|
Interesting to see this old thread reopened because I don't know how many years it is since the mania for creating "open stations" started. It was probably just after privatisation when all the companies seemed to think of was saving money and getting rid of (experienced) staff. Then they found (bit obvious really) that when you removed the ticket barrier a significant number of people decided to travel without bothering to buy a ticket.
To be fair to Great Western, as it was at the time, in this area they got a grip on this fairly quickly and put barriers in the form of ticket gates back in. As well as immediately noticing an increase in ticket revenue, they found that the problem of train vandalism was very much reduced as (again, a bit obvious) vandals tended not to buy tickets before travelling.
|