Under the current legal framework there isn't much that a TOC can do with anyone who ignores such correspondence, as is often advised om here.
-
Our new ticketing site is now live! Using either this or the original site (both powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!
Discussion About Whether Fare Evasion Should be Decriminalised
- Thread starter Cloud Strife
- Start date
- Status
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R
RailUK Forums
Tetchytyke
Veteran Member
It's hard to prove beyond reasonable doubt that someone travelled after the event. It is by no means impossible if you ask the correct questions, but it is not easy. The advice to ignore correspondence is simply advising someone that they have a right to not incriminate themselves.
They can rescind the Penalty Fare and issue criminal proceedings for a specific incident, though. So there would be no issue with on-board staff issuing a Penalty Fare and the back office picking it up later if, for instance, the recipient is on their tenth Penalty Fare of the year.
pokemonsuper9
Established Member
Is it? If you know the time and date they usually get the train you can check CCTV (assuming it hasn't been deleted yet)
That's very time consuming. Bear in mind TOC typically have thousands of cases under investigation at any one time. CCTV will normally only be kept for a maximum of 31 days so it's unlikely to be available once initial letters have been sent and replied to.
I've only ever had credit checks for jobs in finance or where a government security clearance/vetting has been needed.
Can't imagine most employers justifying them.
And then what? Arrest them to prove it is the same person? In the majority of cases the train company doesn't know what the offender looks like beyond a vague description.
the benefit of a civil claim is that you can defend it and if the judge disagrees then you pay your CCJ and there’s no long term impact. There is no such option with criminal proceedings, if you are wrong you’ll have a criminal record - and if a TOC ever wrongly threatened to prosecute me, it is very likely I’d pay instead of argue for that simple reason.
In theory it's the same legislation, but it is ridiculously more difficult to bring a private prosecution, so in effect they just don't happen.
ScotRail doesn't have a penalty fare scheme. Instead they have very frequent ticket checks in my experience, and either sell a non discounted fare on the train, or issue an unpaid fare notice.
They do pursue things through civil means.
Just before Christmas they announced investment in extra revenue protection staff etc: https://www.scotrail.co.uk/about-scotrail/news/scotrail-clamps-down-ticket-fraud
Thank you. That leads to part 2 of my question - the relative level of ticketless travel.
I'm curious because, in all this debate about Penalty Fares and the woes of criminal and civil proceedings, we have a very clear comparison point.
In my experience it's variable, and it's often along the lines of "does anyone need a ticket?". There are sometimes full ticket checks done on leaving barriered terminal stations, which I have never quite understood. Some staff are clearly looking out for people joining at unbarriered stations and passing through during the journey, but I've also travelled many times from Livingston to the other side of Glasgow without seeing someone come through. I've never witnessed an undiscounted ticket sold outside of peak times, nor seen a UFN issued.
I do wonder if fare evasion is any worse than in England and Wales, if it isn't then that would be interesting. I much prefer the more relaxed approach in Scotland, but it would be good to know what impact it has.
There are busy stations unbarriered that seem a bit baffling - for example Edinburgh Park is barriered with 0.5m passengers, Edinburgh Gateway with 0.25m and Livingston North unbarriered with 1m. Very unusual to see a revenue check at the station even in peak hours. Feels like they're missing low hanging fruit.
There's talk of a minimum fare system being introduced. We have something like it on the tram in Edinburgh - the standard fare is £10 if you don't buy before you board (compared to £2.20 for most journeys), and I don't think I've ever seen one issued. But there are conductors on every tram and tickets are always checked. Seems to work for them, but ScotRail need more revenue staff if they are going to do this.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Sensibly more difficult
Fundamentally private prosecutions allow both extortion and the bringing of prosecutions that are not tested by the CPS as being in the public interest. They are therefore a bad thing.
Isn't that an issue for a couple of reasons. Firstly the wording has to be "caught once" rather than "travels once". No one knows whether someone caught in a ticket inspection has made a one off mistake or is a repeat offender. Secondly, how does the monetary penalty work? I assume you mean that anyone who is caught once will still be reported to a central database so that if they are caught a second time they will pay a monetary penalty.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Like with forgotten Railcards the idea of the first offence within a rolling 12 month period just meaning a new ticket, the second being £100 discounted to £50 for prompt payment, and any further ones being £100 with no discount, plus the fare, seems reasonable to me. A condition of any of the discounts would be the provision of correct details; failure to do so or the provision of false details would make it go straight to £100.
I would like to see more manual ticket checking before boarding. This would set the expectation correctly that you can't use being late as an excuse. It is also much easier to stop people getting in than throw them off later.
Clearly this can't work everywhere at every station. But it could be used more than it is. Ironically the much maligned Avanti West Coast at Euston is one of the few places where it is often done.
SNCF do this regularly by blocking off the platform before a long-haul train arrives, checking everyone who's milling around and then having a queue to enter the platform where tickets can be scanned They then remove the barriers after the train has safely departed and free access to the platform for the next local train is given.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
However, you're right there are some obvious holes. Paisley Gilmour Street and Kirkcaldy are local destinations and probably should have been gated. Livingston is a bit more awkward with two stations neither of which is perhaps what you would think of as centrally located, however, gates at North probably would make sense for similar reasons to Bathgate.
Clearly this can't work everywhere at every station. But it could be used more than it is. Ironically the much maligned Avanti West Coast at Euston is one of the few places where it is often done.
SNCF do this regularly by blocking off the platform before a long-haul train arrives, checking everyone who's milling around and then having a queue to enter the platform where tickets can be scanned They then remove the barriers after the train has safely departed and free access to the platform for the next local train is given.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
I would guess nearly everyone from Livvy North is going to somewhere gated at the other end.
However, you're right there are some obvious holes. Paisley Gilmour Street and Kirkcaldy are local destinations and probably should have been gated. Livingston is a bit more awkward with two stations neither of which is perhaps what you would think of as centrally located, however, gates at North probably would make sense for similar reasons to Bathgate.
Last edited:
redreni
Established Member
The what? Do you perhaps mean the suspect?
This is the problem of infrequent ticket checking. If you got your ticket checked near 100% of the time, buying a new ticket would be a penalty enough. The problem is that on some routes you can not have a ticket check in years - although customers shouldn't be under extra suspicion because a TOC has decided ticket checks don't make economic sense.
Why has society decided that having an invalid ticket is an offence, but a parking violation isn't? You could argue the latter is worse - if you occupy a 30 minute bay for hours on end, which is provided so people can access shops and spend money in local businesses, no one else can use it. Very few trains are so crowded that paying customers can't get on because a fare dodger is on board.
Wouldn't be too difficult to make a database where such interactions were recorded, along with any action taken.
I think even Transport Focus advocated for this calling it a yellow card database or something. At least that way people can get a warning if they make a genuine mistake.
This assumes we retain the offence of failing to provide your details to an officer of the railway when requested.
Edit: here it is from Transport Focus: https://d3cez36w5wymxj.cloudfront.n...e-Protection-Recommendations-January-2025.pdf
In fact reading this, I agree with pretty much all their recommendations:
Egg Centric
Established Member
The difficulty with pure yellow cards is London. Very rare to encounter a fare check outside of certain well known spots. Still plenty of places (aside from tube) you can get on/off without a barrier. Why would someone dishonest pay if they hadn't had a yellow card in the last year? It's also somewhere where there are many parts of the population that would find acting like that acceptable, even admirable. There needs to be some sort of fairly heavy financial disincentive given the likelihood of getting away with it.
(Yes it's true that you can effectively already do this with a small disincentive with contactless but most people aren't aware)
(Yes it's true that you can effectively already do this with a small disincentive with contactless but most people aren't aware)
A yellow card doesn't mean that that person's history can't be investigated. Also, if someone is caught with no ticket at all in London then the obvious thing is to impose the next stage penalty. Given that intra London travel is now almost entirely contactless or Oyster there are virtually no valid excuses for no ticket, and the checks that are done now are a bit like a yellow card but possibly less effective! If a contactless card or phone is checked during a journey (but isn't shown to be blocked), is that recorded and a further check done later to find if it had been tapped in or out?
Problem is if you start having exemptions to the general rule re yellow cards and imposing the next stage penalty for the first time caught in some areas then it gets expanded and the whole system goes back to a mess.
Taking the London example, how far does that go? Many of the donoughting issues in the disputes section involve one end in London, often Farringdon or Elephant and Castle to another central London station, and somewhere somewhat out of London, often outside of the Oystercard area and in some cases outside of contactless, e.g. Luton to Luton Airport.
Taking the London example, how far does that go? Many of the donoughting issues in the disputes section involve one end in London, often Farringdon or Elephant and Castle to another central London station, and somewhere somewhat out of London, often outside of the Oystercard area and in some cases outside of contactless, e.g. Luton to Luton Airport.
Cloud Strife
Established Member
- Joined
- 25 Feb 2014
- Messages
- 2,964
In Scotland, you need to get permission from the High Court (the supreme criminal court) to even bring such a prosecution. The general view is that it will almost always be denied unless there's truly exceptional circumstances. The High Court has quite consistently held that the Lord Advocate has primacy when it comes to prosecutions, and the High Court also has the view that a mistake by the Crown is not enough to warrant exceptional circumstances, although the door is still open if the mistake was "extravagantly wrong". Having said that, even where there is strong evidence that the defendant is guilty, the High Court has refused permission to bring a private prosecution.
In general, you need to spend quite a lot of money to even apply to the High Court, although it is the case that both the Justiciary Office and the Crown will support applicants with whatever they need to bring the application. Usually the case will be held by three of the most experienced and senior judges in the High Court, and if the Lord Advocate opposes the "bill for criminal letters", then it's almost certain that the High Court will deny the application. In practice, there have only been three successful applications since 1900, and the prevailing view among many in the Scottish legal community is that it's time for them to be completely banned as a relic of legal history.
Scotland is in general much more pragmatic about fares. I was once throwing my guts up from a nasty case of the flu and I just wanted to get home, and I managed to lose my ticket somewhere between Liverpool and Glasgow. I got to Queen Street after throwing up twice on the way, realised I'd lost my ticket. I asked the guard on the last service to Aberdeen if there was anything he could do because I just wanted to get home, I explained the circumstances and had to break off to be sick yet again. He took one look at me and said "get on" and left me to my misery. When we got to Aberdeen, I asked him how I could pay the fare, and he said "don't worry about it, you wouldn't have been travelling in that state without a ticket" and wished me a good night.
Generally speaking though, Scotrail are much more pragmatic about actually making sure that people are checked and tickets sold.
The simple answer is to increase the amount of ticket checks. Of course there are many such places, but then the TOC should be contractually obliged to carry out checks onboard and at stations. If people knew their tickets were going to get checked on 9 out of 10 journeys, it changes things considerably.
Yes, it would be enough to simply record that the person has received a 0 pound fine. The system can easily be set up so that any RPI can see at a glance what they've previously been caught for. All of those things mentioned in your quote are sensible and pro-passenger, and without a national ID card, it seems like a good compromise. Of course, it doesn't deal with those who are confident enough to give a fake name and address, but that's a country problem rather than a TOC problem.
Wallsendmag
Established Member
That's not correct but for obvious reasons I'm not going to expand on why.
To answer the question posed in the thread title:
Yes, fare evasion should be decriminalised in the vast majority of cases. However the use of prosecution or threat of prosecution should be replaced by a statutory system based on extending the current Penalty Fare regulations in terms of when and by who it is applied, and to the range of offences it is applied to.
"Out of court settlements" should be totally banned except when the railway is simply asking for the unpaid element of any fare due. (With no "admin" charges, or maybe a modest fixed sum as for ticket refunds)
The system should be seen to be totally fair. So:
a) any fare already paid should be deducted from any new fare demanded (b) the new fare should take into account the normal discounts available for the day and time and for any valid Railcards held. The current blanket use of Anytime Single fares as another punishment level is quite random. The statutory Penalty element (currently £100 or £50) should be seen to be the only actual punishment or deterrent applied.
In designing this arrangement there should be no attempt to put in demands or restrictions that "second guess" what ploys fare evaders might use in future. That's very likely, as now, to hit unintentional mistake-makers most. If new fare avoidance behaviours arise, be prepared to close the loopholes later.
For previous unpaid fares that turn up after further investigation, the civil court route should used. I don't think that even big cases actually need the Fraud Act. The bigger the accumulated debt, the harder the immediate financial burden will be on the debtor.
Finally, the whole ticket checking system needs to be reviewed and rebuilt so that it's far more effective than it is now, where there's a massive variation in quality and quantity.
Yes, fare evasion should be decriminalised in the vast majority of cases. However the use of prosecution or threat of prosecution should be replaced by a statutory system based on extending the current Penalty Fare regulations in terms of when and by who it is applied, and to the range of offences it is applied to.
"Out of court settlements" should be totally banned except when the railway is simply asking for the unpaid element of any fare due. (With no "admin" charges, or maybe a modest fixed sum as for ticket refunds)
The system should be seen to be totally fair. So:
a) any fare already paid should be deducted from any new fare demanded (b) the new fare should take into account the normal discounts available for the day and time and for any valid Railcards held. The current blanket use of Anytime Single fares as another punishment level is quite random. The statutory Penalty element (currently £100 or £50) should be seen to be the only actual punishment or deterrent applied.
In designing this arrangement there should be no attempt to put in demands or restrictions that "second guess" what ploys fare evaders might use in future. That's very likely, as now, to hit unintentional mistake-makers most. If new fare avoidance behaviours arise, be prepared to close the loopholes later.
For previous unpaid fares that turn up after further investigation, the civil court route should used. I don't think that even big cases actually need the Fraud Act. The bigger the accumulated debt, the harder the immediate financial burden will be on the debtor.
Finally, the whole ticket checking system needs to be reviewed and rebuilt so that it's far more effective than it is now, where there's a massive variation in quality and quantity.
Last edited:
Why would anyone every buy the correct ticket if all you'd have to do is pay the difference in fares plus a £100 charge. Many would take that risk and substantially evade paying their fares.
But that is the way the vast majority of offences are already disposed of - in practice, for less than £100, because a PF is usually settled at £50 with prompt payment, plus any fare due (the fare is usually relatively small).
Surely the answer largely depends on the probability of being caught? If that £100 is pretty certain, then the incentive to evade will fall dramatically.
Exactly. Where ticket checking is rare, that is an economic decision by the TOC which is their choice to make. I'm sure Thameslink would prefer for a few passengers to claim a railcard discount they are not entitled to, and not have to fully staff their trains.
Egg Centric
Established Member
The incentives are rather perverse though cause of cost +% management contracts, ORCATS, etc. They don't make economic decisions like a rational economic agent. Fare income is just part of this.
- Status