Video linked ticket machines and reimagining ticket windows

In the past, the LIRR has sought to close ticket offices as a cost-cutting measure.  In 1996, roughly 100 of the LIRR's 124 stations had staffed ticket offices.  But as the railroad's current ticket machines began to rollout in the early 2000's, the need for ticket agents decreased dramatically, and about half of the ticket windows were permanently shuttered.  In 2009, the railroad eliminated ticket agents at a further 20 stations as part of a cost-cutting measure, shrinking the number of stations with ticket windows down to 30.  In 2019, the LIRR proposed eliminating ticket offices at seven more stations and cutting back on hours at several others.

The ticket offices on the chopping block at the time were the five stations with part-time offices (Flushing-Main Street, Lynbrook, Wantagh, Massapequa, and Amityville) and two unspecified full-time ticket offices (likely Port Jefferson and Patchogue)—the latter two closures would go with the railroad's proposal to eliminate cash sales onboard trains (as these and likely a few other ticket offices are existing primarily for train crews to remit cash).  But after backlash from riders and the employee unions, the railroad dropped its plan to eliminate onboard cash sales, and so these ticket offices were able to keep their lights on.  

Most ticket windows are open for sales, but seating for waiting
passengers is taped off (Photo: The LIRR Today)

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the LIRR shuttered all ticket offices systemwide.  Only the three busy western terminals (NY-Penn Station, Brooklyn, and Jamaica) saw their ticket windows reopen when most weekday service was restored on June 8, but gradually more and more clerks returned to their normal positions.  Today, most ticket windows are open, with a couple of exceptions.  The five part-time ticket offices (FLS, LYN, WGH, MQA, and AVL) are all still closed (and I would bet they are never going to reopen), the railroad has shortened opening times by about an hour or so across the board, and there are a handful of other ticket windows open on reduced hours (the third shift clerks at Jamaica, and the weekend clerks at Hempstead, Long Beach, and the second shift at Port Washington).  Otherwise, the railroad is more or less back at full strength at the 25 stations that now have open windows.

With the advent and rapid growth in the popularity of mobile ticketing taking a lot of the stress off of paper ticket sales, ticket windows were rapidly fading in utility even before the pandemic.  Now with ridership in the toilet and the number of occasional riders (who are unfamiliar with the system and might need to ask a person for assistance) much fewer and further between, the is even less of a need for staffed ticket windows.

While the MTA has more or less continued to ignore its impeding budget catastrophe, at one point the mile high Jenga tower they've been precariously balancing will begin to topple, and invariably the railroad will turn to a past strategies and reinvigorate talks of closing additional ticket windows.  At this point, I would suspect that any ticket office that's either not at a super busy station or a crew reporting point would be slated for closure (for those following along at home, that would be: Bellmore, Bayside, Baldwin, Freeport, Great Neck, Manhasset, Merrick, Rockville Centre, Westbury, and Woodside, plus a curtailing of second shifts and weekend hours at most other stations).

While all reductions in passenger services are disappointing, in 2021 the need for staffed ticket windows is very much the lowest it's been in decades, and it's long past time we completely rethink the need and roles of station agents...

Improved ticket machines and clearer policies

One of the chief responsibilities of ticket agents is to, well, sell tickets.  But it's not the 1990's anymore and almost all stations have for many years had Ticket Vending Machines (TVM's), so all stations with open ticket windows have alternative ways for passengers to purchase paper tickets.  And with eTix reducing a lot of the pressure and long lines at the system's busiest ticket machines, ticket windows aren't really required to supplement busy TVM's.

A lot of people who prefer ticket windows do so because they have difficulty figuring out how to use the TVM's.  The current configuration of the TVM's used by the LIRR and Metro-North—while far from the most confusing I've ever seen—are still plenty confusing.  In 2016, I wrote about ways the TVM workflow could be overhauled to make things a lot faster and more straightforward.  If there's no appetite to fix the current TVM's, then the new TVM's coming as part of the OMNY program in the next couple of years should absolutely be a whole lot more intuitive.  

Streamlining the TVM workflow can make it easier for riders to get their tickets quickly and simply

Another reason people often stop by ticket windows is because they are confused about ticket policies and the ticket agents are [generally] good sources for interpretative guidance about fare policies.  A good way to address that is to clean up and simplify confusing fare policies, making everything a lot more streamlined and straightfoward. 

But for those who are still confused or unwilling to buy tickets on their own at the TVM's, there are other solutions out there that leverage technology to deliver personal assistance to those who need it, without the expense of having to post agents across the system every day.  In London, one idea currently under development are "video link ticket machines", which are ticket machines that include the functionality for a passenger to video chat with a railroad employee in the event they need assistance.  Pressing a help button starts a video call, and then someone at a central location can see and talk with you through the machine.  They can even queue up the ticket order for you so all you have to do is put in your credit card or money to complete the transaction.  A video of one of these machines in action is shown below:

This is kind of the best of both worlds—not only can people still get personal assistance, but the railroad can significantly consolidate the number of ticket agents it needs to offer this support, since there would only be at most a handful of people using the video chat at any given time.  And this would theoretically allow the railroad to offer this service at every station, 24/7 systemwide (instead of just a couple hours a day at one-fifth of the stations).  

A non-functioning Help Point
installed at Wantagh (LIRR Today)

This video chat functionality can also be used for passengers in need of general information, which would allow the MTA to spare the expense of installing help points at stations (most of which, I suspect, have never actually been used).  These, along with the existing facilities for passengers to get help (e.g. phone representatives and the new chat feature in the TrainTime application), should be sufficient to get riders the information they need in real time.

Other in-person transactions

As far as other transactions that currently have to be done in person at ticket windows, there are workarounds for all of these too:

• Sale of bike permits: this is a ridiculous practice and should be eliminated outright
• Purchase using multiple payment types: currently it's not possible to purchase a ticket with multiple cards or multiple payment types at TVM's.  Any replacement TVM should absolutely be able to handle split payments.
• Purchase using personal checks: the number of people paying with personal checks these days is likely very close to zero, and the LIRR has already restricted the use of personal checks to certain higher-value transactions.  It would probably be ok to let this go, or alternatively, include a provision with OMNY to allow riders to mail checks to the MTA, and after they are cleared, the amount can be posted to the rider's travel balance for use at ticket machines or for pay-as-you-go transactions (similar to how it works for E-ZPass).  This would preserve this ability while also reducing the impact of bounced checks.
• Purchase charity tickets: this is something else that could be solved with OMNY, instead of making people appear in person at ticket offices to purchase charity tickets, organizations can be issued half-fare OMNY cards or given online accounts that allow them to purchase half-fare or charity tickets.
• Purchase of group tickets: functionality can be added to TVM's to allow for the sale of group tickets, or more likely an online portal can be setup for group sales to allow people to make arrangements and submit requests.  Paper tickets can either be mailed to the purchaser, tickets can be printed at home with electronic ticketing, or riders can be given a confirmation code that they can type in at a TVM and have the tickets printed there.
• Refund tickets: with electronic ticketing, riders can self-refund tickets on their own as the barcode identifier record for the cancelled ticket would just be voided from the backend system and not come up as valid once scanned.  Alternatively, if the railroad wants to hold onto paper value tickets, this can be paired with the video chat function (e.g. you put all of the information into the TVM, then you have to physically tear the ticket in front of an agent over the video chat before the refund is confirmed).  Other options could include pushing riders towards mailing in refunds for tickets (and not penalizing them for weekend days if it's postmarked on a Monday) or allowing conductors to accept paper value tickets for refund and remit them on the rider's behalf.  The cost or risk of revenue loss from any of these options is way less than what it would cost to continue staffing ticket windows.

(Photo: Ceh2624/Wikimedia Commons)

The other role ticket windows play is a place for train crews to remit cash from onboard sales.  After cash is remitted, it's also counted and managed by additional employees behind the scenes.  There are a couple of ways around this, too.  First, conductors can just remit cash by placing it in an envelope and dropping it in a secure drop-box.  There's no real reason why it has to be turned into a physical person, as plenty of people leave receipts in bank night depositories all the time.  These drop boxes wouldn't be any less secure than cash drawers used by ticket clerks now, and for added security these could even be located in yards where they are more remote and further away from passenger view.  If the railroad and conductors want a more instant way of tracking cash receipts, purchasing and configuring ATM's would be a moderate one-time cost but could allow for conductors to scan something on their phone/OBTIM's, insert cash, have it counted right in front of them, and give everyone the full knowledge of where each dollar has come from or gone.  Lastly, if the railroad implemented prof of payment, that would be a reasonable point to phase out cash transactions altogether. 

Reimagining the role of station employees

While it's probably time to move from the age of staffed ticket windows, this is not to say that we should be eliminating regular physical presence of staff from all stations all the time.  It's very true that the LIRR has a significant overstaffing problem, generally across the board, but on a properly staffed organizational chart, there is still value in having staff on hand to assist passengers at stations.

But there needs to be a major reimagination of the role of station employees.  Currently, most ticket clerks spend their entire day behind ticket windows, most of the time reading the newspaper or playing on their phones (I don't really blame them, I'm sure it's a rather boring job, especially these days).  Just like subway token booth clerks, it would be far more beneficial to passengers to bring those clerks from out from their one corner of the station building and have the more mobile and accessible to passengers.  The MTA floated the idea of doing this with token booth clerks several years ago, but never moved on it.  

Bringing ticket collectors out from their one corner of the station building can still make them available to answer rider questions and help with ticket transactions (i.e. help riders punch their trip information into the TVM), similar to how PATH's station agents work (there are no token booths at PATH, but there are agents who hang around the fare control area and offer this kind of assistance).  This should also allow for the station agents to become Jacks and Jills of all trades, roving stations doing general tidying, identifying and reporting issues, helping riders who need assistance boarding and alighting trains, etc., allowing station maintenance crews to focus on more heavy-duty cleaning and other maintenance tasks more efficiently.

Basically this would be an expansion of the current station ambassador role (which are currently only regularly available at the western terminals), combining the current ambassadors, ticket clerks, and maintainers who do basic cleaning tasks into one pool of employees who can be more evenly distributed throughout the system.

More than half of the recently renovated Northport
station building is inaccessible to the public, behind
that blue tiled wall (Photo: MTA)

Transforming the role of ticket clerks to bring them out form behind windows would also allow for all of the space currently used for ticket offices and back-of-house facilities sitting unused in our station buildings to be put to better use.  Most of the ticket offices that have been closed since the mid-1990's still exist, they are just shuttered or out of public view (many of them also have machines that are not being used).  Instead of walling off these spaces and making them useless to riders, these spaces could be used to either expand passenger waiting facilities and seating areas, be leased out to retailers (e.g. coffee shops or newsstands) to serve riders and bring in additional revenue for the MTA, or leased out to small businesses for transit-oriented office space (especially the number of station houses that have unused upper floors).

Ticketing processes and procedures are one of the many things that are overdue for a complete overhaul as technology has evolved and the needs of riders have changed.  With the rollout of OMNY to the railroads, this is the perfect opportunity to reimagine the purpose of ticket windows and ticket clerks.  These station staff positions are worth keeping, but they should be expanded and reimagined to best serve riders with the resources and technology available today.