LIKE many, I am concerned by the proposals to remove staff from train station ticket offices.

North Dorset only has one train station at Gillingham and it is used very regularly indeed.

It is too easy, or potentially too lazy, to presume that anyone over a certain age is incapable of using technology or is threatened with an attack of the vapours when confronted with a screen.

More and more people of all ages are using tech to make purchases, including pre-buying train tickets.

The necessities of Covid accelerated the march of the ‘silver surfer’. I think of my own mother-in-law, now in her late eighties, who is perfectly happy purchasing items from her iPad. She is not alone.

However, we are, as in many areas of our lives, going through a period of transition – when a tried and tested way of doing something evolves into another way of achieving the same aim.

We see examples all around us – making a doctor’s appointment, renewing our car tax, paying household bills, how we bank, emailing when just a few years ago we would have written.

The problem with any transition is not the change per se – it’s that not everyone will move at the same pace and/or at the same time.

READ MORE: Ticket offices closure plan: How it affects your station

So, service providers are left with the conundrum of either abandoning modernisation and maintaining the status quo or driving it forward in the preparedness of losing some customers/users along the way.

North Dorset has a considerably high number of retirees within its population.

As I reference above, not all of them are averse to deploying technology, as is the case among those who would classify themselves as being disabled.

So, the challenge is, what to do during the interregnum or transition period.

To me it seems simple and I have made my thoughts known through the consultation process. In the ideal world, ticket offices should remain staffed – there is neither downside nor inconvenience to the travelling public in so doing.

If this is not possible then passengers, without fear of being fined or in any way penalised, should be able to purchase a ticket either on the train or at the point of destination.

What the service providers cannot do is provide only one option, that being purchase via IT. Still worse would be to default to the position of presuming that all travellers know well in advance that they are going to travel.

Discounts and offers should not be the sole preserve of those who know when they are going to travel.

Part of the advertising campaign of the railways is the spirit of exploration and excitement that comes with travelling by train.

Spontaneity should be part of that mix allied to the opportunity to enjoy offers and discounts.

In summary, the arbitrary and comprehensive removal of staffed ticket offices is probably ill-advised in general but is certainly wrong at this time.

The consultation process has been extended and I would encourage people who share my concerns or who wish to submit their own travelling issues etc should do so.

You can visit transportfocus.org.uk or email schedule17@transportfocus.org.uk – remember to put your address and local station – or write to – freepost so no stamp
required – RTEH-XAGE, Transport Focus, PO Box 5594, Southend-on-Sea SS1 9PZ.

SIMON HOARE
Conservative MP for North Dorset