On Wednesday, July 5 it was announced that the future of the ticket office at Rye station is under review. Southern’s website advertises the public consultation process which has started and ends on Wednesday, July 26. Rye News are already working on this with Rye Chamber of Commerce to keep in touch with developments and by following the links below you can participate in the consultation process.
In a move that could potentially reshape the way rail tickets are sold and customer service is delivered, transport watchdogs London TravelWatch and Transport Focus have launched public consultations on behalf of rail operators across the UK. Against this backdrop, Rye train station finds itself grappling with the impact of reduced ticket office services.
Recognising the inevitability of change, the Rye Chamber of Commerce has taken proactive steps to address the situation. The chamber has arranged a crucial meeting with Sara Grisewood, Marshlink line officer from Southeast Communities Rail Partnership CIC, to discuss the future of the ticket office buildings, signage, and explore potential collaboration between the chamber, and other stakeholders, namely the town hall, 1066 Country Marketing and the rail authorities.
This meeting presents an important opportunity for the Rye Chamber of Commerce to advocate for the needs and interests of the local community. As the ticket office services face potential alterations, it is vital for stakeholders to come together and ensure that the changes implemented align with the requirements of commuters, tourists, and the wider public.
Currently, Rye ticket office hours are – weekdays 5:40am – 7:05pm, Saturday 5:40am – 7:05pm, and on Sunday 8:10am – 3:45pm
The proposed ticket assistance hours are weekdays 6pm – 1pm, Saturday 6pm – 1pm, Sunday, closed.
From the Southern website:
The proposal aims to better support passengers by moving colleagues out from behind traditional ticket offices windows, which would close, onto station concourses where customers need them most, making them more visible and accessible.
The aspiration is that colleagues would move to roles that cover a broader range of customer needs in the future – from travel and fares advice to accessibility assistance – following engagement with both colleagues and the unions.
These potential plans support wider moves to modernise the railway, put customer service at its heart and would offer a more varied and interesting role for colleagues.
No final decisions have been made as the industry is currently at local public consultation stage.
No stations that have staff today will become unstaffed and station opening hours would remain the same.
For a comparison of current and proposed hours when ticketing would be available, please view the station-by-station consultation document.
If these proposals go ahead, we would continue to provide assistance in line with our Accessible Travel Policy (ATP) commitments.
The proposed changes reflect that the way customers buy tickets has changed significantly in recent years, with a reduction in ticket office use. Most tickets are now bought online or from ticket machines, which can sell the vast majority of ticket types, and eticket readers are fitted across the GTR network. Infact 9 out of 10 tickets are now purchased outside of traditional ticket offices.
Our colleagues have a valuable role in helping customers, which these proposals aim to enhance. In-person assistance would still be available to help customers use machines and advise on the best value-for-money fares.
Welcoming everyone to the railway is central to all industry reforms and colleagues would continue to provide accessibility support and assistance, meeting the needs of all customers as well as continuing to offer travel advice and to support the safety and security of our stations for example by being a presence to deter anti-social behaviour.
How to take part in the consultation
To see what is proposed at your station please view the station-by-station consultation document.
As this public consultation is being carried out by Transport Focus and London TravelWatch, GTR (Southern, Thameslink, Great Northern and Gatwick Express) cannot take your feedback directly. The only way to ensure your response is accepted is to complete the consultation by emailing or writing to Transport Focus or London TravelWatch. Details on how to contact the watchdog for your station are available here.
You can also find out more about the consultation and having your say by visiting transportfocus.org.uk and londontravelwatch.org.uk.
Unfortunately, if you do not submit via the main consultation, your response will not be considered. We cannot pass on feedback on your behalf.
Printed copies of the information about this consultation can be obtained on request at staffed stations. If you require an alternative format, then please call 0345 026 4700 or textphone 0800 138 1018.
Image Credits: Nick Forman .
I am completely blind in one eye and only partially sighted in the other, so losing the booking office will make travel a real trial as I am unable to decipher the information on the ticket machine outside the station. Is there any guarantee that a staff member, who would have been in the booking office, will always be available on the platform come rain, hail or shine? I doubt it.
Love ‘colleagues’ (ticket staff) would have a ‘more varied and interesting role!’ strolling up and down two platforms for 6 hours a day, rather than sitting in a heated ticket office with computer access to hundreds of complicated fares.
If the plan is to get rid of station staff, the companies should be open and say that.
I do not ‘recognise the inevitability of change’
Many people like me depend on human service.
It’s just another example of LESS for more.
Everything is about money! The more we pay the less we get.
No surprise that the link provided in the press release is most unhelpful for those wishing to comment on the proposal.
This link
https://www.transportfocus.org.uk/train-station-ticket-office-consultation/
will take you straight to the site to comment.
Use the Consultation response form link as, surprise, surprise, the link to Southern does not work!
We’ll be available 6am-1pm. Won’t have the ability to sell tickets, railcards, process refunds, look up journey plans, sell cheap tickets or be a presence for the school children at half 3. But hey, because we don’t sell enough tickets in the afternoon, we should close.
Craig, what will be the point in being there?
I have always found the help I have been given at the ticket office invaluable. It is the human contact for sometimes complex questions that a machine does not give.
As well as that the machine faces south! Difficult for some to read. I used it once and the fare was high. I asked at the desk and was given the best fare.
Such is life. We pay More and more for less and less. It’s ALL about money!
This is our life.
Please email your ticket office closure comments to
TicketOffice.GTR@transportfocus.org.uk
Southeastern.Consultation@londontravelwatch.org.uk
More people who email in have a chance to change or delay government decision but think this is just tick box exercise and decision already been made
Paul
@marshlinktrains
I have used the railway station at least twice a week (usually four times) for years and wasn’t even aware there was a regularly staffed ticket office inside, to be honest. Just my perspective, of course, but as valid as any other regular user.
There has been a staffed ticket office there for more years than I know. Of course your perspective is as valid as the rest, although it doesn’t make it right, nor needed in a discussion about trying to keep it open for people that rely on the office. Enjoy your evening
Are the opening times you quote a joke?
The ticket office is hardly ever open!
They’re the official proposed hours. We won’t be allowed to sell tickets, but can stand and watch you press buttons on the ticket machine.
Will we be able to buy our ticket from the chap on the train? (if that luxury still exists) because I find that ticket machine un useable when the sun is shining on it – – can’t see a thing.
The ticket machine at the station sometimes fails to work. For example, I spent ages trying to get it to accept my perfectly viable debit or credit cards, and I finally had to get the ticket seller in the station to issue my tickets, which I’d paid for online in advance. You need a human being for such situations. So long as there is human assistance at the station and the employee has the flexibility to carry out the various tasks required — including ticketing — then, I don’t see a problem. The station employee must be allowed to issue tickets, full stop. The staff member would probably value the chance to walk around a bit, so long as s/he doesn’t have to do it all day. If this is a bid to save money by ultimately doing away with the job, it should be actively resisted. People need jobs and station staff play a vital role.
It is so short-sighted of Govia/the government’s never-ending quest to put the squeeze on the “travelling” public and by doing so dismantle the infrastructure of this country. Staff at the ticket office are a crucial cog in a vast wheel, and this push to discard them is a cynical ploy to perpetuate the “everyone uses IT these days” fantasy. What happens when a train is delayed/cancelled/broken down, how do we get to know what is going happen? Who will co-ordinate a plan B? Who assists those who cannot read the machine, or cannot operate it? Who takes charge if a drunk/trouble-maker/distressed person needs attention. Who assists older/disabled/blind/learning disabled/foreign people? How do we monitor everyone pays for a ticket – because the “guard on the train” is already under threat hence the recent strike action to retain them amongst other issues.
If the ticket office does close, as I sincerely hope it does not, what happens to our beautiful Victorian Classical Revival building? Sold off to a coffee chain perhaps, profits straight to Govia’s executives’ bank balance?
Call me an old cynic who resists change, but we have seen the same process with so much of the structures that supports our country to function effectively, surely cannot continue to be blind to it, for the sake of saving a shekel today.
Sorry it’s a rant.
Kate H
It is not rant and please don’t feel guilty about telling the truth. All you have said is completely as it IS.
Transport and WATER is for EVERYONE!
These services should all be managed in a public trust to be administered with all profit ploughed back into the company for maintenance, improvements and research.
Right now, foreign companies own our water which is polluted by sewage. And now the future of our trains is being put in jeopardy by needless cost cutting.
We must not allow this to happen.
Let’s discount, for starters, the transparent assertion that this initiative “aims to better support passengers”. It’s about reducing costs and, presumably, protecting profits. If there was a genuine intent to ‘support passengers’ our rail services would be cheap and dependable. By now, we’d have the fast service to London that Amber Rudd promised…
The entire physical infrastructure of the station is designed around the ticket hall and office, through which passengers are funnelled off the street and toward the platform. The ticket machine, which is never easy to use, is outside in a fag-strewn corner. It’s cheap and doesn’t ask for wages in line with inflation, but it can’t install a wheelchair ramp, it can’t answer a question, it can’t present a deterrent presence for vulnerable passengers, it can’t feed a Rye family, and it can’t give you a smile… So corporate cost, as ever, doesn’t really equate to social value.
“Passengers have three weeks to provide any comments.”
3 weeks is insufficient duration for any reasonable public consultation program imho. HM Cabinet Office guidelines state a six week period as a minimum is best practice. Three weeks is indicative of a cheap and nasty commercial gloss on a pre-decided outcome NOT a public consultation.
BUT I urge all readers to follow the link in Mike’s comment and have their say anyway! After all we ALL know how to run a railway better than this lot, don’t we? Enjoy!
The world is changing but, as we embrace technology and remove human interaction, isn’t it always the people who most need help who lose out?
Surely they’ll need someone at weekends to direct folk to the bus …
Just to note, the consultation ends in 11days from today (15 July). Nobody at Southern will take account of the excellent comments here, but they’re worth distilling into an email to those carrying out the consultation – indeed, that’s the only way to express your opinion.
Clicking the link above requires you to click through a number of other pages, and if you don’t lose the will, you discover you need to use this email:
ticketoffice.gtr@transportfocus.org.uk
A couple of extra considerations to add to the excellent points made above.
1) The suggestion that tickets are sold outside of the ticket office “on the concourse” implies tickets may end up being dispensed on platforms too. I’d suggest relatively narrow platforms were never designed for customer service, and having a knot of travellers around a Southern employee causes obstructions and potential dangers on the platform.
2) If a (lone?) member of staff at Rye cannot dispense to all travellers across two platforms, how will passengers buy tickets on trains if guards are also eliminated, as train operating companies apparently seek to do?
Consultation ends on the 26th July! Don’t miss the boat! (Or train…)
The statement on the Southern website infuriates me and is little more than a disingenuous Public Relations exercise. To insult the public with a claim that they aim to better support passengers by moving colleagues out from behind ticket office windows is a blatant case of paying lip-service. So why is it that when trains are cancelled and passengers need assistance their colleagues are more likely to pull down the shutter and hide away to avoid any public interaction? That’s exactly what happened to me two weeks ago in Bexhill. Even when trying to get information on a bus replacement at Rye station I’ve been given the line “It might be here in 30 minutes, but don’t bank on it, they often don’t turn up” followed by a laugh. Why is that amusing? We, the customer, are paying for a ’take it or leave it and get on with it’ service. Ticket fares have shot up, the service has dropped down, am I really expected to have any sympathy with the RMT and ALSEF union strikers?
Went to ticket office today to check trains & tickets,Staff so helpful,and all questions we asked about ,were all answered.
Could not have done this by the machine ,so probably not been able to plan a journey.
My concern is that this is being routed back through Southern Railway. My understanding is that this is being directed by Dept for Transport and Southern may actually be on the side of retaining ticket offices, or at least allowing a reasonable period of time for any transitioning. But Southern are now under direct contract to DfT – they do as they are they are told. One wonders what the true agenda is of the DfT – I could advance a couple of ideas but these would be pure speculation….. Our area is not the same as in London, where the experience of Transport for London is being used as a model. Perhaps we should instead be writing to our MPs, particularly as one of them – Huw Merriman – actually has the railways as a major part of his portfolio?
There are so many valid reasons to retain our staffed train ticket offices. Please respond to the consultation and indeed write to Huw Merriman. Our communities deserve accessible, reliable and inclusive railway services.