Passengers welcome move to curb closure of rail ticket offices

PASSENGER groups today hailed a victory in the battle to stop the mass closure of ticket offices by rail companies across London and the South-East.

They welcomed the decision by transport minister Lord Adonis to order the capital's biggest rail operator, South West Trains, to scale back plans to cut ticket office opening hours at 114 stations. SWT expressed "disappointment" that most of its proposals had been rejected, though more limited reductions in opening hours will be allowed.

Anthony Smith, chief executive of Passenger Focus, said: "This is a victory for the thousands of passengers who stood up and told the Government they didn't want to lose their ticket office staff.

"The Department for Transport has supported our call that train companies can't get away with blanket closures as passengers tell us they need staff for security, journey advice and ticket sales."

Jo deBank, of London TravelWatch, said: "This is a good victory for passengers. They value the human interaction." Unions had warned that if the Government had failed to act, several other train firms would have axed manning at many stations.

The Evening Standard has called for better staffing on the rail network through its Safer Stations campaign.

The transport minister stepped in to protect passengers from the "unacceptable" cuts. Amid rumours that the train company has already started limiting ticket office opening hours, Lord Adonis stressed today that SWT would be expected to "fully and consistently" staff stations according to his ruling.SWT is owned by Stagecoach which saw its interim operating profits increase by 25.3 per cent to £31.7million for the six months ending 31 October.

The firm, which imposed peak fare rises of six per cent this month and of more than seven per cent for off-peak, was planning to withdraw staff from 84 stations either for Sunday or the whole weekend, as well as more than 100 reductions during the week.

But after strong opposition to the moves from MPs, unions and passenger groups, the Government announced SWT can only reduce ticket office opening hours where it has less than 12 sales on average an hour.

Ministers stressed this meant the partial or full rejection of about 80 per cent of changes that would have seen no Saturday openings, around 65 per cent of cases that would have seen no Sunday openings, and more than half of weekday cuts.

Lord Adonis said: "We have acted to protect passengers from unacceptable cuts, ensuring that tickets continue to be easily available and that ticket offices are staffed during busy periods."

Liberal Democrat transport spokesman Norman Baker added: "This intervention is welcome and gives a signal to other companies not to be so greedy."

A SWT spokesman said: "We are obviously disappointed that the Department for Transport has not agreed all of our proposals as we believe they made good commercial sense and reflected the way that retailing is changing."