COMMENT
Just the ticket
Passenger Focus is working with the rail industry to tackle passengers’ problems with queuing at the station and their issues using ticket machines. Ashwin Kumar explains how the independent passenger watchdog’s latest research shows too many passengers are standing in ticket office queues waiting for help from staff while, in many cases, ticket machines lie idle
F Ashwin Kumar
However, for too many passengers something is going wrong at the railway station. Train companies are investing heavily in installing ticket machines at stations. Many tickets can now be bought over the internet and the industry is trialling new forms of retailing. Despite these new initiatives, many passengers are still relying on purchasing their ticket at the station ticket office and expect to be able to buy tickets quickly and easily.
Our Spring 2010 National Passenger Survey revealed that, nationally, 72% of passengers are satisfied with ticket buying facilities. This is good but clearly there is still room for improvement. This is echoed in our passenger priorities research which shows that reducing queuing times at the station is still one of passengers’ top 10 priorities for improvement. This prompted us to ask why passengers are queuing at the ticket window when so much money is being invested in new ticket machines and other technology to help them on their way.
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rom the supermarket self-checkout to internet banking and online shopping, when it comes to business, customers are being asked to make more transactions with little assistance. With a little help from staff to start with and a period of getting use to navigating the technology, many of us are finding valuable time can be saved by avoiding long queues while waiting for customer service.
Passenger Focus has therefore welcomed assistance from East Midlands Trains, First Great Western, Southeastern and South West Trains to explore what works well for passengers using ticket machines and what could be improved to allow passengers to easily buy a ticket. The research shows that ticket vending machines are popular among those passengers who make regular, familiar journeys. In fact, ticket machines are responsible for many successful sales. On the other hand, passengers who are making complex or less-familiar journeys often find they don’t meet their needs.
Ticket machines can present bewildering jargon and a barrage of information and choices. Passengers told us that machines that presented the process as a sequence of simpler choices were easier to navigate. However, of particular concern was that in most cases ticket restrictions
Alvey & Towers
were not displayed clearly on the machines. Passengers can be faced with a range of tickets where the only suggestion of which to choose, is the unhelpful message ‘Check restrictions’. It cannot be right that tickets are sold without giving any indication of when they might be valid.
The result is that some passengers may buy a more expensive ticket than needed or may worry about not being absolutely sure whether their ticket is valid. Others just give up and join the ticket office queue and risk missing their train. Extending journey times in this way is not going to help the industry attract more passengers to the railway.
In separate research, Passenger Focus looked at station ticket queues at 33 of the larger regional stations around Britain. Stations were selected because of poor satisfaction with ticket
Oct/Nov 10
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