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Savings in Booking Offices

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Aictos

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Would there be any savings made by merging multiple ticket offices managed by rival TOCs into one travel centre, for example let's take St Pancras International which has a East Midlands Trains and a FCC booking office - would it not deliver savings if staff used one booking office instead of two separate ones?

The disused booking office could then be used for other purposes such as a retail unit or even a First Class lounge.

I'm not suggesting massive reductions in staffing but more streamlining the role of the ticket offices.

What do others think?
 
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SS4

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Having two separate offices will ease congestion unless one is poorly placed which would be important at St Pancras.
I don't see how money would be saved unless staff were laid off?
 

MidnightFlyer

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I can only think of St Pancras and Euston where this exists, and I can tell you that both stations need both booking offices. Closing one would be a massive backwards step unless the other was expanded to cover it.
 

Aictos

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I can only think of St Pancras and Euston where this exists, and I can tell you that both stations need both booking offices. Closing one would be a massive backwards step unless the other was expanded to cover it.

I'm just surprised McNulty never picked up on it - if it was going to happen then yes as you so rightly pointed out, the remaining booking office would need to be much bigger.

Also there are more stations then just St Pancras and Euston which have this setup, ;)
 

MidnightFlyer

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Also there are more stations then just St Pancras and Euston which have this setup, ;)

Not for separate TOCs though as far as I am aware - places like Edinburgh have two: one EC main, and one SR one for the excess fares. Places like Southampton Central have two, but these are to serve different entrances to stations where if they ad to be combined it would be a massive, massive inconvenience.
 

hairyhandedfool

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Gatwick has three I think, two in the airport and one in the station (two for Southern, one for FCC).

I would think the main issue as far as TOCs are concerned is revenue against savings, If a TOC sells a ticket, it gets a percentage of that sale, where there is two ticket offices for two different TOCs, there is a fair chance that the profit from that is more than the cost of running the offices.
 

tsr

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Gatwick has three I think, two in the airport and one in the station (two for Southern, one for FCC).

Doubtless the Southern ticket offices also sell tickets for what they claim is another TOC - I think its name is Gatwick Express, but nobody ever uses it anyway... ;)

I must pop in and confuse the ticket office staff one day.
 

Clip

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Trouble with having one 'super' ticket office is who manages the staff? Sounds a benefit for one TOC is having the burden taken off them and a headache for the one who takes it on through having extra staff to manage not to mention the cost.
 

wintonian

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Trouble with having one 'super' ticket office is who manages the staff? Sounds a benefit for one TOC is having the burden taken off them and a headache for the one who takes it on through having extra staff to manage not to mention the cost.

Network Rail as they manage the 'super' stations anyway?

Not forgetting Padington ticket offices for HC & FGW.
 

DownSouth

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Trouble with having one 'super' ticket office is who manages the staff? Sounds a benefit for one TOC is having the burden taken off them and a headache for the one who takes it on through having extra staff to manage not to mention the cost.
An agreement between the two (or more) companies where all staff are technically employed by just one of them. That company would manage the staff, but the costs and profits would be shared between all of the companies involved according to defined proportions and/or which trains the tickets were bought for.

Network Rail would be right out, leave them to concentrate on their role as the below-rail operator. It would be a major conflict of interest for them to be providing services directly to end users and competing with the above-rail operators.
 

IanXC

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Network Rail as they manage the 'super' stations anyway?

Not forgetting Padington ticket offices for HC & FGW.

Network Rail stations have ticket offices run by TOCs, eg Leeds is operated by Northern.

I think the issue here is that there's a minimum size to run a ticket office and it to cover its costs. I'd be astounded if the locations mentioned were not operating at that level. You must remember there are diseconomies of scale as well as economies of scale.

 

Clip

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Network Rail as they manage the 'super' stations anyway?

Not forgetting Padington ticket offices for HC & FGW.

And who manages and runs the ticket offices there? Oh I know - The TOCS.
 

PinzaC55

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York has one office for all companies and a separate one for Grand Central on the north end of Lendal Bridge. I would have thought Arriva would have got rid of that immediately.
 

Clip

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York has one office for all companies and a separate one for Grand Central on the north end of Lendal Bridge. I would have thought Arriva would have got rid of that immediately.

Has York always had just the one then?Seems sensible if its alway been that way but as we have seen with the merging of TOCs to do so nowadays would probably leave people on different T&Cs and all the bother that brings.
 

142094

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Has York always had just the one then?Seems sensible if its alway been that way but as we have seen with the merging of TOCs to do so nowadays would probably leave people on different T&Cs and all the bother that brings.

I can't remember it having any more than the current one.
 
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