Great Western Coffee Shop

Pure research / learning on my part at this stage (but interested in what happens at a station in the lead up to a popular train calling) .  

1. Does anyone have (or know of a source) of comparative average times taken to purchase a ticket:
a) From a TVM (Ticket Vending Machine)
b) From a staffed counter
c) From a mobile ticket seller, such as on board travelling from stations offering neither (a) nor (b)
d) From a phone-in service
also interested in
e) Average time to obtain a prepurchased tickets from a TVM
I guess it will be very different across different station types?
I'm sure someone has the stats - they'll need them to know how vending points to have in place.

2. How early do people arrive for their train?  Does the pattern vary significantly between people who need to purchase tickets, people who need to collect tickets, and people who are already fully ticketed?

My answers

1) Can't help with this one
2) I tend to arrive about 20 minutes before my train is due to depart (0547 thstchsm to reading). On a monday this gives me extra time to TRY and buy my weekly season from the TVM. But I have to be honest and say my real reason for arriving that early is to get a free parking space :)

2).. Usually about 12 hours in advance if I'm renewing my season ticket (so the night before) but if I have to get it on the day I get there 20 - 30 minutes early (although when I do that the long queue that there is every other day is non existent for some reason)

I allow at least half an hour, to buy a ticket at Paddington, and even that was not long enough recently as disscussed herehttp://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=10957.0 (http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=10957.0)

I try not to buy a ticket at Paddington though due to the likely delays.
It only takes a few minutes at London Liverpool Street.

Not much point in the railway industry spending billions on faster speeds or new lines, when the ticket purchasing process is a significant fraction of the journy time.

2) Usually about 30-40 minutes early if needing to find a parking space at a time when the car park may be busy.  About 10-20 minutes at a larger station with a ticket already, 20-30 minutes if requiring a ticket/collection* and 1-10 minutes if buying on-board.

* = I allow the same amount of time if collecting or buying a ticket.  Anything unusual (e.g. rover or through ticket) will usually be bought a few days in advance, if possible.

Most of my rail travel is for leisure purposes and often the trips are spur of the moment jollies to go bashing some part of the network. With my wealth of knowledge of the fares system I tend to buy walk-up tickets, with Advance Purchase only considered for those few journeys a year that are pre-planned and for which splits don't offer a saving.

Most times I'll buy on board after joining at my local unstaffed, un-TVMed station, Shirehampton. I usually arrive there 5-10 minutes before my train is due to depart. Other times when I'm doing a more complex split I'll buy online the night before, usually from redspottedhanky.com and collect from Bristol TM if inward on the SVB Line or Bristol Parkway if I'm getting the bus there.

Looking forward to being the first passenger to buy a ticket on board (I doubt it'll get a TVM) from Henbury.  ;)

I try and get to the station about 20-30 mins early rather than rushing and being worried or stressed im going to miss the train

For my journey to work I usually buy a ticket each time I travel as I am out of the office often enough for a season ticket not to be justified for that journey (at least it was last time I checked, a while ago now, maybe I should review that decision). I cycle to the station on a folding bike, so have a very predictable journey time, and find I don't tend to have to queue for long for the ticket machines at Didcot, so I only allow 2 to 3 minutes before my usual train. Occasionally I've been caught out by unexpected queues, or broken machines, in which case I have to get the 0801 instead of the 0755, which means a longer wait at Reading for my connection, but is usually not too much of  a problem. If I drove I'd have to allow a lot more time for parking, getting ticket, walking from the car park etc.  For a journey where it is more critical I get the exact train I would allow a bit longer, but still find 5 minutes is generally fine when cycling.

No idea on averages, but collecting pre-purchased tickets from TVMs can be quite lengthy. I booked quite a few seperate tickets for one of my rail 'adventures' (http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=10901 (http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=10901)) and had seperate booking codes to type into the machine for each leg (I did a bit of split-ticketing also). A fair queue built up behind while the machine was printing all my tickets.

I always used to buy on board and almost never in general had a problem - even if my boarding station had facilities.  If I knew the service was DOO - mostly thames valley - id always get from the TVM but really never got stressed as the services were so frequent

I feel I've opened a bit of a Pandora's box here - very interesting and very complicated situation.  There's a strong argument that says the time taken to obtain your ticket (unless you purchase on train) is every bit as much a part of the journey time as the time the train's actually moving with you in transit.

Many thanks and please keep adding to the thread - thanks too for the extra case data I've got via other means as a result of the request I started the thread with.  Very complex; I've got some preliminary thoughts on patterns that are starting to emerge, but don't want to steer the thread while other data's being contributed.

It's not just ticket time, it's the entire end to end journey time:

Leave house - if winter defrost car windscreen - drive to station - find parking space - find car park ticket machine that's working - buy car park ticket - return to car to display ticket - walk to ticket office/TVM, queue, buy ticket - find platform - buy newspaper/coffee - board train. The actual ticket purchase time is relatively quick (no more than a minute for a simple walk up fare or weekly season).

Overall I probably add 15 minutes to the driving time to the station to cover all the ancillary activities and potential pitfalls. I could probably save a bit of time by doing ring-go for parking (or whatever it's called these days).

Then at the other end (London in my case) in can take two minutes to get off a busy train if I'm not near the door, a good 5-6 minutes to get to the tube, assuming I am not turned away because of overcrowding on the platform, plus the tube journey (up to half an hour for 4 miles) and walk to the office.