Key information
Petition presented by: Caroline Pidgeon
Date petition submitted: Wednesday 8 December 2010
Petition presented at: London Assembly Plenary
Summary of petition
“We the undersigned support the campaign to protect the opening hours of Arnos Grove Southgate Oakwood and Cockfosters ticket office. We call on the Mayor to honour his promise to local people to protect ticket offices."
and
“We the undersigned call on the Mayor to honour his 2008 manifesto commitment to safeguard London’s ticket offices. We believe that ticket offices play a vital role in offering assistance to those most vulnerable in society when they are using the Underground. We believe consultation on these proposals has been poor with many Londoners unaware of the proposals. We call on the Mayor to keep London’s ticket offices open and not reduce their ability to assist passengers.”
Response information
Name of person responding: The Mayor
Response date: Monday 10 January 2011
“Stations will continue to be staffed at all times when trains are running. The changes which have been made are designed to ensure that staff are available when they are most required to assist customers with any help that they may need, for example with using ticket machines, or helping people to re-plan journeys in cases of disruption.
The changes London Underground propose are driven by the following factors:
• The significant decline In the numbers of customers using ticket offices, particularly following the success of the Oyster card
• The Tube investment programme and the need to adapt our staffing to reflect the introduction of new technology
• The need to identify ways to deliver even greater value to both taxpayers and fare payers, without compromising the aspects of our service that are essential.
At the core of LU's proposals is a commitment to maintaining fully and safely staffed stations, at all times of the day and night. Recent years have seen a major improvement in safety and security on trains and at stations. In addition to the greater presence of LU staff at gate lines and on platforms, the number of police patrolling the Tube network has risen from 450 to more than 700 today. Last year crime fell 8%, with just 13 crimes for every million customer journeys. There are now over 12,000 (CTV cameras on the Tube network, with that figure due to rise to more than 14,000 in years to come, as well as more than 1,500 Help points to assist passengers to call for assistance.
I am committed to keep ticket offices open at every one of our stations that currently has a ticket office service (with the exception of Cannon Street which is being redeveloped) -but with revised opening times to reflect the decline in demand for ticket offices. Today, only 1 in 20 journeys on the Tube starts with a visit to the ticket office and some 80% of journeys are made using an Oyster card.
There is growing use of internet sales and automatic top-ups, and within the stations there is now much greater provision of self-service ticket machines, and a network of 4,000 ticket agents at retail outlets across the capital.
We have an opportunity to deploy staff to areas of the station where they can provide greater assistance -on platforms, in ticket halls and at the gate lines, rather than behind a glass screen in a very lightly used ticket office.
The number of staff on duty at any particular time of day will depend on the numbers of people using the station and the characteristics and complexity of the station itself. Many stations are also governed by regulations that specify minimum numbers of staff required for the station to remain open; these will continue to apply and will not change.”