Letters
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editor@railpro.co.uk Fax them to: 01223 327356 Or post them to: The Editor, Rail Professional, 275 Newmarket Road, Cambridge CB5 8JE. Letters may be edited for length
London St Pancras International or not? Since the introduction of the December 2009 timetable and the start of the HS1 service from Faversham to St Pancras, it is now emphasised, to the point of overkill, by all station and on-train announcements, together with all publicity, that the trains go to London St Pancras International. The average off-peak
journey time from my home station, Chatham, is 44 minutes – just three minutes less than travelling to Southeastern’s premier London terminus of Victoria. However, the above is
Ticket gates have important role
In an ideal world there would be no need for ticket gates at stations (News, September 2010 issue). However, unfortunate as it is, ticket gates play a part in ensuring personal security and that passengers who rightly pay their fare do not subsidise those who choose not to buy a ticket. That being said, it is important to take into account local circumstances. For example, 93 per cent of passengers at St Albans tell us ticket gates are easy to use. At Norwich it is a very different story, with only 43 per
cent of passengers saying that the barriers are easy to use, and Passenger Focus is in discussion with National Express about what needs to be done differently at Norwich. In the case of Newcastle, 82 per cent of passengers tell us
gates at the station are easy to use. However, the Tyne Valley Rail User Group has raised a number of issues with these gates and we are talking to East Coast about how they can be overcome. Passenger Focus is not opposed to the principle of ticket
gates – especially since 80 per cent of all passengers tell us they find them easy to use – but we will work to improve the situation where specific problems occur for passengers.
Ashwin Kumar Passenger Focus rail director
not so with the National Rail Enquiries website. A journey planner enquiry
for Chatham to London St Pancras International gives a journey time of one hour, which includes an incredible 16 minute walk from a location called London St Pancras Domestic where the train terminates. A very strange anomaly for such a high price ticket!
John Cherry
Chatham Domestic, not International!
Passenger Focus surveys: it’s all in the wording So Passenger Focus believes passengers are generally pro ticket barriers because, when questioned, 82 per cent of passengers found the gates easy or fairly easy to use
(News, September 2010 issue). Really? What a strange way to phrase the question, essentially: ‘are you capable of shoving a piece of card into a well-signed slot?’ It’s not really surprising that so few answered no to that.
Surely the question should
be, ‘are ticket barriers justified at stations?’ I rather suspect that would have elicited an altogether different response. As a regular commuter, I’ve not met many passengers who like ticket barriers. They’re a complete nuisance to most of us. The argument about paying passengers approving of barriers because they don’t like to see other travelling for free doesn’t really hold much water – surely that’s what ticket inspectors on trains are for. At most stations barriers cause long and unnecessary queues, not to mention a roundabout route to walk to your platform, depending on their positioning. But Passenger Focus’s survey does serve to illustrate how the results of research can be massaged to get the answers you wanted all along by the way you phrase the questions. What next? ‘When your train was cancelled was it easy to wait for the next one?’ How about ‘when the price of your season ticket doubled, was it easy to adjust your direct debit?’
Robert Hadfield North Walsham Norfolk
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OCTOBER 2010 PAGE 13
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