"Scott" wrote in message
news
On Mon, 5 May 2014 16:51:12 +0000 (UTC), d
wrote:

On Mon, 5 May 2014 13:13:46 +0100
Roland Perry wrote:
"Mr Hufton added: "Modernisation of the Tube means that it is our
intention to close all ticket offices, used in less than 3% of journeys"

As ever, it would aid transparency to know what the percentage was if
they excluded season tickets (to a first approximation I won't insist
that an annual season ticket bought at a ticket office counts as 400+
journeys).

3% of journeys is still a hell of a lot and more than enough reason to
keep
them. If it really is just modernisation and not cost cutting why are they
seeking voluntary redundancies? The unions should call their bluff and say
fine - close the offices and modernise practises , but keep all the staff.
Lets see what Mike Brown has to say then.

How many of the visits to the ticket office are due to queues at the
ticket machine? If the proposal goes ahead, I assume there will be
more machines.

That's the plan

Also, will payment by debit card not reduce the need
for non Oyster customers to purchase a ticket?

That's also the plan

Good luck with getting German tourists (and no doubt many others) to pay
this way :-)

tim

Good luck with getting German tourists (and no doubt many others) to
pay this way :-)

There's very , very many more knowledgeable people posting here than
this occasional tourist but I can't recall using a staffed ticket office
for the underground or equivalent as a tourist when in Paris, Budapest,
Boston, New York, Hong Kong, Sydney and Tokyo. In fact I can only
recall *seeing* staffed ticket offices in Boston and Hong Kong (and the
latter IIRC because we were looking to buy an Octopus at the airport).
Are other systems really still in the land of cash, wetware and language
barriers?
--
Robin
reply to address is (meant to be) valid

wrote:
In article ,
(tim.....) wrote:

I still remain convinced that this big bang of closing all TO in one
go and expecting the 1,000,000 people per day to change their habits
and suddenly start using machines is doomed to failure and chaos will
ensue - and that's just considering the people who are queuing, by
choice, to buy "normal!" tickets, ignoring all of the edge cases that
the machines can't handle.

Who says they are going to close them all at once? I thought they had been
closing ticket offices for some time.

Have any ticket offices been shut so far? I thought they were all still
there, but many suburban station offices are only used for part of the day.

"Robin" wrote in message
...
Good luck with getting German tourists (and no doubt many others) to
pay this way :-)

There's very , very many more knowledgeable people posting here than this
occasional tourist but I can't recall using a staffed ticket office for
the underground or equivalent as a tourist when in Paris, Budapest,
Boston, New York, Hong Kong, Sydney and Tokyo.

I meant using a contactless payment card (because most banks aren't issuing
them)

I accept that the majority of Germans will happily buy their tickets from a
machine

tim

In article ,
(Paul Corfield) wrote:

On Mon, 05 May 2014 13:05:01 -0500,
wrote:

In article ,
(tim.....) wrote:

I still remain convinced that this big bang of closing all TO in one
go and expecting the 1,000,000 people per day to change their habits
and suddenly start using machines is doomed to failure and chaos will
ensue - and that's just considering the people who are queuing, by
choice, to buy "normal!" tickets, ignoring all of the edge cases that
the machines can't handle.

Who says they are going to close them all at once? I thought they had
been closing ticket offices for some time.

They will all be closed by a deadline. I suspect that it will be done
by GSM group as new rosters come into action. I also expect that it
will be geographically based so, for example, all stations in East
London across the relevant lines will close on the same date or else
very close together datewise. This is to prevent people just diverting
their purchases - they'll have to switch to the new way of doing things.

It's alarmingly close with the method of obtaining Oyster usage printouts
and registering railcards without ticket offices, amongst other ticket
office activities, yet to be announced.

And as for rolling it out before they have any idea whatsoever how
many people will switch to pay wave - NUTS! (As commented before,
none of my 3 card providers has yet to send me a suitably enabled
card - I can't be alone!)

They must have some idea of the consequences of closing the ticket
offices they have already closed, surely?

Yes but they haven't told the public what those consequences will be
or how ticket purchase / Oyster card purchase / reset / refund txns
will be handled and more crucially *where* those txns will be done.

Or how things like railcard registration on Oyster will work in future. It's
already ridiculous that registration isn't visible either on ticket machines
or (for registered cards) online.

The figure being quoted is 3% of LU journeys *start* at a ticket
office. This ignores any non LU journeys that require a ticket office
visit (people using buses and buying a bus pass or buying a NR
ticket). It also ignores DLR where there are joint facilties.

It also ignores those instances where people visit a ticket office at
the end of a journey - to renew a season ticket, top up Oyster if it's
just run out of balance, deal with any incomplete journeys or Oyster
card problems.

https://fullfact.org/factchecks/tube...e_Minister-293
42

https://fullfact.org/live/2014/apr/t...e_claimed-3190
8

Hmm. So 3% is reasonable because for most journeys no purchase is made at
the start of the journey. How many journeys involve at least one ticket
office visit then? What is missing is visits to ticket offices for purposes
other than purchases. How many are for facilities not available elsewhere?

I switched to ticket stops when they imposed an arbitrary £5 minimum
top-up at ticket offices.

Another fix to shove people away from ticket windows.

One that works. I used to use a ticket stop in Monmouth St because I passed
it cycling from King's Cross to Westminster, nowhere near a tube station and
without queues.

There's clearly been a shed load of propaganda from both sides and I
don't think the public have been given the full facts.

Can't disagree with that. What was that phrase? "The first casualty of war
is the truth"?

--
Colin Rosenstiel

"Paul Corfield" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 05 May 2014 13:05:01 -0500,
wrote:

There's clearly been a shed load of propaganda from both sides and I
don't think the public have been given the full facts.



I doubt that the normal travelling public cares

They will however care if they have to queue up for an extended period at a
machine to make a simple transaction because there is a shed load of people
in front of them struggling to complete their transaction, because the don't
know what to do and there isn't enough staff on hand to help.

This is why I am an interested party, as an occasional user of the system I
normally top up my oyster at a machine and I don't want to have to queue up
behind a coach load of technophobes!

tim

In article
,
(Recliner) wrote:

wrote:
In article ,
(tim.....) wrote:

I still remain convinced that this big bang of closing all TO in one
go and expecting the 1,000,000 people per day to change their habits
and suddenly start using machines is doomed to failure and chaos will
ensue - and that's just considering the people who are queuing, by
choice, to buy "normal!" tickets, ignoring all of the edge cases that
the machines can't handle.

Who says they are going to close them all at once? I thought they
had been closing ticket offices for some time.

Have any ticket offices been shut so far? I thought they were all still
there, but many suburban station offices are only used for part of the
day.

It's a long time since I used East Putney with the ticket office open. But
It's also a long time since I used it in the morning peak.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

wrote in message
...
In article
,
(Recliner) wrote:

wrote:
In article ,
(tim.....) wrote:

I still remain convinced that this big bang of closing all TO in one
go and expecting the 1,000,000 people per day to change their habits
and suddenly start using machines is doomed to failure and chaos will
ensue - and that's just considering the people who are queuing, by
choice, to buy "normal!" tickets, ignoring all of the edge cases that
the machines can't handle.

Who says they are going to close them all at once? I thought they
had been closing ticket offices for some time.

Have any ticket offices been shut so far? I thought they were all still
there, but many suburban station offices are only used for part of the
day.

It's a long time since I used East Putney with the ticket office open. But
It's also a long time since I used it in the morning peak.

I can't see E Putney being an obvious candidate for a closed ticket office

tim

In article ,
(tim.....) wrote:

"Paul Corfield" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 05 May 2014 13:05:01 -0500,
wrote:

There's clearly been a shed load of propaganda from both sides and I
don't think the public have been given the full facts.

I doubt that the normal travelling public cares

They will however care if they have to queue up for an extended
period at a machine to make a simple transaction because there is a
shed load of people in front of them struggling to complete their
transaction, because the don't know what to do and there isn't enough
staff on hand to help.

I thought the point was to redeploy staff in ticket hall areas and that one
of their activities would be to help in cases like this?

This is why I am an interested party, as an occasional user of the
system I normally top up my oyster at a machine and I don't want to
have to queue up behind a coach load of technophobes!

If you need to visit a ticket office now you already have that opportunity.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

wrote:
In article
,
(Recliner) wrote:

wrote:
In article ,
(tim.....) wrote:

I still remain convinced that this big bang of closing all TO in one
go and expecting the 1,000,000 people per day to change their habits
and suddenly start using machines is doomed to failure and chaos will
ensue - and that's just considering the people who are queuing, by
choice, to buy "normal!" tickets, ignoring all of the edge cases that
the machines can't handle.

Who says they are going to close them all at once? I thought they
had been closing ticket offices for some time.

Have any ticket offices been shut so far? I thought they were all still
there, but many suburban station offices are only used for part of the
day.

It's a long time since I used East Putney with the ticket office open. But
It's also a long time since I used it in the morning peak.

It's not hard to find East Putney's ticket office hours (which are much
better than many stations in oyster London):

Monday - Friday 07:00 - 12:00, 17:00 - 19:00
Saturday 09:15 - 16:30
Sunday 10:00 - 15:45

From
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/hub/stop/940GZ...round-station/