Penalty fare increase to £100

[Bletchleyite]

I don't think it was honesty. It was just that a guard would always be able to keep on top of revenue on a 2 car DMU. Lots of people always just paid on board.

 

[Starmill]

I don't think it was honesty. It was just that a guard would always be able to keep on top of revenue on a 2 car DMU. Lots of people always just paid on board.

Indeed. It's highly likely that the BR of its time, after the new conductor grade was introduced, operated very good value for money revenue protection. Nowadays things are very, very different. See the Southern example where the Conductors were nonsensically abolished requiring large pay rises awarded to both the drivers and onboard supervisors to get the changes through, but with zero improvement in onboard customer care and a degradation of revenue protection.

 

[Bletchleyite]

That's poor management, though. There's nothing inherent about an OBS that means they can't do tickets. Many are just bone idle and stand fiddling with their phone by one door. Why is this tolerated? They could at least be scanning e-tickets to prevent people refunding them.

 

[Starmill]

That's poor management, though. There's nothing inherent about an OBS that means they can't do tickets. Many are just bone idle and stand fiddling with their phone by one door. Why is this tolerated? They could at least be scanning e-tickets to prevent people refunding them.

Management does seem to be nowhere on this issue yes, but even if they were, how would they be better than Conductors? They still have to stand on the platform at every station, and they cost more. BR wouldn't have messed up the whole structure anything like this.

 

[Bikeman78]

Indeed. It's highly likely that the BR of its time, after the new conductor grade was introduced, operated very good value for money revenue protection. Nowadays things are very, very different. See the Southern example where the Conductors were nonsensically abolished requiring large pay rises awarded to both the drivers and onboard supervisors to get the changes through, but with zero improvement in onboard customer care and a degradation of revenue protection.

100% agree. 30 years ago the guards on the South Central division usually walked up and down several times checking tickets. That was on slam door trains where they had to return to the guard's van at every station to give two on the starting bell. On a 377 they can stick their head out at any door, but ticket checks have reduced almost to zero.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Management does seem to be nowhere on this issue yes, but even if they were, how would they be better than Conductors? They still have to stand on the platform at every station, and they cost more. BR wouldn't have messed up the whole structure anything like this.

They don't have to stand on the platform, they just have to take a very quick look out, which is far, far briefer than a guarded dispatch. It probably is inferior to the proposed Merseyrail working, though, as if they don't get to the door a train can end up leaving a wheelchair user behind.

Though bone-idle guards do exist too, they are found often on the south WCML. But at least they are doing something.

Both are poor management, though. If the job description involves doing revenue, revenue should be being done, and people found not to be doing it (which is easily evidenced by a total lack of tickets issued and e-ticket scans on a sustained, ongoing basis) should be being disciplined for only doing half their job. (Obviously non-revenue guards are different but they're rare these days!)

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 16 Jan 2023 ==

100% agree. 30 years ago the guards on the South Central division usually walked up and down several times checking tickets. That was on slam door trains where they had to return to the guard's van at every station to give two on the starting bell. On a 377 they can stick their head out at any door, but ticket checks have reduced almost to zero.

I know it's easier on 2 or 3-car units as I mentioned, but in the North guards used to take a real pride in keeping on top of both (and pre-gatelines and TVMs that involved selling a LOT of tickets - the vast majority would pay on board, though admittedly mostly cash). That seems to have vanished.

Add to that that some TOCs have that silly policy of "no unit-hopping" and they create a rod for their own back.

 

[Starmill]

They don't have to stand on the platform, they just have to take a very quick look out, which is far, far briefer than a guarded dispatch. It probably is inferior to the proposed Merseyrail working, though, as if they don't get to the door a train can end up leaving a wheelchair user behind.

It does, but it still interrupts the process of selling tickets because they need to be at a door where they can see, and use their key. Thus they point out that with stations every 3-5 minutes there's not much they can gain from ticket inspection. Furthermore although many are authorised collectors for the purposes of Penalty Fares, because they must not leave their train, they can do absolutely nothing whatsoever if the customer just walks off when they try to issue a PF. They know this so there's little point in their trying. Again when many were dedicated RPIs this wasn't an issue.

 

[Haywain]

Add to that that some TOCs have that silly policy of "no unit-hopping" and they create a rod for their own back.

Do you mean the policy of having a safety critical member of staff in each unit when there's no corridor connection?

 

[Bletchleyite]

It does, but it still interrupts the process of selling tickets because they need to be at a door where they can see, and use their key. Thus they point out that with stations every 3-5 minutes there's not much they can gain from ticket inspection.

A North West Regional Railways guard of the 1990s would call that out as rubbish, and rubbish it indeed is. They took pride on making sure everyone was ticketed on routes that were basically diesel Merseyrail and still mostly getting the doors released in time. Sure, they had 2-car trains and not 12-car ones, but ensuring that 2 coaches worth of people are correctly ticketed is better than not doing anyone at all.

Furthermore although many are authorised collectors for the purposes of Penalty Fares, because they must not leave their train, they can do absolutely nothing whatsoever if the customer just walks off when they try to issue a PF. They know this so there's little point in their trying.

Again, this is lazy, excuse-ridden tripe. Do what you can, it's better than nowt. At least if the ticketless chav gets thrown off a couple of stops early they've been inconvenienced, even if you've not managed to PF them.

Again when many were dedicated RPIs this wasn't an issue.

It would help if they hadn't disbanded their RPI teams, these are needed as well for random spot-checks mostly on stations.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 16 Jan 2023 ==

Do you mean the policy of having a safety critical member of staff in each unit when there's no corridor connection?

Yes, that one. It's not necessary, a number of TOCs don't have it as a policy or haven't had in the very recent past. For instance Chiltern can have formations with three or more units with no members of staff in them.

Are Northern staff able to "unit hop" in gangwayed units? If so it might help if they packed in the "random unit generator" nonsense and ensured pairs of units were consistently gangwayed, and potentially even considered forming permanent 4-cars with a 150/2 in the middle and two halves of 150/1 either side, for instance.

(Speculative thread to delve into this: https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...ayed-units-how-could-this-be-improved.242057/)

 

[spag23]

I have done it by accident when the person in front's ticket was rejected and they ended up going through on mine.

I've suffered an even more bizzare event. I wasn't tailgating the person in front, but for some reason the gate slammed shut on him. By then I had already put my paper ticket into the slot. The guy got released, and so did I, but probably by the ticket of the guy behind me. It was only on my next journey that I found the ticket I'd collected from the slot was was a single, not my (annual!) season ticket. I still don't know if I'd swapped it with the guy in front or the one behind.
Naturally I reported the season ticket as lost and got one re-issued.
I don't know if the beneficiary noticed. Or maybe it was all a deliberate con.

 

[Starmill]

Do what you can, it's better than nowt.

While I would agree with that attitude I think the reality is that the staff aren't going to see it that way given most of them are still 'conductors in dispute', and management don't really see it as a priority to do anything about it.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 16 Jan 2023 ==

It would help if they hadn't disbanded their RPI teams, these are needed as well for random spot-checks mostly on stations.

Indeed. There are still Thameslink RPIs who can hypothetically do station blocks or onboard Southern branded trains, but they are quite few in numbers.

 

[Bletchleyite]

While I would agree with that attitude I think the reality is that the staff aren't going to see it that way given most of them are still 'conductors in dispute'

If they're "quiet quitting" then management need to deal with that.

and management don't really see it as a priority to do anything about it.

...is the problem. Poor management.

 

[Benjwri]

...is the problem. Poor management.

Poor management or poor structuring of the rail system? Why would management care about revenue protection when many are partially or entirely protected from loss by the DfT?

 

[Class800]

I am concerned that penalty fares will be increasingly issued inappropriately - a guard on Northern the other day when I was on business let some people off 'this one time', but said in future if you don't have a ticket before you get on it's a £100 penalty fare, whatever the reason, including if the ticket machine is broken!

 

[RPI]

I am concerned that penalty fares will be increasingly issued inappropriately - a guard on Northern the other day when I was on business let some people off 'this one time', but said in future if you don't have a ticket before you get on it's a £100 penalty fare, whatever the reason, including if the ticket machine is broken!

A) The guard is talking nonsense
B) Guards can't issue Penalty Fares
C) Its £50 plus the fare, £100 is if they don't pay or appeal in the 21 days.

In that case I expect the guard was making a hollow threat hoping it may make the person buy a ticket next time.

 

[Haywain]

Poor management.

Or, more likely, lack of management. Constant restructuring of management grades, who are conveniently unprotected by collective bargaining, to reduce numbers has left many areas of TOCs with insufficient managers to deal with such matters properly.

 

[Starmill]

If they're "quiet quitting" then management need to deal with that.

It's difficult for any business to manage people who are fundamentally not willing to cooperate, but can't be dismissed for misconduct. The bitterness and drawn-out nature of the dispute all but guaranteed this would be the consequence. The only obvious way to deal with it is to replace people and commit to defending all of the Tribunal claims which result - an extremely expensive process. Additionally, further industrial action would be highly likely if people were dismissed. Such is inevitable with so badly botched restructurings I guess, both sides are worse off than before.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 16 Jan 2023 ==

Poor management or poor structuring of the rail system? Why would management care about revenue protection when many are partially or entirely protected from loss by the DfT?

Ticketless travel would feed into the performance element of the contract, though as you say that's responsible for a small portion of the fees.

 

[NARobertson]

It has struck me several times that the penalty fare has been £20 for a long time, probably around 10 years, and so was becoming less in real terms. While the big increase will probably discourage fare evasion, it may also make the job of rail staff trying to get this £100 more difficult. In fact, it could have the effect that they become less likely to charge a penalty fare in the first place.

 

[Watershed]

It has struck me several times that the penalty fare has been £20 for a long time, probably around 10 years, and so was becoming less in real terms. While the big increase will probably discourage fare evasion, it may also make the job of rail staff trying to get this £100 more difficult. In fact, it could have the effect that they become less likely to charge a penalty fare in the first place.

It's been £20 since 2005, so in real terms it would be £32.44 today. Even if you account for the fact that rail fares have increased by more than inflation, clearly the increase to £100 (reduced to £50 if paid quickly) is a punitive, not inflationary, increase.

 

[Titfield]

It's been £20 since 2005, so in real terms it would be £32.44 today. Even if you account for the fact that rail fares have increased by more than inflation, clearly the increase to £100 (reduced to £50 if paid quickly) is a punitive, not inflationary, increase.

Is it to increase the punitive value or the deterrent value?

 

[Bluejays]

A disproportionately large number of people who come to this forum are either overseas people on visas or are students (nearly all medical ones - draw your own conclusions!). I’m sure there are a few Facebook groups or forums which encourage fare evasion the TOCs should invest some time in researching!

I do encounter a worrying amount of students who genuinely don't seem to understand that messing about with dodgy tickets has consequences.

The amount of 'friendly yet firm and exasperated' responses I get from students with real dodgy tickets yet can't see they've done anything wrong is crazy. Had one yesterday, caught him doughnutting. He was so surprised that he couldn't have a Railcard discount on the ticket I sold him for the missing part of his journey. He was a nice guy so I tried to explain what could happen if an RPI stumbled across him. But you could see it going in one ear and out the other , he genuinely thought I was stitching him by not giving a discount on the super off peak fare I sold.

 

[philthetube]

It's difficult for any business to manage people who are fundamentally not willing to cooperate, but can't be dismissed for misconduct. The bitterness and drawn-out nature of the dispute all but guaranteed this would be the consequence. The only obvious way to deal with it is to replace people and commit to defending all of the Tribunal claims which result - an extremely expensive process. Additionally, further industrial action would be highly likely if people were dismissed. Such is inevitable with so badly botched restructurings I guess, both sides are worse off than before.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 16 Jan 2023 ==


Ticketless travel would feed into the performance element of the contract, though as you say that's responsible for a small portion of the fees.

There would not be loads of tribunal hearings if the TOC won the first couple.

 

[Bletchleyite]

There would not be loads of tribunal hearings if the TOC won the first couple.

In the end if the job description includes doing tickets, and the person isn't doing tickets, then they're committing misconduct and can be disciplined through due process, first through informal warnings, then through improvement plans, then a final written warning, then if even that doesn't work the sack. (I am not an expert in this so there could be a couple more stages, but that's the gist). Yes, there could be one or two tribunals but I doubt the TOC would lose.

It's a lot easier for a lazy guard (e.g. many but not all of those on the south WCML) to say "but my safety duties would be compromised" while sitting in the cab reading the Sun*, but OBSs have no safety-critical duties, the only other essential one is to nose out at each station that doesn't have dispatchers to see if they need to load a wheelchair user or not. Thus almost all their time should be spent walking through the train scanning e-tickets and looking at other tickets, including regular checks of 1st because gatelines don't do that. The job is essentially very similar to a tram conductor, and they manage to keep on top of it all. Sure, they can't do a whole 12 car train between 3 minute stops, but they should be moving up and down it all the time. I'm not saying they should not be able to pop to the loo or sit down for a rest occasionally, we all need that, nor is a quick text home about what's for tea tonight disastrous, but if they have time to be standing scrolling Instatwitterbook on their phone then they have time to be patrolling the train.

I do get that some are upset they are no longer guards due to how bad the situation got, but in the end we are where we are, and if they're that bothered about wanting to be a guard rather than an OBS plenty of other TOCs still have them (and are likely to for the foreseeable) and they can apply there.

* Other red-tops are available, and may be preferred e.g. on Merseyside.

New thread to continue this as I think it's worth one on its own: https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/southern-obs-how-can-they-be-more-valuable.242119/

 

[nw1]

As penalty fares are aimed at people who "inadvertently break the law", by say buying a ticket on the train rather than at a ticket office, and aren't trying to actually evade fares (RoRA and the like deal with the latter) this will just mean that people with no criminal intent end up paying a lot of money.

 

[Bletchleyite]

As penalty fares are aimed at people who "inadvertently break the law", by say buying a ticket on the train rather than at a ticket office, and aren't trying to actually evade fares (RoRA and the like deal with the latter) this will just mean that people with no criminal intent end up paying a lot of money.

£50 isn't that much when you consider rampant inflation, it can't be far off the spending power of £20 when it was first changed to that, and it'll be lower in some longer-distance cases where twice the fare can be somewhat swingeing.

I do wonder if this increase will mean PFs are used more and "Penalty Fake" settlements used less. The due process is simpler, so it could well be that even if paid on time to get the discount the TOC gets more money overall at £50+fare than at a settlement of typically £80/100+fare, because to get the latter you have to faff about with sending the letter out, reviewing the excuses, sending another letter, potentially progressing to Court etc. And as expected the TOCs are shouting about £100 and subtly not mentioning the £50 discounted version, so as to get more impact. If we move to a situation where the TOC uses a PF unless they actually intend to progress to RoRA through the Courts and not settle (basically rendering the Byelaws unnecessary), then things over in the D&P Forum would I think be a lot smoother.

This is in line with what some TOCs do anyway - neither Avanti West Coast nor WMT prosecute very often at all, the former just flogs overpriced Anytimes which are a penalty in their own right at most times, while the latter just uses Penalty Fares if they bother at all. Not all TOCs consider a PF as just for a mistake.

 

[nw1]

£50 isn't that much when you consider rampant inflation,

Sorry, I have to admit that my comments were based on £100 as in the headline to this thread.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Sorry, I have to admit that my comments were based on £100 as in the headline to this thread.

Fair enough. It's £100, discounted to £50 if paid within 21 days, as per normal practice for parking tickets and similar. Plus the fare evaded (at Anytime level if most TOC publicity is to go by, though I don't think that was the original intention).

 

[WesternLancer]

Sorry, I have to admit that my comments were based on £100 as in the headline to this thread.

Think up thread it was stated that £20 adjusted by inflation from when it was set at £20 is now c£36 - not double checked that post tho.

 

[paul1609]

100% agree. 30 years ago the guards on the South Central division usually walked up and down several times checking tickets. That was on slam door trains where they had to return to the guard's van at every station to give two on the starting bell. On a 377 they can stick their head out at any door, but ticket checks have reduced almost to zero.

I find it depends on where on Southern you are. I regularly go from Appledore down to Littlehampton or Portsmouth that's normally 4 trains. it would be unusual not to be checked at least twice in each direction.

 

[infobleep]

One of the biggest group of fare evaders that I used to notice what actually in 1st class, commuters who knew the rules playing the system - even at £100 a time, it would probably still be cheaper in the long run [I'm ignoring the prosecution aspect - purely the PF aspect.]

I once saw someone jump over the side of the barriers at Guukdfods railway station. There is a clear plastic screen at this point.

Nothing was done.

As for 1st fare edvaders. I imagine a lot of that does on between East Croydon and London Victoria during the morning commute into London. That is even take into account the fact some of the trains with first class carriages are only standard class in the timetable.