Ticket machines being boarded up?

[grumpycat]

So at a few stations I have been through I have noticed that some stations have the ticket machines boarded up. Is this a cost saving measure or something?

[Dstock7080]

54 AFMs, the larger machines with coin and note handlers, across the network have been withdrawn from use and initially boarded over before being removed.
With the greater acceptance of contactless bank cards, cash usage is gradually reducing.

[Chris L]

They were originally designed with numerous buttons to select individual stations in the days before zonal fares. They were called Multifare machines.

The first examples were installed at Vauxhall station.

No simpler fronts were installed but the internal technology is very old and probably life expired.

[brigham]

Jun 21, 2023 6:03:09 GMT Chris L said:

... They were called Multifare machines.

That would be to distinguish them from the single-fare machines I loved as as kid.

You could see how far you could go for three ha'pence.

[spsmiler]

Am sad to read this, see it as a retrograde move as there are still some people who prefer to use cash and no retailer (especially not when publicly owned) should be refusing legal tender for the products it sells.

Also, this reduces the numbers of machines in use at stations, in the process potentially discriminating against passengers who do not have the 'right' kind of plastic card to pay for their fares ... a comment that includes an Oyster card with available PAYG funds.

[theblackferret]

Unfortunately,one of the 'benefits' of Artificial Intelligence is that it makes governmental & public bodies slaves to the idea of knowing what everybody's doing-this now applies pretty well globally.

And anywhere AI has to try and process a cash payment or transaction...............!! So, of course, we'll always be told that card payments automatically make for more efficient use of resources and also much easier for us,and in this context for 'us' read 'them'.

If you remember a time when the great majority of adults paid for everything bar monthly mortgage payments or utility bills by cash, you might now shudder to think that the Tube actually kept running throughout that era and that millions of daily cash payments didn't kill it, LT & even London off.

Well, it didn't did it?

[zbang]

Um, what does AI have to do with the ticket machines? They hardly need any "I" at all, accepting cash and dispensing change is a well-understood process.

The real issue in most places is cash handling- the machines need to be emptied of notes and the coin dispenser refilled, and that needs people and has a risk of theft; there's a cost involved that may be more than the cost of processing card transactions (including fees). The mechanisms also need to be maintained; a touch-card reader doesn't have any moving parts.


BTW, this is little different from trying to swing people from paper tickets to oyster cards to touch cards & mobile apps- less and simpler field equipment for TfL to maintain and which leads to less need for "costly" maintenance staff.

(Many electric and gas companies in the US have installed "smart" meters, a main reason being they don't need to send anyone around to read them, and that was a large amount of union-represented labor that becomes redundant.)

[zbang]

(following up on my own message and I am not a solicitor)

As I understand the laws, a business can reject cash as payment if the debt doesn't yet exist - eat a meal in a restaurant they're then obligated to accept cash* for payment, OTOH Costa isn't obligated to hand you the coffee if you're not willing hand them a card for payment (I assume they still accept cash). Since transit is usually paid in advance, the same rules -may- apply. How this squares with public policy is a different discussion (and one I'm not having).

*which possibly would be only coins, but most include banknotes in the definition

[Chris M]

Legal tender in the UK has a very specific meaning. From the Bank of England website:

You might have heard someone in a shop say: “But it’s legal tender!”. Most people think it means the shop has to accept the payment form. But that’s not the case.

A shop owner can choose what payment they accept. If you want to pay for a pack of gum with a £50 note, it’s perfectly legal to turn you down. Likewise for all other banknotes, it’s a matter of discretion. If your local corner shop decided to only accept payments in Pokémon cards that would be within their right too. But they’d probably lose customers.

Legal tender has a narrow technical meaning which has no use in everyday life. It means that if you offer to fully pay off a debt to someone in legal tender, they can’t sue you for failing to repay.
[...]
In England and Wales, [legal tender is only] Royal Mint coins and Bank of England notes.

(emphasis mine)

So if you do not have a debt to somebody, and on TfL (like most transport services) you do not have a debt before you travel. The only time legal tender would be relevant is if you have incurred a debt, i.e. you have made a journey without a valid ticket, oyster card, contactless payment card, or other permit to travel. Even then they can ask you to pay however they like, and they can accept whatever they want in settlement of the debt. However if you offer to pay in full using cash and coins (and there are limits on how many of some coins they have to accept) then they must either accept that offer or choose not to pursue that debt. Even if they choose not to accept it, bylaws may allow them to ban you from travelling on their services. And none of this imposes any requirement on them to accept cash payment for future journeys.

This means it is entirely up to the retailer or service provider what methods of payment they accept, and so it is always going to be a decision made on balance of how much it costs them to accept a method of payment vs the income they receive from that method of payment that they would not receive in other forms if they don't accept it.

In this case, TfL's costs to maintain the machines are increasing, the costs of handling the cash are likely increasing, the amount they receive in cash will almost certainly be decreasing, and at least most of those who do use cash will either switch to using an alternative payment method directly, use cash at a different station or use cash at a ticket shop.

[stapler]

Certainly decreasing, Chris M....Ticket use is now very low, as opposed to Oyster-contactless. I have to buy a paper ticket once or twice a week from Loughton to Chelmsford. via Stratford. You can't do this by contactless, still less by Oyster.
The serial numbers on the tickets (when you can read them, so badly do the machines ink) are seldom 100 apart - and 100 paper tickets a week is very low at a busy outer station like Loughton. I always pay by card anyway - and why have TFL kept the old technology requiring you to enter a PIN for a £30 transaction?

[zbang]

Why do the machines still require a PIN? Most likely because they still work and there's no good case to spend any money to change it.

BTW, if you want a story about fiddly mechanisms and equipment maintenance, read Mr. Gibson's Ticket Machine (not rail-related so it's not on my book list).

[croxleyn]

PINs reduce fraud. If a retailer wants to balance fraud risk v. time for the customer to be processed, that's their choice. Also a customer may be discouraged from using their store with PIN use. For TFL, a few seconds to enter a PIN is immaterial.

[stapler]

Zbang, Gibsons *** were*** used in a small way by LT railways. The London end booking office at Buckhurst Hill had the; so did Roding Valley...

[rincew1nd]

Just to perhaps finish the legal tender discussion (which we've identified isn't really relevant here) some little stories I've heard:

•The only legal tender in Scotland is the Bank of England £1 note.

•Someone dissatisfied with a parking fine once tried to pay in bagged copper coins, the court refused to accept it, as they are only legal tender for amounts under 20p. Said person went away, and then returned with unbagged £1 coins.

•Whilst shops don't have to accept legal tender for purchases, neither do they have to sell you a produce at the price listed on the shelf. The "invitation to treat" is when the sale is rung through the till and that is when a customer gains the right to buy; it is however false advertising.

[londoner]

Worth considering tourism as well. A lot of tourists will use only cash when travelling to London.

[Chris M]

Jun 25, 2023 10:37:07 GMT londoner said:

Worth considering tourism as well. A lot of tourists will use only cash when travelling to London.

Which is why the major tourist gateway stations will almost certainly be the last to accept cash. The OP doesn't mention which stations they saw the boarded-up machines at, but it is most likely they are suburban stations with a high proportion of regular travellers and ticket shops nearby.
The very first station to go cashless was I believe Canary Wharf Jubilee line, which is very much not a station where the types of people who are most likely to use cash (those on low incomes and foreign tourists) typically begin their journey and where there are two DLR stations and about 3 ticket shops that accept cash within about a 5 minute walk, and more with a 10 minute walk.

[miff]

Jun 25, 2023 10:10:25 GMT rincew1nd said:

Whilst shops don't have to accept legal tender for purchases, neither do they have to sell you a produce at the price listed on the shelf. The "invitation to treat" is when the sale is rung through the till and that is when a customer gains the right to buy; it is however false advertising.

I’m not sure why it’s false advertising- it tells the customer how much the shop hopes to be offered and they’d be unwise* to try and ask for more when you get to the till. The customer can try offering a lower amount if they wish - unlikely to be accepted in a supermarket but some traders may be willing to consider offers in the right circumstances.

*I think retail businesses who don’t include taxes & service charges in their displayed prices are unwise.

[rincew1nd]

Advertising a product for sale at a cheaper price than what is subsequently offered is false advertising. Retailers are required to have a system in place to prevent this, for my employer this is a weekly price check done at the same time as checking the expiry dates of products.

We are now drifting significantly off topic though folks

[johnlinford]

Jun 25, 2023 10:37:07 GMT londoner said:

Worth considering tourism as well. A lot of tourists will use only cash when travelling to London.

While there is some truth to this, it is not necessarily the case - with the rise of low fee cards designed for use abroad, and device payments, people are increasingly not taking cash or only minimal cash on foreign travel. I’ve spent significant time travelling in Europe with work the last year and not used cash at all, similarly visitors to London I know don’t bring cash. (And as we all know, the plural of anecdote is data)

[zbang]

What would be interesting to know (and probably difficult to find out) is how many stations are no-cash and their locations, and of the stations that do accept cash, how many machines they have for both cash/card and card-only. For extra clarity, separate the counts for each entrance. (If somebody wishes to fund my research, I'll give it a go ).

As a single data point- last summer I probably spent less than £100 cash over two weeks (I think buying a £3 coffee with a card is silly); the rest was all card.

[Chris M]

Jun 25, 2023 16:51:35 GMT zbang said:

What would be interesting to know (and probably difficult to find out) is how many stations are no-cash and their locations, and of the stations that do accept cash, how many machines they have for both cash/card and card-only. For extra clarity, separate the counts for each entrance. (If somebody wishes to fund my research, I'll give it a go ).

This is the sort of thing that would make a good FOI request

[Chris L]

Jun 25, 2023 16:54:24 GMT Chris M said:

Jun 25, 2023 16:51:35 GMT zbang said:

What would be interesting to know (and probably difficult to find out) is how many stations are no-cash and their locations, and of the stations that do accept cash, how many machines they have for both cash/card and card-only. For extra clarity, separate the counts for each entrance. (If somebody wishes to fund my research, I'll give it a go ).

This is the sort of thing that would make a good FOI request

www.londontravelwatch.org.uk/cashless-stations-campaign/