More than half of all passengers think that it is important to have ticket counters in the train stations according to a survey published today by La Libre Belgique.
The survey was carried out by CSC Transcom and the association Navetteurs.be at 15 stations in Wallonia, in the morning rush hour between 29 July and 28 September.
The following stations were included: Dinant, Yvoir, Jambes, Ottignies, Louvain-la-Neuve, Ciney, Braine-le-Comte, Leuze-en-Hainaut, Liège-Guillemins, Mons, Waterloo, Saint-Ghislain, Gembloux, Binche and Spa stations.
Out of the 1,178 respondents, 96% believe that digital sales channels should be complementary to the counters and not replace them.
Several reasons were mentioned for the maintenance of ticket counters: employment, the difficulty experienced with new technologies by elderly people , and the fact that the selling machines do not provide all types of ticket adapted to the needs of commuters.
"We were tired of SNCB, at each closing window, referring to figures about the behaviour of commuters," says Gianni Tabbone, spokesman for Navetteurs.be. "Their argument is that the commuters have changed their habits and that SNCB is only adapting. We wanted to check if it was true and our study shows that this is not really the case”.
The Brussels Times
