations just isn't going to help with the fear of crime. Merseryrail stations without any staff in darker hours just aren't going to scream out that they're safe for anyone who's a little less confident or vulnerable in any way. We should be aiming for an environment where all people of all sexes and anyone vulnerable should be able to be without chance or fear of crime. De staffing some locations just wouldn't help with this imo.
All valid points and we would all like a staff presence at every station, but it clearly isn’t economic to provide that network wide. Many people manage to use unstaffed stations frequently without incident (as I do). Where there are ticket offices providing the only staff presence they are often barely open beyond the morning anyway, so I’m not sure they provide much of a deterrent to anti-social behaviour.
 

JonathanH

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As an outsider to this - why can't there just be a mass expansion of contactless?
It works so well in London. Train, tube, bus, whatever, hop on, hop off, and you get charged at 4am or whatever as per your use.
There is one planned in the area immediately outside London for 2024, and possibly other areas later. However, there is a limit to how far that sort of ticketing can go and no one has really sorted out the approach for children.
 

Train2London

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There is one planned in the area immediately outside London for 2024, and possibly other areas later. However, there is a limit to how far that sort of ticketing can go and no one has really sorted out the approach for children.
Out of interest what are the limits/problems?
(Aside of the fact that the cost could soon add up if you took an on-the-day ticket from London to Manchester!)
There are children in London, seems to be ok!

Crossrail makes it all look very odd - it's the same physical train that goes all the way to Reading, but yet you can't use contactless for the last 3rd part of journey - places like Slough?
Yet there are red TFL busses go to Slough!
 

Bletchleyite

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The TfL system has limits, but there is no particular reason a separate system just based around single fare priced walk up fares over any distance could not exist.
 

43096

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In Germany it's rare for ticket checks to take place on stations or on trains but most people do buy tickets because the penalty for trying to get a free ride is too high.
I’m in Germany currently and there’s far more ticket checks on train than the U.K. - U.K. guards please note.
 

JonathanH

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Crossrail makes it all look very odd - it's the same physical train that goes all the way to Reading, but yet you can't use contactless for the last 3rd part of journey - places like Slough?
Yet there are red TFL busses go to Slough!
You can very much use Contactless to go to Slough and Reading (but not Oyster beyond West Drayton).

Out of interest what are the limits/problems?
(Aside of the fact that the cost could soon add up if you took an on-the-day ticket from London to Manchester!)
The limits and problems are with expanding it over too wide an area. It works on the basis of charging a penalty if people don't touch in and out properly, with a maximum fare charged. The further out you go, the easier it is not to touch out and avoid paying the right fare (or having to charge a much more penal maximum fare).
There are children in London, seems to be ok!
It is really quite complex to get the right fare to travel with children in London.
 

Bletchleyite

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The maximum fare isn't the only way to manage it, to be fair. Without it there would be some revenue loss, but there is some revenue loss with conventional ticketing, too, e.g. via doughnutting and the likes. It doesn't have to be perfect.
 

Watershed

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Apologies if this has already been debated somewhere in the preceding 1,970 or so posts. What is the absolute latest point that any decision taken to call off the strike would need to be announced in order to avert impending disruption?
For most TOCs the cutoff would have been on Thursday or Friday, at least for this Tuesday's strike. A few have indicated they'd be willing to reinstate their normal timetable at a moment's notice (e.g. LO/XR) but most simply are not in a position to do so.

As an outsider to this - why can't there just be a mass expansion of contactless?
It works so well in London. Train, tube, bus, whatever, hop on, hop off, and you get charged at 4am or whatever as per your use.

Going outside London feels like stepping back in time 25 years, especially busses!

I can see still some need for 'tickets' especially longer journeys which will I guess be cheaper in advance.
For those, the ticket could be
-An online ticket printed at home
-An online ticket on a phone app, saved PDF etc
-A printed ticket from a vending machine, either via card or cash
They key thing is that the ticket format does not matter, it should just be a QR code, either from the machine or your phone etc.

Surely that must cover 99.9% of the population?
Discounts such as OAP rail cards should be either done via some app, or staff at stations could help people, in the same way staff help/check age when you buy alcohol at self service checkout.
Technologically it's all perfectly possible. The issue is firstly the cost of designing and installing the necessary software and equipment, and secondly the need for difficult policy decisions on issues such as:
  • how do you deal with journeys where there are multiple routes or TOC specific tickets
  • how do you deal with incomplete journeys
  • how do you deal with children and other people entitled to discounts
Again, none are insurmountable issues but it requires a degree of attention and care from a government that has proved sorely lacking.

Out of interest what are the limits/problems?
(Aside of the fact that the cost could soon add up if you took an on-the-day ticket from London to Manchester!)
There are children in London, seems to be ok!

Crossrail makes it all look very odd - it's the same physical train that goes all the way to Reading, but yet you can't use contactless for the last 3rd part of journey - places like Slough?
Yet there are red TFL busses go to Slough!
Contactless (but not Oyster) is valid out to Reading, and also now on the GWR branches off the line to Reading.

There are plenty of other places where TfL buses run but contactless/Oyster isn't accepted. Until the wider rollout of PAYG ticketing is completed (TfL have been awarded a contract to expand it to a further ~250 stations around London), that will continue to be the case.
 

mmh

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What % of train journeys that you personally make where you have no visibility of a conductor?
Myself, approaching zero %. The vast majority of my journeys start or end at unmanned stations, with no ticketing facilities, and are request stops. It's for the guard (I wouldn't ever use another word like "conductor" when speaking to them) to decide if they want to check my ticket or sell me one. it is very rare they do.
 

pt_mad

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All valid points and we would all like a staff presence at every station, but it clearly isn’t economic to provide that network wide. Many people manage to use unstaffed stations frequently without incident (as I do). Where there are ticket offices providing the only staff presence they are often barely open beyond the morning anyway, so I’m not sure they provide much of a deterrent to anti-social behaviour.
We are talking about stations which have a presence at the moment though aren't we and have had for many years?

There really are a lot of smaller stations which are in residential outer city areas which really are far better with a staff presence there.
 

JonathanH

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There really are a lot of smaller stations which are in residential outer city areas which really are far better with a staff presence there.
That is absolutely true but a visible security guard may be better than someone locked away in a ticket office.
 

LoogaBarooga

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Can't understand guards who don't go through their trains and do tickets. There's plenty commission there to be made for those who want it.
 

pt_mad

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Paper delay repay vouchers need to be abolished.



If a security guard is needed, employ one. More use than someone hidden behind glass in a booking office fairly remote from the platforms (as most Merseyrail ones are).
But replacing a once staffed station with a casual part time security guard is far insuperior. Casual employment is not something we should promote for our stations really in such a rich country imo.

Besides, a security guard isn't likely to do many other duties than security. Station staff act as security, do compliant routine security checks, they provide customer assistance including booked assistance, they can deploy ramps, they pick up litter, they clean, and they assist with station record keeping, they help in an emergency, and they sell tickets. Surely far better value than someone who's there for two days then somewhere else next week and who can do only security.
 

Moonshot

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I just answered the question about frequency of checks. No opinion was requested.
So how would you instruct the railway to improve the situation where everytime you make a rail journey, you never see a conductor?
 

Kilopylae

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I have two practical worries:

1. Minors, who don't tend to have bank accounts (it's true that some parents do now give their kids bank accounts, but in the short term this nevertheless remains a problem) and whom often travel by rail spontaneously, at least in and around Exeter. This could be solved if TVMs accepted cash but things seem to be going in the other direction.

2. Card errors when collecting tickets at the station. This has happened to me twice, and on both occasions it was solved by tapping my phone at the ticket office. I don't see how I'd deal with this if there was nowhere I could use the contactless app on my phone to verify my card, as I don't know my PIN and the physical card doesn't do contactless.

In general, I just dislike the idea. It gives me the same vibes as self-checkout machines at supermarkets. It might be 'cost-efficient' to eliminate unnecessary human contact (and make people jobless in the process), but the ruthless application of this kind of efficiency-orientated logic to something as basic as a railway ticket office strikes me as heartless and unimaginative.

How will you buy ... a platform ticket
It would not be hard to just let the small number of people who wish to assist a friend/relative, access facilities or spot trains through the barriers.

I know myself, a phone based ticket will be a dis-incentive..
The same would be true for me, but it isn't hard to print off an e-ticket. I will miss CCSTs on purely nostalgic grounds when they go, but this isn't a move to mandatory mobile phone usage.

It probably is obvious, but simplify fares - properly.
That's likely.
 

yorkie

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Where do those individuals who don't have modern mobile phone or access to the Internet purchase tickets from if Ticket Offices won't exist or unable to purchase from a machine?
If there is no facility to buy before boarding, they can buy on board with no penalty.

That's when they bother to come round
Very much depends on where you are. In my experience you won't get far on (say) the suburban Glasgow network without a ticket check! But this is a whole new topic...
What % of train journeys that you personally make where you have no visibility of a conductor?
Probably best discussed in a new thread; I'll happily reply if you'd like to create one (feel free to link to it from here).

It probably is obvious, but simplify fares - properly.
Feel free to create a thread to discuss how you propose this be done; you are welcome to link to it from here. I'll be happy to reply in the thread; I'll have a few questions about how it might work :)

Crossrail makes it all look very odd - it's the same physical train that goes all the way to Reading, but yet you can't use contactless for the last 3rd part of journey - places like Slough?
You can.
I have two practical worries:

1. Minors, who don't tend to have bank accounts (it's true that some parents do now give their kids bank accounts, but in the short term this nevertheless remains a problem) and whom often travel by rail spontaneously, at least in and around Exeter. This could be solved if TVMs accepted cash but things seem to be going in the other direction.
Providing there are staff to issue tickets on the train, that's not a problem.

It needs to be made clearer that passengers can buy on board if they are unable to buy before boarding, though. Some of the current messaging is inappropriate.
2. Card errors when collecting tickets at the station. This has happened to me twice, and on both occasions it was solved by tapping my phone at the ticket office. I don't see how I'd deal with this if there was nowhere I could use the contactless app on my phone to verify my card, as I don't know my PIN and the physical card doesn't do contactless.
This is a big concern however the TOD (ticket on departure) system is on its last legs and being replaced by e-tickets, which will make collection a thing of the past.
 
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Bletchleyite

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But replacing a once staffed station with a casual part time security guard is far insuperior. Casual employment is not something we should promote for our stations really in such a rich country imo.

Besides, a security guard isn't likely to do many other duties than security. Station staff act as security, do compliant routine security checks, they provide customer assistance including booked assistance, they can deploy ramps, they pick up litter, they clean, and they assist with station record keeping, they help in an emergency, and they sell tickets. Surely far better value than someone who's there for two days then somewhere else next week and who can do only security.

Most ASB doesn't happen while booking offices are open. It happens mostly in the late afternoon and evening. The security guard is cheaper and can be there when needed only.

I have two practical worries:

1. Minors, who don't tend to have bank accounts (it's true that some parents do now give their kids bank accounts, but in the short term this nevertheless remains a problem) and whom often travel by rail spontaneously, at least in and around Exeter. This could be solved if TVMs accepted cash but things seem to be going in the other direction.

Do you live in the same country as me? Kids have had savings bank accounts for years (I had one in the 80s), and kids old enough to travel alone can have debit cards or prepaid cards. And cash is dying - at different rates, I will give you - in London it is in its final death throes.

Any kid that doesn't have a bank account and is old enough to be out on their own needs one - it is that simple!

Even earlier in life they should be encouraged to save in an "adult" way in a bank account to learn about how to manage money.

2. Card errors when collecting tickets at the station. This has happened to me twice, and on both occasions it was solved by tapping my phone at the ticket office. I don't see how I'd deal with this if there was nowhere I could use the contactless app on my phone to verify my card, as I don't know my PIN and the physical card doesn't do contactless.

TOD is a nuisance and needs to go away. Buy online and print/put on your phone, or buy at the TVM and get it there. Most TVMs now do advances.

Feel free to create a thread to discuss how you propose this be done; you are welcome to link to it from here. I'll be happy to reply in the thread; I'll have a few questions about how it might work :)

I will pass, as too many people on here cannot accept that revenue neutral or slightly revenue positive is the only way this will happen, which will mean winners and losers, and people on here cannot accept that those who can presently benefit from "niches" in the present complex system will be the main losers.
 
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