New Gates at Blackpool North Station

A very productive meeting took place on 5 December at the Station where local disabled people were shown how the gate project is expected to work.

Andy Murray the Station Manager gave an explanation of how the gates work and how Northern will look after customers with additional needs once the system becomes live in the next few weeks.

On behalf of Northern I would like to thank everyone for attending and providing such useful feedback. This will assist in ensuring we get things right first time and everyone enjoys a seamless transition from an “open station” into Northern’s first gated station.

I have included the main items of feedback and how we will look into addressing them as follows:

Q1. How do customers with non-compatible tickets pass through the gates? There are several types of ticket that won’t work the gates ranging from on-line issue Cross Country trains tickets that are printed by the customer to some tickets issued by Travel Agents.

A. Staff training will commence shortly to ensure staff know all types of ticket and are ready for this. Our Training Department have been reminded of ticket types that may cause difficulty (such as the above examples) and will let customers pass through the gate line. Staff will be present at all times for when this happens.

It may also be useful to advise that only certain stations are permitted to operate automated gates. Stations must have a compatibility figure of over 90% of tickets that work the automated gates. Our data confirmed that Blackpool North has around 3% of customers travelling with tickets that do not operate the gates.

Q2. Some customers keep tickets to claim expenses back after a journey. How do we deal with this if the gates keep tickets?

A. Receipts are available on request from retail staff to help with this.

Q3. Platform tickets will cease to be issued. How will Northern deal with requests from elderly/disabled people to use the loo, meet people from the train or help friends or family onto the train?

A. Staff will be given discretion to allow people through the gate line for this purpose. However, they will be unlikely to let vagrants or individuals behaving badly due to drink through the gate line.

Q4. What happens if a customer leaves something in their car or wants to go to the Pumpkin Shop and needs to go back through the gate line?

A. Staff will permit this to happen and can open a wide gate for a customer – the gate machines read rather than clip tickets but may not allow outward halves of tickets back through the line automatically.

Q5. Can a tactile warning (of corduroy or rumble-strip type) be installed close to the gate line? This will help visually impaired customers by warning of an imminent potential hazard.

A. This is a suggestion we will look at. However, Northern’s Franchise funding is run on a very strict budget so I would prefer not to build hopes up at this stage. However, just 3 stations are planned for gating works at the time of the meeting so it’s a case of never say never.

Q6. Departure screens with a summary of all trains are not situated near the gate line. This makes it slightly difficult for customers unfamiliar with the station.

A. Again subject to funding issues, we will look at the possibility of relocating one of the existing screens. Care must be taken however, that any re-sighting of information screens does not slow up the safe operation of the station. Customers stopping near the gates to check their departure platform is a possible hazard.

Q7. There is insufficient seating in the concourse for elderly and disabled people to wait on before their train is ready for boarding. Could more seats be added?

A. The seating is due to be replaced early in the New Year. We may not be able to increase the numbers of seats by a large number, as space is need for queuing at busy times. Once the planned change happens we will take another look at the suggestion.