London: Hey Amazon, wanna slip your speedy packages down our tubes?

Transport for London (TfL) is apparently talking to Amazon about moving into the soon-to-be-vacated ticket offices on the London Underground and turning them into drop boxes for its goods.

The giant etailer is just one of a few names that have been mentioned in conjunction with the ticket offices, whose closure was only announced yesterday.

"As part of our broader commercial development, we are working with retailers to transform the services on offer for our customers," TfL told The Reg in a statement.

"This week it was announced that we are working with Asda on a trial to offer click-and-collect services at six of our London Underground station car parks and are looking to work with other retailers to offer similar services."

Amazon said that it "does not talk about plans we may or may not have for the future".

The shake-up on the London Tube network was only announced yesterday, when TfL and the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said that they planned to close all manned ticket offices in favour of automatic machines.

The closures will be hotly contested by unions, although TfL has said the net loss of jobs would only be 750 out of 5,750 station staff and the cutbacks would save £50m a year.

Britain's largest transport union RMT described the move as "savage cuts to jobs, access and safety" and said it was prepared to take action.

As well as the closures, Johnson and the London Underground said the five busiest lines would start running 24-hour services on weekends as of 2015, with the hopes of extending that to other lines and weekdays in the future. Plans are also in place to have Wi-Fi across the network and to introduce contactless payment from next year to pay for journeys at the ticket barriers. ®