Durham, ticket barriers removed

[cuccir]

Interestingly and with little fanfare, the ticket barriers have been removed at Durham station this week. Virgin East Coast have confirmed on Twitter that it's a permanent move:

We want our stations to feel open and welcoming for customers however we have kept them in those we feel some will take advantage of.

Has it happened elsewhere? And is it connected to Virgin's planned reduction in station staff? In principle as a commuter I'm a fan of this as it speeds up moving through the station, but I'm less keen on the idea of jobs going!

 

[37038]

Presumably using it as an excuse to palm off some station staff to recoup some of their now public losses...

 

[edwin_m]

Wasn't Durham barriered before Newcastle because of the amount of ticketless travel between them, when inspectors couldn't get through a long train on the short journey? Now that Newcastle is barriered maybe they consider it isn't needed.

 

[lincolnshire]

Interestingly and with little fanfare, the ticket barriers have been removed at Durham station this week. Virgin East Coast have confirmed on Twitter that it's a permanent move:



Has it happened elsewhere? And is it connected to Virgin's planned reduction in station staff? In principle as a commuter I'm a fan of this as it speeds up moving through the station, but I'm less keen on the idea of jobs going!

Think I noticed that they have also gone at Newark too in the entrance and the ones that never ever worked further down the London end of the north bound platform.

Didn,t get chance to look at the stations either side of Newark.

 

[sheff1]

* Spend 000's on putting barriers in "to improve the customer experience".

* Leave the barriers open for much of the time.

* Remove the barriers to make stations "open and welcoming".

You've got to laugh or you'd cry.

 

[IanXC]

Deciding to downgrade your facilities for checking that passengers entering and leaving stations have valid tickets seems like a very odd move for a franchise reportedly struggling financially. A cynic might suggest that declining revenue numbers might help a point of view being painted with the DfT...

 

[yorkie]

Didn,t get chance to look at the stations either side of Newark.

I visited both stations either side of Newark a week or two ago.

Retford - not gated
Grantham - gated (but gates were open when I visited; it was a weekend so this was unsurprising)

Peterborough has ticket gates but I have never seen them in operation (I'm never there at commuting times though).

King's Cross almost always has at least one set of ticket gates open (usually on the footbridge).

 

[Gadget88]

Strange they seem to be adding them in Scotland I remember Inverness and Perth getting them.

 

[LowLevel]

Grantham have now been removed and Peterborough is apparently being done shortly. They weren't much use latterly anyway as they were either never manned or the staff had a policy of just letting anyone through regardless.

Presumably a clever ploy to squeeze more money out of the Government to put them back in their negotiations.

Removing barriers at a station like Peterborough with a fair number of DOO trains is an interesting move.

A cynic would suggest I should also cash in by hitting the increasing numbers of people we are already seeing wandering in last minute with 'I didn't have time to buy one at the station' in the pocket with some shiny large Anytime fares to increase my sales commission as it seems to be fair game for the TOCs to remove the visual deterrent - a honeypot approach as it were

I very rarely used to sell tickets out of Grantham - that has been steadily increasing since the gates were left open and since they were removed entirely it's at least 5 per train heading towards Nottingham.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Are they just being moved around to tick franchise agreement boxes?

 

[LowLevel]

Are they just being moved around to tick franchise agreement boxes?

Not as far as I know, they're being ripped out everywhere except where someone else pays for them as far as I can see.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Not as far as I know, they're being ripped out everywhere except where someone else pays for them as far as I can see.

Surely they should pay for themselves? If not they should all be removed. There is no sense in having them if they don't cause fare income to be higher than without them, that is basically their only purpose.

 

[NSEFAN]

I thought that fitting barriers to stations was part of the franchise requirement for VTEC? It seems mad to remove them. Once the local dodgers see the barriers are gone they will only be encouraged to keep on dodging!

 

[Hadders]

Ticket barriers are a bit of a flawed concept at inter-city stations. Take somewhere like Peterborough, there is a high chance of a ticket check on a VTEC train because of the long distance involved. There are other operators using Peterborough (Great Northern, Cross Country, EMT and Greater Anglia) but there's little incentive for VTEC to use their staff and resources to enforce other operators revenue.

Barriers don't stop a passenger on a long distance train 'doughnuting', only a manual check will detect this.

There is a risk of revenue loss on short distance inter-city journeys where there isn't time to check tickets but it might be that VTEC earns very little revenue from such fares - most of it may well go to a regional or local operator depending on the ORCATS share.

 

[takno]

Strange they seem to be adding them in Scotland I remember Inverness and Perth getting them.

The Scottish government are very keen on them because they are so useful for the short-hop journeys in the central belt where it's difficult to get down the train. They've never been allowed to fit them to the intercity platforms at Waverley for example though because almost all the East Coast operators over time have been vigorously opposed to them. Doughnutting basically renders barriers useless to Intercity operators for revenue protection anyway.

Meanwhile barriers at places like Birmingham New Street and Leeds have a very real and significant cost to passengers in terms of inconvenience, making access to retail facilities harder, and pointing them in the hands of some of the worst trained and often most objectionable staff on the railway. Costs to operators include equipment costs, paying (though not training) the objectionable staff, extra assistance costs for passengers who could have been put on and off trains by family and friends, lost revenue from people who won't go through that again and reduced rental income from retail units.

 

[urbophile]

'Doughnutting'? I can guess what that means but could someone explain?

 

[takno]

'Doughnutting'? I can guess what that means but could someone explain?

Buying a ticket from Newcastle to Manors and another from Finsbury Park to Kings Cross in order to get through the barriers at both ends.

 

[johntea]

Meanwhile Northern / Arriva seem to be trying to barrier up as many of their stations as possible at the moment, in Yorkshire anyway...be it actual barriers or human barriers!

 

[NorthernSpirit]

What's the chance that these barriers at Durham, Newark and elsewhere being shifted to Northern to install in places such as Halifax?

I did read somewhere (might have been on the old Northern Railways Forum which closed in 2013) that the barriers at Bradford Interchange were in fact the old ticket gates from Leeds that were redeployed.

 

[edwin_m]

Ticket barriers are a bit of a flawed concept at inter-city stations. Take somewhere like Peterborough, there is a high chance of a ticket check on a VTEC train because of the long distance involved. There are other operators using Peterborough (Great Northern, Cross Country, EMT and Greater Anglia) but there's little incentive for VTEC to use their staff and resources to enforce other operators revenue.

Also long distance services probably carry first class coaches and the barriers do nothing to prevent standard class passengers using these. The people bringing the free snacks in First Class will often check tickets too.

It's also very noticeable that the likelihood of on-train checks, at least in standard, goes down when the main stations get barriers. I don't know if this is management taking the opportunity to cut on-train staff, or the staff just considering there is no point.

Barriers are useful is for commuter runs where if there is a guard at all they are unlikely to get down the train during the journey. They may also have a role for closer-spaced stops on intercity runs where again it's difficult for someone to get through the train between every stop, but also quite easy for fare dodgers to evade an "all tickets joined at X" type of check. I suspect a substantial part of the population of Kettering and Wellingborough see the service between the two as essentially a free ride. This is why I understood Durham was originally barriered.

 

[IanXC]

In this mad dash to criticise barriers, and the staff who operate them, I think we're forgetting the benefits that they bring. Surely its better that revenue is protected in multiple ways than only one which fare evaders will get to know? Remember every bit of revenue that the railway defends reduces its dependency on subsidy, and hence government whim.

I must say, over many, many years I have never had an issue with the gateline at Leeds. Never been any question with me that they know what they're talking about.

 

[takno]

In this mad dash to criticise barriers, and the staff who operate them, I think we're forgetting the benefits that they bring. Surely its better that revenue is protected in multiple ways than only one which fare evaders will get to know? Remember every bit of revenue that the railway defends reduces its dependency on subsidy, and hence government whim.

I must say, over many, many years I have never had an issue with the gateline at Leeds. Never been any question with me that they know what they're talking about.

I'm still sulking about how much longer it takes to get to other platforms at Leeds over the bridge rather than the subway, so new-fangled nonsense like barriers isn't going to meet my rather exacting requirements. I'm not convinced they get people through them faster than the old staff working at manual barriers though, and they do seem to use less-qualified people to run them.

 

[Crossover]

In this mad dash to criticise barriers, and the staff who operate them, I think we're forgetting the benefits that they bring. Surely its better that revenue is protected in multiple ways than only one which fare evaders will get to know? Remember every bit of revenue that the railway defends reduces its dependency on subsidy, and hence government whim.

I must say, over many, many years I have never had an issue with the gateline at Leeds. Never been any question with me that they know what they're talking about.

Putting the staff aside, the actual barriers and technology employed at the station must be one of the worst on the national network

 

[yorksrob]

In this mad dash to criticise barriers, and the staff who operate them, I think we're forgetting the benefits that they bring. Surely its better that revenue is protected in multiple ways than only one which fare evaders will get to know? Remember every bit of revenue that the railway defends reduces its dependency on subsidy, and hence government whim.

I must say, over many, many years I have never had an issue with the gateline at Leeds. Never been any question with me that they know what they're talking about.

I find it astonishing that the barriers at Wakefield Westgate can't even cope with my zone3 plastic metro card. Probably due to this poor design, they are open most of the time and their installation must rate as one of the most pointless wastes of money on the modern railway.

In terms of making on-train checks more effective, I think randomly alternating between checking people as they come on after each stop (as seems to be the norm) and holding a full check of the whole train at varying locations would be a better way to catch out ticketless travel on long distance.

 

[yorksrob]

I'm still sulking about how much longer it takes to get to other platforms at Leeds over the bridge rather than the subway, so new-fangled nonsense like barriers isn't going to meet my rather exacting requirements. I'm not convinced they get people through them faster than the old staff working at manual barriers though, and they do seem to use less-qualified people to run them.

There were far fewer steps to negotiate on the old subway, that's for sure !

 

[Wallsendmag]

Barriers are being removed at Durham,Newark NG and Grantham , definitely not Peterborough


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

 

[Wallsendmag]

* Spend 000's on putting barriers in "to improve the customer experience".



* Leave the barriers open for much of the time.



* Remove the barriers to make stations "open and welcoming".



You've got to laugh or you'd cry.

National Express put them in that's three operators ago.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

 

[Iskra]

In this mad dash to criticise barriers, and the staff who operate them, I think we're forgetting the benefits that they bring. Surely its better that revenue is protected in multiple ways than only one which fare evaders will get to know? Remember every bit of revenue that the railway defends reduces its dependency on subsidy, and hence government whim.

I must say, over many, many years I have never had an issue with the gateline at Leeds. Never been any question with me that they know what they're talking about.

Sadly, I have.

Came off a severely delayed XC service that I boarded at Exeter (having missed my actual train due to a different train being cancelled due to flooding after which I was bussed to Exeter). So a very long journey was had, affected by further flooding, eventually arriving in Leeds close to midnight. Due to tiredness from said journey, I put my ticket through the barrier, which obviously retained it. I politely explained my mistake to the gateline assistant who got quite ****y, and proceeded to throw the contents of the ticket machine on the floor for me to rummage through, in front of other passengers. I'm pretty sure, that others had made the same mistake, but didn't bother to mention it after seeing how I got treated. Welcome to Leeds, indeed.

That said, there's nothing wrong with ticket barriers, just some of the people who staff them. Another frustration is when the barrier-staff don't know the rules.

Ticket barriers do also play a part in keeping anti-social behaviour off trains too.

 

[yorkie]

I've had a couple of staff claim my ticket was not valid via Leeds, despite being clearly valid via Leeds, but let me exit after a brief discussion. Most of the time they accept anything though.

It's clear to me that they are not trained adequately to know what tickets are and aren't valid, but that would be too costly.

One of the biggest arguments I had was at Lewisham. I was told that my South Yorkshire to Penshurst (near Tonbridge) ticket was only valid via WCML, Milton Keynes, Kensington Olympia, Redhill to Penshurst. This route was pointed out to me on a map showing the London & South East lines.

I pointed out that, although the route they pointed out was permitted, the shortest route was, in fact, via St Pancras and the Lewsham avoiding line and going via the station added very little to the distance and was a permitted route.

I was eventually 'let off'.

I witnessed appalling behaviour by FGW staff at Paddington a few years ago, and a long time ago now I had a break of journey dispute at Slough. Their behaviour, attitude and lack of knowledge were, quite frankly, scary. They wrote on the back of my ticket that it was not valid for travel. No staff looked at the back of the ticket for the remainder of my journey though.

And don't get me started on London Overground!

I have no issues with barriers providing they are never used to delay passengers and are not ever used to make false claims that valid tickets are invalid.

 

[yorksrob]

The question is, do barriers to an extent 'enable' bad practice and 'discourage' the acquisition of knowledge by staff.