Anger over travel office closure (From Salisbury Journal)

Anger over travel office closure

10:00am Wednesday 17th October 2007 in

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RAIL passengers could face chaos and long queues at Salisbury station after South West Trains decided to close the travel centre.

The office which deals with passengers' enquiries, helps them to plan routes and sells advance tickets will shut down in the new year.

The train company says more people are choosing to buy their tickets over the telephone or internet which means that travel centres are no longer required and they will be closed at all stations except London Waterloo.

However the closure has angered passengers' groups who fear long delays at the ticket windows as tourists and those without internet access try to make their travel plans.

The Salisbury travel centre closed in 1993, but it was re-opened a year later after passengers complained.

Many travellers fear they could end up missing trains or being forced to board without a ticket and face a penalty fare due to long queues. Although it plans to introduce three new ticket machines at Salisbury the train company says there will be no new ticket windows to cope with increased demand.

"We have a number of concerns about how this will affect rail users," said Jocelyn Pearson from pressure group Passenger Focus.

"Ticket machines do not always give information about the cheapest deals and all the routes available so sometimes passengers will be forced to ask for help especially if they are going on long journeys.

"The company has just introduced a very complicated price structure with its super off-peak fares and travellers are sure to have queries and now the only place they can ask is the ticket window.

"Sometimes the queues move very quickly but it only takes one or two groups of passengers - possibly tourists who don't speak English fluently - and the whole thing grinds to a halt. It doesn't seem fair that passengers will have to arrive so much earlier to be sure of buying their ticket or risk having to pay a penalty fare.

"We want to see that South West Trains are properly publicising their telesales and internet sales and can demonstrate they will keep the same levels of customer service before they close the travel centres."

A spokeswoman for South West Trains said the Salisbury travel centre would close early next year and staff would be redeployed to avoid redundancies.

"The travel centre is only open at off peak times anyway so it won't make any difference to peak times at the station," she said.

"More tickets machines are arriving at Salisbury and enquiries will be dealt with at the ticket windows.

"We have taken this decision because people are making their travel plans in different ways by checking fares and times on the internet or over the telephone."