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New Paddington ticket office

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The new ticket office at Paddington opens on Monday (April 18th).

It is a beautiful new retail space, anyone who visited the old ticket office at Paddington will be wowed by the amount of natural light in the new place.

Six Worldline smartwalls, no glass at the counters and a high quality design make this one of the best looking tickets offices in the country.
 

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Mikey C

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The new ticket office at Paddington opens on Monday (April 18th).

It is a beautiful new retail space, anyone who visited the old ticket office at Paddington will be wowed by the amount of natural light in the new place.

Six Worldline smartwalls, no glass at the counters and a high quality design make this one of the best looking tickets offices in the country.

With 3 out of the 15 desks open :lol:
 
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Smartwalls are the next evolution in ticket machines.

They have a much larger screen (typically 42 inch) than traditional TVMs and offer more information and third-party selling opportunities.

Currently Worldline have three smartwalls at Oxford Parkway and Parkeon have one at Harrogate and one at Leeds.

Whether they represent the future of ticket machines will be seen over the coming 12 months.
 

jimm

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Smartwalls are the next evolution in ticket machines.

They have a much larger screen (typically 42 inch) than traditional TVMs and offer more information and third-party selling opportunities.

Currently Worldline have three smartwalls at Oxford Parkway and Parkeon have one at Harrogate and one at Leeds.

Whether they represent the future of ticket machines will be seen over the coming 12 months.

They are also in use at Bicester 'Village'.
 

broadgage

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Will the luxurious new facilities be able to sell tickets any quicker than at the old ticket office ?
Queues of 20 minutes seemed to be the minimum, with 30+ being the norm. After a few excessive waits I always tried to buy elsewhere.

And no a TVM is not a realistic alternative for many customers due to the huge and complex range of tickets and the risks of a large "fine" if the wrong one is selected.
IME, TVMs are pretty useless even for some apparently simple tickets, Such as a first single to Taunton. The machines wont reliably accept Santander debit cards and also decline cash if more than IIRC £100, but they don't tell you this, so much effort may be wasted in trying different combinations of notes and different machines.

And as for "third party sales opportunities" that sounds like more complication, irritation and delay.
 

Blindtraveler

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Nowhere near enough to a Pacer :(
If these third party add ons included a wiget that allowed pre order and payment of a coffee and a burger and chips for collection on the way to your train I could see the point.

Is this new facility funded by crossrail?
 
Joined
9 Feb 2016
Messages
16
Will the luxurious new facilities be able to sell tickets any quicker than at the old ticket office ?
Queues of 20 minutes seemed to be the minimum, with 30+ being the norm. After a few excessive waits I always tried to buy elsewhere.

And no a TVM is not a realistic alternative for many customers due to the huge and complex range of tickets and the risks of a large "fine" if the wrong one is selected.
IME, TVMs are pretty useless even for some apparently simple tickets, Such as a first single to Taunton. The machines wont reliably accept Santander debit cards and also decline cash if more than IIRC £100, but they don't tell you this, so much effort may be wasted in trying different combinations of notes and different machines.

And as for "third party sales opportunities" that sounds like more complication, irritation and delay.

Queues should be shorter. There will be floorwalkers present looking to take people out of the queues if they can buy their ticket on the TVM. There will also be more desks at the new office as the advance ticket desks can help when the queues start to build.

Agree on the general sentiment towards TVMs though, they do make it harder to buy a ticket rather than easier.

Train companies are working on improving how this buying process works and there is pressure from the DfT to do so.
 

TEW

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5,841
Queues should be shorter. There will be floorwalkers present looking to take people out of the queues if they can buy their ticket on the TVM. There will also be more desks at the new office as the advance ticket desks can help when the queues start to build.

Agree on the general sentiment towards TVMs though, they do make it harder to buy a ticket rather than easier.

Train companies are working on improving how this buying process works and there is pressure from the DfT to do so.

As someone who can't buy tickets from a TVM, floor walkers annoy me. I'm sure most people would prefer another window to be open instead, which would reduce the wait slightly. Unless of course all windows are open.
 
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