The UK’s Transport Committee has written to Rail Minister Huw Merriman to voice concerns over plans to close rail ticket offices.
This summer industry body the Rail Delivery Group announced proposals for the mass closure of all ticket offices – save for those in the busiest stations – within the next three years.
The plans have already attracted criticism from unions over the fear of job losses, but now the Transport Committee has signalled its concerns about the proposals’ impact on disabled travellers and travellers with access needs.
The letter warns that the plans “go too far, too fast, towards a situation that risks excluding some passengers from the railway”, and argues that “At a minimum, changes this radical should be carefully piloted in limited areas and evaluated for their effect on all passengers before being rolled out”.
The Committee said it recognised that the overall rationale for the changes was based on the behaviour of the majority of passengers, and said that it was “reasonable to an extent that operators should adapt to changes in how passengers interact with ticket retail”.
But it warned of “legitimate concerns about whether ticket office closures would reduce the assistance these passengers need to travel freely and reliably on the railway like anyone else”.
Examples of concerns include:
- people with mobility impairments or energy-limiting conditions having to roam around to find a member of staff
- people with visual impairments struggling to readily identify a member of staff who is not at a fixed position
- people with hearing loss needing to use the hearing loops installed at ticket offices
- people with learning disabilities not knowing where to find staff, and preferring to speak to a person rather than use a machine
The letter also said that it was “concerning that operators were not able to provide us with a demographic breakdown of the passengers who currently purchase their tickets from ticket offices, so it does not seem possible to accurately estimate how many of those passengers would be able to transition to purchasing their tickets without access to a ticket office”.
And the latter said that it was “perplexing that these proposals have been put forward before the simplification of ticketing promised by the Williams-Shapps Plan for Rail, which would be an enabler of alternative arrangements”.
The letter follows an evidence session held in September on the proposed closures as part of a wider inquiry into the legal obligations of Accessible Transport, with the second session of the inquiry set to take place this week.
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