Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will take steps to ensure any potential closure of ticket offices does not increase travel costs for people travelling outside TfL boundaries.

Together with the rail industry, we want to improve and modernise the experience for passengers by moving staff out from behind the ticket office screens to provide more help and advice in customer focused roles. The proposals should allow staff to move around the station to provide more personalised assistance in various ways, rather than being restricted to just selling tickets from a ticket office window, including so that passengers travelling outside TfL boundaries still get the best price for their journey.

The rail industry is considering the current range of non-digital products and transactions to identify solutions. This work includes expanding digital ticketing options and making them even easier for passengers to use through upgrades to TVMs and the digitisation of more tickets.