Government plans to close railway ticket offices hit the buffer

The government has backtracked on plans to close railway ticket offices following a consultation that saw widespread opposition to the plans from the public.

The plans, announced earlier this year would have seen the majority of ticket offices in stations in England closed, and the staff redirected to other tasks in the station. The argument was that just 12 percent of train tickets were bought in a ticket office, so it’s not a huge leap for those people to switch to ticket machines or online.

However, it became clear that the 12 percent average hid substantial variations between stations, particularly outside London, where in-person ticket sales in the station are much higher. The London area has a far lower demand for ticket sales over the counter thanks to the much simpler ticket pricing system in use. There was a strong feeling in the consultation that as ticket prices are complicated, mandating a switch to ticket machines or online sales would lead to confusion and likely fewer ticket sales.

There’s long been a call to simplify the ticket pricing, but closing the ticket offices before the simplification process was even started felt more like a case of putting the horse before the cart.

Although presented publically as a proposal from the train companies, and the Department for Transport (DfT) would respond to the consultation, make no doubt this was led by the DfT, who instructed the train companies to put forward proposals to cut costs in light of post-pandemic changes.

Of the 20 train operating companies in England, the DfT directly controls five, representing about a quarter of passenger journies in the UK. They would have only been able to propose closing the ticket offices if the DfT had said that was acceptable.

Each of the train companies had to submit their proposals to the two statutory bodies running the consultation, Transport Focus and London Travelwatch.

Transport Focus said in its report today that it’s objecting to all of the current proposals to close ticket offices. While many of the revised station proposals failed to meet the criteria set by Transport Focus, there were some, such as those proposed by GWR and TransPennine Express, which met the majority of their criteria. However, across all proposals, they said that there are key issues that are critical to maintaining accessibility for all to the national network that remain unresolved.

Transport Focus was particularly concerned that the details around some of the proposals, particularly new customer support arrangements, still lack detail. A lack of an overall delivery plan also raises concerns that closures may occur before new arrangements are in place.

Anthony Smith, chief executive of the independent watchdog Transport Focus, said: “Transport Focus is supportive of the principle of redeploying staff from ticket offices to improve the overall offer to the passenger. We also recognise the extreme financial pressure facing the railways and the need to find new, cost-effective ways of working. We will continue to work with the train companies to help them resolve the issues raised by passengers during this process.”

This is the crux of the issue.

Having staff sitting behind a glass wall when they could be standing in the ticket office performing the same function with a handheld tablet seems archaic — why is the glass wall important.

However, the proposals felt rushed and half planned, and unsurprisingly, sparked a considerable amount of opposition.

In a statement, the Transport Secretary, Mark Harper said “The consultation on ticket offices has now ended, with the Government making clear to the rail industry throughout the process that any resulting proposals must meet a high threshold of serving passengers”

“The proposal that have resulted from this process to not meet the high thresholds set by Ministers, and so the Government has asked train operators to withdraw their proposals”

For the Government to lay the blame for the failure of the plans at the door of the train operating companies when it was the government that, in effect, told them to close the ticket offices is disingenuous.

It has also angered people inside the train companies who feel they’ve taken the blame for a government decision.

The proposal for a wholesale closure of ticket offices is now dead.

The consultation process has had a positive aspect to it. That it triggered so much feedback — over 750,000 responses in total — will be a valuable body of information that can highlight areas where the trains are weakest in providing services, particularly to those less able to use the services.

The consultation has also shown how much people want to travel by train and were worried about the potential loss of access to public transport, especially outside London where public transport services are weaker.

What the DfT — which ultimately controls the train companies — can do is to take this as an opportunity to push ahead with the simplification of ticketing prices, speed up the rollout of contactless payments and improve the functionality of ticket machines and online ticket sales.

Then you might very well see ticket offices closing over the years to come because they will have genuinely become redundant. But they’re not redundant yet.