Northern (Arriva Rail North)

[knutstransport]

RE: Northern (Arriva Rail North)

(04/02/2020 16:08)wirralbus Wrote:  How many of the said station stations have a metal ticket issuer in a TVM , these days the proliferation of online tickets is slowly dwindling real ticket issuing staff to the bone as you can pick these tickets up at said TVM as well .

That's not the point. Arriva can apply to the ORR to reduce ticket office opening hours, like Govia did with the LM and Southern franchises. If they don't do that then they have a franchise requirement to staff the station for the number of hours set before the franchise started. It's not unreasonable for someone to turn up at a station at an hour it is advertised to have an open ticket office and to expect to be able to get a new railcard/season ticket photocard/season ticket smartcard straight away. TVMs also don't sell every type of ticket which can be sold in a ticket office and they only accept card transactions. I've also had to go to the ticket office window on numerous occasions when TOD isn't working on the TVM but it's working fine from the ticket clerk's machine.

There are also times when the options presented on the TVM may not be what passengers expect and they need to ask staff for clarity e.g. when TfGM changed Metrolink stop names to zones or someone needs the complex PTE evening peak restrictions explaining to them.