Tube ticket office hours reduced from Sunday

From Sunday 6th February 2011, if you want to buy a ticket or top up your Oyster card from a real person, you'd better check the new London Underground ticket office opening hours. London Underground say the changes are to put staff on the frontline & in areas where they will offer "the best possible service to passengers." LU have said "there will always be staff present at every station to help passengers" and there "will continue to be a ticket office service at every station that had one previously".


Photo by @Metro_Land
As you probably know, the reduction of staff at ticket offices is one of the issues at the heart of Tube union & LU disputes about cutbacks and led to a number of Tube strikes last year. Gerry Doherty of the TSSA union has already accused Boris Johnson of "jumping the gun" with the new ticket office hours, as talks with ACAS about the safety implications of behind this are still continuing.

RMT leader Bob Crow said today: "On the network, the reality of the hidden drive towards de-staffing has left many stations without a single member of staff and the new rosters coming in from Sunday show that London Underground is planning to leave a third of stations unstaffed for part of the day. So much for the Mayor’s promise that “no station will be left unstaffed at any time.”

"The Mayor cannot wash his hands of the on-going crisis on the Tube that has developed on his watch. 1000 days into his leadership of this City he has failed to have a single meeting with the Tube unions and instead of resorting to puffing up ludicrous suggestions like driverless operation he should be talking to the people at the sharp end who know what’s going on.

"Boris Johnson opposed the cuts to ticket offices before the Mayoral election because he knew that was what the voters wanted. Nothing has changed since then and there is absolutely no excuse for him to sit back and watch while the Tube system is turned into the playground for thugs and vandals that has been so graphically exposed in recent weeks".

My local station has exactly the same staffing hours, so I won't see a difference, but I'd be keen to know whether your local station's ticket office will have reduced hours and whether you're bothered by it.  Do you feel reassured knowing there is someone in a ticket office in the evenings?  Does the presence of staff in ticket office put off 'thugs & vandals'?  Do you think station staff are equipped to deal with criminals at platform level?

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