Over the last four weeks we have been carrying out the first of a two-part consultation into current ticket office opening hours.
The ticket office opening hours at stations have not been reviewed for more than 10 years and with retail constantly evolving and peoples’ needs changing there was a need to review this. The way that people buy rail tickets has changed dramatically, with new era Ticket Vending Machines (TVMs) offering an ever-increasing range of products and the option of buying over the internet or telesales. The growth of sales in these areas led us to review ticket office sales, which in turn has led us to proposals to reduce the opening hours of ticket offices at 114 stations.
Why are we planning changes to ticket office opening hours at some of our stations?
There are no proposals to close any ticket offices. What the review identified are a number of stations where ticket office opening hours could be reduced.
The first phase of consultation into these proposed changes has been with passenger bodies, neighbouring train companies, trades unions and the Department for Transport (DfT). Now their initial feedback has been received, a list* of the final proposed opening hours will be displayed at those affected stations.
Many of the stations where there are proposed changes to ticket office opening hours will benefit from additional TVMs. All affected stations will have at least one TVM.
This is now subject to public consultation and this will be between 14 July and 5 August. Passengers are welcome to feed back their views to PassengerFocus and London TravelWatch.
*See here for a pdf of the proposed changes to ticket office opening hours>