In message , at 08:03:27 on Thu, 6 Feb
2014, Someone Somewhere remarked:
I think it's something like 3% of passengers now using the ticket offices,
so most really are pretty much redundant (and closed most of the day
anyway, outside the centre). But the unions also don't like the fact that
many of the quieter stations will become single-manned, with a mobile
supervisor covering half a dozen stations.

How does Overground operate? I can think of some of their stations where
that might be an issue already.

Returning to the 3% figure - I don't even believe that. Is that really
3% of all journeys on the Underground involve a visit to a ticket
office? Not just a ticket machine?

Given the number of people with season tickets, let alone outboundary
travelcards, and making second and subsequent trips on a paper
travelcard bought earlier in the day, I'm surprised it's as high as 3%.

But it's 3% of a very big number, thereby representing around 100,000
transactions a day (working backwards from annual journey statistics).

In any event, paper tickets sold at the offices are *much* more
expensive, so why isn't some of that cost put towards running the ticket
offices themselves?

--
Roland Perry

Someone Somewhere wrote:
On 05/02/2014 23:33, wrote:
In article
,
(Recliner) wrote:

wrote:
In article
,
(Recliner) wrote:


I think it's something like 3% of passengers now using the ticket offices,
so most really are pretty much redundant (and closed most of the day
anyway, outside the centre). But the unions also don't like the fact that
many of the quieter stations will become single-manned, with a mobile
supervisor covering half a dozen stations.

How does Overground operate? I can think of some of their stations where
that might be an issue already.

Returning to the 3% figure - I don't even believe that. Is that really
3% of all journeys on the Underground involve a visit to a ticket office?
Not just a ticket machine?

I don't know, but at typical suburban stations, the figure is certainly
much lower, but it's probably much higher at the "gateway stations".

In article , (Roland Perry)
wrote:

In message , at
20:07:21 on Wed, 5 Feb 2014, remarked:

How are they going to deal with registering railcards on Oyster cards
then?

It would not be unprecedented for them to 'discover' at the last
minute that it can't be done, and withdraw the facility. Or produce a
completely new scheme that doesn't have the "loading" step.

My daughter has a 16-25 card loaded on her Oyster, but there's also a
"18+ Student Oyster" (not very useful for someone living in Z2). It
might be simpler for TfL to require *National Rail* to issue some
16-25 Railcards on a newly invented "16-25 Oyster" (rather than a bit
of card).

More fuss for travellers (because the issuing facilities might be
restricted to the London area), but a typical "two steps forward, one
step back" process 'it were the technology wot made us do it'.

Wouldn't that violate the agreements for the use of Oyster on National Rail?

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In message , at 07:10:42
on Thu, 6 Feb 2014, remarked:
My daughter has a 16-25 card loaded on her Oyster, but there's also a
"18+ Student Oyster" (not very useful for someone living in Z2). It
might be simpler for TfL to require *National Rail* to issue some
16-25 Railcards on a newly invented "16-25 Oyster" (rather than a bit
of card).

More fuss for travellers (because the issuing facilities might be
restricted to the London area), but a typical "two steps forward, one
step back" process 'it were the technology wot made us do it'.

Wouldn't that violate the agreements for the use of Oyster on National Rail?

"Use of" an Oyster is separate from the arrangements for issuing them.
--
Roland Perry

On Thu, 6 Feb 2014 07:35:53 +0000, Roland Perry
wrote:
Give a man a camera and he takes a picture of a Gateway station
with
huge queues at both machines (in the foreground) and the windows:

http://www.perry.co.uk/images/stp-western-queue.jpg

So add more machines! You could get 2 or 3 in the space of one
window.

Neil

--
Neil Williams. Use neil before the at to reply.

In message , at 16:45:12 on
Thu, 6 Feb 2014, Paul Corfield remarked:
In any event, paper tickets sold at the offices are *much* more
expensive, so why isn't some of that cost put towards running the ticket
offices themselves?

The simple answer is "look at the TfL business plan". The reduction is
revenue grant means TfL have to get the cost base on LU down. There
are some big drops in cost over the next few years and closing ticket
offices and losing hundreds of staff has to be part of the equation.

There's a chicken and egg situation here.

If people are unable (because they are tourists or whatever) to get
their heads around Oyster or using the ticket machines, TfL will lose
all of the £4.70 cash ticket revenue, and not just the average £2.50
that each person pays extra per ticket they buy at a window.

If it really costs £2.50 to spend 30 seconds selling a ticket, then
that's where they should be looking to reforming the system.
--
Roland Perry

Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 16:45:12 on
Thu, 6 Feb 2014, Paul Corfield remarked:
In any event, paper tickets sold at the offices are *much* more
expensive, so why isn't some of that cost put towards running the ticket
offices themselves?

The simple answer is "look at the TfL business plan". The reduction is
revenue grant means TfL have to get the cost base on LU down. There
are some big drops in cost over the next few years and closing ticket
offices and losing hundreds of staff has to be part of the equation.

There's a chicken and egg situation here.

If people are unable (because they are tourists or whatever) to get their
heads around Oyster or using the ticket machines, TfL will lose all of
the £4.70 cash ticket revenue, and not just the average £2.50 that each
person pays extra per ticket they buy at a window.

If it really costs £2.50 to spend 30 seconds selling a ticket, then
that's where they should be looking to reforming the system.

Presumably that's what the mobile staff are there for: to help tourists use
the ticket machines.

On 05/02/2014 17:59, Neil Williams wrote:

But even so, most are
probably buying tickets available from machines, if MKC is anything to
go by. Give a man a fish...

My local supermarket has been making a concerted effort to get
coffin-dodgers to use the Unexpected Item In Bagging Area machines.
Unfortunately...


--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK

On 05/02/2014 18:00, tim..... wrote:

Who the flip queues up to buy a ticket at 10pm?

People wanting something obscure for travel at a future time, who are
getting it while they happen to pass.


--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK

On 06/02/2014 06:54, Neil Williams wrote:
On Wed, 05 Feb 2014 20:07:21 -0600, wrote:
How are they going to deal with registering railcards on Oyster
cards then?
And the rest of Paul's list?

A combination of online, post and phone. Or perhaps NR ticket offices or
the remaining gateway offices.

West Croydon (LOROL) can now do this. As of just over a year ago they
couldn't (last year I went to find an LU station the next time I was in
zone 1, but both ticket offices were shut)


--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK