GAUGE THE ISSUE: Save The Ticket Offices
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- Опубликовано: 1 дек 2024
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I will still think that ticket offices are important. When my train from Milton Keynes to Birmingham was cancelled I didn’t have a clue of what to do and luckily I got advice from the helpful staff in the ticket office. If it wasn’t for that man in the ticket office I would’ve had my day ruined 😢
I agree
As an autistic train enthusiast, I already struggle with sensory overwhelm, stress, anxiety and exhorbitant costs for travelling on the trains as is. But nine times out of ten, the best part of my journeys are the staff. Only the other day, a staffer at my local station ticket office got chatting to me about a steam railtour that passed through, and it was a thoroughly lovely exchange - let alone all the times staff have helped me out, reassured and supported me in times of crisis, and provided the best service when inevitably one or both of the ticket machines at my station arent working properly.
Put simply, this decision would put me off of train travel for good. And that thought breaks my heart.
That's about as much as I can scramble.together about my thoughts on the matter. This hurts.
Thanks for saying your piece Chris, in such a heartfelt and detailed manner. 👏
I work for a railway company, I can't say which one as it in my job description and I don't want my managers using this comment to "remove me". But I will say that closing tickets offices is a terrible idea. On my station, we have a branch line that terminates at the station. On this branch line, 8 out of 10 stations are unmanned and only have ticket machines. 5 of these machines have been crashed and broken by fare dodgers that use this as an excuse not to buy one. And when the machine is replace, it usually crashed again the same day. Plus I want to mention the barriers at stations, they are so out of date and need a redesign. They are so easy for fare dodgers to jump over, crawl under, and push through. My company can make more profit by keeping all ticket offices and building new floor to ceiling gates. But they won't listen to my union. That's why strikes have been going on for over 18 months. Not because we haven't found a compromise, but because companies won't even listen to us. If my company does get rid of all ticket offices, I give it 6 months before it's bankrupt.
I wonder what the cost of replacing the ticket machines is going to be. Perhaps if the locals smash enough of them, it would work out cheaper to actually employ a station attendant!
I can understand your emotion when you have been so badly misled by your union which seems to be under the delusion that its members should be able to dictate all the managerial decisions of a business to their own advantage, maintain outdated practices and inconvenience passengers without there being any consequences for its members' future job security. Nothing you mention in your post has anything much to do with ticket office staff. Fare-dodging occurred even when every station had a ticket window and fares are not always collected or tickets inspected by train staff on branch lines when they are constantly distracted by having to open and close train doors. After 18 months of strikes, the loss of thousands of pound in pay and ongoing misery for the fare-paying passenger don't you think the dispute is lost? Of course the government and RDG won't listen to your union because it is setting it face against any sort of accommodation with new technology by holding to ransom the employers and fare-paying public alike with its insidious series of increasingly pointless strikes. You really should remember that it is not the employer who pays your wages, it is the fare-paying customer and if you continue to discourage their use of the railways you could eventually loose your livelihood because fewer trains will run requiring fewer staff if routes close. Can you not grasp that or has your union so brain-washed you as to think there will be no consequences to all of this? So, yes you are right, your employer might go bankrupt, not because it closed ticket offices but because of your union's intransigence and refusal to admit to new working practices and negotiate a good employment package which might be available because of greater efficiency which is being driven by new technology.
Hey there Chris I have my own story about my own experiences with guardless trains and no ticket offices. My local station lost its ticket office in the early 2000s and tbf that didn't exactly matter since I commute regularly to collage and have built up a friendship with one of the guards who is always there to help me purchase my ticket however a couple of months ago the railway company trialed D.O.O and subsequently I couldn't get a ticket and when I arrived at my destination the man on the ticket barrier refused to believe my story not even allowing me to purchase a ticket for that service and subsequently the one home. He even went as far as calling the police who turned up and I was slapped with a 50 quid fine for fair dodging even though I had repeatedly offered to purchase a ticket. Since then and until the summer break I have opted to either travel by bus or by taxi if funds allow. So yer seems pretty stuipid. #keeptheguardonthetrain
As someone who has fallen asleep on the train and missed my station. I'm ever thankful to the kind human beings who were able to let me travel back to my home station free of charge. A machine cannot do that and I'd have had to pay a small fortune.
Helping you by defrauding their employer of a fare for a journey that you 'stole' from the railway company because of your own irresponsibility. Not good.
Sometimes the best safety precautions are the railway staff at the scene. It’s like replacing all the firefighters with automated fire trucks while a massive fire in a skyscraper with people trapped inside, sometimes there can never be a better substitute for a trained staff member.
Hi Chris, you touched on most points that I would consider, ie disabled, non-tech, etc. My cheapo phone doesn't do aps, only text and talking, and I only have it for emergencies such as my car dying in the middle of nowhere (so far it hasn't!). I don't travel by rail very much any more, due to the expense and inconvenience (half an hour to the nearest station) - it's easier to drive there, starting when convenient to me, and door to door, then leaving again at my choice of times - no rushing to get to an obscure station - to find the train left five mnutes early (no chance) or has been cancelled, and the next one is tomorrow (probably!). Closing ticket offices is the worst thing simce Mr Ernest Marple told Beeching to cut the system to shreds.
I brought tickets for the wrong day once and the ticket office were able to help me get the ones for the correct day so I deffo think we need the ticket offices open.
Two days ago I bought a return to Derby from Birmingham New Street, not a complicated journey. I spent five minutes trying to coax a ticket out of a machine but it would not proceed to the return part. I gave up, tried the ticket office where a human being completed the transaction in a minute, he agreed the machines are "rubbish". Against getting rid of ticket offices: most of the travelling public, disability campaigners, Labour mayors, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, some backbench Conservative MPs. In favour: Government ministers (paid lackeys) plus a few authoritarian techno utopians who will never admit there can be any circumstances where a human is superior to a machine.
I'm a bit of a scatter brain and often forget to check things such as whether trains will be running or not.
On the day on question, I arrived at the station and was about to use the ticket machine when I saw the booking office open. I went over there to ask to buy my tickets and the clerk said that there were strikes on that day.
Had I not gone to the window, I think its fairly safe to say I'd have been half way though my journey before I realised that strikes were on.
Actually, had an argument with someone in Jago's comments of the automation video that still feels relevant. I was talking about my work work as a conductor in New York on the Subway. About a month ago, I was on a train that was arriving at a platform that been closed all night while the rest of the station was still open, and it was still tapped off by a chest/waist high caution tape. These are the kinds of things a human can react to that a computer can't.
While my passengers limboed under the tap, I was calling the Rail Control Center to get someone from stations to get the tape down ASAP... and some tech bro type wanders along and repiles to my comment and insists that an AI like the kind he works with could have handled that with proper training and cameras and such.
There are people out there who seem to actively want to get our jobs eliminated, so that they can be employed developing and supporting our digital replacements. coughMuskratCough...
Meanwhile, what happens in their world when there is a power failure? AI kinda is useless without juice. Cameras and fare gates don't work.
Ah yes, woe betide us if we listen to tech workers on what technology can do. Perhaps I should dismiss you as a train bro type.
@@eldrago19 yes, we shouldn’t.
The tech he was pushing has a drawback…
Power.
Their implication was my job should be done away with and replaced by an AI…
An AI which, in an emergency when the power has to be cut, will stop working.
Would you like to be sealed in a tin can with 200 other people at the bottom of a mile long tunnel? No one knowing if you’re alright? No one on hand trained to lead you to safety now, not in an hour or so?
My job training requirements include evacuating my train, ether to the roadbed, to the walkway on wall of the tunnel, or another train.
My local station Malvern Link is possibly going on the list, which if it does we will have one machine for people to buy tickets from, yes its not the bussiest station in the country but you can sit there and count the number of people just going in one direction to being around 200 - 300 poeple an hour during the peak times which for one machine to deal with is laughable, it is already closed on sundays and makes it a nightmare for the older generation of passengers who now cannot even gedt a bus into Worcester as the bus company has stopped the sunday service, at one point there was talk abount no trains to or from worcester to malvern on a sunday which would of ment the only way to get there would of been in a taxi at arounnd £20 when it is £2 on the bus and £7 on the train
I'm concerned about the safety and security of passengers. Not to mention the fact that ticket machines do charge more for the same journey. Besides, it's much better to see a human being when buying a ticket rather than a heartless, soul-less machine.
2:42 I applaud your including several categories of people. I would also include people who don't want to book online because they don't want their bank account details online because of the risk of cyber crime; people who don't want to use smartphones because "typing" is hard without a real keyboard; people who don't want to risk buying a ticket and then finding that some unplanned event has prevented the journey, an event station staff would know about; people who need to book a ticket a ticket-machine won't let them buy.
Echo your comments on helpful ticket office staff. I sail so often need to take the train home. I and many of my friends can all tell tales of ticket office staff saving us shedloads of dosh. When it comes to machines selling tickets, don't call it Artificial Intelligence , call it Artificial Stupidity.
I live in Slovakia and my local line Bratislava - Komárno has only a couple of stations with ticket offices, as many other branch lines in Slovakia. As a compensation, you can buy a ticket with a guard on board the train. Thus reducing fare-dodgers and costs. Ticket offices are still in big junctions or more busy stations, but small local stations are reduced to a platform with a sheltered bench. But you can't have driver only trains on these lines if you want to abolish ticket office.
I think Ticket offices are important and you I agree with you Chris if there are no staff on trains, Stations, ticket offices etc where do we end up innocent people's lives are at stake us humans are the main key to keep railways going as you know I am Autistic and I rely on the railways to get me to where I need to go in order make a living, make my RUclips videos plus keep my mental health stable also to visit family elsewhere in the UK I like to purchase my ticket from the offices at Clapham Junction which is my local station.
I think ticket offices should not be set to closure and ticket offices are important.
Imagine this, you tried to buy a ticket in a ticket machine but the machine fails and the ticket office is closed; how on earth passengers can buy their ticket and still end up getting a “penalty fare”. And some people have trouble on booking a ticket over the phone because they’re not used to doing things on the app let alone on the phone.
Here in Australia, we still use ticket offices because if a ticket machine fails station staff, mostly the stationmaster, can help passengers to go to the ticket office should they need a ticket in other means of purchasing tickets.
There is a common and well known 'bug' in some/many UK Ticket Vending Machines (TVMs), particularly in the North of England.
When paying by card, the first thing the TVM does is contact your bank to reserve the funds (for up to 24 hours), when the transaction is complete and the bank has authorised payment, the ticket is issued and the reserved money is transferred.
Should communication fail between the machine and the bank, either because of a glitch in the machine, or on the internet connection, the TVM will take itself out of service and wait for the problem to be fixed, before returning to the home screen.
Glitches in the internet connection are common, so what happens during a transaction? Simple, the TVM stops the transaction, takes itself out of service until the connection is restored and then goes back to the home screen.
So imagine a passenger has £17 in their account and the ticket costs £9. The machine reserves the £9, loses connection, goes out of service until the connection is restored and then promptly forgets it was even doing a transaction. The passenger is then left with £8 in usable funds and no ticket, the train company won't authorise a new ticket to be issued because you haven't given them any money, and the bank won't release the reserved money because, in their eyes, the TVM might still request it (it won't). If the passenger travels without a ticket, they are liable for a Penalty Fare or prosecution for fare evasion because the machine will have returned to service with no log that it was out of use.
This is not a rare one-off occurrence, it is a regular event in the UK.
@@slorida I have read your comment but here’s what I mean
In Australia, we still have the ticket offices should the ticket machine fail, as you said before while in the middle of transaction; the station staff, including the stationmaster, can help passengers to direct them to the ticket office to buy their tickets should they need a ticket in other means of purchasing a ticket because all station staff including the stationmaster have records and a log book to provide proof to the authorities and the law enforcement authorities that the passengers have paid for their ticket should the ticket machine refuse a request for a new ticket and, like you said, the machine request for the money but they won’t. This is why ticket office, ticket sales staff and the station staff including the stationmaster can provide records and proof that the passengers paid their tickets in other means purchasing a ticket e.g. Ticket office.
One person (whose name I will not say) experienced this similar situation in a theatre on a busy day, he tried to buy a ticket to watch a show in a ticket machine but the ticket machine failed, he tried another ticket machine but same thing happened to the first machine. The customers were outside getting impatient, and just as the person was about to give up and enter the show without a ticket; a ticket sales lady managed to print a ticket for the person and the person paid for the ticket in the ticket venue area so that he can go watch a show with a ticket.
This shows why ticket office is very important and should not be set to closure.
An excellent piece. I find it very difficult to get my head round the greed and cynicism of the operating companies. Like all public utilities in a civilised nation (and railways ARE in a sense public utilities, and this is MEANT to be a civilised nation) the railways seem to be extremely vulnerable to abuse.
A public service that pits those it purports to serve against those who have invested in it for gain is so illogical and abusive and the whole idea is so, so cynical that it beggars belief. How can anyone who has a shred of empathy agree with such abhorrent behaviour?
Well done Chris and well done Mick.
I worked on BR before Nationalisation in a Ticket or Booking office as we called them. I think the answer to the proposed closures is this. Keep the booking offices open, but get rid of the outside contractors that come round once or twice a week to tidy stations. This will save money of course. So how do the stations get cleaned you ask. It is very simple, do what we did in BR days. Station staff sold tickets, made bookings etc, and between times we went out on the platforms and did the cleaning, bin emptying etc. This was done every day, not just once or twice a week. We reported any trip hazards, lights out etc. In winter we gritted the stairs and platforms and generally put our passengers first. We were in charge of our station, and ran it professionally. Lets get back to where the passenger comes first, and having pride in the job. Keep Booking office staff fully employed, and the stations open and something to be proud of instead of the dirty ghostly lonely places they will become if closed. Retired member of staff who was proud of the job he did, and liked by his passengers young and old. 😊
It’s interesting to see the difference in how tickets are handled, considering on a service like NJ Transit, tickets are usually good until you activate them, then you have a 2-3 limit on their use. Regarding the whole issue of guards and station staff. Most stations I’ve been to are usually unmanned, but the larger stations like Secaucus Junction literally could not function without station staff, considering it’s a junction for pretty much every train served by NJ transit. I could also never see NJT trains function without guards, as I’ve once seen a person have some kind of episode on the train and the guards had to check and see if they were alright, even keeping the train held at the station to allow for medical personnel to check him.
Meanwhile in Germany, you can ride all local trains on the network for 49 € without limits. One ticket to ride them all.
Hi Chris, just subscribed to the channel - I’ve been living here in Manchester 21 years and I use SailRail all the time to travel home to my family in my native Ireland via Chester and Holyhead to Dublin, where I use Irish Rail’s services to travel onto my family in Rural Ireland - one important reason for maintaining ticket offices is that sometimes ticket machines just don’t work and also, visitors from abroad just don’t understand how the railways or ticketing options work
To be brutally honest I think this is one of the worst decisions the railways in Britain have made since British railways. I understand we are in the 21st century but a lot of things can go wrong with computers which humans can then help us with. Many of the examples Chris has already talked about here but I want to talk about a story that happened to me just this week.
I live in Belgium and a lot of ticket offices have already closed including the one of my local station just down the road from where I'm currently living with my parents. I wanted to buy a ticket and I had typed in older necessary information but when it came time to pay I couldn't! the computer just wouldn't accept my card. Now I know people are going to say: why didn't you just try and use a different machine? Or why didn't you use cash?
well for one I didn't have any cash on me and the Machine only accepts coins. and the fact that I did use a different machine at the station I was going to (meaning I had to ride without a ticket and was luckily not to have a guard check it) and it worked perfectly there! so I also knew it was nothing to do with my card but it was a huge frustration for me. also I don't have an account on my app and I don't understand how to use it so I can't buy one on it! so that's another problem that could be fixed with somebody in the station selling tickets!
and this hasn't been a one-time thing this has been happening multiple times this year alone! So I definitely think closing down all those ticket offices is going to be a massive step backwards and also saving money in my book means spending money. Plus what are all those people that are out of a job going to do now?
I really think that the railways should think about what is more important to them in the long run: the satisfaction of the Passengers with a working and functional network even if it is 20 years behind the rest of the world? or having a very expensive network that has so many modern gadgets that it doesn't even work and costs of Fortune in body parts just to get one ticket to the next station?
In the end I think for us personally the answer is clear but not for the corporate idiots who only see dollar signs until they go bankrupt.
in the end they really need to be punched in the face of reality that they need people on the platforms and in those ticket offices to help out!
at least Wales and Scotland Aren't really affected. so hopefully it will remain that way.
I was at Upminster and I was at the ticket office and the tickets came out so quick. Someone was at the ticket machine before us and was still there when I left the office and I have to line up.
😊
But isn’t it about a sensible balance? If you travel the same route regularly, you probably know what ticket you need and the price. In your case, the machine was the solution. If you’re an infrequent traveller with a seemingly complicated travel plan, you really need the expertise of the ticket office team.
My local station has no ticket barriers, and there is a ticket office but hardly ever anyone in it, it’s basically begging for fare dodgers
The logical conclusion to doing away with people is that people will be done away with. This is a typical example of Accountants running things.....they know the price every-thing but the value of nothing.
Having had to help people at stations there was no ticket office people or platform staff, closing them down is just a baffling decision. I swear they are going to screw themselves over by doing something like this
It's not a baffling decision when there's a profit to be made. And if the companies go bust who will suffer? The whole of society, that's who.
So the fact that ticket office staff are being withdrawn would have had no effect on the circumstances you describe, would it? You can't swear to anything that might happen because you simply cannot know, can you?
But I had to help them due to absolutely no one being there and not wanting to get graphic there'd be one less life in the world had I not been around to help.
So not being rude, I think I know more than you think....you don't know me personally, you don't know who I know, so yes I'm completely sure it's going to come back around and bite them in the backside should they close the offices and reduce conductors and platform staff
I was going to take a train from Chester to Crewe last week. On trainline, the ticket prices for me was £22.50 one way so £45 all together. When I went to the Chester ticket office to buy a paper ticket, I picked up a Chester to Crewe return ticket for £9. I can’t actually believe that Network Rail are doing this to so many stations, with thousands of people loosing there jobs. Thanks goodness wales isn’t effected, I need Transport For Wales to be left alone.
Hi Chris I could'nt agree more And without getting political ,I just want this nightmare to end so I can talk to humans NOT machines on stations
As someone living in Ireland, I pray for your ticket offices.
I cannot express my gratitude to those at the gates who helped me my on holiday in scotland, Several times the ticket would not check into the barrier and if personel wasn't there we would have most likely been stuck and i would have missed my train
Great vid, I wouldn't have minded hearing about the T3, but this is great too. For me it's like all these things. I'm sure that even Dr Beeching closed some railways that needed closing. It's the wholesale assault, rather than the regular pruning. It always lets us down. All while that loud sucking sound I always hear outside - the one that draws all the value out of the UK economy. Life just got more expensive, so a swathe of people have been deemed surplus. It seems that this is how ends are made to meet, when leaders have little imagination. We need better leaders but I don't even think it would be fair to say that we get to vote for them any longer. I know your channel is about railways, but I think the issue is wider than just the railway. There is no sense to eliminating guards or station staff. Then again there is no sense to migration policy determined in Brussels, or national leaders chosen by the WEF. Its a top down authoritarian problem. Rational, logical justifications have no value in that environment, sadly. The only question I have relates to the location of the red line line where people collectively say, enough is enough.
Thanks for your thoroughly well thought out and clearly presented argument. I'm happy to be living in Wales!
In a world of bad ideas, getting rid of people from the railroad industry ranks up there in the top 10
We are having the wool pulled over our eyes. This isn't about modernising the industry its about saving costs if you look at the most progressive proactive orgnasitions who are in charge of transport they don't think ticket offices are a waste of money. The only way closing them would save money is to get rid of the staff, these aren't all big stations where staff could be wondering around the entire working day they are very small most are going to be in one place you know in an office... sat down... may as well put a window in and allow them to sell tickets and help passengers from the office... We are told that just 12% of tickets are sold via ticket offices but last year 12% of passengers equals 118.8 million passengers, clearly not a small amount if we were discussing and it was the in thousands it might be justified but its in the hundreds of millions and this year as rail usage grows even more, even more people will use ticket offices. Surely in a sensible world the only ticket offices you close are those which no justifiy retention i.e. those which don't generate enough revenue to cover their costs. Presumably the reason no one has proposed to close these offices before are because these do cover their costs.
Ticket machines as you point out can't sell all types of tickets nor can they issue railcards, they can't advise the cheapest fare and are fundamentally dumb and they don't always work... and not everyone is able or even willing to the internet. I have 26-30 year old railcard digital only but if I had the choice it would be a phsyical copy just like my old 16-25 year old one was. I read in rail magazine an argument that suggested that if offices close you will have to decriminalise traveling without a ticket otherwise a lot of people will feel that the train is not an option for them.
Redundancies are a bigger issue than is given credit for. Ticket office staff will not simply be moved to the platforms. Anyone believing that is extremely naïve. What happens to the staff who are made redundant? They get state benefits, so they get a little less money for providing no useful service.
Gate lines are not reliable enough to operate without staff supervision, so these will be removed or left open. Further reducing on-train staff is another proposal. So if tickets do not get checked at the end of a journey or on the train, many more passengers will simply not bother to buy them. The railways already need government subsidy to exist. Ticket sales are also used to measure who is using the services. How can you measure something which is not being purchased?
The unions & ToCs were about to agree last year until the government stepped in & changed the conditions.
It is not just railway workers either. Medical & Education staff have also been on strike lately.
The PM has said himself that his solution is to make it illegal for union members to strike. That is like removing the goalkeeper from a penalty kick.
Our current government is the most selfish & evil the country has ever had. They need to be stopped.
It's a shame how two main jobs are being taken away
The key point to me is the one by Mick Lynch. The legal obligation around staffing stations means that a lot more than ticket offices will go.
Another great video Chris 😃
My 86 year-old mum would never be able to take a train ride without using a ticket office. I think it's indirect discrimination.
And you're right: the "extra staff on the platforms" will quickly dwindle away...
Reminded when my local Station had suffered with nearly every post rush hour service being cancelled ( which didn't help normal services was a half hourly service and 3-4 services cancelled in a row) and we all had tickets for travel in the end the person who was solo manning the stations only ticket office with office hours normally being 06:30-10:45 in the morning but there was a permit to travel machine as well) that day talk about this person getting on the phone to her superior at the company main station who wound up getting permission to get us all minicabbed to the main destinations at the Tocs Expense
To add to your MARC Train Experience. There's some Regional railroads & Metro here in the US who have unstaffed stations, well let's just say it's more Harmful than helpful.
I am not the most sociable person, getting rid of all of the human jobs is not going to help people like me. Death to the robots!
I rarely if ever travel on trains, but I am very upset that they want to get rid of this. Tickets are one of the key components to train travel, so getting rid of it makes the system of transportation much more difficult. Not everyone has the internet or easy access, so it’s unfair for them to rely entirely on virtual tickets.
The trains for the people. The people for the trains. Brits, be glad you even have a rail network, fight for it and keep it! If nationalization is the way to go, go it! Let North America serve as a warning. We here were never asked if we wanted our trolleys and rail lines ripped up!
Fine. But those people who use the trains should pay for them.
@@superted6960 Only people who use the roads should pay for them
The British people did not want to lose 33% of their rail network either but this is exactly what happened between 1965 and 1970 because the railways were losing horrendous amounts of money, just as were passenger services in North America. Minor lines in the UK had been closing since the early 1950's because, the fact is, some of them should have never have been built in the first place. Some were the result of the 'railway mania' of the 1840's when every town and village wanted connecting to the nascent rail network and others were the result of competition between railway companies for lucrative city traffic. There was no overall planning authority and not much economic logic to the resultant network where many lines were duplicated, never turned a profit and were subsidised as feeder lines by a larger railway company. The rationalisation started in 1923 when 128 independent railway companies were amalgamated into just four but even then these entities failed to modernise and invest although WW2 did wreck the country's economy in the meantime. In 1948, when the railways were 'nationalised', an utter disaster IMO, a failed 'modernisation plan' which was subject to petty political bickering between regions culminated in a government call to 'make the railways pay'. This resulted in the 'Beeching Axe' and gave the UK fundamentally the network as it exists today, although there have been many closures and attempted closures in the meantime. In North America you got Amtrak when all the railroad companies' passenger assets were handed to the NRPC which assumed the passenger carrying obligations of the private railroads in exchange for the right to access their tracks. But in the UK railways are experiencing something of a renaissance with lines re-opening and passenger numbers growing. Sadly, some of this progress is being hampered by the intransigent and outdated attitudes of the unions. This can be no more better indicated by the mnemonic of one of them, ASLEF, which stands for the Association of Steam Locomotive Engineers and Firemen. How anachronistic can you be?
Two other big factors to consider:
1. Who else doesn't benefit from this change to primarily app-based ticketing? Foreigners; tourists, business folk, anyone from outside the country whose stay might be as short as a few days, whose data reception might be spotty depending on cell service provider, whose every minute of expensive overseas data usage is precious, and who might not know about needing a different app for a given TOC's service. If, say, an American tourist strolled up to the station at Manchester Airport after a long transatlantic flight only to find that they suddenly needed to fumble their sleep-deprived way through downloading a Northern Rail app, nevermind creating an account and registering their bank card, which might also charge extra fees for overseas transactions, all to try and catch the next service to Wales after the one they inevitably missed, how confident do you think they'd be about taking a British train again? Even worse in areas like the Southeast where multiple TOC's, each likely with their own apps, operate duplicate or near-duplicate routes; how many frustrated folks will be told by the guard "Oh, sorry, you bought your ticket with the wrong company's app. You'll have to get off at the next station and wait for one of their trains"?
1a. Another concern with foreign travelers is BritRail Passes. To save money and faff, it's pretty common for visitors who will be staying in the UK for an extended period of time and who will want to travel a lot to buy a BritRail Pass, which grants access on all British trains and some buses. But before this pass is valid for use it must be stamped at a British ticket office. So if someone were to want to activate their Rail Pass in an area with no more ticket offices, what then? Would they just be stuffed, several hundred dollars down the drain because of one dumb decision?
2. My other big concern with moving to primarily app-based ticketing is simple: Most ticketing apps SUCK! They're confusing, unreliable, often incompatible with other companies' apps, so journeys that require changing TOC's will be a nightmare, slow to load, data hogs, error prone, may or may not show the specific service you want (I still remember having to do a very specific dance to get the National Rail website to admit that the train between Llandudno Junction & Bleanau Ffestiniog actually exists). How many people are going to be stuck with their train right in front of them furiously hammering their phones because the bloody app keeps giving them an "Unknown Error"?
And that's not even mentioning phones that run out of battery, or if your phone's storage is full, or even if you didn't bring your phone that day for whatever reason. This is so short-sighted and stupid. Honestly, it feels like a classic political smokescreen to get people upset about one thing while distracting from something else; why politicians keep thinking this will result in anything other than the end of their political careers is beyond me.
Inn terms of using phone apps I would say you don’t leave buying your tickets till the day off your journey. I always buy them in advance. Also you can print off e-tickets, which I often do to make sure I have a printed copy. Not only that, I never get my tickets from national train line ( if I can help it! ). I always get them from the website for the company that runs the train. I find this far easier.
@@sodorflubbs5000 That part of my point though: A foreigner like me (Howdy from Texas) doesn't necessarily know which TOC operates which services, and may not know exactly where they want to go on a given day, especially if on vacation or a university Study Abroad program. I only used National Rail to check schedules because I didn't know about (at the time) Arriva Trains Wales, or Transport for Wales as it is now. If I had to download and register for a different ticketing app for every company that could get crazy, frustrating, and potentially distressing and expensive very fast.
I am a older person who travels and supports out railway, I have no modern phone or ap stuff, so do not use the trains any more. simple. I want to , but if i can not pay cash I'm out.
I am on the fence about this one. I can’t see how the railway can justify maintaining a building plus having to recruit staff just for the purpose occasionally selling tickets and providing assistance (Talking about the smaller stations here). I feel if these smaller ticket offices are to stay open they need to adapt. Maybe have them as shops/post office/cafes as well as acting as a ticket office and assistance.
I think the combination of a terrible ticketing system, trying to eliminate the on train inspector and closing ticket offices makes this issue a lot worse. Maybe if the ticketing system was simple (tap in tap out across the uk) and inspectors were kept on the trains then closing the offices may not be such an issue.
OUTSIDER’s OPINION: As an American with Somerset ancestry and railway enthusiast, I have always been in awe of how impressive and well-used the UK’s railways are. And this sounds like something stupid that they would do in the United States. Britain’s railways are seen as expansive and VERY NAVIGABLE…especially for tourists. I can only imagine how bloody tired UK rail users would become having to help clueless travelers from other countries if the ticket offices are closed. Don’t screw up your reputation for an efficient, reliable service!! GODSPEED!!😮 (…new subscription)
I think I need to add this. PLEASE dont just comment here, go to the internet and make your comment to Travel Watch, most operating companies websites will give you a link if you dont know how. Make your comment for EVERY station you currently use, you must submit comments in that way NOT in general copy and paste them if you wish. MOST OF ALL make your opinions known as many times as you like to the official places dont just comment here!!!!
Closure of ticket office is a bad idea.
Personally this move and the idea of taking the conductor away are unbelievably backwards moves. They like moves labelled as progress but are actually profiteering moves.
When I lived in South Shields 2017-2020 I used to use the metro to go into Newcastle a couple of times a week. It's a really good service, but with no conductor on there, at times the amount of antisocial behaviour was alarming. On one occasion I was on a metro coming back from Tynemouth and there was a group of teenagers with one of their "friends" who was black out drunk, kept coming around and shouting all sorts before passing out again. This metro was packed with people and at Pelaw the driver got out and came to find out what was happening. This was a 20+minute stop because of this. When my now wife had to get on a metro later in the evening to head to the RVI for a nightshift, metros were still affected time wise 3+hours later. A guard could have caught this earlier and either asked them to get off (potentially resulting in a smaller delay) or the driver could have had some support.
There was a guard on the Northern Rail service between Darlington and Saltburn when I lived in Midddlesbrough who made each journey amusing (I want to say Graham was his name). Even though I only usually got on to go to Thornaby (a sub 7 minute journey), when I was returning from work in the evening, if he was the guard there was usually a little sing song from him as he did his thing or when he did his stops announcement there was always some form of "and if you don't have a ticket now might be a good time to hide in the toilet." After a long day at work that was always chuckle worthy to me.
And as for ticket offices - recently in Bury St. Edmunds there was a lady who sorted out my ticket due to 1 working machine and a long queue. She remembered that I have to take an early train to Edinburgh once a month for meetings at my work's head office. She remembered me from sorting out an issue with her bank account before the local branch closed. She could have easily let me wait in the queue at the machine. After sorting me out, it became apparent the queue was due to someone having difficulty and she then helped the person by doing the same thing Chris has mentioned in the video, saw the gentleman was going to be comparatively overcharged to go to Lowestoft for the day and sorted him out a cheaper ticket.
It is a service that must stay and even though I have never worked in the rail industry (nor to the best of my knowledge do any of my family), I fully stand with the workers on this one.
It’s a bad idea,the only benefit will be to the Treasury who frankly need to be abolished.
I think its worth pointing out that most stations are already unstaffed. Ticket closures at stations with less than 250,000 jouneys per year (ie less than 1,000 per day) where passengers can buy on the train are probably a good idea. The current proposals reach well beyond that.
im out of danger as my local station (shrewsbury) is operated by TFW but i feel sorry for all those who arent lucky enough to have a station thats keeping its ticket office, i do believe the consultation is still open for a few days so get your opinions in and defend the railways and travelling public from the DFT which is slightly ironic considering the reason they exist
As a North American, this idea is very bad. Over here, our railways (for the most part) still have ticket offices. These are important, as many people (myself included) are not great with technology, and most online booking sites seem to usually be as anti-user friendly as possible. I also saw your video on getting rid of the guard, and with that and many other change in mind, all this together seems like a failure. So many people will loose jobs, and not only that, but it will be even harder on the driver as not only would he have the guards responsibilities, but he would also need to make sure that whoever is checking tickets is done his job. Checking tickets could also become a far worse job, as it would mean for some people standing out in the rain on station platforms all day. In conclusion, ticket offices need to be kept on railways, and honestly with how many staff reductions are being made in the U.K, I’m starting to slowly loose my respect for the U.K modern rail systems. This is off topic, but as a North American I have always liked how much more functional your rail systems are for passenger service then ours. In the U.S. Amtrak is not absolutely terrible, but Via Rail in Canada is pretty bad for a number of reasons, and with the changes being made in the U.K. I can see the rail systems there becoming just as bad. I sincerely hope they don’t though, and I wish all of you in the U.K. the best of luck to stop this from happening if you don’t want it to happen. Edit: apologies for the extremely long comment…
On our heritage line, there's a minimum requirement for 3 staff per train and usually 4 for steam not including non necessary staff like buffet and all platforms have at least 1 member of staff on platform. And even then the public still find new and innovative ways to do stupid things!
In Germany:
- most local trains are without guards
- ticket offices are just at the main station of big cities
- staffed plattforms are just at a few main station of big cities
- ticket machines are very complicated for „once-a-year“-passengers
- fully automate plattform announces often confuse passengers and staff
Most of the things mentioned are already a reality in Germany. And they made the situation worse.
As long as the UK is dominated by right wing politics the rail industry will continue to be brought down like this
Is.. Is EVERY station in the United Kingdom staffed? Because here in the Neterlands, we abandoned that idea long ago.
Only the very big stations have ticket offices and we manage fine. Yeah, sometimes the announcements are confusing but, except for some really small local trains that don't need conductors, the conductors are very willing to help when something went wrong.
Closing ticket offices is self defeating.
I live in Australia and I love trains and yet I have never been on a the modern network yet but if was to come to Britain and hope on a train I wouldn’t have a clue as to what I was doing or where I was going. I mean I love britains railway history and know a lot about it but god.
Disclaimer page: There are two "L"s in "solely" Were you thinking of a Middle of the Road song?
And what has King Charles got to say about the issue? He's quick enough to dish out knighthoods to Sir Jacob Rees Mogg.
One of the few comments I disagree with. The King or Queen awards honours on the recommendation of the Prime Minister of the day. I'd like to know what the weathervane leader of the opposition Keir Starmer thinks.
Wonderful video
Spicy take incoming: But this is just more examples of the long tendrils of Capitalism reaching over more and more of our public industries, because technology is getting to the point where it's easier to justify cutting people out of the mix. But if we can learn anything from the history of Aviation safety, it's that automation will always have its limits. Frustrating as the rail strikes may be, they are a necessary means to an end.
If you'll pardon my language, the bourgeoisie state doesn't give two shits about us. The only people they serve are the Capitalists who make bank off other people's labour. I regularly rely on staff to help me, a neurodivergent person, to ensure I'm finding the right platforms for connecting trains, especially when delays throw a wrench into the works. Staff have been instrumental in helping both me and my closest friends deal with the sometimes overwhelming stress of rail connections, and not everyone is a massive uber-train nerd like me who lives and breathes this stuff.
Long story short, axe the billionaires, not the ticket office. They are the people who want to make the Ronnie Barker British rail sketch a reality for privatisation (which, ironically, he himself ended up as an unintentional propaganda tool for).
The funny thing is that around Manchester, more often than not, the machines are broken. Ticket office staff must stay.
I am a very regular leisure user of the railways, both in the UK and in Europe, but I can't tell you the last time I bought a ticket from a ticket office and I don't intend to do so now. All my tickets are bought online, and have been since the facility first became available, and are now delivered electronically to my phone (paper tickets used to come in the post when the service first started many years go). And before anyone starts asking what about the elderly, well I am elderly and I find it insulting when it is inferred that people of my generation cannot use smartphones, websites and laptops etc. Those who refuse, or are too decrepit, to use these wonderful new devices are a fast disappearing cohort as nature takes its toll. That may be sad for some but it is a fact of life.
Ticket offices in the UK have been closing since the Beeching era when every little village station once had a ticket window but, where the lines remained open, these were replaced by what were then called Paytrains and the practice of a conductor selling tickets on trains has continued to this day, although the vast majority of fellow passengers I observe simply hold up their Smartphone, as do I. So can we get a little less sentimental about the closure of ticket offices and the services they provide to passengers? I have never seen a ticket office worker emerge from behind the glass to assist a disabled passenger but I have observed platform and train staff provide this service on very many occasions and at unstaffed stations too.
If redundancies can be mitigated by redeployment, so much the better, but by the union pretending it can preserve everything and every job if only its members would sacrifice yet another few days' pay instead of managing expectations and negotiating to place its members in other roles or a good redundancy package for when this is not possible then this dispute will only drag on to the detriment of the workers themselves, the passengers and the country's economy as a whole. The technology that supports online ticketing and information services is never going to go away, everybody is going to have to come to terms with that just as they have done with online banking and online retail etc.
5:00 oh hi Dave. 😂
This pretty much sums up why I take actual human intelligence over AI anyday.
I can't help feeling that we need more staff at stations, not fewer. Of course its then down to the tricky issue of who pays for it? I know that the wording of the proposal is to keep the staff at the stations but move them out of the ticket office, however I don't think anyone trusts the government not to find some way to weasel out of providing an adequate service. I'm just worried that it will take a disaster before someone sees sense.
0:57 That's only a small part of the south-east. It looks like Kent.
Man. For the country that invented railways, we sure do suck at them now.
The only money being saved, is the wages they dont have to pay station staff. Its all about profit, simple as that. Its f-ing disgusting, it really is.
Hmmm you seem to be describing RyanAir or Spirit airlines
M&A co to take over all UK rail ops should be the solution. It is infact the only solution as we can do it better and cheaper.
In all seriousness, there is a reason the Norristown High speed line still has conductors on all trains. Sure 99.99 percent of the time people scan the keycard ir there ticket in, or even drop the 2.50 into the machine as normal, but there is still 2 staff for the rare cases of something happening, which again is super rare as the customers/ riders generally are the same people every day less the occasional straggler like myself, its a tight knit riderbase.
Hey chris, is there a way to buy the SLIPS Volumes in a pack for digital? It would be more convenient to purchase all of them instead of individually
I'm working on that. But if it helps, it's still possible to add multiple items to the same basket in the same transaction
I'm sorry, but this idea is about as good as getting rid of Guards on trains... in other words.... really bad!!!!....
Hey Chris, do you plan to do an episode covering the controversial decision by Didcot to use the boiler of 7027 "Thornbury Castle" for the Night Owl Project?
Me who just bought a ticket on an app: ._.
On Twitter recently, a person (atleast I assume they are a person) asserted that as the UK fares system was so complicated, no human could possibly fathom it correctly, thus computers were the best choice for buying tickets....
A tale or two from behind the glass if I may.
- A passenger comes in to the office as they are struggling to use the Ticket Vending Machine (TVM). They are collecting tickets purchased online through their work 'portal'. They don't have the card they use to purchase the ticket because it is a business account and it's already paid for, but the first thing the TVM asks for is the purchasing card (usually any card will do, but not always). They have to collect their tickets because it is valid on some Merseyrail services and Merseyrail do not accept e-tickets and m-tickets, this was information the passenger did not know.
The tickets being collected are an Anytime Single from Manchester to Liverpool on a weekday, and an Anytime Single from Liverpool to Manchester on the following Saturday. They have seat reservation coupons for the Northern Rail services they chose to use, but as Northern don't do seat reservations, they are pointless beyond giving the departure time of the train. Each single ticket cost £16.70, so £33.40 in total, plus any fees the company pays to their chosen retailer.
During conversation, it was noted that the passenger had requested Anytime tickets as they were travelling before 0930 on the way there, and didn't want to fall foul of 'peak' times when they came back. They were unaware that there was an Anytime Return because they didn't look for one, thinking the journey was too short I presume. They did not know that some Off-Peak tickets start at 0830 on weekdays, and that there are no 'peak' times on Saturdays.
Had they chosen to visit a ticket office the tickets would have cost £14.30, for an Off-Peak Return which was valid for the same trains, a saving of atleast £19. Had the passenger known this ticket was okay for their journey and bought it through the work 'portal', they could actually have had an e-ticket, because it is not valid on Merseyrail!
- Many groups of people buy tickets individually, because they each want to pay their fair share, but few realise that in some cases paying in pairs or groups can save money. A ticket office can also split the cost evenly between the passengers in one transaction if required, even when paying by card.
- A passenger once came over to buy a ticket as the TVMs he usually used were either in use or out of order and his train was quite soon. He travelled to Bradford from Manchester and regularly chose the 'popular fares' option on the TVM, as a return to Bradford was one of those listed, at a cost of about £30. He was shocked to realise that he had been overpaying, the TVM was offering the 'Any Permitted Route' ticket, but all the direct trains go 'via Hebden Bridge', for which the fare was about £18.
The 'popular fares' list had been created before the cheaper fares existed and was never updated because, well, nobody using the TVMs knew about the 'via Hebden Bridge' fare, they always used the quick option.
- And just incase you think this is one way traffic, most staff will point out when tickets are cheaper online, or advise you buy online if you spot a cheaper fare than the staff can offer, although they rarely recommend a certain well-known site/app because of the booking fees. Any ticket you can buy on that site/app you can get on one of the TOC sites/apps, regardless of who you are travelling with.
I agree with every single point you brought up in this video, with the exception of stations with ticket offices that are simply hardly used anymore, this should not happen. Railway staff are far more important than those idiot higher-ups who only care about money think.
#SaveTheTicketOffices
J.R. Hartley - any reason you chose that name? Relative of mine perhaps?
Get off a ship in Tilbury, Dover, Southampton, etc etc, or Gatwick, Luton etc Airports, you need a ticket? Good luck with the machines!!!!!
in the netherlands we did the same but the way your doing it sounds stupid removing ticket staff is the last thing you do after you closed off all the stations and and put ticket machines outside the stations and only made stations accessable by gate and made sure you have a flexible card/ticket system operating smoothly and then you can remove the ticket staff
and even then you dont fire the conductors since they now serve to help the public with problems in the train and on stations
and we have developed timetable apps that are acurate to the second
also our ticket system doesnt work like yours with having to buy a ticket for a train here you use the OV card or buy a ticket to get from a station to a other station on that and when you check out it just calculates the shortest current route you can take and just bills you for that the system doesnt care which train you took
Or what about people visiting from out of the country who don’t visit on a regular enough basis to make using an app worth it.
This is really not on at all I have friends who work in the offices and down here it's some of the only reliable work around it's discusting!
It’s not part of the video really but who is in favour of a actual railway enthusiast who is a icon in the heartier railway industry to be the head of railway in uk parliament
I must admit I buy my tickets online. But a lot of that is because I can’t get to the station easily. I would hate to see them go because I get information from them n
As a daily commuter by rail, I think getting rid of ticker offices is a good thing. I never see anyone using them, and the staff are just standing around bored and redundant. Two of the stations I use regularly are unmanned completely outside peak hours and I’ve never seen any issues arise because of that. And above all, train companies are private businesses- if they want to restructure, that should be their own decisions. Companies exist to make profits for their shareholders- I don’t know why anyone is surprised or offended by this! They aren’t charities, only existing to provide a useful service out of the good of their hearts.
"Two of the stations I use regularly are unmanned completely outside peak hours and I’ve never seen any issues arise because of that." Understandable that you wouldn't see them, considering that, as a commuter, you'd presumably not be at those stations outside peak hours?