No point in doing at at both ends of the line at the same time. Better to spread this sort of activity out.
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Fare Dodging - the new national sport?
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purple-Azumas
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Interesting - there was a full on revenue block at St Pancras (Thameslink platforms) this morning - so not beyond the realms of possibility of people being checked at both ends. Staff stood behind you presumably watching whatever message flashed up if the ticket was rejected, which is something I've not seen them do before.
I noticed a number of revenue enforcement people at St Pancras this morning but my railcard discounted ticket allowed my straight through.
Yes, and I gather this is relatively common.
Adam Williams
Established Member
I think there's a balance to be struck here between inconveniencing passengers and protecting revenue.
I wasn't impressed when I travelled up north and was unable to open the gate at Manchester Victoria using an Advance ticket. I really didn't have the time to lose because I had a connection to make at Piccadilly. The attendant acted like this was totally normal, but it wouldn't have happened in Warwickshire.
Similarly, if I've paid £30 (or £120 as a CORAC holder) for a 16-25 railcard and you waste my time more than once a year checking it at the gateline, I'm also going to be annoyed. Check it on the train where my time is less important - and hell, maybe actually scan the barcode on it? How many TOC staff actually bother doing this?
I wasn't impressed when I travelled up north and was unable to open the gate at Manchester Victoria using an Advance ticket. I really didn't have the time to lose because I had a connection to make at Piccadilly. The attendant acted like this was totally normal, but it wouldn't have happened in Warwickshire.
Similarly, if I've paid £30 (or £120 as a CORAC holder) for a 16-25 railcard and you waste my time more than once a year checking it at the gateline, I'm also going to be annoyed. Check it on the train where my time is less important - and hell, maybe actually scan the barcode on it? How many TOC staff actually bother doing this?
Besides having to actually buy a ticket, if you didn't buy one then they won't know you travelled and that might influence what train they put on, as well as reduce the funding to put on a longer train.
Still, I'm sure you have convinced yourself what you did was fine even though it's no different to anyone else who fare evades. They all have their own justifications.
No you don't!
If you're using a paper ticket to get to Abbey Wood then you need to exit with it and touch back in to start your PAYG journey, but if you're using PAYG throughout you just cross one of the three bridges.
Based on my experience, I don’t think that it has become OK to travel without a train ticket.
I travel a lot in and around London on trains and tube and I haven’t seen any significant amount of fare evasion. Most people pay with contactless/Oyster and I do see 99% of them touch in and out even if the station has no barriers.
Sure, probably 1% or so are fare evaders, but I don’t think that deploying 10x more RPIs to catch them would bring a net benefit in revenues.
185143
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Well over half of the times I've used a wide gate in London with luggage, I've been tailgate through.
Three people followed me through the gate at Tottenham Hale last time I was there. I was at a London Overground station the other day and my Travelcard had stopped working. The member of staff was too interested in a conversation with (seemingly) one of their friends.
Someone tapped out at the wide gate, two people then began to run at the gate and force their way through. Given one of them did so with a bike, part of me was slightly impressed. As I was unable to attract the member of staff's attention, with my ticket clearly visible, I did as everyone else had done.
In my experience tailgating is far, far more common in London that anywhere else. I did manage to trap someone in the barriers at Birmingham New Street once. I knew the guy behind me was going to tailgate so I deliberately paused for a second as I'd passed the barrier, hoping it would close before he could pass through but sadly he was far enough through that the staff had no real option other than to free him in the forwards direction rather than back inside.
I've even seen a plain clothes RPI intervention at Waterloo one morning. Their suspect arrived on the Northern line and headed to a gateline on the Jubilee side of the barriers intending to tailgate the RPI through the barrier. As they went to tap their "Oyster", they both turned round and introduced themselves! The passenger suddenly became very keen to pay for what I'm sure was a completely unrelated reason...
A fair few people know to double up and put their hand near the card reader to make it look like they've tapped out. The lack of a beep and the speed that they run through is a pretty good sign.
As such, it's not that easy to spot the fare evaders. Sometimes these people will have the means to pay, like an Oyster or contactless card, so if they are stopped they can insist they touched in ('Look at the CCTV mate!') and present their card. Of course the card won't have been used, but they'll swear blind that's not the case.
This means even at open gates, they'll want to make it look like they tapped in or out.
I think a lot of people feel aggreived to be paying for a service which other people are getting for free. The current system is very inconsistent - outcomes range from getting away scot free, to having to pay the normal ticket price, a penalty fare or a prosecution.
I suspect that the further increase in driver-only operation over time maybe have contributed to fare evasion on lines where not all stations are gated. I wonder if this was factored into any cost-benefit analysis when DOO was rolled out everywhere? I refuse to believe that more RPIs won't pay for themselves in extra revenue. At stations near me such as Purley and Coulsdon South, with multiple gatelines only one of which is manned, multiple people either tailgate, force their way through or jump over the gates whenever I've been exiting in the evening peak. No-one challenges these people (me included) for fear of a violent response.
I also think part of the problem is the design of the wide gates. They are so slow to open and close that is is trivial to tailgate. Gatelines in other countries are often designed to make it a bit harder to tailgate. Maybe the wide gates should be changed to be operated by gateline staff only?
I suspect that the further increase in driver-only operation over time maybe have contributed to fare evasion on lines where not all stations are gated. I wonder if this was factored into any cost-benefit analysis when DOO was rolled out everywhere? I refuse to believe that more RPIs won't pay for themselves in extra revenue. At stations near me such as Purley and Coulsdon South, with multiple gatelines only one of which is manned, multiple people either tailgate, force their way through or jump over the gates whenever I've been exiting in the evening peak. No-one challenges these people (me included) for fear of a violent response.
I also think part of the problem is the design of the wide gates. They are so slow to open and close that is is trivial to tailgate. Gatelines in other countries are often designed to make it a bit harder to tailgate. Maybe the wide gates should be changed to be operated by gateline staff only?
I also hear beeps and see the gates opening in front of them.
Sure, I do see some tailgaters from time to time, but at the stations I use the most they are a very small minority. And I really don’t want to inconvenience the remaining 99% of honest rail passengers including myself (like having wide barriers only opened by the staff) and spend tons of money on hiring more RPIs etc just to stop this 1% (or more likely bring it down to 0.5% as it’s probably impossible to get rid of them completely without resorting to inhumane methods). My numbers are likely off but you get the idea.
My railcard discounted ticket was rejected by the barriers at Horsham in both directions earlier this month. Each time the barrier staff opened the barrier for me without asking to see a railcard and, when entering, without looking at the ticket. All seemed rather pointless.
I spent years using super off peak tickets on a Saturday before finding out that Saturday wasnt included (why is the ticket machine selling them??!!).
Didn't work in all the barriers but I just assumed the barriers were unreliable as I would show it to the ticket gate staff and they always let me through.
Didn't work in all the barriers but I just assumed the barriers were unreliable as I would show it to the ticket gate staff and they always let me through.
Do you work on a gateline, as surely you can't be spending that much time looking out for fare evaders. You hear beeps? Well you would when the person they follow tapped out. Did the beeps coincide perfectly with every movement? Could you have maybe missed some? What about people using paper tickets? They don't beep.
I am not saying your 1% figure is off, as surveys usually show it to be less than 2%, but 2% is still a sizeable number in terms of revenue lost - and the associated issues that often come with people not paying being statistically more likely to be anti-social or be breaking other laws.
That’s interesting, as I find the gateline beeps incredibly quiet. I have inadvertently failed to touch in on gate lines when they’re left open (at London Bridge), purely because the beep is too quiet when the ambient noise is loud, and the screen is too hard to read when it’s bright.
There isn't a blanket rule as to when Super Off-Peak Return tickets are or aren't valid. It depends entirely on the restrictions on the ticket in question.
I can't think of many, if any, Super Off-Peak tickets which aren't valid on Saturdays. Most have no Saturday time restrictions, although some (notably many SWR and WMT priced ones) have the same time restrictions as on weekdays.
What is the ticket in question?
Haywain
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Can't think of any that wouldn't be valid and yet were able to be purchased from a TVM.
Super off peaks from a TVM, SWT/SWR Saturday returns, bought and outward journey in the morning.
SWR have a few different Saturday Super Off-Peak and Evening Out time restriction codes. It's also possible that you bought a fare that isn't priced by SWR. But, assuming you were, they are valid on Saturdays, just not before a certain time.
In that sense it's no different to selling an Off-Peak ticket before it's valid on a weekday. As long as the restrictions are made sufficiently clear, I don't see an issue with that.
Sleepy
Established Member
A certain TOC knows when ticketless surveys are taking place and sends staff to non-barried stations to check people on platforms have tickets before boarding. Dft then thinks all lovely and wonderful as minimal numbers show up in a survey !
I would think all TOCs would do this if they had sufficient staff numbers.
Of course I don’t spend that much time catching fare evaders, it’s not what I do for a living. But I have been using London transport and I am fairly confident that if fare evasion was widespread at least on the routes I take the most then I would’ve noticed it by now.
Yes, I hear beeps and I see one person going through the gate after a beep in ~99% of cases, even if the gates are open. Or I see people queueing at the validators when entering/leaving stations without barriers. Or I see people inserting paper tickets in the barriers and then going through, one at a time.
Sometimes I do notice someone tailgating another passenger, or walking through an open barrier without touching in/out (though in some cases holding something that looks like a season ticket, so maybe legit), or ignoring the validators, but it’s a small minority. Honestly, I think I notice these things because they stick out of the norm.
Obviously, I don’t claim that I see all the fare evaders - but unless they have any particular reason to hide from me specifically, I think the amount of fare evasion I see is proportional to the total, at least on the routes I use the most.
I’ve seen much worse in other counties. In some places metro stations have gateless “exit only” doors that are frequently used as entrances as well, in other places it’s customary to give your paper ticket with the remaining validity to someone waiting at a stop when you exit a bus, or to pay half of fare to a bus conductor and “forget” to ask for a ticket. London and the UK in general are exemplary in comparison.
Yet the cities with the visibly higher fare evasion still manage to run their transport system, which I think proves that a percent or two of people not paying their fare is not the root of all the problems in London.
If the fare evasion is indeed below 2%, then I frankly don’t care about it.
There’s no magical solution that will bring those 2% of missing fares to the DfT/TOCs without any side effects. You need to hire and train more staff to perform ticket checks / issue penalties, install more barriers and inevitably inconvenience honest fare-paying passengers, which may put some of them off using railways all together - all of it causes negative consequences. I am pretty sure that the people on the relevant positions with access to the relevant data know better than us when it makes sense to invest more into revenue protection and when it doesn’t.
Besides, I really don’t think that the situation described by the OP when a teenager had to go through several police interviews over multiple weeks because they used their pass on a wrong day is indeed something we should strive for.
Defo priced by SWR. Their website says must arrive at Waterloo after 14:00 Mon-Sat. As I was travelling across London for football it would have been earlier than that, but Waterloo gate staff never noticed.
The restrictions aren’t clear - you have to push a button to read them. I can’t be the only person who assumed weekends would be super off peak. It should flag “You can not use this ticket on a train leaving now - see restrictions” or similar. The vast majority of people buying from a TVM are going to be travelling immediately.
Or in the case of Oyster vs Contactless, a penalty fare (or reported for prosecution) vs a max fare / revenue inspection charge.
I do feel TfL have questions to answer about this ongoing disparity in treatment, which disproportionately harms protected groups, most worryingly people with disabilities (disabled railcards can only be linked with Oyster and they may not have another pass type), but also people who rely on cash and other railcard categories such as elderly people.
Ok, well your original claim was that Saturdays "aren't included" - but they are, there is just a time restriction. I agree that time restrictions (and in particular, onerous ones like these) should be made clear, but I don't think it would be right to refuse to sell them.
class68fan
Member
I use to have my alternate date of birth remembered for pubs years back 6/10/65 real date, when I were 16 & 17 it were 6/10/63 for pubs. As had priv from mum did not do other way for train. Just syked myself up when went in pub, but back then we know where they did not worry much about underage drink.
Why they introduced this new 16-17 railcard beats me. It would have been simpler to change the child ticket age to be under 18.
Indeed, having to walk convoluted routes because there's only one set of barriers, or queueing at the barriers because they don't have enough, is much more frustrating than the possibility that some folks aren't paying their fare. I'd rather ticket checks were carried out on board.
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