or bus station or bus stop is properly looked after so far as possible. So obviously I’m disappointed that anyone is subject to abuse at a railway station or anywhere else, but that figure seems to be rather high to be honest with you.’ In terms of reducing numbers of staff at stations, or ‘changes to arrangements’ as Baker put it, ‘we haven’t yet…to be honest with you the TUC is jumping the gun. These reductions are phantom reductions at the moment and you have to bear in mind that – and I hope they don’t mind me saying so – the TUC’s primary concern is about making sure their members stay in jobs and that’s a perfectly legitimate thing for a union to do, but what we are interested in doing is making sure the network is as accessible as possible for all people, and it may well be that the person in the booking office isn’t necessarily very helpful to somebody on a platform who’s having difficulties.’
In the booking office since 1838
It does seem a recurring theme though, that staff will always be needed, and again recent research from London TravelWatch showed that passengers can be confused by ticket purchasing and they want ‘Visible, knowledgeable, empowered staff at stations’ to answer their queries. Baker clearly holds strong views on this. ‘First of all a lot of stations on the network are un-staffed now and always have been. That’s the position we’ve inherited and frankly there’s not necessarily a case for having a member of staff when there’s hardly anyone traveling from a particular station. I’m very keen that people who are travelling on the railway have access to a human being in some shape or form to be able to answer their queries, and that’s the challenge we’ve got rather than saying the arrangements which have been in place since Victorian times have to be kept in aspic in perpetuity. Just because someone’s worked in the booking office behind the grill since 1838 doesn’t mean that same person should always be doing the exact same thing. Life moves on but the challenge is to make sure that people have good access to help when they need it and access to a human being, so they
should look at that wider context rather than saying ‘nothing must change’ which is a rather negative way that some people look at these matters.’
In moving on to the next question I am reminded that I mentioned smart ticketing as one of the reasons people will always want to talk to a human, and Baker hasn’t finished. ‘Again this is a very negative way of looking at things. This is a great time for the railways and it’s disappointing to me that there are some people out there who are trying to find fault with that when actually we should be celebrating this massive expansion which is going to be great for people. ‘Smart ticketing is a way of making things easier - just look at the success of the Oyster scheme in London which has been transformative - people love it and that’s pushed up passenger numbers. Of course there are challenges with any new system, to make sure it’s explained properly and people understand it, and that’s a duty upon the Toc’s and others, but you know just because something’s new doesn’t mean we should avoid it. Should we say ‘Oh you know we’ve never had pocket calculators before so we’ll carry on using an abacus’? No. You have to move with the times. Smart ticketing is a good thing for transport and for passengers. Of course we’ve got to explain it properly but we shouldn’t be resisting it because it’s a good step forward.’
A greater voice for passengers in franchising? Referring to the recent report from Passenger Focus, Baker is fully in agreement that this is a good thing, ‘And we’re doing that because the way we’re franchising is set to change, we’re not having this top down approach microscopically determining how long the buffet at Southampton station is open, that’s not happening any more. Again we’re setting the high level framework and we’re allowing innovation in that we expect the Toc’s when they’re bidding - and when they’re shortlisted in particular - to engage with the public at large to see what it wants, and we’ve got a space there for them to come back and include those wants in their bid, and we encourage
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