Tuesday, July 25, 2023

Ticket office closures — Beeching all over again

My friend M. down at the station thinks this has been in the offing for years, “We’re closing,” he said in a resigned way when the news first came out, though he has since become more defiant.  His impression was that the Government is moving to implement a long-held ambition (and it does seem to be the Government, the Department for Transport, which wants this change, rather than the railway companies).

And the scale of the proposed cuts is breath-taking: they want to leave only a handful of ticket offices in the larger stations.  It is Beeching all over again.  Only 12% of tickets are sold by ticket clerks, goes the claim, and so at my local station and thousands of others ‘it is proposed that all ticket office windows [...] will close, with staff moving to other areas of the station, where there is customer demand’.  

This slippery language makes my blood boil.  Customer demand is precisely in the ticket office, the accepted place for buying tickets and obtaining information.  This is decline, but worse than decline; decline with a smirk on its face, the brazen cheek to speak of a ‘change’ to the ticket office when what is intended is its outright elimination.  So might Henry VIII have spoken of his ‘change’ to the monasteries, or Brutus of his ‘change’ to Caesar’s abdomen.  

The difficulties of financing the railways are not trivial.  Passenger numbers are currently somewhere between 94–100% of pre-pandemic figures, but revenue is not, because the recovery has been stronger in off-peak leisure travel than in commuter traffic, which is the traditional backbone of the passenger railways’ finances.  Even so, the answer is surely to grow revenue, not, as here, to cut off streams of revenue merely because they seem to be less efficient.

But a broader point is to be made beyond the merely financial.  One of the great strengths of the railways is that they are able to say to the passenger, ‘We can look after you’.  The network is complicated; ticketing as presently arranged is confusing; plenty of people lack confidence in travelling.  The ticket clerk can offer passengers something intangible yet incredibly valuable — peace of mind.  And this extends to the atmosphere of the station — the sense of emptiness and alienation resulting from decline, in recent decades and in all sorts of public realms, of staff ‘keeping a general eye on things’ should already have taught us this lesson.

The 0927 to Horsham draws into Ockley station in Surrey, 14th May 2018.

This development is poor reward for the sterling work M. and his colleagues have done over the years.  He told me yesterday that he isn’t interested in standing about in the wind and the rain; it isn’t worth risking his health and he will probably give up if the plans go ahead.  Another friendly face lost, and we will all be the poorer for it.

What does give me a degree of hope is that the response to the consultation — which which can be answered here until Friday 1st September  — seems to have been pretty robust.  Let’s hope it is enough to persuade the Department for Transport to change its mind.  Here is my own response:

Dear Sir / Madam,

I am writing in answer to the consultation on the proposed general closure of railway station ticket offices.  I am afraid I must express my strong opposition to these plans.  Of the many reasons for my opposition, I would like to emphasise three in particular.

The first is that this decision, if implemented, will result in discrimination against passengers unable to buy tickets via machine or online.  Not everybody owns a computer or smartphone; not everybody has Internet access; not everybody is able to use a ticket machine.  We would not withdraw assistance for disabled passengers on the grounds that only a minority uses a wheelchair; surely the same logic applies here.

The second is that the decision is simply impractical.  I cannot see how it would be easier, let alone more economical, to sell tickets in ‘other areas of the station’ as the consultation poster puts it — anywhere other than in a ticket office.  How would cash be handled?  How would tickets be printed?  How could anything work in bad weather?  Has the safety of railway staff been taken into account?  The current proposals leave the practicalities entirely unexplained.

The third reason has to do with the common good.  One tremendous advantage of the railways is that they can undertake to look after their passengers, including those less confident in travelling.  The railway can say, ‘We can look after you.’  The reassuring and knowledgeable presence of the ticket clerk, in an accepted location, is a vital part of this.  It seems unbelievable that this should be dismissed so lightly.  Removing ticket offices will make the station environment far less welcoming, lower the confidence of travellers, and ultimately harm the railway’s prospects.

I am a strong supporter of the railways and use them more or less daily both for work and leisure.  I understand that growth in revenue is an urgent priority and am sympathetic to the railways’ efforts to balance the books.  However, I am astonished and dismayed by the severity of these proposals, which risk doing deep and lasting damage.  Other measures, such as increasing ticket inspections, should be tried first (on the Sutton loop in south London, in spite of travelling more or less daily, I have had my ticket checked only once in the past two years).  Indeed, the railways should be making ticket offices more efficient by expanding the number of services they offer, such as by equipping them to sell advance fares, which are currently only available online.

I would be grateful if you would pass these points on to Govia Thameslink Railway and to urge them in the strongest terms to reconsider their plans.

Yours faithfully, &c.

Updated 26th July 2023 in the light of the extension of the consultation deadline from 26th July to 1st September. 

5 comments :

  1. I have delayed reading this post until now because the subject upsets me so much. There's always an assumption, or at least a hope, in the back of my mind that there will be SOME end to the dehumanization of daily life. Then something like this happens, or is threatened to happen, and makes me think "no worst, there is none".

    The fact that there is a terrible outcry gives me SOME hope, but it also makes me wonder are the powers that be just behaving strategically, Propose something much worse than they have in mind, and people will feel gratified when it's modified.

    A similar situation occurred in Ireland recently when Allied Irish Banks announced they would be withdrawing cash services from many of their branches. They stepped back from this after a public outcry, but are they always just softening us up?

    For once, I strongly agree with the Guardian. Indeed, this is a subject on which right and left can unite.

    https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/aib-climbs-down-over-plans-to-remove-cash-services-from-70-branches-due-to-public-unease/41859301.html

    I use the various apps to navigate public transport here, and although it's better to have them than not, I find them extremely stressful and confusing, especially under pressure. A human face with expertise is so much more welcome.

    This is happening everywhere. Cinemas are closing box offices and selling tickets at the popcorn stand. Post offices are shutting down. Banks are shunting everybody to the website. In my own university, the library is getting more and more queries for the whole campus because we are one of the few human points of contact.

    I hope to God they reconsider and scrap this plan completely.

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    1. Very sorry, Maolsheachlann; I thought I had approved and published this comment. I agree with every word.

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    2. No worries, and thank you for including it in your most recent post, which is very touching.

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  2. I forgot to mention a relevant experience of my own. Once, when I was riding the train through England, I got off at the wrong station for my connecting journey. I remember feeling very panicked and upset, because I didn't have much money and I couldn't afford to buy another ticket. The station master was a big fat man with a red face and a gentle voice. He reassured me and printed me off a ticket for another train.

    it was actually a lovely moment. The station was very quiet, it was just me and the station master. It was a warm summer's day. If all I'd been left with was a smartphone, I would have been clean out of luck. And we all know that these other staff supposedly patrolling the station floor are only a bait; they will be gone very soon, if they materialize at all, and the process will be fully automated.

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    1. Dear Maolsheachlann,

      Thank you for your heartfelt comments with which I am in total sympathy. The thought that it might be a cynical ploy (propose 100% closure, then retreat to 75% in the face of the inevitable outcry, and appear to have compromised while still doing devastating damage) has also crossed my mind. All I can say is that I hope those responsible for these plans are aware of the sense of honour that ought to accompany this sort of public responsibility.

      Whatever happens now, I think we can hope that this sort of outrageous proposal is in fact focusing the minds of those who care about the public realm and the common good. The railways have pulled off great rallying recoveries in the past; this may be what is called for now.

      But in the meantime it will not make up for the loss of the knowledge and experience and the simple presence of the staff.

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