There's more bad news for rail travellers! The cheapest rail tickets can no longer be bought from station booking offices, and in order to get the best fares, passengers are being forced to either use ticket machines or buy their tickets online.
Rail companies have now stopped ticket offices from selling cheap advanced fares, which is a reversal of the 2017 reforms designed to make it easier for passengers to buy the cheapest tickets.
Long-suffering UK rail passengers are already faced with a totally confusing fare structure. In fact, fares have not been reformed since privatisation
in the 1990s. And with the number of rail passengers doubling since then, there are now an incredible 55 million different fares!
What are the changes?
Rules preventing the sale of advanced tickets ‘on-the-day’
were abolished in July 2017 as part of changes to allow customers to "get the
best possible deal whenever they travel".
Since then, advanced tickets (which are up
to a third cheaper than standard fares) could be bought on-the-day, up to 10
minutes before the train’s departure.
So for example, on Northern Rail, an advanced
fare from Leeds to York would be £8.20 compared to a standard off-peak single ticket
that costs £12.90.
But rail bosses have now restricted where advanced tickets can be bought on Northern Rail, the second-biggest operator in the UK. In future, customers will only be able to buy a cheap advanced ticket online or from a ticket machine.
Why the changes?
Restricting the sale of advanced tickets to ticket machines and online comes ahead of an anticipated series of ticket
office closures. This is part of a major cost-cutting drive which will see ticket
offices closed and turned into flats, shops or offices.
Keeping rail services running since the start of the pandemic has cost the Treasury an estimated £42 billion. But the Treasury has now ordered the Department for
Transport to balance the books on the railways.
The Government argues that the number of
tickets bought at ticket offices has fallen from 85 per cent in 1995 to 12 per
cent this year, because more and more passengers are using 'tap-in-tap-out' services (like Oyster cards in London) or they pay for train tickets online.
Proposals by train operators (leaked to the
Daily Telegraph earlier this year) set out plans for "re-purposing of the
traditional ticket office facilities". It is believed that these plans are part
of ongoing negotiations between the RMT and the railway companies.
The Government has previously insisted that no
final decision had been taken on station ticket offices - despite union
leaders saying that more than a thousand will shut. The leaked document sets
out how ticket office staff will be forced out of their booths and onto the
platforms.
"This could include conversion to an
alternative retail or commercial outlet, retention of staff accommodation or,
for a designated number of stations, a passenger hub facility will be created
to deal with passenger issues which has the capability to sell tickets where
required."
Why is this a problem?
According to the Office of Rail and Road (the industry regulator) there were 369 million passenger journeys in the final three months of 2022. This equates to around 1.5 billion passenger journeys within a year. Official figures show that 12 per cent of these tickets were bought at ticket offices, which means that roughly 170 million train tickets are bought at ticket offices every year.
Caroline Abrahams, Director of Age UK said:
"Millions of older people are not online and therefore rely on traditional
methods, including face to face, for everyday transactions such as buying
train tickets. It’s unfair if they are excluded from accessing the cheapest
prices, just because they don’t own a smartphone or other digital device. Companies
should be legally obliged to treat all their customers fairly when it comes to
prices and access, whether they are internet savvy or not."
What do the experts say?
Norman Baker, the former transport minister who
is now a director at the Campaign for Better Transport said: "The ticketing system
on the railway is already far too complicated without adding further variations
based on how and where you buy your ticket. People should not be penalised for
using a ticket office."
Mick Lynch, the RMT General Secretary said: "The train operating companies and the government are laying the ground for
their mass closure of ticket offices by deliberately restricting the range of
sales. Ticket offices are critical to the running of the railways and should be
fully equipped to provide the exact same ticket prices for passengers as they
could buy online or at ticket machines."
He continued: “The fact that some rail
companies are restricting the ability of our members to provide the best
service possible is deeply cynical and discriminates against the elderly and
disabled who are more likely to need the assistance of ticket office staff.”
Darren Bugg, Editor of The Customer Service Blog
said: "I wrote an article back in 2018 predicting that rail
companies wanted to cut the number of staff at ticket offices by forcing
customers to use ticket machines. This was long before the secret document was
leaked to the Daily Telegraph. It appears that my prediction is now coming
true."
He continued: "Over the last few years, the
railway companies have made it harder and harder for customers to purchase
tickets at ticket offices, and this new development will now add an element of
unfairness in ticket pricing for more vulnerable members of the population,
such as elderly people, or people with disabilities."
This article contains some materials that first appeared in the Daily Telegraph, and we acknowledge their ownership of the copyright in these parts of the article.
Click here to read Darren Bugg’s original blog article from
2018 that is referred to above.
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