Plans to close all Elizabeth line ticket offices by 2027 says union
The RMT have claimed today that TfL are planning to close all Elizabeth line ticket offices by August 2027.
The union states that the move was revealed in “unredacted documents signalling that the ticket offices would be earmarked for closure by 2027.”
The plan follows scrapped plans to close all National Rail ticket offices.
The RMT are also in dispute with TfL on separate issues which could see a tube and DLR strike in coming days. They now state action could also be taken on the Elizabeth line over the issue:
“If this decision is not immediately rescinded we will trigger an immediate dispute on the Elizabeth Line with a view to taking sustained industrial action and launching a mass public campaign.
“The public’s views were made crystal clear in the railway ticket office consultation, yet TfL is pressing ahead with a mass campaign of closures that repeats the Tories’ madcap, failed plans.
“We are demanding that the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan and TfL step in to prevent these closures from taking place.”
UPDATE: Transport for London have denied they will close all ticket offices.
Whether it was a plan considered and dropped or something TfL are waiting to fully announce which the union has caught wind of remains to be seen.
Ticket issues
If these plans do go ahead it’ll certainly lead to difficulties at some stations. One obvious example I regularly use is Abbey Wood where National Rail services such as Southeastern and Thameslink also call.
On a fair few occasions I’ve had to use the ticket office to print off a ticket when a machine wasn’t working or queues were extremely long.
In addition there’s still tickets that can only be bought at the ticket office. One such example is an accompanied child ticket on National Rail I use when taking my child on a longer journey. It cannot be booked online.
Abbey Wood is now extremely well staffed under TfL so it wouldn’t be like when national rail cuts were proposed on Southeastern Metro stations, for example, which are often entirely unstaffed or have one solitary member who could be the other end of the platform when needing help, but this does raise the question again that until sufficient ticket machines are in place and offer all tickets, it should be a no go to force closures.
Top tip: if there is a queue at the two ticket machines in the upper concourse of Abbey Wood, just go downstairs and use one of the 3 or 4 machines by platforms 3 and 4. There are never queues there.
who needs a ticket office when you can just walk through anyway, close them all.
Maybe most commuters are using ticket machines or using contactless payments to get through the barriers and to use the trains. Still others would prefer ticket kiosks to remain open.
I agree Andrew Gault most of us use oyster cards or contactless payments. But there are people who struggle to use machines like the elderly, disabled and partially sighted who rely on assistance at a ticket office.
I would like to see more staff on duty to catch fare evaders that cost TFL and train operators millions of pounds each year.
@ CDT I agree. Some people do need a face to face service to get the help they need. There Is now to much automation in the work place resulting in the loss of jobs.
We need to create jobs not get rid of jobs. They could employ more revenue protection officers at stations to work alongside station staff to cach fare dodgers.
Closing ticket offices at railway stations will mean more jobs will be lost. Apart from staff keeping their jobs including customer service, ticket inspection to stop people from avoiding paying a train ticket or jumping the barriers and also keeping the station very clean and safe for commuters. And the trains also to be kept very clean.
But many people want ticket offices to remain open as they wanted. And others who use contactless payments and have paid their train tickets online or using ticket machines to buy a train ticket to use the trains.
Could not agree with you more.
@ Anonymous I totally agree. We need staff in the ticket offices, on the station platform and at the barriers to assist passengers and to stop fare evaders.