RAILWAY STATION TICKET MACHINES CHARGING MORE THAN TWICE AS MUCH AS TRAINLINE – Huge numbers are potentially paying significantly more to commute
Railway station ticket machines charge passengers more than twice as much as a major online retailer for some journeys, analysis has found.
Consumer group Which? said its investigation found the best value fares are either unavailable or hidden among a huge number of options on many machines.
Travel magazine said millions of tickets are bought each year meaning “huge numbers of us are potentially paying significantly more than we need to when we commute to work or visit friends and family across the country”.
He added: “Significant numbers of elderly people don’t have internet access at all – leaving them with little choice but to run the gauntlet of ticket machines which either don’t offer the best prices, or make it difficult to find the appropriate fares.”
Industry figures show more than two out of five stations in England do not have a ticket office, while tickets for around 150 million journeys were bought from machines in 2022.
Which? sent mystery shoppers to 15 stations – each run by a different train operator – to compare the price of tickets for 75 journeys offered by machines with those from online retailer Trainline.
Researchers attempted to buy the cheapest one-way ticket for travel that same day, the following morning, and in three weeks’ time.