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Walter Briscoe · September 26th 15, 12:52 PM posted to uk.transport.london

In message of Fri, 25
Sep 2015 07:40:51 in uk.transport.london,
writes
[snip]

There are supposed to be staff in the ticket hall to help people use the
ticket machines.

The only staff I could find in original and Western ticket office areas at
King's cross St Pancras were on the Metropolitan etc barrier line. All I
wanted was a tube map. Not only were there no more ticket machines in the
original ticket hall, the queues were horrendous.

Part of the process of closing ticket offices seems to be to replace
leaflet racks.
A few months ago, I failed to find a leaflet rack at Green Park.
I was assured, by 'phone, at the Customer Service Centre - now at 0343
222 1234 - that the loss was temporary.
I found a new design leaflet rack on a blue wall, last week.
There is internal information on closures, but TfL has plainly decided
not to publish it. Staff at Moorgate gave a DD MMM date some months ago.
ISTR it is in October.
I know of no Freedom of Information Act request on it.
The theory is that staff will be available. They are at some stations
such as Leytonstone and Goodge Street. I used to find there were staff
to help with tickets and others to help with general enquiries. Now most
help tourists to use POMs (Passenger Operated Machines or ticket
machines) and can do little else. At others, such as Roding Valley, they
continue to be hidden, but there is no longer a staff window. At
Chigwell, the sole staff member is sometimes in the ticket hall and
sometimes in the control room, obscured by the gateline for boarding
customers.

I don't know Sadiq Khan's view on the change. It would cost large sums
to reverse it. I think Caroline Pidgeon did not strongly oppose the
Mayor's argument: as some ticket offices do not sell many tickets, let's
close them all. I DO hate one size fits all arguments.

Ticket Offices provide printed Oyster Statements. POMs don't - "you can
use the Internet" - it would have been trivial to put the last 8
journeys on paper ticket stock. One good thing is that staff can use
POMs to give refunds, including returning Oyster cards - where the
balance is no more than 10UKP.
--
Walter Briscoe