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Ticket Office Consultation
Completion of public consultationFollowing the public consultation (5 July to 1st Sept) and feedback from London Travel Watch these proposals will no longer go ahead. |
Why the consultation’s happening
The way people buy things has changed and that includes train tickets. More than ever, people buy train tickets online, on smartphones, with contactless technology, on apps, or the internet – conveniently and without a queue. There are now 140,000 e-ticket journeys a week on Southeastern’s network. As Southeastern continue to roll out more e-ticket routes, this number is expected to grow rapidly.
Southeastern is also committed to a better, more reliable, and sustainable railway. In terms of financial sustainability, it must manage costs and reduce taxpayers’ subsidy.
This consultation addresses all these factors.Support for customers
If proposals for the future of ticket offices are approved when the results of the consultation are implemented, Southeastern will ensure skilled staff who currently work in ticket offices will get support and training to transition to new roles where they will be able to provide a wider range of customer support including helping people with accessibility requirements and keeping people safe.
There is wide variation across the 180 stations we serve, of different opening times and staff available at our 142 ticket offices. At the conclusion of Southeastern’s consultation the following is proposed:
- At 14 of our busiest stations on the network Travel Centres will be provided offering a combination of travel information and ticketing solutions. You can find a full list of travel centres below.
- At Southeastern’s medium and larger sized stations, where it is agreed that ticket offices are no longer required, they will be closed. Overall, these stations will have fewer staff, but they will be better able to support our customers following enhanced training and being empowered to assist people face-to-face.
- At our smaller stations, where the only staff currently on the station is the person in the ticket office, if agreed that the ticket office will be closed, our staff there will be available to provide a wider range of customer support.
- At 18 of these smaller stations, where vacancies have resulted in a temporarily unstaffed station, these stations will be restaffed as staff are deployed where they are most needed.
- At 27 stations which are unstaffed stations, customers will continue to have a mobile assistance team (to provide accessibility support) and much better self-service retail options such as e-ticketing.
Every station currently staffed will continue to be staffed.
This table shows where our customers will be able to purchase products and ticket types once the proposed changes have been implemented.
| Product | Online | Ticket Vending Machines | On Train |
|---|---|---|---|
| Walk-up Singles & Returns | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Advance Tickets | Yes | Yes (collection only) | |
| Flexi Season | Yes | Yes | |
| Season Weeklies | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Season Monthly | Yes | ||
| Season Annual | Yes | ||
| GroupSave & Group tickets | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Child fares inc. Kids for a Quid | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Rovers & Rangers | Yes | ||
| Excess fares | Yes | Yes | |
| Railcard discounts | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Railcard sales | Yes | ||
| Photocards (required with a paper season ticket) | Yes | ||
| Refunds | Yes | ||
| Smartcard fares | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Oyster top up (at stations within the London Travelcard area) | Yes | ||
| Seat reservations (for train companies excluding Southeastern) | Yes | ||
| Cash payments (not all stations) | Yes | Yes | |
| Car park tickets & permits | Yes | Yes |
Accessibility
We have published an overarching Equality Impact Assessment (EqIA) and an Equality Impact Assessment (EqIA) for each station subject to consultation (both documents are also available to download in large print format) – to clearly show what we are doing to protect the interests of people with accessibility requirements, as part of this process.
- Equality Impact Assessment PDF
- Equality Impact Assessment (Large Print) PDF
- EqIAs for individual ticket offices PDF
- EqIAs for individual ticket offices (Large Print) PDF
British Sign Language (BSL) video format of all Ticket Office Consultation station posters are now available, plus an (Easy Read) PDF version is available to download.
For all other accessible versions, including braille, please contact our Customer Services team.
How this consultation will be conducted
Southeastern will be conducting this consultation in a phased approached and the first 40 stations of the first phase of consultation are displayed on the map below. Below, you will find a list of the changes proposed for each station subject to consultation and this will be updated as we move through the different phases of consultation. People who want to respond to the consultation were asked to do so by 1 September 2023.
