Great Western Coffee Shop

Bit strange, the ticket barriers were left open all day today.

First time I walked in and out of the station with them all wide open.

Anyone know why this was?

Staff shortages maybe?  I always fancied being a ticket barrier man!  ;) ;D 8)

I found a similer situation at Paddington last night with the suburban barriers wide open strangely though the p2-5 overbridge barriers were in full use FGW seem incapable of operating all sets of barriers at one time. I hope this is only a staff shortage issue and not a cost cutting exercise as revenue protection on FGW is already woeful on many parts of the network.

If they start opening the barrier lines they will lose a fortune.

They had a ticket check at Kintbury on Thursday night.  Several passengers stood around looking a bit worried ;D

i reckon it is deliberate so not all tickets are kept,fgw can then go to gov claiming pax numbers are down and still get the hand outs as per franchise contract.

It's not that simple.

Ticket counts are determined by sales, not how many are swiped through barriers. The revenue is then apportioned to TOCs through ORCATS. There will no doubt be a very careful audit of a TOCs revenue and expenditure before any adjustment to the financial obligations of the TOC under the cap and colar arrangement.

 

A fair point, but you're logic's flawed:

Passenger arrives without ticket, barrier is closed, passenger buys ticket from barrier staff or is charged a penalty fare as appropriate, journey is recorded.

Passenger arrives without ticket, barrier is open, passenger leaves without buying ticket, journey is unrecorded.

Simply, having the barrier open makes it much more likely people will make journeys without tickets that are therefore not recorded and do result in lost revenue.

Modified to clarify...
I'm not suggesting that leaving barriers open is a deliberate tactic on the part of FGW to lose revenue, just pointing out that leaving barriers open could very well lead to lost revenue and journeys that are not recorded through ORCATS, LENNON or whatever system it is they're using this week.

Similarly passengers arrive at barried staion see barriers open and know they going to an umanned staion so walk through hoping there is no inspector on the train.

You may be pleased to know that FGW are recruiting for Gateline Staff (closes 29/10/09 if you want to get your applications in :P ) at Paddington and Reading to sort out this situation - hopefully this will also mean you might actually see Revenue Protection on train again..

I was responding to the observation that it is "deliberate so that not all tickets are kept", and pointing out that the flaws in that argument. You are of course correct that open barriers results in ticketless travel, but it would be rather absurd if the revenue arrangment of the franchise encouraged FGW (or any other TOC) deliberately not to raise money through ticket sales.

Also open at peak evenings a few times this week, swine flu at Bristol at the moment?

Maybe that also explains FGWs inability to open the BRI ticket office as per advertised times.

I was at BTM earlier today (between 13:40 and 14:00) and all the barriers were open.  There was no-one staffing the barriers or the excess ticket counter, except for one PCSO who was wandering around platform 3.  The whole station seemed like a ghost town with a lack of both staff and customers.

They always seem to be left open recently!!   :o

Open again this evening (around 5pm).

On Friday, I was on the 11:34 from Redland to BTM and noticed there was the usual conductor but also another man who was walking up and down the train selling tickets.  Same happened on the same train two weeks ago.  The ticket vendor's badge only described him as being "Customer Service".  Also noticed that on other services in the past two weeks (namely the Portsmouth-Cardiff), they've been checking tickets and railcards in a lot more detail than I've ever seen before.  Perhaps they are trying to increase revenue on trains rather than at ticket barriers ???

The ticket barriers at BTM were certainly firing on all cylinders last Friday: they gleefully rejected my perfectly valid ticket from NLS (purchased only ten minutes before) on my way in - and they equally cheerfully rejected my return ticket, on my way home, a couple of hours later!  ::)

Why was I not fazed by any of this?  Because I had my personal assistant, with an FGW staff card, to pass me through the barriers - which saved me having to queue up at the manual barrier gate, 'seeking assistance'!

If you are able to recruit one, I do recommend the 'FGW personal assistant' option!  ;) :D ;D

The guys/ladies doing such job are usually 'revenue Protection' officers. When the new badges were issued they wer'nt too happy about losing this title from thier name badges. 'Customer Service' does'nt really do them justice.

Not strictly true. Revenue Protection Officers/Inspectors are staff who have training in PACE (Police and criminal evidence act 1984) and are authorized both to interview suspected fare-evaders under caution and issue penalty fares. In the Thames Valley area where penalty fares are in force, barriers tend to be staffed by "gateline assistants/operatives" with an RPI or two supervising proceedings. Further west where, despite the posters, penalty fares still do not apply, barriers are generally just staffed by gateline assistants and supervisors who to the best of my knowledge are not PACE-trained.

The member of staff you saw in addition to a conductor on the Beach line was almost certainly an assistant ticket examiner, provided to help the conductor with ticket sales on busy services. Again, I believe these staff are not PACE trained; they certainly don't have the authority to issue a penalty fare.