July 2023
Act now to save your ticket offices The Rail Delivery Group, with the government’s support, has formally launched its plans to close virtually all 1,000 of our ticket offices. While it is sold as ‘modernisation’ that will ‘get people out from behind the glass’, this is a smokescreen. The truth is that this is a historic act of vandalism that is about further de-staffing of our stations. Statutory redundancy notices have already been issued for hundreds of railway workers, which the RMT will fiercely oppose. The arrangements for ticket office opening hours, set out in Schedule 17 of the Ticketing and Settlement Agreement, are the only statutory regulation of station staffing. Once the ticket offices are gone and the regulations no longer apply, there will be a further bonfire of jobs that will only serve the interests of corporate profits. The attempts to close our ticket offices are catastrophic news for passengers in general and in particular for any elderly, disabled and vulnerable passengers trying to access the rail network. 180 million journeys were made last year by people who used ticket offices. Attacking these services is not in the interests of passengers, it only serves the short-termist and selfish interests of train operating companies. Time is short. Opposiition to these closures must be registered with Transport Focus and London Travelwatch by the time the statutory consultation ends on 26th July. In this briefing we explain the background to this issue and set out what you can do to save your ticket offices.
Background Over the past year, RMT has been campaigning to oppose the Government and Train Companies’ plans for wholesale ticket office closures. After initially denying there were any such plans the Rail Delivery Group and the government have now formally announced plans that will see most of the nearly 1,000 ticket offices across the country close. This process for closing ticket offices is set out in Schedule 17 of the Ticketing and Settlement Agreement. This requires train companies to put proposals for ticket office closures (or cuts to hours) out for a three-week public consultation, overseen by the passenger watchdogs Transport Focus and London Travelwatch. At the end of the public consultation, the watchdogs can either accept or reject the train company’s proposals. If the proposals are rejected, it will then go to the Secretary of State for a decision. Ticket offices are the only form of regulated station staffing and if they are closed, there will be no more statutory regulation for staffing at stations. This will undoubtedly mean that the train companies proceed with a massive reduction in station staffing across the network.