Public Transport in your particular part of the region

[Martin Phillp]

Before Oyster was introduced to NR services in London, the suburban stations used to have Permit to Travel machines for when the ticket machine was out of order or the ticket office closed.

I'd simply put 10p in to purchase a permit, then when I'd reach the destination, usually a London Terminal, I'd go to the counter on the platform, buy the rail ticket and 10p would be deducted from the fare.

[Jonwo]

I think there’s certainly an argument for rationalising the number of ticket offices across the network, but not shuttering them altogether. There are almost certainly a host of smaller stations which do not justify having a ticket office anymore; for example on the London Overground and Elizabeth Line diamond geezer did a write-up earlier this year of the ticket offices with the lowest sales, which highlights how one of the hugely upgraded Elizabeth Line stations with a new ticket office sells an average of five tickets a day!

Some of the London Overground ticket sale stats are shocking but I'm curious who are these people who are buying tickets when Oyster and Contactless exists.

[Charlie Wells]

In London contactless was rolled out onto the underground 2014, and then in 2015 ticket offices on the underground were closed.

I emphasised the "then" as that is essentially the problem with the proposal to close railway station ticket offices. With TFL they introduced a simpler alternative way of paying to travel, before closing the ticket offices. At present there isn't an equivalent simple way to pay for travel on the railway, as for most of the network it's not possible to tap in & out using contactless. There's also the wider issue of railcards not currently being supported with contactless (which also affects TFL).

If it was possible to simply tap in & out at stations using a contactless card, then there might be a strong argument for deeming manned ticket offices no longer necessary. At present there probably is however a reasonable case for reducing the number of ticket office positions within stations to just one at most stations. Preferably also refurbishing station buildings at the same time to provide accessible toilets and maybe a part-time cafe and/shop could help subsidise the cost of keeping the building open.

Hopefully this announcement may in part be a negotiating position with their ongoing dispute with the RMT, rather than entirely set in stone.

[Jonwo]

When TfL proposed closing the ticket offices, the RMT kicked off a massive stink and held a number of strikes but in the end, the offices ended up closing anyway.

Contactless is expanding further especially on the metro services so it won't be long before you will able to travel to Windsor or Dartford using just a bank card.

[thegeek]

Some of the London Overground ticket sale stats are shocking but I'm curious who are these people who are buying tickets when Oyster and Contactless exists.

extension tickets for those with travelcards? They're often not available or hard to obtain from ticket machines.

Contactless is expanding further especially on the metro services so it won't be long before you will able to travel to Windsor or Dartford using just a bank card.

again, this doesn't solve the more complicated ticketing questions, like railcards, extension tickets, etc. As I mentioned above, the Dutch OV-chipkaart system is a nationwide PAYG but also allows for things railcards and season tickets, and (what I've always felt like was a bit of an omission for the UK), being able to subscribe to discounts for anyone, not just under 26s and over 60s.

[all new Phil]

I’m not exactly well versed in these things, but could they in theory link a railcard to a payment card and automatically apply the appropriate discount at the tap in/out?

[WillPS]

I think there’s certainly an argument for rationalising the number of ticket offices across the network, but not shuttering them altogether. There are almost certainly a host of smaller stations which do not justify having a ticket office anymore; for example on the London Overground and Elizabeth Line diamond geezer did a write-up earlier this year of the ticket offices with the lowest sales, which highlights how one of the hugely upgraded Elizabeth Line stations with a new ticket office sells an average of five tickets a day!

Some of the London Overground ticket sale stats are shocking but I'm curious who are these people who are buying tickets when Oyster and Contactless exists.

Overseas tourists. Contactless is not ubiquitous everywhere, and even if it was providers sting with charges. Oyster is a much harder concept to explain than 'this bit of paper is valid in this areas on these dates'.

[Charlie Wells]

Some of the London Overground ticket sale stats are shocking but I'm curious who are these people who are buying tickets when Oyster and Contactless exists.

Overseas tourists. Contactless is not ubiquitous everywhere, and even if it was providers sting with charges. Oyster is a much harder concept to explain than 'this bit of paper is valid in this areas on these dates'.

Worth noting in Paris they've scrapped bulk paper tickets for Navigo Easy, which is similar to Oyster. The good thing I found using this was that you could top it up remotely by using their android app and NFC to update the card from your phone. To get the initial card though I did opt to go to a manned ticket office within the Gare du Nord.

(It was amusing to hear an American couple in front ask in English if contactless payment was possible, then querying when they were told it wasn't available. This followed by myself asking for the card in French having done 10 minutes research online to find out what I needed, and just about recalling bits of my GCSE French from 20 years ago.)

I’m not exactly well versed in these things, but could they in theory link a railcard to a payment card and automatically apply the appropriate discount at the tap in/out?

This would probably work for most travelcard discounts, though the difficulty may come with the Two Together railcard. I imagine multiple cards could potentially be stored in a similar way to how the TFL/Oyster app works (in theory). At the moment though most railcards can't be connected to contactless cards to get discounts on TFL services, though some can when using Oyster.

[Martin Phillp]

The Network Railcard can't also be linked to an Oyster card because of the weekday £13 minimum fare.

Oyster already has acceptance as far south as Gatwick Airport in West Sussex, but Contactless will be expanded even further south down the Brighton Mainline at some point. It's also valid to Dartford and Swanley in Kent and on C2C services in the Tilbury/Grays area.

Contactless has a much wider area before it's expanded across more of the London commuter belt. You can use your contactless card as far west as Reading and the associated lines that run off them such as Windsor & Eton Central, Henley and Marlow, Thameslink services up to Luton Airport Parkway and Great Northern services to Hatfield and Welwyn Garden City.

[Blewatter]

Since no one has commented on it, the Government has urged Train Operators to scrap plans to close Ticket Offices. Truthfully, I think that they will still do layoffs, and have current ticket officers reapply for similar, but nominally different, jobs with some revamped responsibilities, and maybe reduced ticket office hours. I suppose having a job is better than no job though.

Up in my fair land of Merseyside, the new Headbolt Lane station has been open for about a month now, and we are having issues with our new battery powered trains (Headbolt Lane doesn't use Third Rail). And our new fleet of Hydrogen buses that were supposed to start at some point this year are all stored away, because of a Hydrogen shortage.

And Manchester's Bee Network has launched too. In my visits to the Girlfriend's home, there are a lot of Yellow buses. It looks very smart, and its good that the Greater Manchester Area is leading the way for metro-owned transporation.

[thegeek]

McGills of Greenock aren't too chuffed with the idea of a similar franchising model being introduced in Glasgow - which frankly a bit of top-down thinking applied to its transport network..

https://www.route-one.net/news/glasgow- ... -response/