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The future of staff at stations

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Gathursty

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What do you think will stay the same or change with respect to staff at stations, both ticketing and customer assistants etc... in a post-Covid and cashless society?

For where I live, I expect to see staff at both of Wigan's stations specifically cleaning and making sure social distancing occurs and dealing with issues regarding train capacity.
I live near to Merseyrail and with such massive passenger decreases everywhere, I predict most of the ticket offices to shut and just have ticket machines instead. They may retain staff presence to deal with anti-social problems but these could just be a roving team, not specifically at one station all the time.

I can foresee more customer assistants with more responsibilities and many ticket offices closing.

What do you think?
 
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Taunton

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We are on the DLR, which for more than 30 years has had no station staff, not even at Canary Wharf. It runs through some run-down parts of east London, and the ungated stations are left wide open 24x7, but I've honestly never seen a piece of vandalism or graffiti on it.
 

LowLevel

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What do you think will stay the same or change with respect to staff at stations, both ticketing and customer assistants etc... in a post-Covid and cashless society?

For where I live, I expect to see staff at both of Wigan's stations specifically cleaning and making sure social distancing occurs and dealing with issues regarding train capacity.
I live near to Merseyrail and with such massive passenger decreases everywhere, I predict most of the ticket offices to shut and just have ticket machines instead. They may retain staff presence to deal with anti-social problems but these could just be a roving team, not specifically at one station all the time.

I can foresee more customer assistants with more responsibilities and many ticket offices closing.

What do you think?

Making sure social distancing occurs is the passenger's problem. It's nothing to do with the staff. Everybody has discretion to move away from something they aren't happy with (and that includes leaving a train) and anyone complaining will be told that that is what they should do.
 

Huntergreed

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Making sure social distancing occurs is the passenger's problem. It's nothing to do with the staff. Everybody has discretion to move away from something they aren't happy with (and that includes leaving a train) and anyone complaining will be told that that is what they should do.
What if it's the case that this is what a passenger wants to do but their advance ticket doesn't allow them to stop short?
 

BJames

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27 Jan 2018
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1,359
What do you think will stay the same or change with respect to staff at stations, both ticketing and customer assistants etc... in a post-Covid and cashless society?

For where I live, I expect to see staff at both of Wigan's stations specifically cleaning and making sure social distancing occurs and dealing with issues regarding train capacity.
I live near to Merseyrail and with such massive passenger decreases everywhere, I predict most of the ticket offices to shut and just have ticket machines instead. They may retain staff presence to deal with anti-social problems but these could just be a roving team, not specifically at one station all the time.

I can foresee more customer assistants with more responsibilities and many ticket offices closing.

What do you think?
Depends how far into the future you're looking. As LowLevel says, social distancing is the passenger's responsibility - remember it is guidance and not actually the law (see the COVID-19 temporary forum for discussion around this). You've said in a post-Covid society: social distancing and train capacity issues won't be a problem in a post-Covid society - indeed in some locations I suspect it won't last much longer at all, as getting everyone back to work and an extremely limited capacity on public transport are mutually exclusive.

I live at a London Overground operated station which has recently (end of January I think) had its ticket office hours shortened to 06:00-10:00, Monday to Friday only, when it used to be 06:00-20:00 M-F and open for much of Saturday as well. We have (at least - but usually not more than) one member of staff from first train till last, as at all Overground stations. I very much expect it to remain this way for a while at least. Ticket office closures are probably relatively inevitable for an increasing number of stations and lines but the major stations will hold on for a while yet.
 

jumble

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1 Jul 2011
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1,100
It is interesting to observe the situation at Rayners Lane
The gateline staff now sit in the old ticket office behind a glass screen and mostly leave the barriers open which must be leaking revenue like no ones business if people are getting on elsewhere without touching in
( I am not criticising as staff safety is no doubt seen as more important and with spitting imbeciles around who would blame them)
I suspect that the only reason they are needed at the station at all is because of the need to tip out Piccadilly Terminators
 
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