To be honest, considering around 90% of transactions made at a ticket office can be made at a ticket machine, I think it is reasonable for ticket office staff numbers to be reduced. At the moment, yes, there are certain transactions that can only be made at a ticket office - e.g. refunds, rovers, buying a ticket with an origin from a different station, etc... However, most of these could be programmed into a ticket machine, and those that cannot - such as refunds - could dealt with online.
However, before this can happen, there must be a big shift towards using ticket machines. It's not happening at the moment, so some marketing would help!
The one thing I don't agree with is DOO on InterCity trains. I can't imagine what it would be like to be on an 11-car DOO Pendolino, with hundreds of passengers on board, during severe disruption.
I'm rather sad to say it, but I agree. I've had more than my fair share of problems getting the right ticket from my local station - and not always (but usually) from the young trainee or agency staff. As a result, I've been tempted to use the TVMs, but they haven't sold the tickets I want either (extensions etc).. so I've gone to booking online wherever possible.
The poorly trained, or totally disinterested, ticket office staff are doing themselves no favours. If they're genuinely untrained, I sympathise (and likewise, I'd accept them saying 'sorry, I don't know how to do that' even if I'd be disappointed). In the last year or two, I've had so many saying 'You can't do that', 'I can't do that here', 'You'll have to get it there' and other attempts to palm me off. One one occasion, I went to ask the gateline RPI to sell me an excess ticket (off-peak to peak) and he said 'Why the hell didn't the <ticket officer> man sell you it? He's just lazy' and walked over with me to get him to do it!
Smart ticketing and getting e-tickets will totally transform travel (sic) and we'll soon have multiple generations that are perfectly fine with technology and will be able to understand an app on their phone to get all the info they need. In fact, the way we're going, the next generation will probably be unable to even communicate with a member of staff as they'll have to do everything online via SMS or IM.
Finally, TVM software has to be updated - with proper usability testing. I am sure that will happen too, one day. Maybe get Apple to develop the UI! Technology is my life, but even I dislike using TVMs as they are. Design them well and people will accept them, just as people accept cash machines and, increasingly, using self-checkouts in stores.
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In the long term driverless trains could be used and just have a member of staff on board for emergencies.
Unless the railway was even more tightly contained, I don't think that could work as no amount of cameras or sensors would be able to detect the various things that could happen - from trespassers to lineside workers etc.
The technology is there to run things like on the tube or DLR, but you'd likely need to keep a driver there looking out (but with the train driving itself, what's to keep the driver alert?) as it wouldn't be any good having him/her 6 coaches back. DLR trains are a lot shorter for one, but it's also a very controlled environment.