Forum Topic

Ticket office closures

Please consider signing the letter protesting about ticket office closures. Here is the linkhttps://act.newmode.net/action/trades-union-congress/save-your-south-western-railway-ticket-offices

Catherine Schade ● 942d19 Comments

Some good news at last!

Caroline Whitehead ● 825d

"Plan to close railway station ticket offices sensationally axed by Government:"https://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/station-ticket-office-closures-latest-axed-mark-harper-b1117086.html

Richard Carter ● 825d

What would worry me is a pensioner can go a certain amount of London free, but if you go further say Rochester, you only need to pay from outside London to Rochester. Also coming back.  But about 5 yrs ago I know you go from Putney  to Waterloo, then to Rochester.  But one of the men I asked at the ticket office told me to go to Clapham then change and go to Victoria then change and go somewhere else. I actually rang up and complained in the end,  because somebody really old would have gone home again.  You need somebody at the ticket office that knows what their doing.

Barbara Stevens ● 825d

It's just been announced by transport secretary, Mark Harper that the government has asked train operators to withdraw their proposals to close ticket offices.Good to see that public protest can sometimes work!

Richard Carter ● 826d

I have no problem with them closing ticket offices if at the same time the rule is if a member of station staff is not around to sell you a ticket you get to travel for free.

Peter Higgins ● 923d

It's not progress. How can closing ticket offices, which many people rely on for whatever reason, be described as progress?There is an online petition to UK Parliament, which nobody seems to have mentioned yet:https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/636542

Mike Edmondson ● 925d

I really do not like this "progress"!Train tickets are complicated enough with the help of staff  in a ticket office- trying to do so with a machine is laughable.  One thing is buying a return ticket from Putney to Waterloo.  How does someone find tickets, say from Waterloo to Gatwick (two different railway lines) if he/she is blind or not computer literate?  The idea of Waterloo having no ticket offices is ludicrous, in my view.

Ivonne Holliday ● 938d

Something we all need to raise in the consultation. 

Michael Ixer ● 938d

I am registered blind and need to book assistance as well as buy the ticket.....any ideas how I will do it now ?

Lyn Clark ● 938d

One report did say the station staff would still be able to sell tickets, just not from a ticket office. But as you indicate, those staff will likely disappear in time …I seem to recall some ticket machines (think at Victoria?) do allow the purchase of tickets from, say, zone 6 to a destination. What's really required is a simplification and standardisation of the ticketing system across the country - one of the rail companies is already trialling just selling single journey tickets - that is no returns - although the cynic in me sees that as a way of letting the price of off-peak tickets creep up?

Michael Ixer ● 939d

The closures, we're told, will free staff to help people elsewhere on stations, but I'll believe that when it happens: it's much more likely that this will be an excuse to save money by getting rid of ticket office staff.Another point is that ticket machines do not always provide adequate choices: for example, you can't use a Freedom Pass to save the portion of your journey that lies within the zone, and the only way partially to get round this is to book a ticket from the station just inside it, if you can identify it. At the very least, machines in London would need to be modified to allow for this.

Richard Carter ● 939d

Security cameras and machines are not enough to encourage and enable more users to let the train take the strain - especially when you hear of wheelchair users not being met by the requested ramp and help to get off a train.  A lot of provision was put in place for the Olympics which sadly disappeared afterwards.  I have stood on a platform and yelled for help to try and help a woman with baby, toddler and buggy to disembark at their stop.

Philippa Bond ● 939d

The list of closures includes relatively big stations - CJ, Richmond, Wimbledon and, I can't graps this, Waterloo. So if you'd appreciate help you can't get on a train to  another place with a ticket office.Guide Dogs are organising a petition and I sent an email to Fleur.Machines and buying online aren't always the answer.  I do buy my tickets from the Putney office and find the staff helpful, looking for the best option.

Elizabeth Balsom ● 940d

If Govts want us to get out of our cars they need to provide easy to access public transport.  That means accessible in more ways than one!The TfL website is a lot easier to access than it was to find stepfree stations etc  BUT not everone has mobile phones or the internet.  The homeless find that they need to find charities who will let them access now because libraries aren't slways open when they need them to fulfil their jobseeking requirements.

Philippa Bond ● 940d

It's the thin end of the wedge.Public transport has to be safe and accessible.Unfortunately none of the major parties support this idea.Signed.

Ed Robinson ● 941d

I wholeheartedly agree with you!!  It is nonsense!On a different matter, but not that far fetched, I was talking to Customer Services in Yodel, only to find it was a bot unable to answer my questions!  Grrrrr!!!!

Ivonne Holliday ● 941d

That isn’t the point. Not all tickets can be bought at a machine. Machines break down. Some people find using machines difficult. The ticket office staff always find you the best deals and give you times of trains and connections. What about visitors whose grasp of English make using a machine difficult? Does it always to be ticket sales that are the deciding factor when it comes to customer service? At Christmas, I had a ticket for a specific train and that train was cancelled due to strike action. The ticket office staff replaced my ticket with a valid one for another train. How do you do that at a machine?

Catherine Schade ● 941d

Seems clear that the majority of offices do not sell enough tickets to justify their existence.

Andy Pike ● 941d

It's disgusting shutting them all.

Barbara Stevens ● 941d