The TTC is putting a friendlier face on its subway system next year.

As early as July, the dingy collector booths at stations will be emptied and TTC collectors will be allowed to roam free in their new role as “customer service agents,” or CSAs.

Gone will be the days of passengers attempting to ask directions by shouting through a pane of Plexiglas at a TTC worker. Instead, when customers enter the station they will be greeted at the gates by what the agency describes as “multi-functional, highly skilled, and customer focused” agents.

Each CSA will be armed with a tablet computer loaded with tourist information and apps such as Google Translate, ready to attend to riders’ needs. When not helping customers, they will be tasked with inspecting stations, light cleaning work, and first-line maintenance.

TTC spokesperson Brad Ross said the change represents “a whole new approach to customer service” for the 95-year-old transit agency. “This is all about modernization,” he said. “It’s about the customer being at the core of all that we do.”

Converting the fare collector job into a free-ranging position has been in the works for years, and will coincide with the adoption of the Presto fare card system. The cards are scheduled to replace all tokens, transfers and passes sometime next year, and will be sold via automatic vending machines, rendering human fare collection obsolete.

On Wednesday the public got more details on how the transition will work, when the TTC board approved a stations transformation plan. According to a board report, the plan will “fully transform station service by overhauling both job roles and station design” and create “an empowered workforce to obsess about the details of a transit system that makes Toronto proud.”

The transformation will take more than 10 years and cost $51 million, a sum that includes the cost of new passenger assistance intercoms, enough security cameras to cover all areas of the stations, and the construction of “zone hubs,” communication centres that will be placed at seven locations throughout the subway network and allow supervisors to remotely manage station facilities. About $9 million of the program will be covered by federal transit funding announced in August.

Once the program is fully implemented, it’s expected to save the TTC $5 million a year in labour costs. No workers will be fired, according to Ross, but positions will be eliminated through attrition.

Bob Kinnear, the president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113, said his organization supports the station plan, but he’s concerned that management is moving quickly and has provided few details to employees about their new jobs.

He also raised concerns about safety. Starting in October, the TTC is phasing out the guard position on its subway trains, leaving a single driver to staff each vehicle. Kinnear expressed concern that in the event of an emergency, a CSA “floating” around a subway station may not be able to help evacuate a train.

“Well, if we’ve got a problem on the platform or the lower mezzanine … are they accessible? Do they have the ability to get down there quick enough?” he asked.

The TTC has taken the position that the new staffing model will increase safety, because getting employees outside of their booths will make them more available to assist customers.

While the new station model will be a change for TTC customers, it will also take some getting used to for employees.

Kinnear conceded that some collectors who are used to spending their days inside a glass box “are going to be less comfortable” mingling with customers. Workers who choose not become CSAs will have a chance of switching to a different job with the transit agency.

Although the TTC board approved the plan on Wednesday, some board members balked at the cost to train employees in their new role. The agency has earmarked $2.5 million for five days of “world-class, experiential” training for about 400 agents and 60 supervisors.

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Said Councillor John Campbell (Ward 4, Etobicoke Centre), who sits on the board: “I think it’s an enormous amount of money to be training people in customer service.”

Correction – October 3, 2016: This article was edited from a previous version that mistakenly said John Campbell is councillor for Etobicoke Centre,Ward 3.