Stop the cuts to ScotRail ticket offices –
RMT briefing
ScotRail’s proposals & the role of the Scottish Government Scottish Government owned rail operator ScotRail has recently announced plans to reduce ticket office hours at 101 (70%) of its 143 staffed stations.
These proposals would see the majority of ScotRail ticket offices closed for parts of the day they are currently open. The company has commenced a 12-week internal staff consultation on the proposals which ends in February 2025.
Under these proposals, the overall weekly hours at the affected stations would reduce by a third. This means weekly ticket office hours across the ScotRail network would reduce by around 2800 hours a week.
In many cases the cuts are significant and equate to closures in all but name. For instance, Dalmarnock ticket office is facing closure for 90% of its current weekly hours, 96 hours per week, Wemyss Bay ticket office is facing closure for 61% of its current hours, 70 hours a week, and Ardrossan South Beach ticket office is facing closure for 60% of its current hours, 69 hours a week.
You can see the full list of affected stations by constituency and region, with the weekly proposed cuts in hours here.
ScotRail and the Scottish Government are trying to spin these proposals as though it will represent an improvement for passengers, but the converse is true. If ScotRail proceeds with these cuts to ticket offices, it will worsen passenger service, safety and accessibility and have a detrimental impact on passengers’ experience of the ScotRail network.
The Cabinet Secretary Fiona Hyslop MSP confirmed that the Scottish Government’s permission was required for ScotRail to progress these proposals. This means that the Scottish Government can also instruct ScotRail to scraps these plans at any time.
As part of these plans, ScotRail is proposing to increase hours at 12 ticket offices, predominantly through Sunday openings. RMT, of course, does not object to these increased hours. However, we strongly dispute that a small increase in hours should be at the expense of cuts across much of the network.
2022 public consultation
ScotRail is progressing these plans on the basis of a 21-day public consultation on proposals for cuts to ticket office hours from former operator Abellio held in January 2022 by passenger watchdog Transport Focus. In the public consultation 98% respondents opposed the company’s proposals.
At the time, the process that the passenger watchdog had to follow when reviewing the consultation responses, meant that it could, by its own admission1, only object to proposals under a ‘narrow’ criteria relating solely to ticket sales.
So, whilst Transport Focus’ response to ScotRail highlighted that many concerns had been raised by passengers about the impact of the proposals on issues such as accessibility, access to facilities at the station, proximity to NHS hospitals and safety, it was prohibited from taking these matters into account in its decision making.
RMT criticised ScotRail’s decision to hold the consultation in January 2022 when covid restrictions were still in place, and passenger demand was therefore restrained, and this was noted by Transport Focus in its response to the consultation, which stated “weareconsciousthe consultationtookplacewhenfewerpeopleweretravellingduetocovidtravelrestrictions”.2
Crucially, since the public consultation was undertaken, the process via which Transport Focus must assess proposals has changed significantly. When assessing train company proposals to reduce or close ticket offices, it must now take into account a range of criteria including in relation to assistance services, product availability, safety and access to facilities. If ScotRail were to hold a consultation now it would be under this new process. We therefore believe that the fact that the company is relying on the outcome of a process which is now obsolete to progress these cuts means the whole procedure lacks any legitimacy and should be halted.
Since the public consultation, RMT, and many MSPs, have continually called on the Scottish Government to listen to passengers and rule out any cuts to ScotRail ticket offices. It is highly disappointing that the Scottish Government has ignored these calls and has instead given ScotRail the green light. Furthermore, it has not even required ScotRail to undertake a new public consultation via the current process.
This approach shows that both the Scottish Government and ScotRail are completely out of touch with what passengers want. If they had listened to passengers who were unequivocal in their response to the 2022 consultation, they would have scrapped these plans a long time ago.
Importance of ticket offices
Time and time again, research shows that passengers value the presence of staffed ticket offices. The unprecedented response to the UK Government’s 2023 plans to close around 1000 ticket offices shows exactly how important they are to passengers. Similarly, the public response to the ScotRail public consultation in 2022 showed a near universal rejection of cuts to ticket office hours.
1 https://www.transportfocus.org.uk/publication/scotrail-ticket-office-consultation/
2 Ibid
Research that was commissioned, but then supressed, by the previous UK Government, and only recently published also confirmed the importance of ticket offices for passengers3. For instance, over half of passengers surveyed (56%) said that having a ticket office at the station they travel from is fairly or very important to them personally and two-fifths (42%) said that they had quite often or regularly used a ticket office for any purpose in the last six months. The research also found that older people, who were more likely to not have smartphone internet access, use cash only and/or have a health condition affecting their mobility, hearing or dexterity were amongst those most likely to prefer ticket offices.
It is somewhat contradictory that the Cabinet Secretary has said she ‘welcomed’ the UK Government’s U-turn over its plans to close 1000 ticket offices, whilst presiding over cuts to ScotRail ticket offices which would have much of the same effects for passengers in Scotland.
The numerous reasons why passengers value staffed ticket offices include:
• Accessibility
Already, disabled people face numerous barriers in accessing the railway and on average make a third of the number of trips by rail that non-disabled people do.
At many stations, ticket office staff are the only staff present, and passengers requiring assistance will only travel at times when they know there is a staffed ticket office open. Ticket offices provide a fixed location for passengers to locate staff, and therefore advice and assistance. This is particularly important for many disabled people who would not be able to search a station for a roving member of staff, who may or may not be present at the station. Guide dog users report that their guide dogs are trained to learn the route to the ticket office. A poll conducted by Disability Equality Scotland of its members during the 2022 public consultation found that a massive 95% were opposed to the plans.
There is the real risk that if these cuts go ahead, many disabled people would face further barriers accessing the railway, which we believe is discriminatory. Since entering Scottish Government ownership ScotRail is subject to the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED), which requires it to, amongst other things, advance equal opportunities including by meeting the needs of people with protected characteristics, remove or reduce the disadvantages faced by people with protected characteristics. We believe the changes would increase barriers for disabled people and make it harder for ScotRail to meet its legal duties in terms of assistance, including Turn up and Go, and are therefore at odds with the PSED.
ScotRail is also required to Equality Impact Assess its proposals. At the time of writing, we have requested ScotRail’s Equality Impact Assessment but it has not been made available.
• Safety
Ticket offices provide a place of safety for both staff and passengers. The presence of staff deters abusive and anti-social behaviour. There is a consistent theme emerging from passenger research, which is that passengers like and value the presence of staff. Having staffed ticket offices supports passenger perceptions and feelings around safety, and closing ticket offices could lead to passengers no longer feeling safe when travelling. The Scottish Government’s own research into women and girls’ safety found exactly that – that women and girls feel safer when there are staffed ticket offices open during their journeys.
• Quality of service
Ticket offices provide passengers with dedicated advice and expertise about their journey and onward travel. Ticket office staff can tailor their service to meet their customers’ needs in a way
3 https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/66ed5b768fa6c55fe4b05397/dft-ticket-purchasing-behaviour-rail-passengers.pdf
that TVMs or online ticketing is unable to. At many stations access to facilities such as toilets, disabled toilets, waiting rooms and lifts is dependent on ticket office staff and the ticket office is often the meeting point for booked assistance.
ScotRail has suggested that passengers will be able to get help from ‘Help Points’. However, these are no replacement for a staffed ticket office. ORR mystery shopper audits have found that help points have a 50% fail rate for assistance services4 and other ORR research highlights that the ‘relatively low’ help point usage shows they are not popular with passengers and this ‘suggest that help points are not a primary route through which most passengers would choose to access the information or assistance they need’.5
• Access to rail products
The ticket office is the only way for passengers to ensure they get the most appropriate and best value fare for their journey. The experienced and knowledgeable ticket office staff navigate the confusing and complex ticketing system to ensure passengers get the ticket they require. There are a range of products and services available at ticket offices which are not available at Ticket Vending Machines (TVMs). These generally includes refunds, disabled persons’ discount, seat reservations, ferry/bus connections and many more.
As recent research6 published by RMT shows, passengers are being routinely failed by third-party online ticketing retailer Trainline. Our research found examples of passengers being mis-sold incorrect tickets, getting the wrong information and paying more than they needed to from Trainline.
Contrary to what ScotRail says, demand for ticket offices for ticket purchases remains high. The company has said that ‘only’ 16% of tickets are sold at ticket offices. However, given that there were 81.1m ScotRail passenger journeys in 2023/24, this equates to around 13 million journeys being facilitated by ticket offices. Of course, this statement also ignores that already two-thirds of ScotRail stations are unstaffed (much higher than the UK average of 45%) meaning that many passengers do not have the option of buying their ticket from a ticket office.
Impact on passenger demand
In addition to the demonstrable and numerous negative impacts on passengers of reductions in ticket office hours, there is also a clear business case for retaining staffed ticket offices.
The rail industry’s own modelling, the Passenger Demand Forecasting Handbook “specifically identifiesthepresenceofastaffedticketofficeasafactorwhichattractsdemand,witha significantupliftoverthepresenceofTVMsonly”.7 Therefore, there is clearly a risk that closing ticket offices for parts of the day when they are currently open could dent demand, and hence revenue. Coupled with the recent reintroduction of peak fares, the Scottish Government’s policies could push passengers away from ScotRail at a time when it should be delivering significant modal shift to rail.
Impact on station staffing
As our recent press release highlighted8 , RMT believes that ScotRail has been disingenuous and attempted to hide the true scale of their planned cuts. In its publicity the company said that ticket office hours will reduce at 54 stations – but this isn’t true, it’s actually 101.
At the 54 stations the company admits that not only will ticket office hours reduce but so will
4 https://www.orr.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2022-07/accessible-travel-policy-implementation-review-july-2022.pdf
5 https://www.orr.gov.uk/reliability-help-points-stations
6 https://www.rmt.org.uk/news/trainline-accused-of-ripping-off-customers-anddeliberately/#:~:text=RMT%20General%20Secretary%20Mick%20Lynch,profits%20at%20the%20public's%20expense.%E2%80%9D
7 https://democracy.transportforthenorth.com/documents/s7579/Appendix%201%20PPS%20%20Ticket%20Office%20Consultation%20Response%202023-08-31.pdf
8 https://www.rmt.org.uk/news/rmt-accuses-scotrail-of-deception-over-true-scale-of-ticket/
staffing levels. However, at a further 47 stations the company is planning to reduce ticket office hours. At these stations, the company says that staffing hours will remain the same as now. But crucially there is nothing to hold them to any commitments they make about staffing levels outside ticket offices, as ticket office staffing is the only regulated station staffing. This means that if ticket offices close for parts of the day as per ScotRail’s plans, if the company decides to reduce station staffing in the future, they do not have to consult passengers. RMT believes this will lead to a de-staffing by stealth.
The only way passengers can be certain that staff will be present at the station is through staffed ticket offices. As became abundantly clear in the 2023 consultation over the UK Government’s plans to close around 1000 ticket offices predominantly in England, many older and disabled passengers who require assistance services when travelling will only travel at times when they know ticket offices are open.
What can you do?
RMT is urging you to take action to oppose these plans by:
• Find out exactly how these proposals impact stations and services in your area
• Writing to the Cabinet Secretary for Transport Fiona Hyslop MSP (CabSecfortransport@gov.scot) to raise your concerns and call on her to reverse her decision to allow ScotRail to proceed with these cuts to ticket offices.
• Writing to ScotRail Managing Director Joanne Maguire (joanne.maguire@scotrail.co.uk) to raise your concerns.
• Sign and share RMT’s petition on social media.
For more information contact: Sophie Ward, National Policy Officer s.ward@rmt.org.uk