Question 5 – 24 Jul 2023: Promotion of Ranger and Rover tickets

[whole diary]

[Red Squirrel]

The rail industry offers a wide range of ranger and rover tickets which are ideal for summer holiday leisure use, but they are hard to find out about and harder to buy - typically not available online nor on ticket vending machines, and often coming to the attention of potential customers only when suggested by ticket office staff.

How will GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) promote and sell these excellent products which encourage strong new leisure use if and when ticket offices across the franchise area are closed?

[Mark Hopwood]

I agree we want to sell more of these tickets and make them easy to buy.

As you know, the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) recently announced a consultation into proposals that will change the way tickets are sold, across the industry as a whole. These proposals look in to moving staff out from behind the windows, closer to customers and offering a wider range of help, which will include helping passengers to buy tickets, and making sure that passengers are aware of the ticket that most suits their needs. 

GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) ticket office sales account for around 15% of our total ticket sales, in 1996 this figure was 82%, which is why these proposed changes have come about. Any stations that are staffed now, will continue to be staffed and their opening hours will not change.

As an industry, we are looking at how we can make more ticket types such as rangers and rovers, more widely available. We have seen a change in our customer travel habits, and we must make changes that focus on the customer. 

We already sell some ranger and rover tickets through the website, and we are looking at ways we can make them available through smart collection.

[ChrisB]

Northern have these on their TVMs^▸ (Ticket Vending Machine) - including the 1st class 14 day All line rover.

Just saying....

[Mark Hopwood]

And obviously we don't want Northern outperforming us at GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) - we will take a look at what they offer.

Personally, I think buying online is better than a TVM^▸ (Ticket Vending Machine) option for these tickets but we will investigate how quickly we can roll out such things.

[grahame]

Northern have these on their TVMs^▸ (Ticket Vending Machine) - including the 1st class 14 day All line rover.

Just saying....

I saw somewhere that the TVM at Emerson Park on London Overground's shortest and most obscure line will sell you an all line rover!  Roll on that at Thornford for Beer Hackett but make the TVMs easier to use ....

[eightonedee]

These proposals look in to moving staff out from behind the windows, closer to customers and offering a wider range of help, which will include helping passengers to buy tickets, and making sure that passengers are aware of the ticket that most suits their needs.

The “staff will be closer to passengers” by “moving them out from behind windows” line does not work. A queue of passengers at a ticket office are bound to be closer to the staff they want to deal with than if that staff member (or those staff members) could be anywhere on the concourse or public areas/platforms.

If there’s a problem with glass windows – just remove the glass panels in ticket offices that have them! There really is no material difference between having staff sat at desks (as at Green Park in the video on your website) or in the accommodation currently provided – i.e. the current ticket offices.

By all means train staff to be able to advise better as to the options available, but I think the way DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) has launched this consultation has been a PR^▸ (Public Relations) disaster of their own making. 

[Mark Hopwood]

Some time since I have been to Emerson Park - I will have to take a trip out! But seriously, we are working on this!

[Mark Hopwood]

On the wider point of Ticket Offices I think its important we encourage everyone to respons to the consultation.

My key points are that (a) we have to reduce our costs, (b) customers themselves are buying more and more tickets online, (c) other businesses have adapted to the new world of digital commerce and the railway must too. But I want to listen to what is said and I think the wider industry will too.