Sir, If ticket offices are to be replaced by machines (news, Jan 2) may I be permitted to make three suggestions?

First, the notion of only certain time-buckets (weekly, monthly, annual) is antiquated. If an annual ticket can be bought at a discounted rate then surely with modern computing it should be a trival matter to pro rata that discount for any lesser daily period. With the maths and programming both being simple, why can one not buy a three-day or 19-day ticket?

Second, every ticketing machine should have a “clone” facility as its first option? It would preclude an awful lot of faffing about if one could just insert any old ticket and have the opportunity to get a valid replica issued without any further button pushing/screen touching, with the possible exception of picking a start date.

Finally, failure to reach benchmarks in punctuality and reliability would result in discounts to the price of the new ticket for users of the “clone” system as measured over the period and network covered by the ticket being presented for cloning. Thus train companies would automatically be penalised for their slackness and customers rewarded for their forbearance, happily obviating the drawn-out complaints form and refund procedure.

Nigel Harper

Windsor,

Berks

Sir, Having recently travelled by train to London from King’s Lynn (and back), my husband and I found the ticket clerk’s knowledge saved us money. He sold us two return tickets to Epsom. How could we ever have worked that out for ourselves?

Jane Braybrook

King’s Lynn

Sir Your report is illustrated with five different return fares available from Ashurst New Forest to London, each with its own conditions attached.

How can it possibly make sense for a train company to offer a standard off-peak return for £37.90 and a standard off-peak day return for £37.80 and how are passengers expected to make sense of such a bewildering range of subtly different fares, with or without assistance from a ticket office clerk?

I seem to recall a recent announcement, made with great fanfares, from the Association of Train Operating Companies to the effect that the fares structure had been simplified. Yeah, right.

Michael Patterson

(The Secretary, Central Rail Users Consultative Committee, 1987-97)

Sir, My request at the Crewe ticket office on January 1st was simply “cheapest tickets, two adults, to Manchester Piccadilly returning this evening”.

We did not check our tickets and jumped on the first train that came along and later that evening boarded the first available train to return home.

We checked our tickets the next day only because we read that “ticket office clerks are legally obliged to offer impartial advice.” Our tickets were classed as “Northern duo,” which is meaningless but apparently restricted us to travel only on Northern Rail trains. We had travelled on an Arriva and a Virgin train and would have been liable to pay a penalty fare had we been challenged.

Will the new machines make all this clearer?

Peter Barnard

Nantwich, Cheshire

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