Written question asked by Navendu Mishra (Labour) on Monday, 7 April 2025, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Tuesday, 22 April 2025. It was answered by Simon Lightwood (Labour) on Tuesday, 22 April 2025 on behalf of the Department for Transport.

Avanti West Coast: Ticket Offices

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether her Department will make an assessment of the impact of (a) unfilled station staff vacancies and (b) use of fixed-term contracts at Avanti West Coast-managed railway stations on (i) trends in the length of delays at ticket offices and (ii) trends in the number of unscheduled closures of ticket offices.

Answer

The Department expects all train operating companies to use reasonable endeavours to meet their obligations for regulated staffed ticket office opening hours under Schedule 17 of the Ticketing and Settlement Agreement. As such, we regularly review ticket office opening hours compliance and the causes of any negative trends, including staff vacancies.

Train operating companies are also required to achieve challenging customer experience targets across a range of measures, including ticket offices being open at advertised times. These standards are regularly and independently inspected via the Service Quality Regime and there are accountability and financial consequences for failure.

Secondary information

Type: Written question
Reference: 44579
Session: 2024-26
Related items: Avanti West Coast: Ticket Offices
Monday, 19 January 2026
Written questions
House of Commons; Avanti West Coast: Ticket Offices
Monday, 26 January 2026
Written questions
House of Commons
Registered interest declared: Yes
Subjects: Closures Railway stations Standards Vacancies Ticket offices Avanti West Coast
Contains statistics: Yes
Link: View this Written question on www.parliament.uk

Avanti West Coast: Ticket Offices

Secondary information

Librarians' tools