I'd love to see some decent change - perhaps along the lines of a climate ticket, or even a National railcard, however the Government/Establishment aren't interested in change that actually benefits passengers, so sod them.
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Future of Ticket Office Consultations launched
- Thread starter ainsworth74
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I'd love to see some decent change - perhaps along the lines of a climate ticket, or even a National railcard, however the Government/Establishment aren't interested in change that actually benefits passengers, so sod them.
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1D54
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Six months plus in the last four years a vast majority of the general public were unable to use the rail network so that figure might be slightly misleading.
Is that really surprising, given that we were propagandised over and over again for at least two of those years that there was a good chance we'd die if we spoke to another human being or touched a surface someone else had touched?
But, given that, it seems likely that those still buying tickets at a ticket office or a TVM are keen to continue doing so despite such apparent mortal risk to life and limb, and so there is little reason to expect it would fall any further if everything else was now kept equal.
GRALISTAIR
Established Member
Agreed. They want to defeat the RMT. (not as bothered about ASLEF I don't think).
LNW-GW Joint
Veteran Member
If GBR existed, would it have gone along with the policy - or announced it themselves, rather than the RDG?
What has the GBRTT (the transition team) got to say about it? What have they been doing this past year or so?
There's lots of opprobium being aimed at the government on this, but what if it is what "GBR" (the much-desired industry "guiding mind") wants?
What has the GBRTT (the transition team) got to say about it? What have they been doing this past year or so?
There's lots of opprobium being aimed at the government on this, but what if it is what "GBR" (the much-desired industry "guiding mind") wants?
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Or to put it another way, "It's not fair that the government won't subsidise my gallivantings on the rail network even more than they currently do".
No - it'll be looking at the trend of how ticket sales have been made over time, not the volume of tickets sold.
I doubt it - usually when a trend sets in it doesn't get reversed - you can see similar trends on all sorts of things - volume of cash transaction, cheque usage, even landline phone usage. The common denominator is the change has been driven by technology, same being true of train ticket sales.
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I guess that's a result of covid. Social distancing & avoiding touching surfaces pushed people towards their own devices?
TOCs like LNER are leading the push with apps/e-tickets. The stats on the LNER consultation doc are wild. e.g. Durham only 1% ticket office, 9% TVM & 90% digital/other.
It’s a continuation of a trend. The trend has continued for the last year where Covid hasn’t been a factor. It was just surprising to me that the reduction of tickets bought at ticket offices has been (nearly) matched by a reduction in tickets bought at TVMs.
It would be interesting to see (and I'm sure the data's available if someone wanted to pull it) percentages of sales by channel for each TOC over the past year compared to, say, five and ten years ago. Not asking for "Their Ticket Office" vs "Other Ticket Offices" level of detail, just the high-level categories.
Sadly such information is undoubtedly deemed to be commercially sensitive, so the chances of it happening are somewhere between slim and nil!
Sadly such information is undoubtedly deemed to be commercially sensitive, so the chances of it happening are somewhere between slim and nil!
weeklycommuter
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The distribution of ticket purchase methods will inevitably be very different for different types of tickets and journeys so this by itself tells us nothing. How does it compare for short local journeys decided on the day and long distance journeys planned well in advance? What is the effect of smart cards on the distribution of methods of season tickets purchases including new flexi seasons? Has there been a big increase in the number of advanced purchase tickets made available? How has the number of journeys made with touch in and out changed? I am concerned that advance purchase tickets instead of being used selectively on longer distance train journeys running at less popular times are now available even on mid week morning peak trains into London terminals and this is adding to the problem of overcrowding. I would like this practice stopped, advance purchase tickets should never be available for train services that have high usage.
Philip
On Moderation
Where I work things slowly got busier from Spring 2021 up to a peak approximately this time last year. I feel the strikes may have had an effect as sales have dipped since then.
weeklycommuter
Member
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Advance purchase tickets should be prohibited on all services that have any peak restrictions. Advance purchase tickets should only be available on services for which the lowest price off peak ticket is valid.
So it's been a long while (measured in years) since I bought a ticket. And even then it would have probably been online via a pick-up-at-the-vending-machine. I think the last time I bought a ticket from an actual ticket office was Whiston to Lime Street around 8 or 9 years ago.
Since then of course we've had apps, e-tickets, etc. Of course those of us on this forum who tend to be rail staff or train nerds (myself the latter category) knew about these apps when they came out. Casual rail travellers won't, though. So they'd have still bought paper tickets (either from office of TVM). The impact of Covid is that when people were literally told if they came too close to another person, they'd kill granny, people became aware of mobile tickets and e-tickets. So whilst it was a one-off event that probably drove customer habits to change, it has also brought customer awareness.
And realistically, if you know you can - from the comfort of literally wherever you happen to be at any time of the day or night - check the train times, reserve a seat if necessary, and buy a ticket, then why would you go back to queuing at a ticket line waiting for a piece of paper to be printed out and paying for it over the counter? No evil fascist Tory Brexit conspiracies, just common sense.
[As an aside, I see similar effects in my work as a lawyer. Prior to Covid, from about 2000 onwards, it was possible to have court hearings held by telephone or video calling. Video calling was literally unheard of unless you were a Kazakhstani oligarch arguing over billions (probably because video technology back then meant an actual TV-style video camera and a leased line to the courtroom). Telephone hearings were few and far between and tended to be restricted to 10 minute hearings where everyone was agreed, although occasionally longer or contentious hearings were held. But rarely in the scheme of things. Various multi million £ failed IT schemes were tendered for for video equipment in court rooms which never worked properly and weren't adopted widely.
Come Covid and of course all access to court buildings stopped overnight so by necessity every hearing was by telephone or video. HMCTS (the government organisation which runs the Court Service) relaxed its rules and permitted courts to use off the shelf video conferencing such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams. Amazingly, as soon as there was competition, the expensive in-house system (known as "Cloud Video Platform") suddenly started working properly. Within a few weeks everybody from the court staff to judges to barristers and solicitors got the hang of how to work remotely.
Of course Covid ended and in-person court hearing resumed, but now many courts and judges will conduct hearings by video or telephone whenever its convenient. I've just looked at Liverpool County Court's list for tomorrow and probably half of the cases are remote (not mine unfortunately).
The way of the world is changing, and the only thing Covid did was give a kick up the backside to hurry things along in a path they would probably have taken, eventually, anyway.]
Since then of course we've had apps, e-tickets, etc. Of course those of us on this forum who tend to be rail staff or train nerds (myself the latter category) knew about these apps when they came out. Casual rail travellers won't, though. So they'd have still bought paper tickets (either from office of TVM). The impact of Covid is that when people were literally told if they came too close to another person, they'd kill granny, people became aware of mobile tickets and e-tickets. So whilst it was a one-off event that probably drove customer habits to change, it has also brought customer awareness.
And realistically, if you know you can - from the comfort of literally wherever you happen to be at any time of the day or night - check the train times, reserve a seat if necessary, and buy a ticket, then why would you go back to queuing at a ticket line waiting for a piece of paper to be printed out and paying for it over the counter? No evil fascist Tory Brexit conspiracies, just common sense.
[As an aside, I see similar effects in my work as a lawyer. Prior to Covid, from about 2000 onwards, it was possible to have court hearings held by telephone or video calling. Video calling was literally unheard of unless you were a Kazakhstani oligarch arguing over billions (probably because video technology back then meant an actual TV-style video camera and a leased line to the courtroom). Telephone hearings were few and far between and tended to be restricted to 10 minute hearings where everyone was agreed, although occasionally longer or contentious hearings were held. But rarely in the scheme of things. Various multi million £ failed IT schemes were tendered for for video equipment in court rooms which never worked properly and weren't adopted widely.
Come Covid and of course all access to court buildings stopped overnight so by necessity every hearing was by telephone or video. HMCTS (the government organisation which runs the Court Service) relaxed its rules and permitted courts to use off the shelf video conferencing such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams. Amazingly, as soon as there was competition, the expensive in-house system (known as "Cloud Video Platform") suddenly started working properly. Within a few weeks everybody from the court staff to judges to barristers and solicitors got the hang of how to work remotely.
Of course Covid ended and in-person court hearing resumed, but now many courts and judges will conduct hearings by video or telephone whenever its convenient. I've just looked at Liverpool County Court's list for tomorrow and probably half of the cases are remote (not mine unfortunately).
The way of the world is changing, and the only thing Covid did was give a kick up the backside to hurry things along in a path they would probably have taken, eventually, anyway.]
Paul Duck
Member
This whole idea from the Government/Rail delivery group is disgusting.
They are telling me that the £1m worth of ticket sales we currently do at NTR will 100% be kept when the ticket office is pulled out,no chance.
Cutting staffed hours to just 7 from 13 a day is a joke. 60% of our assist are in the PM so should be just leave them at the mercy of the train manager which will create delays on a main Line station and will leave vulnerable passengers possible left behind or on board.
I had to get the train manager on an LNER on Friday deploy the ramp as I was busy helping someone else. It created a 5 min delay. Resulting in lost path all the way to London and an e mail from LNER with in 30 mins wondering what happened.
What the hell TPE think ticket office staff now is beyond me. We already get out from behind the glass at least a couple of times every hour to help everybody. There is so much more to it than that little piece of orange ticket. I haven’t met a single passenger at Northallerton who thinks this is a good idea. As for cost saving, how much does a fatality cost the railway industry? So how much have we saved the industry in past 3 years by preventing 4? We didn’t do that from been hidden behind the glass as they say we are.
They are telling me that the £1m worth of ticket sales we currently do at NTR will 100% be kept when the ticket office is pulled out,no chance.
Cutting staffed hours to just 7 from 13 a day is a joke. 60% of our assist are in the PM so should be just leave them at the mercy of the train manager which will create delays on a main Line station and will leave vulnerable passengers possible left behind or on board.
I had to get the train manager on an LNER on Friday deploy the ramp as I was busy helping someone else. It created a 5 min delay. Resulting in lost path all the way to London and an e mail from LNER with in 30 mins wondering what happened.
What the hell TPE think ticket office staff now is beyond me. We already get out from behind the glass at least a couple of times every hour to help everybody. There is so much more to it than that little piece of orange ticket. I haven’t met a single passenger at Northallerton who thinks this is a good idea. As for cost saving, how much does a fatality cost the railway industry? So how much have we saved the industry in past 3 years by preventing 4? We didn’t do that from been hidden behind the glass as they say we are.
Bantamzen
Established Member
This actually where using online functionality has another advantage, to the customer at least. If someone who would normally only use a ticket office thinks that there may be disruption, perhaps they are simply abandoning their plans and not trying to see if their journey is possible. Whereas someone used to using online booking would already know if their journey might be possible using the websites or apps, and would plan & buys accordingly.
For the record I signed the petition in the coffee shop at Shipley this morning as quite honestly I can't see platform roles other than the ticket checks surviving long once the ticket office is closed. However having done so I had to think hard to remember the last time I used a ticket office, and this was probably at least 5-6 years ago. These days I use a combination of ticketing websites & mobile apps for one-off, season and flex tickets. And thanks to Northern having already moved from m-tickets to e-tickets, being offline isn't a concern as I simply load the tickets onto the phone through the app, and for one-off tickets have an e-mail backup. I understand that some people are still very uncomfortable with mobile app use, but more and more people of all ages are using them. And it shows given the number of beeps you hear on Northern services as the guards pass through the trains.
So whilst there may still be a strong case at many stations to retain some level of static ticket sales, I honestly think in time this will diminish much further over the next few years. And whilst there may still be some arguments for people with accessibility needs, others such as people being too old or worrying about battery life are rapidly becoming moot. For the former there still needs to be some work, but for most there will be tech solutions out there, its a matter of finding the right ones. Many businesses and organisations have found solutions to tech based jobs for people with accessibility needs, so its not inconceivable to do the same for rail travel.
WelshBluebird
Established Member
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Whilst I broadly agree with you on this, surely the solutions should be in place before closing pretty much all the ticket offices?
I'd also say that even if the above is the case, at the very least the large busy "hub" stations should absolutely retain a ticket office like part of the station where passengers who need assistance can go to find staff (rather than the staff just being wherever - which usually means you can't find someone when you need to!).
Bantamzen
Established Member
No I do agree. All the products and solutions need to be in place to allow a scale back, as well as giving ticket office staff opportunities not just to be kicked "outside" but to other potentials roles in the TOC. And perhaps large hubs need something akin to the old travel centres, where people with extra needs as well as people with complex journey plans could get help.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
I could certainly see an argument that between closing booking offices (people behind glass mostly selling tickets for immediate travel) and travel centres (a more convivial type atmosphere where more time is taken, with TVMs and phones used where you know what you want) the wrong one was chosen.
At MKC (unlike Bletchley - not sure why - possibly the more confusing fares due to multiple operators?) there is typically a queue of people just buying outboundary Travelcards and Off Peaks.
"I wish travelling by train was more like catching a flight." said no rail traveller anywhere ever.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Some aspects of catching a flight are good, e.g. true medium-agnostic e-tickets*. Why shouldn't we have the best of all worlds? Less so flights because passports tend to be needed, but I consider it a positive that if I rock up at a Premier Inn all I need to do is tell them my name (and if disambiguation is needed, the first line of my address), nothing at all needs presenting nor can be forgotten, lost nor run out of battery.
* By which I mean the ticket is a record in a database and any reference to it may be presented, be that a barcoded printout or just the PNR reference scrawled on the back of your hand in cheap biro.
py_megapixel
Established Member
We now have those, though, unless I'm misunderstanding what you mean by "medium-agnostic".
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
What I refer to as true e-ticketing would be a step up from what we have now - a system where a barcode is the ticket and the database just contains scans, so if the e-ticket isn't used it never appears in a centralised database.
This involves the ticket being a record in a database, to which any reference may be presented to confirm validity. I don't, as noted, have to show anything to book into a UK hotel, just give some personal details so they know who I am. Nothing can be lost, forgotten nor run out of battery.
Practicalities of ticket inspection speed probably mean it wouldn't really work if everyone just gave their name, but what I would like to see is a situation where if I book a ticket, I can retrieve, via any railway sales channel, that booking, be that print it from my PC, call it up on my phone and add as a PKPASS or Google pass, go to a TVM and reprint it, or even ask one of these new fangled not-booking-office-staff for a copy. I should also be able to modify (excess) or request a refund from any access channel at all regardless of how and where it was booked, and add optional services to it like reservations, cycle reservations, prebooked meals (where offered, e.g. the Sleeper), additional luggage (Lumo) etc.
This requires a step-change in the concept, from the barcode being the thing holding value (but with controls against multiple copies resulting in multiple uses) to the database record being the thing holding value and the barcode (which could be a simple single-dimension one, which would have the benefit of scanning more easily) simply referring to it.
I realise some people don't like the idea of named tickets, this needn't be compulsory but of course you'd not have the benefits associated with it if you did choose a transferrable un-named ticket. It would however still be a record in a database. Just that you could only do things with it via the original booking account as there'd not be a way to prove it was yours, unless you already had a printout or PDF copy of it. I however prefer the idea of a named ticket which can by its nature be more replaceable, because I can prove it's mine, and I only ever book tickets for me these days.
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Not seen any answers to these yet.
And to quote from my own related thread years ago:
I think I've seen it suggested on this forum recently that by registering on GWR's website, you can create (and adjust?) reservations, but I'm not sure if that's for any service or only theirs. In any case, seems like there should be a TOC-agnostic way of doing that, doesn't it?
What a complete non-sequitur. Why did you bring Sweden in to the matter?
I’m not sure you even understood what I was suggesting. But I shan’t engage with such kind of replies and accusations of being a conspiracy theorist. Go look at the billions the Tories gave their mates during Covid and come and and call me a conspiracy theorist
I can't think of any, other than free booze.
Bit in bold - because if you've bothered to read all the posts you'll see Swedish state railways have made exactly this change - in fact if anything they've gone further.
So if in your tinfoil hat world this is only being done to give somebody's "mate" a bung, that presumably means somebody's "mate" benefitted in Sweden or in London when TFL did it. Or perhaps, more logically, but it doesn't support your conspiracy theory, this is the inevitable change as a result in technology driven changes in the way people buy train tickets.....
I find the wording of the posters rather odd. Most of the stations on my area will lose all ticket office staff and dispatchers. So if the headcount goes from 7 to 0 how on earth are staff going to be assisting at the ticket machines and the like?
I'd be intrested to know if the consultation could be considered legal when it has been worded to suggest staff will be available when they clearly won't.
I'd be intrested to know if the consultation could be considered legal when it has been worded to suggest staff will be available when they clearly won't.
The theory is mobile staff outbased at hubs largely - so say your hub is, Big Town, the staff at Big Town will also look be expected to book on at and look other Notso Big Town, the next station down the line. Technically the smaller station has zero headcount as the staff aren't technically based there anymore, but they'll still work there.
The whole premise that staff will be more able to help customers outside the ticket office is a total lie. I can understand that fewer people use ticket offices than in the past. But people do still appreciate a staff presence even if they do not plan to interact with them.
Looking at stations round here, it looks like generally around a 70 - 80% decrease in staffing hours, with some stations having no staff at the busiest times of the day. Plus, no doubt where they exist waiting rooms will disappear, toilets, TVMs and PIS which are inside buildings as well. Given some of the locations anti social behaviour will inevitably soar and many passengers will feel that using the railway is unsafe. If the railway wants to drive away custom it sounds like it's doing a pretty good job of it.
Looking at stations round here, it looks like generally around a 70 - 80% decrease in staffing hours, with some stations having no staff at the busiest times of the day. Plus, no doubt where they exist waiting rooms will disappear, toilets, TVMs and PIS which are inside buildings as well. Given some of the locations anti social behaviour will inevitably soar and many passengers will feel that using the railway is unsafe. If the railway wants to drive away custom it sounds like it's doing a pretty good job of it.
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