SWR cracking down on Vauxhall - Waterloo doughnuts/short fares - Also GTR

[hwl]

I don't see why. If a TOC's revenue protection staff needs a data feed to tell them that people short-fare between common short-faring station pairs then I'd question what on earth that the TOC revenue protection staff do all day.

The data feed is meaningless unless you catch people in the act anyway. How can you prove who was using an e-ticket from a spreadsheet?


Paying when challenged isn't a new thing, nor is doughnutting or short-faring.

I don't think e-tickets make it easier to evade fares, if anything they just make the matter easier to demonstrate. Back in the days of CCST they used to have to send someone out to stations like Burley Park and Bramley and hand vouchers out to people boarding at those stations. With e-tickets they can see you bought the ticket two seconds before approaching the barrier at Leeds, and they can see that the purchase time doesn't correlate with a station call, and can get people to incriminate themselves that way instead.

The issue, in my opinion anyway, isn't a new one either: the TOCs place too much reliance on automatic ticket barriers to do their revenue protection for them.

The point is systems could automate most of the work and do it far cheaper than TOC staff could.

 

[Watershed]

It comes down to TOCs wanting to have their cake and eat it, as far as I'm concerned.

They have been more than happy to rely on the popularity of eTickets as a justification for removing ticket offices and ticket machines, thus achieving significant savings in terms of staffing, equipment and physical ticket stock.

But when it comes to the on-the-ground checks that are needed to make sure that people have valid tickets (for their entire journey), a lot of TOCs seem remarkably uninterested in getting their conductors etc. to actually check tickets.

They have then relied on the lack of checks as justification for worsening conditions for customers (i.e. the recent refunds change) - even though they have been more than happy to benefit from the retailing savings of eTickets for example.

People are always going to try to avoid fares, particularly when they're as expensive as they are nowadays, so it is inherent in any system that you need to spend the time and effort to prevent and detect evasion.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 6 Aug 2026 ==

The point is systems could automate most of the work and do it far cheaper than TOC staff could.

They can't automate it all though. Only a very small portion of it is capable of automation; you are still going to need boots on the ground to conduct checks to see whether tickets are being used legitimately.

 

[hwl]

They can't automate it all though. Only a very small portion of it is capable of automation; you are still going to need boots on the ground to conduct checks to see whether tickets are being used legitimately.

Agreed but it is silly not to to automate what you can, get some relatively easy wins and help set the a better tone on revenue collection in general.

 

[Tetchytyke]

greed but it is silly not to to automate what you can

I think we see a certain amount of automation now, with the automated analysis of journey and transaction data resulting in lots of identical boilerplate emails going out to customers.

But to take it beyond sending threatening emails to people who may or may not respond, you need boots on the ground to actually catch people in the act.

 

[superkopite]

I don't think e-tickets make it easier to evade fares

eTickets make it MUCH easier to evade fares.

Overall though eTickets are a huge net positive for Rail

 

[dosxuk]

The data feed is meaningless unless you catch people in the act anyway. How can you prove who was using an e-ticket from a spreadsheet?

The rules can be changed. This used to be a big problem for motoring offences, until it because a requirement for the vehicle owner to identify the driver otherwise it would be assumed they were driving when a suspected offence occured.

Things like making e-tickets non-transferrable, other than through a regulated "gifting" process, would also go a long way towards making it so the account holder can be legally assumed to be the ticket user.

 

[Tetchytyke]

eTickets make it MUCH easier to evade fares.

I don't really agree.

None of this is new or particular to e-tickets. Pay when challenged isn't new, nor is short-faring or doughnutting. In the old days people just used to buy low value single tickets from a TVM just to get through the barrier: at Leeds a 30p child single to Burley Park or Cross Gates was always a popular purchase.

The only edge case is where someone buys a ticket just before approaching a ticket barrier. But if the barriers are usually there people would, in the old days, just pre-buy their short fare ticket. Again, those 30p child singles were always popular in West Yorkshire. If the barriers are an ad-hoc revenue blockade then the people checking tickets can immediately see that the ticket was bought 20 seconds before approaching the barrier.

I can see that e-tickets make it more tempting to accidentally forget where you travelled from, but I'm not convinced it makes it easier.

Things like making e-tickets non-transferrable, other than through a regulated "gifting" process, would also go a long way towards making it so the account holder can be legally assumed to be the ticket user.

None of this changes the fundamental issue: unless you catch someone in the act at the time, you can't prove that the ticket was being used illegitimately.

Take a Vauxhall to Waterloo e-ticket. A spreadsheet of transactions doesn't prove the ticket was used, it just proves the ticket was purchased. Scan data doesn't prove the ticket was used illegitimately, just that it was scanned at only one end of the journey.

So even if you prevent transfer of tickets (and how do you do that for child tickets?) you're no further forward.

it because a requirement for the vehicle owner to identify the driver otherwise it would be assumed they were driving when a suspected offence occured.

But that's not what the law says.

The police can't assume or presume that the registered keeper was driving and it isn't for the registered keeper of a vehicle to prove that they weren't driving. If you are the registered keeper of a car which was detected speeding and you don't identify the driver then you can't be convicted of speeding.

It is a separate offence for the registered keeper of a vehicle to fail to provide the details of the driver at the time of an offence. This is a slightly more serious offence than speeding, which gives most people an incentive to identify the driver, especially if they were actually the one driving the car at the time. But, even then, it is a defence that the registered keeper could not reasonably be expected to know who was driving.

 

[furlong]

As I've said many times, this needs addressing primarily at the point of sale. It's just like spending on a credit card or requesting a bank transfer. Fraud checks are best done in real time at a point where you still have a chance to prevent the fraud!

There needs to be serious investment in real-time anti-fraud systems - not long-after-the-fact detection - and accreditation provides the mechanism to ensure all retail operations adhere to the new standards.

If you attempt a bank transfer today from your bank account, there's a risk assessment and you might get asked some extra questions.

Similarly, when you attempt to buy a ticket, there should be a risk assessment based on a large number of factors including purchase history, scan history, journey query history, previous purchase questions history as well as the actual transaction, and this may lead to extra questions and the answers would be recorded and available to the ticket inspector. Additionally some e-tickets would be flagged a requiring manual inspection - with reasons shown to the inspector when scanned - and not open any automated gates. This would be done on a per-ticket basis.

E.g. Buying a ticket from Vauxhall with a history of similar purchases not being scanned?
Are you the passenger intending to travel using this ticket? Yes
Are you purchasing this ticket for use in conjunction with another ticket? Yes.
At which station are you beginning your overall journey? X
What type(s) of ticket will you be using between X and Vauxhall?
Are you already in possession of such ticket(s)?

etc.

The exact questions would be tunable and statistical/partly random - it wouldn't have to cover every possibility to obtain a complete picture on each occasion. You'd expect just one or two questions the first time, so not much of a burden to answer them, but if repeated, more could be asked to build up a picture over time and reminders of validity could be stated along with warnings of the consequences of particular frauds and need explicit recorded confirmation prior to purchase (not unlike TVMs sometimes do).

 

[mrmartin]

As I've said many times, this needs addressing primarily at the point of sale. It's just like spending on a credit card or requesting a bank transfer. Fraud checks are best done in real time at a point where you still have a chance to prevent the fraud!

There needs to be serious investment in real-time anti-fraud systems - not long-after-the-fact detection - and accreditation provides the mechanism to ensure all retail operations adhere to the new standards.

If you attempt a bank transfer today from your bank account, there's a risk assessment and you might get asked some extra questions.

Similarly, when you attempt to buy a ticket, there should be a risk assessment based on a large number of factors including purchase history, scan history, journey query history, previous purchase questions history as well as the actual transaction, and this may lead to extra questions and the answers would be recorded and available to the ticket inspector. Additionally some e-tickets would be flagged a requiring manual inspection - with reasons shown to the inspector when scanned - and not open any automated gates. This would be done on a per-ticket basis.

E.g. Buying a ticket from Vauxhall with a history of similar purchases not being scanned?
Are you the passenger intending to travel using this ticket? Yes
Are you purchasing this ticket for use in conjunction with another ticket? Yes.
At which station are you beginning your overall journey? X
What type(s) of ticket will you be using between X and Vauxhall?
Are you already in possession of such ticket(s)?

etc.

The exact questions would be tunable and statistical/partly random - it wouldn't have to cover every possibility to obtain a complete picture on each occasion. You'd expect just one or two questions the first time, so not much of a burden to answer them, but if repeated, more could be asked to build up a picture over time and reminders of validity could be stated along with warnings of the consequences of particular frauds and need explicit recorded confirmation prior to purchase (not unlike TVMs sometimes do).

To be honest, a big warning coming up that "you've purchased x short tickets" recently would probably deter a lot of people.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 6 Aug 2026 ==

Don’t agree with that at all. I think a lot of the people we see are shocked to discover they’ve done something illegal and are panicking once the law are involved.

I’d say a significant majority of the people on here are not suffering from clinical anxiety, but are anxious at what they think might be about to happen to them.

That’s two different things

I don't think there's as clear line between the two as you think. My point is that we get the most 'worried' people on here by nature that they've went to the effort to sign up. Whether that is clinical anxiety or not isn't my point. But I would strongly suspect for many people that are posting they are going to lose their job, their life is over and haven't slept is probably indicative of some underlying clinical anxiety (classic catastrophising).

Btw, this is also on the TOCs. I would say the vast majority of lay people would expect to get a penalty fare given the posters, not a potential fraud conviction.

 

[Tetchytyke]

As I've said many times, this needs addressing primarily at the point of sale.

I'd not be averse to big flashy warnings at the point of sale for these sorts of tickets. Are you sure you're just travelling from Vauxhall to Waterloo?

But it still doesn't change the fundamental issue: you can only prove someone was evading their fare by catching them in the process of evading their fare.

All those questions are otherwise ones which can just as easily be asked by the RPI at the gateline, and in reality would probably need to be repeated anyway. But at least there's the the added bonus that the RPI can caution the passenger before asking the questions.

 

[35B]

The point is systems could automate most of the work and do it far cheaper than TOC staff could.

TOCs need to decide whether their priority is selling tickets, or enforcing conditions. You could make the railway more or less iron clad, but it would make buying tickets a much worse experience and deter custom (how does "regulated gifting" work when I buy 3 tickets for immediate travel but we won't all be travelling together on both legs, for example?). Alternatively, you can accept that by using people to act as ticket checkers, you will also boost customer service, and make the overall experience more pleasant for passengers as they know there's someone there providing security.

 

[The exile]

Things like making e-tickets non-transferrable, other than through a regulated "gifting" process, would also go a long way towards making it so the account holder can be legally assumed to be the ticket user.

Unless the rule is simply that the purchase has to be present, that would make things very complicated for people travelling together as a group.

 

[furlong]

What type(s) of ticket will you be using between X and Vauxhall?
Are you already in possession of such ticket(s)?

(continuing)
It is the traveller's responsibility to be in possession of valid tickets before boarding the train.
At London Waterloo, please note that the e-ticket you are purchasing will not open the automated barriers and the traveller will be asked to present a combination of tickets purchased prior to boarding the train that together cover the complete journey from X. The train used must stop at Vauxhall (some exceptions apply - see link). Travellers without valid tickets for any part of their journey may be prosecuted.

Stuff like that. Use data specific to the transaction and the purchaser both to deter fraud and to make it easier to detect.

 

[Haywain]

(continuing)
It is the traveller's responsibility to be in possession of valid tickets before boarding the train.
At London Waterloo, please note that the e-ticket you are purchasing will not open the automated barriers and the traveller will be asked to present a combination of tickets purchased prior to boarding the train that together cover the complete journey from X. The train used must stop at Vauxhall (some exceptions apply - see link). Travellers without valid tickets for any part of their journey may be prosecuted.

Stuff like that. Use data specific to the transaction and the purchaser both to deter fraud and to make it easier to detect.

I love the way people post their ideas about how much more complicated it should be to buy a ticket, as if they have never bought a ticket online.

 

[furlong]

I love the way people post their ideas about how much more complicated it should be to buy a ticket, as if they have never bought a ticket online.

Yes - it really should be a lot more complicated to buy a ticket online that appears likely to be used fraudulently!

This would affect only a tiny tiny fraction of sales - but exactly the ones the passenger should probably not be buying!

It could even include nudges to "do the right thing" - click here if you need to add a ticket from X to Vauxhall to your basket.

We notice that the railcard presented for inspection alongside a recent ticket you purchased from us expired last Friday and does not appear to have been renewed. Click here to renew it.

 

[John R]

It could even include nudges to "do the right thing" - click here if you need to add a ticket from X to Vauxhall to your basket.

The ultimate in upselling!

 

[Sonic1234]

Overall though eTickets are a huge net positive for Rail

Although the cost reductions from them haven't been fully realised due to politics - ticket offices are still there, just with the staff suffering more from boredom.

The railway would probably be happy with a little bit more fare evasion to cut staff. Thameslink is happier with short fares and misapplied railcard discounts than fully staffing their trains (and you could argue the railcard fare is the correct fare on Thameslink, as they accept the Network Railcard throughout). And of course, charging a settlement to those that do get caught (and identified) is a nice source of income. eTickets help with ID issues too, the vast majority will be bought with correct details.

 

[CrazyClerk]

Chances are they will just make the ticket price £8+ pounds if you purchase online or at a station, unless you use contactless. Bit like TFL charging more for paper tickets from the Ticket Vending Machines. I don't get why people are even trying to help unlawful people get out of fare dodging, it's costing the taxpayer millions, not the operator.

 

[Sidmouth34010]

You are overthinking it. People just see a way to save a few pounds and seem to have an attitude that if it's a big corporation or the state that's losing out then there's no real victim and see a small win for themselves. It's not just about train fares, it happens in all sorts of ways, whether it's doing work for cash on hand to beat the taxman or being 'clever' with the self-service tills at supermarkets or whatever else.

shorter way fo saying what I said

 

[bikesntrains77]

Thameslink ... accept the Network Railcard throughout.

Almost ... Network railcards aren't accepted between Peterborough and Huntingdon.

On the main point, I've always felt that the current railcard prices should really be the normal price.

 

[kkong]

Sorry if already answered further on, but that is what they have done. Vauxhall to Waterloo changed to being ToD only a few weeks ago (and probably has already caught a few off-guard when they fail to notice they needed to collect the tickets from a machine rather than expecting a PDF).

ScotRail were criticised by some on this forum when they took the same approach (withdrawal of m-ticket sales) for some stations in the Glasgow and Edinburgh area.

 

[MotCO]

I love the way people post their ideas about how much more complicated it should be to buy a ticket, as if they have never bought a ticket online.

I don't think there's as clear line between the two as you think. My point is that we get the most 'worried' people on here by nature that they've went to the effort to sign up. Whether that is clinical anxiety or not isn't my point. But I would strongly suspect for many people that are posting they are going to lose their job, their life is over and haven't slept is probably indicative of some underlying clinical anxiety (classic catastrophising).

I think that there is an element of anxiety for those travelling on a train for the first time. I know a 14 year old who moved house, and had to start catching the train to school, having never travelled by train by himself before. Maybe there should be some educational angle, maybe at school on the correct way of boarding a train, knowing where the trains go to, finding your way, and perhaps most importantly, how to buy a correct ticket and the consequences of not having the right ticket. Then people may not be so 'anxious' if they were caught without the correct ticket, because they should have known the consequences beforehand (Yes, there are notices posted, but who reads them!)

Moderator note: discussion continues at

Should children be taught how to use public transport at school?

Moderator note: split from https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/swr-cracking-down-on-vauxhall-waterloo-doughnuts-short-fares.305495/ I love the way people post their ideas about how much more complicated it should be to buy a ticket, as if they have never bought a ticket online. I don't think...

www.railforums.co.uk

 

[jfollows]

It comes down to TOCs wanting to have their cake and eat it, as far as I'm concerned.

Yes, I really liked your post here which I won’t requote, but I could have written the same, but you did it better than I might have done.

Things are probably better here up north only because tickets get checked on trains. In many cases the checks seem to result in people buying tickets (from observation) when they could be prosecuted, but it’s £££ for the railway operator I guess.

If the TOCs want to be consistent, and do things properly, they probably will get less money, so they don’t bother.

 

[gembercannelle]

I believe the only realistic method to deal with fare dodgers is to make travel more affordable. Thinking back to the days when I was living in London as a young professional, I believe I have avoided TfL prosecution by pure luck: I loved cycling so much that I would always cycle all the way from Leicester Square to Richmond rather than taking a train!

I am against introducing extra "questioning" for buying short (or any) train tickets online, except a small number of known short-faring hot spots. The only thing this will achieve is that people will start avoiding trains outside of London zone. I often travel for one station only, especially on a day out with friends and family, and would hate having to justify these purchases. I also sometimes buy short tickets at the very last minute, because, well, I was planning to cycle but the weather has changed suddenly...

 

[yorkie]

So is the situation that people are buying Waterloo to Vauxhall tickets, but actually going much further? That sounds pretty daft to me, because how do they get through barriers at the country end - or not get caught by inspectors on the journey?

They would have a separate ticket for the barriers at the other end, if present, hence the term "doghnutting".

SWR Guards are either non-commercial or rarely actually check tickets in my experience (the role of Guard is an operational one). On my recent journey to Bournemouth, there was no check made in Standard class.

Did the ‘inventors’ of the e-ticket system never realise that they’d designed such a useful enabler for people to short fare? Seems to me nearly every new great idea comes with additional scope for fare dodging.

This has been a thing since long before e-tickets, however with CCST tickets via TOD, there is a bit more pre-planning involved.

I would suggest it's a particular issue on SWR because of the lack of on-train checks; my experiences on SWR are the polar opposite of (say) the Strathclyde electrics, where I've frequently had my ticket checked before the train has even departed!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 6 Aug 2026 ==

I believe the only realistic method to deal with fare dodgers is to make travel more affordable.

Sadly there is no prospect of this anytime soon; the Government is committed to making rail travel less affordable, apparently to provide the best possible deal for taxpayers!

Any suggestions to make travel more affordable would need to be discussed in a separate thread (in the appropriate forum section).

 

[gembercannelle]

Sadly there is no prospect of this anytime soon; the Government is committed to making rail travel less affordable, apparently to provide the best possible deal for taxpayers!

I understand I am a bit dense, but how exactly this would help the taxpayers?

 

[yorkie]

ScotRail were criticised by some on this forum when they took the same approach (withdrawal of m-ticket sales) for some stations in the Glasgow and Edinburgh area.

When referring to any forum post(s), can you include a link/quote please? Thanks

I understand I am a bit dense, but how exactly this would help the taxpayers?

This year is an exception, but typically rail fares go up by greater amounts than the fair method of calculating inflation (i.e. using the higher RPI figure rather than the more appropriate/sensible CPI) and is justified on that basis, as the (then) Rail minister Chris Heaton-Harris was quoted in 2021:

DfT confirms 3.8% rail fares increase | Railnews | Today's news for Tomorrow's railway

www.railnews.co.uk

Capping rail fares in line with inflation while tying it to the July RPI strikes a fair balance, ensuring we can continue to invest record amounts into a more modern, reliable railway, ease the burden on taxpayers...

Basically, what he said is that fares went up with a higher level of inflation than would be fair, in order to shift the proportion of the railways costs away from taxpayers and towards fare payers.

This year is very much the exception to the norm, and in any case the current fares freeze has followed huge increases in recent years, especially from TOCs such as LNER (through the removal of return fares, removal of most Off Peak fares and removal of Super Off Peak on some of their longest distance flows) as well as those who have removed unregulated Super Off Peaks (e.g. GTR from many flows).

But any further discussion on any of those topics is best done elsewhere; there are some existing threads discussing such issues in more depth.

 

[Bald Rick]

I understand I am a bit dense, but how exactly this would help the taxpayers?

Because there are a lot more taxpayers than (income) tax paying rail users.

 

[AlterEgo]

I understand I am a bit dense, but how exactly this would help the taxpayers?

Because it reduces the burden on taxpayers, most of whom are not regular railway users.

 

[andy33gmail]

eTickets make it MUCH easier to evade fares.

A practical mitigation might be a virtual scan requirement - i.e. have an app / website or the device’s wallet confirm with a geolocation, timestamp & user confirmation of “I have boarded the train / passed the gateline”

That could be made a term of eTickets without interfering with people who really like talking to cashiers & printing tickets with barcodes that never work

Bit late to introduce retrospectively, but not impossible.

To be honest, a big warning coming up that "you've purchased x short tickets" recently would probably deter a lot of people.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 6 Aug 2026 ==

I often wonder whether I’ll trigger something, given how many permutations of tickets, trains, modes I use to do basically the same journey.