From Jan 23rd, the opening hours of the ticket office at HOP will be cut severely.

Weekdays: 0645-1000.
Saturday: 0945-1145.
Sunday: CLOSED.

The vending machines will be open throughout the day.

https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/london-overgrou...fice-hours

Honestly. So what? I use the ticket counters less than once a year and they always look confused about what Im asking for (because its the stuff you can't buy from machines)

Well, that's nice for you, johnfbw. I happen to use it a lot. And it angers me that after having petitioned and been promised by tfl that the ticket office would remain a ticket office, they've gone back on it now.

I am self employed and use public transport frequently, at all hours, but not every day, rather 4-5 days out of 7, so weekly/monthly tickets don't always make sense. The ticket machines at HOP (and everywhere else I've had the misfortune to use them) are terribly unreliable. Half the time only one is in use (leading to queues), sometimes they get stuck half way through a transaction, and they are almost always slower than actually topping up or buying a weekly oyster at the ticket office.

Some of the station staff are wonderful and have been there for years. They are now forced to sit behind the glass with a 'information only' sign on display, which isn't what they're there for or want to do.

It's clearly a first step to get rid of the ticket office and many of the staff there altogether ('it's no longer used so we can close it'), to be replaced with untrained service staff with an i-pad. As friendly as they may be, the results at stations like Westminster (where I happen to get on/off the tube a lot) are confusion, queues and dissatisfaction of commuters and tourists.

Tinkerbell. You don't say why you use them. Having staff, no matter how nice they are isn't necessary if it is just because people don't want to use the ticket machines.
Would you be happy to subsidise them by paying an extra few pounds every time you use them to cover the extra cost you are demanding?

Yes I would, although I don't think they should be cut in the first place.

And, wtf, johnfbw, I am not 'demanding' extra cost, I am reminding TFL of a promise it made very recently to keep these ticket offices open!

Those ticket machines are absolutely useless. Do you actually ever use them? On a regular basis? At any given time, one is usually out of service or re-booting. The other is slow, touch screens often malfunction and it re-sets itself too fast if you don't manage to insert your card immediately. And I am neither old nor have any physical or mental disabilities, so many people might have even more problems with these machines.

It's easy enough for those who commute day in, day out, at the same time and have monthly or seasonal tickets. For everyone else, it's a rubbish customer service experience to rely on those machines. In addition, booking tickets to non-London destinations is far quicker and easier with the help of staff inside the ticket office.

Unfortunately, I can see that ticket offices will be even less likely to stay open due to the punitive 'bailout' imposed on Tfl.

I don't know this for a fact, just making an educated guess.

I agree, Tinkerbell, that the machines are often lacking - poor speed and intuivity for users.