ScotRail is consulting the public and other stakeholders regarding its ticket offices.
It is looking at potentially closing three ticket offices and altering opening hours at 120 more. The stations will remain open, and ScotRail has stressed that there will be no redundancies.
Rather than losing their jobs, staff will instead be “redeployed to provide enhanced customer service on the frontline”. This redeployment cannot happen whilst it adhered to 1991 ticket office opening hours, ScotRail said.
It says in its consultation document that the hours in its ticket offices have remained unchanged for about 30 years in Scotland. This is despite considerable changes to technology at stations and the increased use of the internet. In 2019, ticket machines in Scotland were responsible for 26% of all ticket sales, online 18%.
Accordingly, ticket offices accounted for 40% of ticket sales in 2011, but in 2019 this had fallen to 28%.
Changes to these hours must follow a prescribed procedure that requires extensive analysis of ticket office usage, sales data, and consultation with a variety of stakeholders, including customers and other train operating companies.
ScotRail will still have ticket offices at 140 stations should the changes go ahead.
