ScotRail’s public consultation by Transport Focus on proposed changes to 120 ticket office opening hours sees over 1,500 responses.

The rail operator has welcomed the feedback and, having seen the public’s views, are putting forward changes to the proposed opening hours.

Prior to the pandemic, many customers used online options and Ticket Vending Machines rather than ticket offices which have seen a 50% drop in usage over the past decade. This considerable change in customer patterns initiated the review of the opening hours of ticket offices for the first time since 1991 in a bid to understand the needs of customers today.

The consultation has taken into consideration where declines in ticket sales at stations are, and the opportunities available to cut fraudulent travel whilst increasing revenue via revenue protection teams.

The proposed changes would have seen opening hours for 117 ticket offices changed and the closure of three ahead of the public consultation which took place last month and was organised by Transport Focus who are the independent watchdog for transport users.

The feedback provided from the consultation has been considered alongside the views of Transport Focus. Scotrail has now proposed to increase a total of 33 hours to ticket office opening times which is mostly made up of an additional ten and fifteen minutes for stations like Bellshill, Wemyss Bay, East Kilbride and Larbert.

The three ticket offices which were set for closure in the old proposals were Cartsdyke, Clydebank and Woodhall, these will now remain open for a minimum of two years whilst ScotRail undertakes a review to examine if new housing and incentives for businesses via local authorities will bring increases in ticket office sales.

The rail operator is also proposing improvement for stations that serve hospitals by generally maintaining the current staff hours of Dalmuir and Hyndland, whilst agreeing to open Wishaw ticket office on Sundays providing a seven-day staff presence.

Scotrail is also going to carry out the following:

•  Implement Transport Focus feedback and support tourist and leisure travel ticket offices at Girvan, Thurso, Inverclyde, and Wick, with staff on-site beyond the current proposed hours.
• Maintain current staffing hours at 51 of the 117 ticket offices which were set to change their hours. This means that at 51 of the stations the hours staff will be available to provide customers with support will not change, even if that means staff are no longer behind the ticket office window.
• Have staff on-site beyond the current hours for 12 of the stations.
• Redeploy staff at 54 ticket offices to provide three mobile teams alongside new high-profile customer support for Glasgow High Street, Paisley, and Partick stations.
• Publish its own Diversity Impact Assessment once the process is complete.

The train operator has also confirmed that staff affected by the ScotRail proposals will not lose their jobs because of any of the proposed changes to ticket office opening hours.

ScotRail is going to work with Transport Scotland and the Scottish Government to discuss the next stages in consideration of the proposals.

Phil Campbell, ScotRail Head of Customer Operations, said:

“The changes we propose to make as a result of the public consultation demonstrate we are listening to our customers and creating an environment that improves safety, customer support, and the helpfulness of staff.

“The safety, comfort and wellbeing of our customers is a top priority, and we will always listen to what passengers and people who use our stations have to say.

“We believe this proposal takes into account most of the issues we identified as important in our original plan as well as the views of the public.

“We are on course to deliver a railway that is modern, safe, and reliable which will serve customers even better in the future.”