London Underground faces huge £130m bill to close ticket offices The cost-cutting plan has been bitterly opposed by the tube unions and led to a series of strikes last year. LU bosses claim the closure of 300 ticket offices with the loss of 900 jobs will save £50m a year. But official papers show the Undergrounds parent body,Transport for London, needs to spend £134m on new ticket machines, tablet computers and building alterations. The documents do not disclose the final cost of redundancy payments. The truth is a staggering £134m of building works and ticket machines won’t make up for the loss of 897 station staff. No matter how user friendly a ticket machine is they cannot provide the same level of advice and customer service that staff could. Coming only weeks after tube fares were hiked for the seventh year running many passengers will wonder why they are being asked to pay more money for less staff support on their journey. – VAL SHAWCROSS, LABOUR, LONDON ASSEMBLY Our plans to modernise customer service on the Underground will mean direct savings of £50m per year following implementation, and £270m in total to the TfL business plan to 2020/2021 alone. These are net savings and already take into account one off implementation costs and voluntary redundancies. In addition, higher commercial revenue from better shops and services at stations increase these savings even further. – GARETH POWELL, LONDON UNDERGROUND
Posted on: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 09:47:32 +0000
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