Ticket office closures

[Bletchleyite]

Interesting, ta. Avanti still ask for a photocard number before issuing weeklies, so must vary by TOC indeed.

This sounds dangerously like an excuse for Avanti's notorious Euston gateline staff to refuse travel.

I wonder if this is only for LNR's smartcard seasons, not paper ones?

 

[yorkie]

To those who are calling for most ticket offices to close and cite efficiency as a reason, how is it efficient if they're closing the office but still paying the same number of staff who will instead be working outside rather than inside the office? The new multi-role station position will likely be paid more than the current ticket office rate, so where are the savings?

Is this based on experience in other countries which closed ticket offices, such as Sweden? Or is it based on systems closer to home, such as London Underground?

Or is this pure conjecture with no basis in reality?

3) There was one instance when I was about to travel to Exeter for a job interview. I bought a ticket at the window, waited for my train and as it was approaching, got a phone call to tell me the interview was cancelled because heavy snow had made travelling difficult for some of the interview panel. I was able to go back to the ticket office and get a refund on the basis that my journey was now redundant. If I had bought the equivalent e-ticket could I have got a refund in this situation?

Yes; the forum's site allows this within 2 hours. And no need to queue! But any further queries of this nature are best placed in a separate thread.

 

[Starmill]

It's not whether the TOC is allowed to waive the £10 - they clearly are - it's whether those individual staff are meant to be using the non-issue process to waive it.

This is formal policy at some operators, and as such, generally not the staff bending the rules to be kind. Usually it comes with a time limit of about an hour between issue and the customer surrendering the ticket for refund, and on the condition that they've not yet set off.

Most retailers permit this online also, but similarly shroud their policy of doing so. LNER do publish their online sales policy on immediate refunds for unused tickets, which is that the refund must be requested within two hours. Trainsplit do this also, I can't remember if they publish as much but @Adam Williams has said it's two hours.

 

[Philip]

Because there won’t be the same number of staff. I thought that was obvious.

Not really; they have stressed that there will be no forced redundancies within a particular timeframe and the number of people who will potentially take voluntary redundancy or a VLS offer is still guesswork at this stage.

Is this based on experience in other countries which closed ticket offices, such as Sweden? Or is it based on systems closer to home, such as London Underground?

Or is this pure conjecture with no basis in reality?

It is based on the last offer which was rejected, which outlined the new station role with a 9% pay increase over 2 years. If very few people take up voluntary redundancy, where are the savings coming from in closing the office but keeping the staff in a new role with a higher pay?

 

[Starmill]

Not really; they have stressed that there will be no forced redundancies within a particular timeframe and the number of people who will potentially take voluntary redundancy or a VLS offer is still guesswork at this stage.

There are currently substantial numbers of unfilled ticket office roles nationally, which cannot be hired into. Voluntary Severance is likely to be available again to some of those who wished to receive it last time but missed out. Taking these together there will be more roles than people, but fewer roles than pre-pandemic.

 

[bramling]

Quite. For a business, accepting cash is almost always a downside: risk of theft / skimming, vulnerability to counterfeit notes, vulnerability to scam artists ("no, I gave you a twenty"), arguments about the wrong change, time spent counting it up, time spent paying into a bank, etc.

My hairdresser has gone the opposite way, and is now cash only. What would be the benefit for a business like that in not taking card payments?

 

[GWVillager]

Cash is a valid payment method. If the station you board at has no facility (at the time of travel) to accept cash, you are entitled to board the train and pay at the first opportunity.

Most trains have staff on board; not all Guards can issue tickets (e.g. Merseyrail, SWR inner suburban etc) but most can. Those trains which do not have Guards may have staff whose role is dedicated to customer service (e.g. Lumo and many others, such as the electric trains on Scotrail in the Glasgow area). If there are no staff on the train who can issue tickets (e.g. the vast majority of CrossRail or Thameslink services, among others), or those staff do not reach the customer, then there is no opportunity at that stage for the passenger to pay for the journey.

There may be another opportunity, such as at the exit station, or the interchange statioon (if applicable), but in some cases there is simply no opportunity to pay; if that happens then the journey is effectively complimentary.

Interesting, thank you for the information.

 

[OuterDistant]

My hairdresser has gone the opposite way, and is now cash only. What would be the benefit for a business like that in not taking card payments?

At the risk of sounding cynical, keeping things off the books?

 

[6Gman]

Ticket offices at a few of the larger stations are all that is needed, anything else, do on line at TVMs or from a guard.

How do you buy from the guard if the station has barriers?

 

[FenMan]

My hairdresser has gone the opposite way, and is now cash only. What would be the benefit for a business like that in not taking card payments?

Hairdressers and nail bars are notorious for money laundering. Anyway, back to the topic.

 

[Bletchleyite]

This is formal policy at some operators, and as such, generally not the staff bending the rules to be kind. Usually it comes with a time limit of about an hour between issue and the customer surrendering the ticket for refund, and on the condition that they've not yet set off.

Most retailers permit this online also, but similarly shroud their policy of doing so. LNER do publish their online sales policy on immediate refunds for unused tickets, which is that the refund must be requested within two hours. Trainsplit do this also, I can't remember if they publish as much but @Adam Williams has said it's two hours.

Thanks. It's a good idea to offer this, as it's customer-friendly not to penalise people for making a genuine error when booking, which is easily done and potentially expensive, e.g. booking for the wrong day entirely.

I've also had staff do non-issue and re-issue in preference to doing an excess after travel had started (the old Euston suburban booking office particularly, now gone), but I suspect *that* isn't quite policy.

 

[AdamWW]

How do you buy from the guard if the station has barriers?

I don't know what happens if you need to excess a ticket at a barriered station without an open ticket office. Perhaps you just don't.

 

[Bletchleyite]

How do you buy from the guard if the station has barriers?

If the station has a gateline it has staff who can help you. It isn't allowed to have gatelines without staff somewhere on site, at least not at the moment.

 

[AdamWW]

If the station has a gateline it has staff who can help you. It isn't allowed to have gatelines without staff somewhere on site, at least not at the moment.

I appreciate that but how can they help? Can gateline staff issue an excess fare? I wouldn't have thought so.

Or do I just show an off peak ticket and promise that I'll excess it on the train?

 

[Bald Rick]

Not really; they have stressed that there will be no forced redundancies within a particular timeframe and the number of people who will potentially take voluntary redundancy or a VLS offer is still guesswork at this stage.

No compulsory redundancies does not mean the same number of people in post.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I appreciate that but how can they help? Can gateline staff issue an excess fare? I wouldn't have thought so.

Some at least will be able to. LNR RPIs have portable ticket machines, if I recall, so could. If they just staff gatelines on the cheap with security guards they can't do anything really.

 

[6Gman]

I appreciate that but how can they help? Can gateline staff issue an excess fare? I wouldn't have thought so.

Or do I just show an off peak ticket and promise that I'll excess it on the train?

If the station has a gateline it has staff who can help you. It isn't allowed to have gatelines without staff somewhere on site, at least not at the moment.

Yes, I appreciate that. So presumably I go to the barrier and ask the gateline staff to issue me with (e.g.) a Priv West Midland Day Ranger. For which I wish to pay with cash. How long is that likely to take?

 

[yorkie]

It is based on the last offer which was rejected, which outlined the new station role with a 9% pay increase over 2 years. If very few people take up voluntary redundancy, where are the savings coming from in closing the office but keeping the staff in a new role with a higher pay?

OK so you don't have any evidence that other countries/systems/networks which have adopted this approach have become less efficient; thanks for confirming.

I appreciate that but how can they help? Can gateline staff issue an excess fare? I wouldn't have thought so.

Or do I just show an off peak ticket and promise that I'll excess it on the train?

If there is no facility to obtain the excess fare at the origin, then gateline staff MUST allow you through.

The excess can be purchased at the first opportunity (under the same principles as new ticket purchases, which are described above).

 

[Bletchleyite]

Yes, I appreciate that. So presumably I go to the barrier and ask the gateline staff to issue me with (e.g.) a Priv West Midland Day Ranger. For which I wish to pay with cash. How long is that likely to take?

If it's a line with guards on board, about half a second as they ask to see your staff ID and just let you through to get it from the guard. Privs are a very specific case. For everyone else, Northern's approach of putting Rovers and Rangers on the TVMs is the fix.

 

[WAB]

Traincrew could strike on the basis that if they are medically restricted they are found station grade jobs. Obviously if these jobs no longer exist they can no longer be put in these jobs.

But this is about booking clerks, not station staff in general. What sort of numbers typically require this accommodation? I imagine only a small proportion of this small proportion would need sedentary work, in which case I'm sure the TOCs would prefer to slightly overstaff the booking office at a major station like Leeds or an information point at a major terminus in response to individual need rather than retain the current number of booking offices and booking clerks.

 

[AdamWW]

If there is no facility to obtain the excess fare at the origin, then gateline staff MUST allow you through.

The excess can be purchased at the first opportunity (under the same principles as new ticket purchases, which are described above).

I appreciate the principles, and I don't know how common it is at the moment for a barriered station not to have an open ticket office at peak times - maybe this doesn't really arise yet.

But I wouldn't have thought the railway would be very happy with a situation where ayone trying to get through a barrier with an off-peak ticket at the wrong time can just say they'll upgrade it on the train and have to be let through.

Never mind the issues with actually training staff to permit this given that I don't think it is probably something they would come across very often.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I appreciate the principles, and I don't know how common it is at the moment for a barriered station not to have an open ticket office at peak times - maybe this doesn't really arise yet.

But I wouldn't have thought the railway would be very happy with a situation where ayone trying to get through a barrier with an off-peak ticket at the wrong time can just say they'll upgrade it on the train and have to be let through.

Never mind the issues with actually training staff to permit this given that I don't think it is probably something they would come across very often.

This is where some true simplification would fix things.

If you moved to fully single fare pricing and removed the admin fee, it could simply be a case of "buy a new ticket and refund the old one". Excesses would only be needed for mid-journey changes, thus would only need to be able to be done by traincrew and roving RPIs.

 

[Philip]

OK so you don't have any evidence that other countries/systems/networks which have adopted this approach have become less efficient; thanks for confirming.

It's difficult to take your opinions on this subject seriously because you do have a rather biased opinion against ticket offices, I'm guessing based of a handful of negative personal experiences of using them.

 

[Starmill]

I appreciate the principles, and I don't know how common it is at the moment for a barriered station not to have an open ticket office at peak times - maybe this doesn't really arise yet.

But I wouldn't have thought the railway would be very happy with a situation where ayone trying to get through a barrier with an off-peak ticket at the wrong time can just say they'll upgrade it on the train and have to be let through.

Never mind the issues with actually training staff to permit this given that I don't think it is probably something they would come across very often.

It's fairly common already, for example Gatwick Airport, Cambridge North, Oxford Parkway, Bond Street, Queenstown Road and Harrow & Wealdstone don't have a ticket office but I'd expect the ticket gates to be in use for nearly all departures.

Certainly in the cases of Gatwick Airport, Oxford Parkway and Cambridge North there's usually someone who can issue tickets available to assist. I would be quite surprised if that were ever the case at Bond Street or Harrow & Wealdstone though, and certainly it would very rarely be the case at Queenstown Road.

 

[Darandio]

It's difficult to take your opinions on this subject seriously because you do have a rather biased opinion against ticket offices, I'm guessing based of a handful of negative personal experiences of using them.

Not really. You just rarely have any evidence to back up anything you say.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

What we don’t hear about are the many hundred times more people who happily go about ordering e-tickets, buying postage on line, doing car tax on the Gobernment website, buying plane tickets on an app, etc etc because they find it easier (because, in general, it is).

My wife just renewed her passport and I was surprised she was allowed (encouraged) to take a selfie (with controls) for the photograph requirement.
If the hostile-environment Home Office can cope with online photos I'm sure the TOCs can for railcard/season ticket renewals.

 

[Starmill]

Or just do away with photocards and accept the odd bit of passing around. They already have for weeklies.

That said, if ITSO is the future for seasons a personalised ITSO card with photo orderable online or by post isn't a stretch.

I received one of these from ScotRail in 2013.

 

[43066]

My hairdresser has gone the opposite way, and is now cash only. What would be the benefit for a business like that in not taking card payments?

Ha! So has my barber, and he openly admits it’s because he’s cooking his books! He took one of the government Covid support loans believing it was a grant. Him misunderstanding something rather basic is all someone else’s fault, so he’s trying to reduce his tax bill to fund the repayments.

Nice bloke, but he isn’t the sharpest pair of scissors in the draw, so to speak.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

At the risk of sounding cynical, keeping things off the books?

Correct imho

 

[Bletchleyite]

My wife just renewed her passport and I was surprised she was allowed (encouraged) to take a selfie (with controls) for the photograph requirement.
If the hostile-environment Home Office can cope with online photos I'm sure the TOCs can for railcard/season ticket renewals.

Did that ages ago. Amusingly it doesn't work the e-gates...