On 2016-09-28, Recliner wrote:
Roland Perry wrote:

At a lot of the busier stations the wall-space has been used for more
ticket machines.

Yes, and the arrangement seems to work quite well, with a hovering
uniformed station assistant helping anyone who's confused. Most stations
that I use, whether in the suburbs or in central London, have shorter
queues than before.


I agree that queues are shorter than before. However, there's one thing
that doesn't work as well and that's when you need someone to help you
(and you know you're going to need someone)

For me it's getting my gold card registered onto my oyster PAYG

Someone helping at one of the (big) ticket machines so I join that
queue. The people two in front of me obviously didn't need help, so after
the assistant discovering that, wandered off, when I then had to chase
them (and then they were helping someone else) etc.

Eventually they ended up putting the wrong entitlement onto my card
(which I only discovered when I used it because the price was cheaper
than I'd expected. So I rang up the oyster helpline and they told me
that I'd got some sort of staff discount but they couldn't correct it
so I had to go back to the station - and back to a similar problem of
there being no way to "queue" for help.

Maybe it would be better now as there are more machines so rarely are
there queues for machines. I'll find out in December when I have to
renew my gold card discount.

Tim.