Normally I come into your posts already agreeing with the headline, but not today. But you turned me round by the time I'd finished reading it - hat-tip for a thoroughly persuasive argument.
Sure, there are ways automated systems could be improved or developed to almost eliminate (or perhaps improve) the ticketing experience and accessibility. But you don't have to be a hardened cynic to see that this isn't going to happen when the closure programme is scheduled to happen within a few months, not the years it would take to fundamentally change the current systems.
You might not want to use a ticket office. But plenty of people do.
This means closing them will reduce revenue by a larger amount than you'd save in staffing costs.
Also theres all the equalities issues. We have to make reasonable adjustments for the elderly and disabled - so from an equalities perspective we need to keep them open.
Someone who is 80 today was 60 when internet started to become a universal service. If they are 70 or 60, they were 50 and 40 years old respectively. It is incorrect to assume someone of old age is by default uncomfortable with online services, let alone with operating a ticket machine.
For many disabled people using an app or a machine is also easier than talking to someone behind a thick glass.
My only problem with closing the ticket offices is that a) I sadly don't expect "more trains for less" - from experience it's more likely to become "same poor service for the same pricy fare but also without a ticket office"; and b) even though a cashier won't do anything if something happens on the station, his or her presence is what make some people feel safer.
Thanks for this take, James. It strikes me that all of the supposed shortcomings with the electronic ticketing system are BECAUSE it was designed to retrofit a world of physical ticket offices. The machines have always felt like a worse version of what we already have, instead of a shift to something new and better. Remember those years where if you made a booking online, you had to then type a code into a machine to get given a set of physical tickets? That seems bizarre in hindsight, but we're still living in that sort of compromised hybrid world.
And the good old days were only good for those who could reliably draw attention and good service.
There are plenty of us who find machines far more reliably polite, understanding and obliging.
When you are competing with both flying and driving you need a complex ticketing system because you need both advance tickets and flexible ones.
You'd lose far far more revenue than the ticket offices cost if you had only one class of ticket that was as cheap as an advance but as flexible as a flexible one.
Plus any modernisation/simplification of the ticketing system will create winners and losers. And the losers will complain a lot.
The Netherlands manages just fine without a complex system, just distance travelled across ALL public transport, with a single payment system OV-chipkaart. In fact, just like travelling in Greater London
And almost no ticket offices. The UK just loves complexity
The Netherlands is a much smaller country so you aren’t competing with flying - so therefore you don't need advance tickets.
The distances are also lower so you also don't need to encourage people not to travel via London.
I also don't actually think the rail journeys per capita in the Netherlands is actually that impressive - although they treat it as a state secret so its difficult to tell.
Competing with flying seems like a strange point of comparison. How many people are turning up on the day trying to book London to Edinburgh or Plymouth to Aberdeen? Surely most flight-comparable routes are booked online or through travel agents.
For London to Edinburgh for example you are competing with the airlines and with driving.
Therefore to compete with the airlines you need a low cost inflexible advance ticket and to compete with driving you need a higher cost flexible ticket.
You also want to encourage people going from Reading (for example) to Manchester to go via Birmingham as there is more spare capacity on that route than going via London.
Don't forget that actually our railway has pretty high usage per capita even given the reliability issues. It works pretty well.
The Swiss beat us on usage by a good amount - and they are good on reliability and 4G in the tunnels - but they also still have ticket offices.
Agreed. But dynamic pricing doesn't have to be complex at the point of sale. The person at the ticketing desk is usually just typing the same things into their system that you'd type at home into your browser. They may have a little insider knowledge on different ways to search the system to produce different results, but that's not inherent complexity, it's just bad interface design.
You're right also on the inevitable complaints, but there are legitimate and illegitimate complaints. We should listen to complaints that come from people who are genuinely harmed, or whose concerns we haven't properly taken into account. Any modernisation will miss some edge cases, and those need to be fixed. But we shouldn't be paying too much attention to the people who have saved hundreds of dollars over the years because they've found a way to work the system, and then are no longer subsidised under a reformed system. Losing privilege is NOT the same thing as being disadvantaged.
Were your ears burning today (Tues)? You & Yours did a whole programme about ticket office closure. lol the edge cases of your dreams such as the woman who has no smartphone, does have a PC but no printer. And finds the ticket machines confusing and often broken. Worth a listen back.
It strikes me that the order is wrong. Shouldn’t the advanced ticketing systems be brought online, bugs worked out BEFORE we drop the manned counter? Now that is probably part of any real proposal but it certainly isn’t being pitched that way. A phased transition might be more costly but seems like it might entail a smoother customer transition experience and be more politically feasible.
Maybe GBR will finally become a thing. Maybe they'll finally fix the ticketing chaos and sort out the incompatibilities between mainline rail and TfL electronic tickets. Maybe they will invest in state of the art ticket machines and a mobile app to match. Maybe they'll have a rolling programme of building step free access and excellent personal safety features into every station. But I strongly suspect it's cheaper to keep the ticket offices open.
Thought I would disagree. Didn't. Now I know about Cheems mindset and will apply it to pretty much everyone in the NHS
Normally I come into your posts already agreeing with the headline, but not today. But you turned me round by the time I'd finished reading it - hat-tip for a thoroughly persuasive argument.
I win again!
Not sure where I stand on this but I enjoyed this.
Sure, there are ways automated systems could be improved or developed to almost eliminate (or perhaps improve) the ticketing experience and accessibility. But you don't have to be a hardened cynic to see that this isn't going to happen when the closure programme is scheduled to happen within a few months, not the years it would take to fundamentally change the current systems.
This all seems reasonable ... but ... it is a perfect example of why we need diversity in decision makers at the highest level
Eg assuming that the big red button would answer the problem is not one that people with some disabilities. They would not use it
There are other assumptions about the needs of the aged and differently able, but that one seems so reasonable until you go into it a bit more
The other question: just because technology can replace people should it? Is one that needs addressing before assuming that it should
(Disclaimer: I support some elderly disabled people, so have skin in the game!)
You might not want to use a ticket office. But plenty of people do.
This means closing them will reduce revenue by a larger amount than you'd save in staffing costs.
Also theres all the equalities issues. We have to make reasonable adjustments for the elderly and disabled - so from an equalities perspective we need to keep them open.
Someone who is 80 today was 60 when internet started to become a universal service. If they are 70 or 60, they were 50 and 40 years old respectively. It is incorrect to assume someone of old age is by default uncomfortable with online services, let alone with operating a ticket machine.
For many disabled people using an app or a machine is also easier than talking to someone behind a thick glass.
My only problem with closing the ticket offices is that a) I sadly don't expect "more trains for less" - from experience it's more likely to become "same poor service for the same pricy fare but also without a ticket office"; and b) even though a cashier won't do anything if something happens on the station, his or her presence is what make some people feel safer.
Thanks for this take, James. It strikes me that all of the supposed shortcomings with the electronic ticketing system are BECAUSE it was designed to retrofit a world of physical ticket offices. The machines have always felt like a worse version of what we already have, instead of a shift to something new and better. Remember those years where if you made a booking online, you had to then type a code into a machine to get given a set of physical tickets? That seems bizarre in hindsight, but we're still living in that sort of compromised hybrid world.
And the good old days were only good for those who could reliably draw attention and good service.
There are plenty of us who find machines far more reliably polite, understanding and obliging.
When you are competing with both flying and driving you need a complex ticketing system because you need both advance tickets and flexible ones.
You'd lose far far more revenue than the ticket offices cost if you had only one class of ticket that was as cheap as an advance but as flexible as a flexible one.
Plus any modernisation/simplification of the ticketing system will create winners and losers. And the losers will complain a lot.
The Netherlands manages just fine without a complex system, just distance travelled across ALL public transport, with a single payment system OV-chipkaart. In fact, just like travelling in Greater London
And almost no ticket offices. The UK just loves complexity
The Netherlands is a much smaller country so you aren’t competing with flying - so therefore you don't need advance tickets.
The distances are also lower so you also don't need to encourage people not to travel via London.
I also don't actually think the rail journeys per capita in the Netherlands is actually that impressive - although they treat it as a state secret so its difficult to tell.
Competing with flying seems like a strange point of comparison. How many people are turning up on the day trying to book London to Edinburgh or Plymouth to Aberdeen? Surely most flight-comparable routes are booked online or through travel agents.
For London to Edinburgh for example you are competing with the airlines and with driving.
Therefore to compete with the airlines you need a low cost inflexible advance ticket and to compete with driving you need a higher cost flexible ticket.
You also want to encourage people going from Reading (for example) to Manchester to go via Birmingham as there is more spare capacity on that route than going via London.
Don't forget that actually our railway has pretty high usage per capita even given the reliability issues. It works pretty well.
The Swiss beat us on usage by a good amount - and they are good on reliability and 4G in the tunnels - but they also still have ticket offices.
Agreed. But dynamic pricing doesn't have to be complex at the point of sale. The person at the ticketing desk is usually just typing the same things into their system that you'd type at home into your browser. They may have a little insider knowledge on different ways to search the system to produce different results, but that's not inherent complexity, it's just bad interface design.
You're right also on the inevitable complaints, but there are legitimate and illegitimate complaints. We should listen to complaints that come from people who are genuinely harmed, or whose concerns we haven't properly taken into account. Any modernisation will miss some edge cases, and those need to be fixed. But we shouldn't be paying too much attention to the people who have saved hundreds of dollars over the years because they've found a way to work the system, and then are no longer subsidised under a reformed system. Losing privilege is NOT the same thing as being disadvantaged.
The advanced tickets have different advantages and disadvantages. As do the route based tickets in many cases. There’s quite a lot of complexity.
Don't forget the ticket offices cost under 1% of the railways costs and under 1.5% of revenue. They are cheap in the scale of things.
Were your ears burning today (Tues)? You & Yours did a whole programme about ticket office closure. lol the edge cases of your dreams such as the woman who has no smartphone, does have a PC but no printer. And finds the ticket machines confusing and often broken. Worth a listen back.
Ha, will check it out!
It strikes me that the order is wrong. Shouldn’t the advanced ticketing systems be brought online, bugs worked out BEFORE we drop the manned counter? Now that is probably part of any real proposal but it certainly isn’t being pitched that way. A phased transition might be more costly but seems like it might entail a smoother customer transition experience and be more politically feasible.
delightful essay
Maybe GBR will finally become a thing. Maybe they'll finally fix the ticketing chaos and sort out the incompatibilities between mainline rail and TfL electronic tickets. Maybe they will invest in state of the art ticket machines and a mobile app to match. Maybe they'll have a rolling programme of building step free access and excellent personal safety features into every station. But I strongly suspect it's cheaper to keep the ticket offices open.