Chaos likely when they close ticket windows at King's Cross St. Pancras
 

Scott wrote:
I assume (a) the majority of passengers will not require assistance
and (b) priority will be given to assisting the person at the head of
the queue.

Is there the equivalent of a 'supervisor to checkout 4' light that a
passenger can press, or are they supposed to flap their arms in an agitated
manner until a member of staff notices them?

Theo

Chaos likely when they close ticket windows at King's Cross St. Pancras
 

On Mon, 30 Mar 2015 08:18:00 +0100
Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at
14:55:41 on Sun, 29 Mar 2015, CJB remarked:
The staff at the ThamesLink ticket office at St.Pancras are useless and
frequently sell me the wrong tickets then have to cancel them, and then
re-issue what I requested in the first place. Frankly a ticket machine would
be better - except they don't offer the extension tickets I need.

I had a problem with that office. I needed a ticket that the machines
didn't sell: because it was for "tomorrow" and "not from here". I was
doing a triangular trip flying out of Gatwick and returning to Luton,
and thought I'd buy the ticket for the once-upon-a-time free shuttle bus
to the MML station in advance.

Despite asking for what I wanted several times, the chap simply refused
to comprehend. Eventually he issued me with a ticket from Parkway to the
Airport. I gave up.

Start speaking to them in French. You'll find their english language ability
suddenly improves immensely. Works in Flanders anyway :)

--
Spud

Chaos likely when they close ticket windows at King's Cross St. Pancras
 

On Sun, 29 Mar 2015 08:46:37 -0700 (PDT)
wrote:
Since there are almost always non-trivial queues at every King's Cross ticket
machine how is that going to work, then?

Last time I had to wait for one of the party to use a King's Cross ticket
office it was because he needed to buy a priv ticket. How will that work
without a ticket office?

Stop trying to understand it as improving passenger service and instead think
of it as cost cutting and it all makes sense. Its the same BS line supermarkets
feed us when they try and pretend that self service machines are for our
benefit whereas in fact they're raison d'etre is simply to replace an ongoing
cost - staff wages - with a one off fixed cost - the machines.

The fact that the mayor and his TfL minions keep spinning us this line of
improved service shows the utter contempt they hold the travelling public in.

--
Spud

Chaos likely when they close ticket windows at King's Cross St. Pancras
 

In message , at 10:25:09 on Mon,
30 Mar 2015, Theo Markettos
remarked:


But in the case of King's Cross, they take some trouble on Eurostar to
push sales of Oyster cards, and TfL also encourage their use by having
cash fares which are many times that of the Oyster fare. So I'm
baffled as to why the queues are so long, but it's a fact that they
are.

I always assume that things being sold on trains, aeroplanes and in baggage
reclaim halls are sold to a captive audience at some massive markup.

I don't think that's true of these kinds of tickets, at least for the
first two, and many of the permanent booths at airports. The prices are
more likely to be published in advance, for you to get the correct
amount of change, etc.

After all Ryanair offering me a transfer to central London are not
doing it out of the goodness of their heart,

They'll be getting a commission, but not necessarily any more than an
agent at the airport who also has to fund extra staff and premises.

and I'd probably end up with an First Anytime
Return on Terravision to Irkutsk Broadway when actually I could get a
Network Card super-offpeak to Liverpool St instead.

Apart from a CDR, the only tickets on that flow are Anytimes.

What's needed is a flyer, available in multiple languages, explaining the
basics of the system:

1) are you travelling within London?
2) do you have a contactless payment card? or
3) get an Oyster card and put some momey on it
4) touch in on buses, touch in and out on trains.

(You can begin to see the problems as you then have to explain "London",
how much money you need to put on the ticket etc etc.)

Is my "Bank of China" card a contactless payment card? What about
American Express?

Indeed; even the TfL website isn't sure exactly which foreign or prepay
contactless cards they accept.

--
Roland Perry

Chaos likely when they close ticket windows at King's Cross St.Pancras
 

On 30/03/2015 10:25, Theo Markettos wrote:
David Jackman pleasereplytogroup wrote:
What's needed is a flyer, available in multiple languages, explaining the
basics of the system:

1) are you travelling within London?
2) do you have a contactless payment card? or
3) get an Oyster card and put some momey on it
4) touch in on buses, touch in and out on trains.

(You can begin to see the problems as you then have to explain "London",
how much money you need to put on the ticket etc etc.)

Is my "Bank of China" card a contactless payment card? What about
American Express?
Can I put Euro on my Oyster card?
What happens when I run out of money?
Does my toddler need a card? At what age do they pay full fare?
What does 'peak' mean?

Indeed. Also: what about instructions for the DLR, the Tramlink,
riverboats, national rail services, on all of which (in defined areas)
you can use an Oyster card (and maybe a contactless one, for all I
know). Other questions visitors might ask:
- can I get a refund of an unexpired balance and my deposit when I leave
- can 2 people travel on one Oyster card (they an on similar cards in
some other cities)
- what happens when I transfer from tube to rail/tram/bus etc or
vice-versa? If I touch out and then in again do I get charged twice?

The Oyster card system is so complicated that most of us natives don't
understand even half of the rules, so pity the poor visitor (or even the
rich one).



--
Clive Page

Chaos likely when they close ticket windows at King's Cross St.Pancras
 

On 30/03/2015 11:00, d wrote:

Start speaking to them in French. You'll find their english language ability
suddenly improves immensely. Works in Flanders anyway :)


I've found that too in Flanders, also in Switzerland, and even in
France. But I think it only works if your french accent is so poor that
they realise right away that you are not french. Fortunately that's
true for me. :-)


--
Clive Page

Chaos likely when they close ticket windows at King's Cross St.Pancras
 

On 30/03/2015 00:27, Neil Williams wrote:

On 2015-03-29 21:47:54 +0000, CJB said:

Not at Schipol or Amsterdam Central etc. - all the ticket machines
throughout the Nederlands refuse to 'speak' English.

You what? They have an English option. But even if they didn't, they
are not at all hard to navigate.

And now with the new chip-cards you have to pay a premium for personal
service at a ticket office window AND for the cost of the card.
Rip-off - worse than in the UK. CJB

I am in favour of fees to use the ticket office, it will keep it
available for those occasions when I want something the machine won't
do, and so there won't be a queue of half an hour of people buying a
simple outboundary Travelcard to London which they could easily have
done at the machine.


I've given this counter-example before, but at London area railway
stations it's not uncommon to find a queue for the TVM(s) and no queue
at the ticket window - the latter, in most cases (with some exceptions),
being unequipped to topup Oyster. I do wonder just how much retail
commission the various TOCs threw away by not installing the requisite kit.

Chaos likely when they close ticket windows at King's Cross St.Pancras
 

On 29/03/2015 23:45, Clive Page wrote:

On 29/03/2015 12:13, Clank wrote:
Personally, whenever I arrive in a foreign city for the first time I
always use ticket machines instead of windows because (a) there's a
much higher chance the machine will speak my language and (b) even
if it doesn't, it's unlikely to make fun of my accent.

I've received some useful pronunciation lessons from ticket clerks - if
one is open, willing and smiling it doesn't normally result in humiliation!


I appreciate anecdote doesn't make data though ;).

Well so do I. But in two cities in the last few years (Paris and
Rotterdam) I've found machines which won't take British credit or debit
cards and I had to resort to feeding in literally dozens of small coins
to buy my tickets. Fortunately I had just enough, but many tourists
will have had experiences like this and decide a human is more helpful
than a machine.

I haven't come across an issue with UK cards in Paris (either RATP or
SNCF machines). They don't take notes though.


But in the case of King's Cross, they take some trouble on Eurostar to
push sales of Oyster cards, and TfL also encourage their use by having
cash fares which are many times that of the Oyster fare. So I'm baffled
as to why the queues are so long, but it's a fact that they are.

Lots of people simply don't think about it until they arrive.

Chaos likely when they close ticket windows at King's Cross St. Pancras
 

On Monday, 30 March 2015 16:30:40 UTC+1, Mizter T wrote:
On 30/03/2015 00:27, Neil Williams wrote:

On 2015-03-29 21:47:54 +0000, CJB said:

Not at Schipol or Amsterdam Central etc. - all the ticket machines
throughout the Nederlands refuse to 'speak' English.

You what? They have an English option. But even if they didn't, they
are not at all hard to navigate.

And now with the new chip-cards you have to pay a premium for personal
service at a ticket office window AND for the cost of the card.
Rip-off - worse than in the UK. CJB

I am in favour of fees to use the ticket office, it will keep it
available for those occasions when I want something the machine won't
do, and so there won't be a queue of half an hour of people buying a
simple outboundary Travelcard to London which they could easily have
done at the machine.


I've given this counter-example before, but at London area railway
stations it's not uncommon to find a queue for the TVM(s) and no queue
at the ticket window - the latter, in most cases (with some exceptions),
being unequipped to topup Oyster. I do wonder just how much retail
commission the various TOCs threw away by not installing the requisite kit.

SWT and London Midland have recently withdrawn Oyster at their ticket windows, so they can't value any commission that much.

Chaos likely when they close ticket windows at King's Cross St.Pancras
 

On 30/03/2015 11:13, Roland Perry wrote:

In message , at 10:25:09 on Mon,
30 Mar 2015, Theo Markettos remarked:


But in the case of King's Cross, they take some trouble on Eurostar to
push sales of Oyster cards, and TfL also encourage their use by having
cash fares which are many times that of the Oyster fare. So I'm
baffled as to why the queues are so long, but it's a fact that they
are.

I always assume that things being sold on trains, aeroplanes and in
baggage reclaim halls are sold to a captive audience at some massive
markup.

I don't think that's true of these kinds of tickets, at least for the
first two, and many of the permanent booths at airports. The prices are
more likely to be published in advance, for you to get the correct
amount of change, etc.

I agree with that - for the UK at least.


After all Ryanair offering me a transfer to central London are not
doing it out of the goodness of their heart,

They'll be getting a commission, but not necessarily any more than an
agent at the airport who also has to fund extra staff and premises.

The agent at the airport in the case of Stansted Express is StEx itself
- they've a counter after customs for arrivals.

That doesn't nullify your point at all though - as a 'city transfer'
operator getting the airlines to do some of the selling for you is a
plus, with the bonus that even if people don't buy on board they might
have been familiarised with your name, or at least with the options
available to them.


and I'd probably end up with an First Anytime
Return on Terravision to Irkutsk Broadway when actually I could get a
Network Card super-offpeak to Liverpool St instead.

Apart from a CDR, the only tickets on that flow are Anytimes.

There's GroupSave, which could be useful, and isn't sold by the
airlines. (There's first class too - ditto. The WebDuo and Business Plus
fares don't count in this instance as they're only available online, not
from the ticket office.)


What's needed is a flyer, available in multiple languages, explaining
the basics of the system:

1) are you travelling within London?
2) do you have a contactless payment card? or
3) get an Oyster card and put some momey on it
4) touch in on buses, touch in and out on trains.

(You can begin to see the problems as you then have to explain "London",
how much money you need to put on the ticket etc etc.)

Is my "Bank of China" card a contactless payment card? What about
American Express?

Indeed; even the TfL website isn't sure exactly which foreign or prepay
contactless cards they accept.

It's because they don't know - some work and some don't, it really does
depend. A customer could ask their bank of course, but I wouldn't rely
on them getting the correct answer.

The alternative would be for TfL to simply bar all non-UK contactless
payment cards, even though the majority would probably work. What would
a hypothetical Mr R. Perry, head of TfL ticketing, do? (Bear in mind
that 'head of ticketing' is not the same thing as the Commissioner for
Transport, the Mayor, the Chancellor of the Exchequer or the SoS for
Transport!)