TfL recently sent me an email message to tell me that:

quote
I am writing to let you know that after Easter, we will be carrying out
improvement work at King’s Cross St. Pancras Tube station; this is part
of our plans to modernise the Tube. As a result, we are making changes
to the ticket hall and the ticket windows will be permanently closed.
end quote

Well we all knew of TfL's desire to do away with all these pesky ticket
windows, but on Saturday I happened to walk past the western ticket
office at King's Cross twice. Both in the morning and in late afternoon
the queue for the ticket windows was so full that it didn't all fit in
the zig-zag barriers, there must have been 30 or 40 people waiting each
time. The queue noticeably lengthens soon after a train from Paris or
Brussels arrives.

I don't quite know why those in these long queues don't try to use the
ticket machines (but they often have long queues as well) but I suppose
that if I were just arriving in a foreign city for the first time I
might reckon it easier to get the right ticket from a human than from a
machine, given the complexity of the system. Some of these newly
arriving visitors might even, like me, have had unpleasant experiences
in using ticket machines in foreign cities before.

Whatever the reason, there are going to be a lot of unhappy customers
there after Easter. And TfL shows no signs at all of opening the
refurbished enquiry office near the western ticket hall which was closed
a few months ago.


--
Clive Page

Clive Page wrote:
TfL recently sent me an email message to tell me that:

quote
I am writing to let you know that after Easter, we will be carrying out
improvement work at King’s Cross St. Pancras Tube station; this is part
of our plans to modernise the Tube. As a result, we are making changes to
the ticket hall and the ticket windows will be permanently closed.
end quote

Well we all knew of TfL's desire to do away with all these pesky ticket
windows, but on Saturday I happened to walk past the western ticket
office at King's Cross twice. Both in the morning and in late afternoon
the queue for the ticket windows was so full that it didn't all fit in
the zig-zag barriers, there must have been 30 or 40 people waiting each
time. The queue noticeably lengthens soon after a train from Paris or Brussels arrives.

I don't quite know why those in these long queues don't try to use the
ticket machines (but they often have long queues as well) but I suppose
that if I were just arriving in a foreign city for the first time I might
reckon it easier to get the right ticket from a human than from a
machine, given the complexity of the system. Some of these newly
arriving visitors might even, like me, have had unpleasant experiences in
using ticket machines in foreign cities before.

Whatever the reason, there are going to be a lot of unhappy customers
there after Easter. And TfL shows no signs at all of opening the
refurbished enquiry office near the western ticket hall which was closed a few months ago.


I thought I saw signs saying that the new enquiry office would be opening
shortly?

Clive Page wrote:
I don't quite know why those in these long queues don't try to use the
ticket machines (but they often have long queues as well) but I suppose
that if I were just arriving in a foreign city for the first time I might
reckon it easier to get the right ticket from a human than from a
machine, given the complexity of the system. Some of these newly
arriving visitors might even, like me, have had unpleasant experiences in
using ticket machines in foreign cities before.

Personally, whenever I arrive in a foreign city for the first time I always
use ticket machines instead of windows because (a) there's a much higher
chance the machine will speak my language and (b) even if it doesn't, it's
unlikely to make fun of my accent.

I appreciate anecdote doesn't make data though .

On Sunday, 29 March 2015 12:14:37 UTC+1, Clank wrote:
Clive Page wrote:
I don't quite know why those in these long queues don't try to use the
ticket machines (but they often have long queues as well) but I suppose
that if I were just arriving in a foreign city for the first time I might
reckon it easier to get the right ticket from a human than from a
machine, given the complexity of the system. Some of these newly
arriving visitors might even, like me, have had unpleasant experiences in
using ticket machines in foreign cities before.

Personally, whenever I arrive in a foreign city for the first time I always
use ticket machines instead of windows because (a) there's a much higher
chance the machine will speak my language and (b) even if it doesn't, it's
unlikely to make fun of my accent.

I appreciate anecdote doesn't make data though .

Not at Schipol or Amsterdam Central etc. - all the ticket machines throughout the Nederlands refuse to 'speak' English. And now with the new chip-cards you have to pay a premium for personal service at a ticket office window AND for the cost of the card. Rip-off - worse than in the UK. CJB

On 2015-03-29 21:47:54 +0000, CJB said:

Not at Schipol or Amsterdam Central etc. - all the ticket machines
throughout the Nederlands refuse to 'speak' English.

You what? They have an English option. But even if they didn't, they
are not at all hard to navigate.

And now with the new chip-cards you have to pay a premium for personal
service at a ticket office window AND for the cost of the card. Rip-off
- worse than in the UK. CJB

I am in favour of fees to use the ticket office, it will keep it
available for those occasions when I want something the machine won't
do, and so there won't be a queue of half an hour of people buying a
simple outboundary Travelcard to London which they could easily have
done at the machine.

Neil
--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the @ to reply.

In message , at 00:27:08 on Mon, 30
Mar 2015, Neil Williams remarked:

Not at Schipol or Amsterdam Central etc. - all the ticket machines
throughout the Nederlands refuse to 'speak' English.

You what? They have an English option. But even if they didn't, they
are not at all hard to navigate.

One of the things I liked about them was a poster on the front giving an
example of how to navigate the UI - and the example was a ticket from
Centraal to Schiphol.

On the other hand, I never did get the hang of the ticket machines on
the Metro in Lisbon, which didn't have an "English" option.
--
Roland Perry

On 30/03/2015 00:27, Neil Williams wrote:

On 2015-03-29 21:47:54 +0000, CJB said:

Not at Schipol or Amsterdam Central etc. - all the ticket machines
throughout the Nederlands refuse to 'speak' English.

You what? They have an English option. But even if they didn't, they
are not at all hard to navigate.

And now with the new chip-cards you have to pay a premium for personal
service at a ticket office window AND for the cost of the card.
Rip-off - worse than in the UK. CJB

I am in favour of fees to use the ticket office, it will keep it
available for those occasions when I want something the machine won't
do, and so there won't be a queue of half an hour of people buying a
simple outboundary Travelcard to London which they could easily have
done at the machine.


I've given this counter-example before, but at London area railway
stations it's not uncommon to find a queue for the TVM(s) and no queue
at the ticket window - the latter, in most cases (with some exceptions),
being unequipped to topup Oyster. I do wonder just how much retail
commission the various TOCs threw away by not installing the requisite kit.

On Monday, 30 March 2015 16:30:40 UTC+1, Mizter T wrote:
On 30/03/2015 00:27, Neil Williams wrote:

On 2015-03-29 21:47:54 +0000, CJB said:

Not at Schipol or Amsterdam Central etc. - all the ticket machines
throughout the Nederlands refuse to 'speak' English.

You what? They have an English option. But even if they didn't, they
are not at all hard to navigate.

And now with the new chip-cards you have to pay a premium for personal
service at a ticket office window AND for the cost of the card.
Rip-off - worse than in the UK. CJB

I am in favour of fees to use the ticket office, it will keep it
available for those occasions when I want something the machine won't
do, and so there won't be a queue of half an hour of people buying a
simple outboundary Travelcard to London which they could easily have
done at the machine.


I've given this counter-example before, but at London area railway
stations it's not uncommon to find a queue for the TVM(s) and no queue
at the ticket window - the latter, in most cases (with some exceptions),
being unequipped to topup Oyster. I do wonder just how much retail
commission the various TOCs threw away by not installing the requisite kit.

SWT and London Midland have recently withdrawn Oyster at their ticket windows, so they can't value any commission that much.

On 29/03/2015 12:13, Clank wrote:
Personally, whenever I arrive in a foreign city for the first time I always
use ticket machines instead of windows because (a) there's a much higher
chance the machine will speak my language and (b) even if it doesn't, it's
unlikely to make fun of my accent.

I appreciate anecdote doesn't make data though .

Well so do I. But in two cities in the last few years (Paris and
Rotterdam) I've found machines which won't take British credit or debit
cards and I had to resort to feeding in literally dozens of small coins
to buy my tickets. Fortunately I had just enough, but many tourists
will have had experiences like this and decide a human is more helpful
than a machine.

But in the case of King's Cross, they take some trouble on Eurostar to
push sales of Oyster cards, and TfL also encourage their use by having
cash fares which are many times that of the Oyster fare. So I'm baffled
as to why the queues are so long, but it's a fact that they are.

--
Clive Page

Clive Page wrote in
:


But in the case of King's Cross, they take some trouble on Eurostar to
push sales of Oyster cards, and TfL also encourage their use by having
cash fares which are many times that of the Oyster fare. So I'm
baffled as to why the queues are so long, but it's a fact that they
are.


Yes, Eurostar push Oyster but not hard enough. I think the problem is that
it takes a lot of time to explain the various options to people - many
other systems have just two choices (single or travelcard, and frequently
no messing around with zones either).

What's needed is a flyer, available in multiple languages, explaining the
basics of the system:

1) are you travelling within London?
2) do you have a contactless payment card? or
3) get an Oyster card and put some momey on it
4) touch in on buses, touch in and out on trains.

(You can begin to see the problems as you then have to explain "London",
how much money you need to put on the ticket etc etc.)

David