Are ticket offices a thing of the past? A new trend is gaining strength
The share of digital channels in railway ticket sales is growing every year. In 2023, it amounted to less than 43%. However, the popularity of ticket offices is decreasing, although we still willingly buy monthly tickets there.
More and more often, passengers buy tickets via applications and online sales systems. This is shown by data from the Office of Rail Transport. They show that 42.9% used this option last year. travelers. This is by 8 percentage points. more than a year earlier and by as much as 15 percentage points. more than in 2021.
Ticket offices less popular, but still necessary
The popularity of stationary ticket offices is decreasing. In 2023, passengers bought 25.5% this way. tickets, while a year earlier it was 29.3%, and in 2020 less than 40%. Tickets were bought from conductor teams by 18.4%. using railway services (in this case there was a decrease by 2.5 percentage points on an annual basis). Only 7.7 percent travelers purchased tickets from stationary machines at stations (8.4% a year earlier).
Although we buy tickets less and less often at ticket offices, – as the Office of Rail Transport emphasizes – we are still more willing to buy more expensive tickets there – monthly, network, for longer routes – than in other distribution channels.
Sales at stationary checkouts generate 31.5%. revenues from ticket sales with a share of 25.5%. in number sold. The share in revenue also shows the growing popularity of sales via the Internet and mobile applications from year to year. Last year, such sales generated 41.6 percent. revenues with the share of the above-mentioned 42.9 percent. in the number of tickets.
Online channels are most often used by travelers when they need a single-use ticket. Similarly, we buy tickets for single routes and shorter distances at ticket machines and train services – the shares in revenues in these distribution channels are lower than the shares in the number of tickets sold.
