On the 5th of July, the Rail Delivery Group announced a 21-day consultation exercise regarding their proposals to close just short of 1,000 ticket offices across the country. In their rush to push these proposals through, it seems they did not have time to discuss their proposals with either the Office of Road and Rail (ORR) or the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). Many thanks to the excellent Association of British Commuters for their work in this area, you can read their open letter to the ORR and the EHRC, signed by a number of rail and disability experts and activists here: https://abcommuters.com/2023/07/04/experts-call-for-orr-and-ehrc-to-intervene-in-ticket-office-closures/
The Rail Delivery Group has spun this as the launch of ‘Customer Focused Stations’, but what is the reality behind their sunny vision of the future? This short blog will focus on staffing levels, rather than the multiple issues around ticketing.
The proposed staffing levels for all the stations managed by Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) can be found by clicking this link: https://www.thameslinkrailway.com/about-us/our-commitments/public-consultation and then clicking ‘Station Information pdf or Excel’.
The proposed staffing levels for Northern can be found by clicking the link below. I will point out that Northern has at least been more transparent and states (on page six of the document) that at the 131 stations where the ticket offices will close “We will also reduce the number of hours that Northern colleagues are present at these stations”. https://www.northernrailway.co.uk/sites/default/files/2023-07/Public%20Consultation%20Document.pdf
As yet, I haven’t had a chance to look at every single station, but a clear pattern has emerged from the stations that I have looked at. It seems clear to me that these proposals will result in substantial destaffing of the rail network, under the cover of what the Rail Delivery Group breezily describes as ‘Customer Focused Stations.’
The documents from GTR and Northern set out current ticket office hours vs the proposed ‘ticketing assistance hours’. Central to understanding the Rail Delivery Group’s proposals is the definition of what is meant by ticketing office hours. There are two clues in the literature provided:
1 – Crucially, the ticketing assistance hours are defined (as per GTR’s public consultation FAQs) as when staff would be available in the main station area (ie. all station areas apart from the closed ticket office) to help with ticket purchases and queries.
2 – GTR in their description of accessibility provision under the new proposals (Column H) states at four of their stations, Carshalton, Cheam, Coulsdon Town and Crawley that; “following the end of ticket assistance hours, accessibility provision provided by Mobile Assistance team through to last train”. As the vast majority of other stations under their control have been flagged as having first to last train assistance available, even though they are not staffed throughout the time trains are running, I have been unable to find out what is different about these particular stations. I suspect that mobile assistance teams will be used to provide accessibility assistance when requested. This is obviously completely different from a permanent staff presence at the station.
Both these descriptions indicate to me that the ‘ticketing assistance hours’ are actually setting out the hours during which the stations will be staffed. When I raised this directly with GTR on 7th July, I was told that the platform staffing hours were a separate internal employee process from the ticket office opening hours and they could not give any guarantees about the platform staffing levels outside of the proposed ticketing assistance hours.
Northern has made it clear in its consultation documents that the number of hours that staff are present at their stations will reduce and that outside of their ‘Journey Maker’ hours their stations will be unstaffed. In my view, GTR has been less transparent. However, I believe it is fair to deduce from the information that we have been given that ‘ticketing assistance hours’ on GTR means exactly the same as ‘Journey Maker hours’ on Northern.
It is relevant to say at this point that the Rail Delivery Group (an oxymoron if ever I have heard one) will not guarantee that there will not be compulsory redundancies as a result of their proposals and their dispute resolution offer to the unions only commits to no compulsory redundancies until December 2024.
The offer to the rail unions only commits to no compulsory redundancies until December 2024.
The rather more transparent Northern admits there will be an overall reduction in the headcount of station staff across their network, as per their answer to Q12 below.
FAQ Question from Northern Rail. Question – Will there be a reduction in the overall number of colleagues at stations? Answer – Our proposal which is subject to consultation is that the overall headcount will reduce once we introduce the new Journey Maker role.
Further, GTR has also not given any commitment to the timings of access to toilets at their stations. Currently, these are only open when the station is staffed, either by platform staff and/or when the ticket office is open.
Northern has also provided a helpful infographic about the new multi-purpose role for the former ticket office staff which includes fare advice and accessibility assistance, who on Northern at least, will now be called ‘Journey Makers’. There is no reason to believe that the multi-purpose role set out below will be any different for GTR ticket office staff.
An infographic from the Northern Rail consultation brochure setting out the responsibilities of the proposed ‘Journey Maker’ staff which are 1 – give customers information 2 – help customers buy tickets online and via machines 3 – provide extra assistance to those who need it 4 – make announcements at stations 5 – help resolve customer issues 6 – assist during service disruption 7 – keep stations clean and tidy.
Under the RDG’s proposals, ticket office staff will undertake a multi-purpose role ‘in front of the glass’ to replace all existing station based roles, offering accessibility assistance as well as performing gateline duties currently performed by other members of staff. This will clearly be an opportunity for the train operating companies to reduce staff numbers to avoid what they will see as duplication.
GTR states that no stations that are staffed today will become unstaffed. However, under the guise of retaining ‘ticketing assistance,’ it enables GTR and the other train companies to reduce the time that they are staffing their stations. There are many examples in the data, too numerous to mention, but I provide a few examples below.
Arlesey – proposed ‘ticketing assistance’ hours Monday to Friday 06.45 to 12.10 Under the proposals, the station loses the platform staff currently present between 16.00 and 20.00
Biggleswade – proposed ‘ticketing assistance’ hours Monday to Friday 06.20 to 14.15. Under the proposals, the station loses the platform staff currently present between 16.00 and 20.00. This will also impact the opening times of the toilets that have just opened at the station.
Crawley – proposed ‘ticketing assistance’ hours 06.00 to 22.30 Monday to Friday. This is an increase in the current ticket office hours, but the station will become unstaffed from 22.30 at night whereas currently the station is staffed until 01.00
Deansgate (Northern) – proposed ‘Journey Maker’ hours on Monday to Friday from 05.50 to 12.50. The current ticket office hours are 06.00 to 23.30
Hexham (Northern) – proposed ‘Journey Maker’ hours Monday to Friday 09.00 to 12.30. This is a reduction from the current ticket office hours of 07.15 to 17.30. It should be noted that at this station the barrow crossing between platforms can only be used when the station is staffed.
The barrow crossing at Hexham station. only accessible when staff are present.
Leagrave – proposed increase in ‘ticketing assistance’ hours between 05.45 and 21.10 Monday to Friday. This is an increase from the current ticket office hours, but the station will be unstaffed from 21.10 at night.
If you detect a lack of neutrality in this post I will hold my hand up and admit bias. I along with the travelling public, accessibility campaigners and the rail unions want an accessible, safe, affordable and fully staffed rail network. It is now clear that the Rail Delivery Group and this Government do not. Whose side are they on?
Julian Vaughan
Chair – Bedfordshire Rail Access Network
9th July 2023
Twitter: @julian_vaughan_
Sources and further reading
Rail Delivery Group – Customer Focused Stations https://www.raildeliverygroup.com/uk-rail-industry/customer-focused-reform/customer-focused-stations.html#consultation
Northern Railway – Changing how we support our customers at our stations https://www.northernrailway.co.uk/consultation-2023
Thameslink – public consultation including FAQs https://www.thameslinkrailway.com/about-us/our-commitments/public-consultation
Rail Delivery Group – the RMT Offer https://www.raildeliverygroup.com/uk-rail-industry/customer-focused-reform/rmt-offer.html
Association of British Commuters – Experts call for ORR and EHRC to intervene in ticket office closures
UK Parliament Early Day Motion – Future of Railway Ticket Offices https://edm.parliament.uk/early-day-motion/61155
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