please empty your brain below

Yes, it certainly is D Day or should that be 'F' Day?
I'll be experiencing the power of new technology first-hand at my new location on night shift tonight.
My commute starts at a DLR station. There are station staff there, I know, because I see them on the landing between escalators, in that locked room behind the glass. They don't offer assistance, there are signs pointing people back the way they came to use the two ticket machines back up at ground level. Will they have to venture out now and mingle with the mortals?
Ch ch ch changes (changes)
And in the Station Guide on page 74 it states:

... will also allow access to the staff functionality on the ticket machines e.g. adding railcards to a customer Oyster card

So, hopefully, no more moaning from some that adding a railcard to your Oystercard at a station is not possible - you might not have been aware of how to go about it but that is a different issue.
Slightly surprised at the extent of info in the public domain. Reading the ticketing FAQs shows how much face to face functionality has been removed from stations and how much less convenient the system is if you want to do something even marginally involved. One example - pay with two forms of payment (cash and a card). Can't be done anymore and yet all the self service tills in supermarkets manage it without issue and can handle promotional vouchers too. I know the ticketing system isn't "off the shelf" technology but even so.

I happened to glance at the RMT London website a few weeks ago and read some of the early feedback from the Central Line trial area. Now I'd not expect a glowing review from the RMT but it struck me there were some pretty fundamental issues that were unresolved then or which were inherent in the staffing model. Single staffing at stations in the evenings even where there is quite high levels of passenger usage or the station has a lot of assets to manage? Hmmm.
This post has a slightly corporate feel about it.

'You ought to be able to read a lot more about this across the media, because this is a very important change and will affect everyone's daily customer experience going forward'

It might impact the daily experiences of the staff, but as a customer I haven't had any need to interact with the staff for several years.

Thinking about it, I have little need to interact with any staff, its all online this and online that, perhaps in the future I could replace myself with an app, then I could relax whilst it was being me.
Well, you've been lucky. I've had need to interact with tube station staff very recently, and the outcome would have been hugely simpler had the ticket office still been open.

As for the number of staff present in the ticket hall, that's a lot more important than you might think, whether you need to interact with them or not.
now I have a Freedom Pass, so don't need ticket offices, and I've been using the underground for 50+ years and take an interest in new developments, so I'm unlikely to need advice about my journeys if the system is running normally. But I sometimes find lost property on the train and need to hand it in, and staff are definitely needed to help tourists and advise on local buses etc when there are problems.
It's not promotion, staff have been given more responsability without a rise in pay and in many cases the minimum of training, staff used to the busy central London stations have been moved to the outskirts and staff with little experience of crowd control have been moved in to replace them. If you are using the tube and you think it's too busy on platforms or in the concourses my advice would be to leave as soon as possible. Some staff fear a major crush incident is inevitable.
But don't worry, they created another 60 managers to sit in an office.
Just 200 tons of TNT?

No wonder they're worried about the Montgomery!
Folloing from my post above i can understand less staff off peak, but when you have a member of staff on the barrier and then 2 in the previous ticket office (peak time), with a window, but no slot, get out on the platform
Bruce Wayne, That station that had 3 staff in the peak probably now only has the one all day.
As PoP says getting a railcard discount added is just as simple as it used to be. I approached the staff member near the ticket machine (at Embankment station) she tapped her Oyster to the reader and inputted her password. Then selected add discount and tapped my Oyster, she added the expiry date and then tapped my Oyster again. Was just as quick as when it was done at a window and there was less of a queue.
Mclm Im afraid it doesn't. I use it everyday, a woman sitting in a booth behind the barriers until 10am and 2 staff milling around in the office, 'operation do nothing'
Staff helping people in the ticket hall is obviously important, but if it's Oxford Circus today, someone really needs to be at the closed entrance to the Central Line to give help to large numbers of confused people, many of them tourists. There wasn't even a sign to say help might be available elsewhere. No point releasing staff from ticket offices and rhen not employing them intelligently!
Bruce Wayne, have another look tomorrow now all the changes have kicked in.
Very surprised that some of the information on the fit for the future website is public. I followed a few links and ended up finding a list of staff names, employee IDs and cost centres which I wouldn't expect to be in the public domain.
There was nobody at my local tube station at noon today. The gates were open, most unusual.
Rob,

You can even find a password in plain text if you know where to look. Not that you could usefully use it. But then, if you are going to publicise it why bother with it?

Amber,

You can hand lost property to any member of staff.
Hi, your comments about station staff working over wider groups are not accurate . Station staff prior to fit for the future have always worked across groups.

The big difference now is that the management structures will be much smaller and localised.

Take the east end central line for example. The Centeal Line East Group had one GSM (group station msnager) who oversaw each station east of Leytonstone. Duty Managers (DSMs) under the GSM would take care of many management duties. The customer service agents (CSA) could work at any of the those stations, only in some cases would they be fostered to one station. Under the new structure the DSMs have gone and station groups are smaller. The DSM duties have been picked up by essential better qualified station supervisors and the GSM has now become an Area Manager. CSA can work in the own area which may comprise two stations, and also the neighbour stations that form part of the cover group. Hope this helps.

dg writes. This helps, thanks.
I've been out and about today across a couple of lines - saw no iPads in use at all.
Staff won't be using their iPads all the time, because most stations operate normally most of the time, hence the need for those big pockets. But I saw a member of staff on the Northern line today sat in a carriage flicking through his new work-issue iPad, so they're definitely out there.
As with CB @ 18:01 Gates open at Stanmore at 16:30. They were in use with a member of staff leaning against the gateline @ 20:15
@ Kelvin - for those of us ancient enough to remember the LU staffing structure back in the 70s and early 80s then it was Area Managers and Supervisors, Chief Clerks / Booking Clerks and Railmen. It was Company Plan and subsequent changes that saw GSMs, DSMs etc come into being. Seems it's a case of "back to the future" in terms of some aspects of the staffing structure. Of course there will be far fewer people knocking around now than back in those old "LT" days. And anything to do with actually selling tickets from an office has gone completely.
Mighty Mouse. DLR is (and always has been) legally and operationally separate from the underground, even though it is under tfl control. So ticket office changes at tube stations have no impact on DLR, which only has one staffed ticket office (at LCY).
The iPads have been around for quite a while - since September last year I think. The staff email system is apparently awash with comments, mostly negative and angry if I understand correctly, now that the new rosters are out there. There will be chaos for a while. As for staff standing around "doing nothing", they still need a few people doubling up on certain duties so that they have a spare body for doing the security checks and acting as assistants for visually impaired or other DDA requirements. Just how a blind person arriving at a single staffed station is supposed to be assisted onto the train is beyond me. But if it saves a few pennies on the front line so that more middle management "Peter Principles" can be employed...
mclm No change :)










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