Saving the Ticket Office

This week we return to the big train set that runs the length of the Country having been along it last week.

As you might recall there was a call to shut the ticket offices, the places as the name suggests you buy tickets from on railway station concourse from the overwhelming majority of stations mainly to save money.

Part of the arguement was only around twelve percent or a tadge above that of all tickets sold are from ticket offices.

Many of us as children recall lining up with our parents as they'd buy their tickets on the day trips and that we went on at a counter like this one pictured below.

Back then, that was pretty much it and obviously a bit older as I went to college as smaller stations had the staff reduced or eliminated, you encountered the new fangled ticket machine installed.

In the more recent era we've seen they ability to book tickets online which initially was still on paper tickets which I'd have to say is a boon to me personally and the E-Ticket which is sent to your smartphone  and can be read by ticket barriers and conductors both of which have proved quite popular.

There was a short three week consultation which was extended which showed widespread opposoition to the plans.

Part of reason was some people simply cannot use or access ticket machines or smartphone delivered E-tickets because of visual disabilities, issues with dexterity while others pointed out often the cheapest fares just were not on the ticket machines.

The proposals would of made independent travel impossible for some and more costly for others.

The other issue is it isn't unknown for a train to be cancelled or running late which may mean you require assistance in finding an alternative route or reworking any connections which ticket office staff knowing their way around these things can help with.

That's something with my disabilities I do need.

A connected matter is you feel more secure when there are staff about able to intervene if incidents break out as while it doesn't fit that strong independent disabled person idea that is projected we are more at risk from assaults and abuse from others and this applies to other groups too.

It seems going by Wednesday's announcement this won't be going ahead anytime soon although  I expect some changes like merging ticket office duties with passenger assistance and some attention being paid to the positioning and ticketing options available from machines.

Sometimes we do need people rather more than machines.