UK Train Station Ticket Machines Charge More Than Double Online Prices, Study Finds

Consumer group Which? reveals significant price discrepancies between station machines and online fares, highlighting a need for fare reform.

Consumer group Which? has found that ticket machines at UK train stations charge passengers more than double what they would cost online for some journeys, with the best value fares either unavailable or hidden among a confusing array of options on many machines.
Which? sent mystery shoppers to 15 stations, each run by a different train operator, and checked the price of 75 journeys from a ticket machine against the price on online booking website Trainline. They found that train fares purchased online were cheaper around three-quarters of the time, and on average same-day journeys cost 52% more from machines.
In some cases, the machine price was 154% more than tickets offered by the Trainline website. For example, a journey from Holmes Chapel in Cheshire to London was priced at £66 by a machine, whereas Trainline offered the same trip for £26. A journey from Northampton to Cardiff was found to cost £107 from a machine, but just £43 online.
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.
Plans to close hundreds of rail ticket offices in England were scrapped in November after a public outcry.