please empty your brain below

Fair enough – if there isn’t a demand and there are other options available why provide an uneconomical service.

Uneconomical is right. LU pay their Ticket Office staff around £25.5k a year.

National Rail Ticket Office staff, on the other hand, tend to be on £15k to £18k basic.

I know this is a subject dear to your heart but I take a different perspective. I worked for over a year in various ticket offices for Britsh Rail many years ago. You were cooped up and often didn't know what was going outside the ticket office window (train delays, incidents etc).

More to the point regulars just wanted their ticket with the minimum of fuss and delay. They don't care if they use a machine or Oyster so long as they don't have to queue. Your ability to assist the people who really need your help is limited because of the window. You can't easily help the arthritic by taking the correct fare from their handful of coins. You can't give clear directions because you can't point and you can't move locations. You can't show them how to use the machines to make it easier for them next time. You cannot be heard easily and often it is not easy to see your lips. With the fare system as simple as it is I think this is the way forward. I accept it might be too much, too soon and there will be some problems but I think the right approach is to cut out the mononotous transactions and redeploy approachable people to assist those who need assistance.

DG

More ticket offices will be closing across the network then you have on here.

At present my own station and the station next door are going through a risk assessment to find out if it's worth while.

I also heard that the station next door may be going from three booking clerks down to two and my own from four to three, all through natural wastage and transfers.

According to that link, my local station's ticket office opens at weekends from 0700 to 2200. Complete lies. They are forever making annoucements that the ticket office is closed due to staff illness/laziness/incompetence/strike etc

"Totteridge & Wealdstone"?!

Do you mean Totteridge & WHETSTONE?

Look on the bright side. At least they haven't yet taken to introducing a ticketmaster style "booking fee"

Meh, I say. I've used the ticket office once since Oyster. While it would be nice to have ticket staff at every office, I say if it's uneconomical then go ahead and shut 'em. I generally get a ticket out of the machine faster than a friend who goes to the window anyways - those new machines are brilliant when they're working.

Which leads me to one concern - if the ticket office closes, there should be *two* of those nice, big touch-screen machines installed. One's forever going out of order.

One final concern - Mornington Crescent closed at weekends? What? When Camden Town is designated exit-only? Doesn't seem too bright.

Crikey! I must admit I'm surprised at the lack of concern (although I am in complete agreement). In spite of being uni-lingual (or mono-lingual?) I have no problems using machines abroad, so it should be alright for the tourists here. Most furriners speak some english anyway.

It's a bad time to be a station with "Park" in its name.

It is an especially "happy" day at my underground station when the ticket office is shut because of staff shortages (frequently) and the machines are not working.

Just pay at the Other End, love, says the less than helpful tube worker at the ticket barrier.

The Other End did not believe me. All sorts of accusations of fare evasion.

I wonder if all these staff savings will eventually go to more tubes being run?

I am so naive.

Tubeworker also mentions that Seven Sisters (B) (by which I think he means the National Rail side, but it also feeds into the tube) is to close; recently a sign has appeared there to the effect that the office will be closed until further notice. That sign has now gone, but I haven't seen it open since. I haven't seen it open outside of high peak for a good 2-3 years.

That presents something of a headache for NR travel; especially if a passenger wants anything other than a standard single/return fare to a local or major rail station, as the tube machines won't sell anything else. There is an NR ticket machine, but it's the other side of the barriers and out of sight!! (and that never works anyway!)

The theory behind the closure program isn't necessarily all bad, especially if they can redeploy staff to be more 'visibile', but there must be a whole host of problems like this around the tube network that will need to be ironed out before they can implement their plans and call it 'successful'.

I cannot get oyster payments to work on line.

As a biannual (or so) visitor to London, I've had a PAYG Oyster since they were first about, and I realised doing so would save me money. Apart from one time when I went through a luggage gate and it didn't touch properly, so every time I went through a barrier it thought I should have been going the other way, and today when I found out you can't have a negative balance anymore, Oyster has been flawless, and a great boon.

And much cheaper...

They have ticket offices on National Rail? That's news to me. Tube travellers don't know they're born (etc).

Totteridge and Wealdstone sounds like a plucky non-league football team.

Disgusting, what I am meant to do when my crumpled up fiver keeps getting rejected by the machine?

Just like the withdrawal of bus conductors, and even being able to jump on a bus between stops or paying cash on boarding, why should we accept that every worsening of service standard is better as the spin says?











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