On 8 Jan, 17:15, brixtonite wrote:
Finally went to Green Park on Monday evening, where there was no queue
at the ticket office, and though the ticket clerk hadn't heard of it,
after my showing him the fares leaflet he had a go on the system and
managed it without too much difficulty. Still took long enough that
there were some annoyed people in the queue behind me though!

OTOH, I'd bet a penny to a pound that nearly all the annoyed people
behind you were seeking to waste the ticket clerk's time by doing
stuff that the machines could have handled anyway.

....in fact, thinking about it, it makes me angry that clerks get
annoyed about people seeking to carry out transactions at the ticket
office that are difficult and take time. Of course they sodding are;
anything easy or urgent could be done at the machine, and anyone who
tries to speak to a clerk to buy a ticket that's also sold at the
machine thoroughly deserves to be made to wait.

[sarcastic hyperbole]Or preferably shot[/sarcastic hyperbole]

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org

John B wrote:


OTOH, I'd bet a penny to a pound that nearly all the annoyed people
behind you were seeking to waste the ticket clerk's time by doing
stuff that the machines could have handled anyway.

...in fact, thinking about it, it makes me angry that clerks get
annoyed about people seeking to carry out transactions at the ticket
office that are difficult and take time. Of course they sodding are;
anything easy or urgent could be done at the machine, and anyone who
tries to speak to a clerk to buy a ticket that's also sold at the
machine thoroughly deserves to be made to wait.

OTOH it would only be easier to do it at the machine if you know how to
use the machines in the first place. If you're not familiar with them,
or just don't feel comfortable with machines in general, it's usually
much easier and quicker to deal with a real live human being in the
ticket office.


[sarcastic hyperbole]Or preferably shot[/sarcastic hyperbole]

Better still, shoot all the machines and replace them with more human
clerks. That would be a big improvement.

In message
of
Tue, 8 Jan 2008 09:15:08 in uk.transport.london, brixtonite
writes
I tried on Sunday at Brixton, where the clerk seemed to know about it
but refused to do it since there was a long queue. The fact that I
had stood in the queue for 20 minutes cut no ice and he told me to go
away and come back another time.
At Oval the clerk had no idea what I was talking about; I showed him
the page of the fares leaflet and after some consideration he said
that the capbility had been built into the system, but they couldn't
put it on yet (seemed a reasonable response, since he had clearly not
been trained in how to do it.)

"Can you direct me to the Station Supervisor's Office" might be helpful.
Otherwise COMPLAIN via http://www.tfl.gov.uk/contact/default.aspx
London Underground thinks people who speak to its staff have a better
opinion of them than those who don't. You may want to sway that opinion.
The standard Mystery Shopping of London Underground stations does not
specifically measure the effectiveness of Ticket Offices.
It seems there is another project which measures things like queuing.


Finally went to Green Park on Monday evening, where there was no queue
at the ticket office, and though the ticket clerk hadn't heard of it,
after my showing him the fares leaflet he had a go on the system and
managed it without too much difficulty. Still took long enough that
there were some annoyed people in the queue behind me though!

It ought not to be necessary to carry the fares leaflet. "Please, can
you check the fares leaflet" might be instructive.


It seems a great deal - means that if you don't travel in the AM peak,
daily capping will be slightly less (IIRC) than buying a weekly Z12
travelcard. With the proviso of course that it's valid on almost no
NR services south of the river. The recent extensions to oyster
validity seem to have made the system even more biased towards North
London - as the map at
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloa...G-08-01-02.pdf
shows.


A particular politician has been trying to integrate public transport
for more than 20 years. It is a struggle. North South jealousy does not
help. A friend's father was one of the Bromley councillor who scotched
Fares Fair. She is still convinced Ken is a North London Mayor. OTOH, I
know nothing north of the river as sweet as the bus - tube interchange
at North Greenwich.
--
Walter Briscoe

On 9 Jan, 08:04, "solar penguin"
wrote:
John B wrote:

OTOH, I'd bet a penny to a pound that nearly all the annoyed people
behind you were seeking to waste the ticket clerk's time by doing
stuff that the machines could have handled anyway.

...in fact, thinking about it, it makes me angry that clerks get
annoyed about people seeking to carry out transactions at the ticket
office that are difficult and take time. Of course they sodding are;
anything easy or urgent could be done at the machine, and anyone who
tries to speak to a clerk to buy a ticket that's also sold at the
machine thoroughly deserves to be made to wait.

OTOH it would only be easier to do it at the machine if you know how to
use the machines in the first place. *If you're not familiar with them,
or just don't feel comfortable with machines in general, it's usually
much easier and quicker to deal with a real live human being in the
ticket office.

If you've never used any kind of machine in your life, perhaps:
however, if you've successfully managed to buy a Mars bar or a condom
from a vending machine, the Tube machines are hardly a complex
development on that.

I'll forgive people who aren't literate in any of the languages they
offer, perhaps...

[sarcastic hyperbole]Or preferably shot[/sarcastic hyperbole]

Better still, shoot all the machines and replace them with more human
clerks. *That would be a big improvement.

If by "improvement" you mean "extremely expensive way of making things
slower and more complex for regular travellers", then you're
absolutely right.

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org

Walter Briscoe wrote:

A particular politician has been trying to integrate public transport for
more than 20 years. It is a struggle. North South jealousy does not help.
A friend's father was one of the Bromley councillor who scotched Fares
Fair.

Well it would have helped if "Fare's Fair" [sic] had had the same benefits
across London rather than just putting up the rates for some.

She is still convinced Ken is a North London Mayor.

Well what has Livingstone (and I mean Livingstone, not the creation of a
London wide authority as the two are often confused) actually done for
people there?

Well what has Livingstone (and I mean Livingstone, not the creation of a
London wide authority as the two are often confused) actually done for
people there?
Well he has managed to persuaded Southern, South Eastern and South
West Trains to adopt the Oyster card.
He's also managed to get Thameslink 2000 through, Tramlink extensions,
has been fighting for the Cross-River tram, and of course there are a
lot of general things that affect all of London.

It seems a great deal - means that if you don't travel in the AM peak,
daily capping will be slightly less (IIRC) than buying a weekly Z12
travelcard. *With the proviso of course that it's valid on almost no
NR services south of the river. *The recent extensions to oyster
validity seem to have made the system even more biased towards North
London - as the map athttp://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/tickets/oyster-PAYG-08-01-02.pdf
shows.

As a resident of one of the five (or is it six now?) famously Tubeless
boroughs, I'd love to agree with you. But surely it's because more NR
stations north of the river already have some sort of Oyster-handling
equipment (and in some cases, like Blackhorse Rd or Kentish Town, are
more Tube stations than NR stations anyway), so it's easier for them
to plug the gaps?

On Jan 9, 8:04 am, "solar penguin"
wrote:
John B wrote:

OTOH, I'd bet a penny to a pound that nearly all the annoyed people
behind you were seeking to waste the ticket clerk's time by doing
stuff that the machines could have handled anyway.

...in fact, thinking about it, it makes me angry that clerks get
annoyed about people seeking to carry out transactions at the ticket
office that are difficult and take time. Of course they sodding are;
anything easy or urgent could be done at the machine, and anyone who
tries to speak to a clerk to buy a ticket that's also sold at the
machine thoroughly deserves to be made to wait.

OTOH it would only be easier to do it at the machine if you know how to
use the machines in the first place. If you're not familiar with them,
or just don't feel comfortable with machines in general, it's usually
much easier and quicker to deal with a real live human being in the
ticket office.



When I was at Green Park with a queue building up behind me, there was
in fact a supervisor hanging around the machines helping people work
them.


[sarcastic hyperbole]Or preferably shot[/sarcastic hyperbole]

Better still, shoot all the machines and replace them with more human
clerks. That would be a big improvement.

The current big improvement is making most of the smaller machines
accept cards and do oyster. There's often a queue for the couple of
larger machines, while almost nobody can use those machines that can
just sell you a single ticket for £4 in coins.

On 9 Jan, 16:41, "Tim Roll-Pickering"
wrote:
Well what has Livingstone (and I mean Livingstone, not the creation of a
London wide authority as the two are often confused) actually done for
people there?

But that's because the bits of the transport system he controls (via
TfL) are mostly north of the river, and the spread of Oyster PAYG is a
knock-on effect of that (all of it so far has been by having a foot in
the door with tube inter-availability). Buses and the bits of the tube
that reach down there have had equal upgrades, haven't they? And if
the rumour about bidding for Southern is true then it looks like he's
trying to fix TfL's influence problem, too.

U

--
http://londonconnections.blogspot.com/
A blog about transport projects in London

In article ,
(Tim Roll-Pickering) wrote:

Well it would have helped if "Fare's Fair" [sic] had had the same
benefits across London rather than just putting up the rates for
some.

That was the legislation set by the Government getting in the way. The
Tories wouldn't give the GLC any say over BR fares within London.

--
Colin Rosenstiel