Brookfield Station Eliminating Onsite Ticket Sales in February: Metra Officials

Low ticket sales at the Brookfield Metra Station are forcing BNSF Railway to close down the location’s box office, Metra has announced.

The change will take effect Tuesday, Feb. 7, after which time the company won’t staff the station with a ticket agent.

“Ticket sales have declined at many Metra stations as passengers have switched to online and mobile purchasing,” the release reads. “The position is being eliminated through attrition.”

Metra passengers will still be able to board at the Brookfield Station, according to the release, but won’t be able to buy tickets at the station. More than 550 people board trains at the Brookfield site each weekday.

“As our customers have embraced new technology available to purchase their tickets, we’ve continued to look for ways to be more efficient with our limited resources,” Metra CEO Don Orseno said in the release. “Eliminating on-site ticket sales at locations where sales aren’t high enough to warrant staffing is simply a good business practice.”

According to Metra’s numbers, only 964 tickets were purchased at the station itself in the whole month of November, which is the lowest number of tickets sold across similar stations staffed by BNSF Railway.

“The sales, which totaled slightly more than $36,922, were the second lowest on the line,” the release states.

The Brookfield Station isn’t the only location seeing this change. According to the release, Metra also eliminated staffed positions at the Riverside Station on the BNSF Line, the 91st, 95th and 99th Street stations on the Rock Island Line, the Bensenville Station on the Milwaukee West Line, the 57th Street Station on the Metra Electric Line, the Hubbard Woods and Lake Bluff stations on the UP North Line and the Harvard Station on the UP Northwest Line.

Customers will still be able to buy tickets online, through vending machines or on the train by paying cash to a conductor.

--

Image via Shutterstock