South West Trains

Proposed changes to Ticket Office opening hours
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date 14 May 2008
source South West Trains
type Press release

Why are we planning changes to ticket office opening hours at some of our stations?

You may be aware of our proposals to alter the opening hours at a number of our ticket offices. We hope the explanation below will address some of the questions we know have been raised.

We are currently consulting on our proposals to reduce opening hours at a number of ticket offices. We have already outlined our proposals to Passengerfocus, London TravelWatch and the unions and today embark on public consultation.

These proposals come alongside a £12 million investment in a new generation of ticket vending machines, which offer a range of ticket types, including weekly Season Tickets and Railcard discounts. Later this year the machines will start to offer a ticket on departure facility, allowing passengers to purchase their ticket by telephone and simply collect from the TVM. We are also looking to make changes to the machines software to allow the purchase of tickets for the following day.

Although recent research, carried out by ourselves and PassengerFocus, indicated that 91% of people queuing at ticket offices could have purchased their tickets from a TVM, we appreciate that some passengers prefer the human touch, particularly if they have a complicated journey inquiry. Clearly these passengers can either make their inquiry while the ticket office is open, or have the choice of ringing our Customer Service Centre from the comfort of their own home.

More and more people are also choosing to buy their ticket online - another area we are looking to develop further. Leisure passengers wanting to find the cheapest fare for their journey can go on line and make great savings by booking one of our Advance fares. These can also be booked through our Customer Service Centre.

The proposed reduction in ticket office opening hours at some stations, should also be seen against the backdrop of other station developments. We are currently investing in installing CCTV at all our mainland stations and on all our trains. We have also introducing a new team of Rail Community Officers to patrol our network, supported and managed by a dedicated team of British Transport Police officers - this investment is in the region of £1.8 million per year.

The proposals we are putting forward range from very minor changes to opening hours to more significant reductions at very quiet stations. Our suggested changes follow months of indepth research into ticket sales at each station and we believe make the best use of our resources in this challenging commercial environment.

Railhub Archive ::: 2008-05-14 SWT-001