fare evaders

[Old Timer]

.....I object to most ticket barriers on national rail.

In which case you are in no position to criticise any future fare rises due to falling revenue then.

 

[shinkansen1966]

In which case you are in no position to criticise any future fare rises due to falling revenue then.

Depends why the revenue is falling....

 

[Lampshade]

In which case you are in no position to criticise any future fare rises due to falling revenue then.

No, but we're all in a position to criticise any future fare rises due to mercenary companies and shareholders using it as an excuse to justify their greed.

 

[Old Timer]

No, but we're all in a position to criticise any future fare rises due to mercenary companies and shareholders using it as an excuse to justify their greed.

Yes but which Party was to blame for putting off the larger Companies and foreign Railway organisations who would have entered the market ?

Who continuously and cynically declared whenever challeneged that the would renationalise without compensation ?

And how many of the buccanneers and asset strippers who did succesfully bid, had close links to the same Party and ultimately gained honours from them ?

 

[shinkansen1966]

Yes but which Party was to blame for putting off the larger Companies and foreign Railway organisations who would have entered the market ?

Who continuously and cynically declared whenever challeneged that the would renationalise without compensation ?

And how many of the buccanneers and asset strippers who did succesfully bid, had close links to the same Party and ultimately gained honours from them ?

Labour's rail policy (or lack of rail policy) annoys me almost as much as the Tories rush and botched privatisation in the first place.

TOCs shown contempt for the public with fares hikes and ever greater complexity. Backed up with constant reminders about penalties for infringements. Some members of the public respond with same contempt by avoiding fares.

 

[OxtedL]

I'm going to put it this way.

Oxted now has ticket barriers.

People travelling to Oxted from other parts of the line now buy tickets. Even when the guard doesn't get to them on the train.

Simples.

 

[150001]

About two weeks ago, on 150012, a man got on, dropped his bag in the doorway at The Hawthorns and then moved his large bike down the 3+2 seating to the next door down on its back wheel as a Mum and her son and baby had a pushchair neatly parked up in the vestibule he got on. He first put the bike against the door so no one could get off or on and then moved it down. Luckily, no island platforms and put it on the right side. Then he went to the toilet, leaving the bag in the doorway. He hadn't returned for over 15 mins and I was getting worried about a bomb or something. After calling all stations (langley, old hill etc.) to Cradley Heath, he reappeared and hurried off. Obviously fare dodging.

On 150107 later on the way back to Dorridge, just after the train had started at Stourbridge Jn ( where it had just terminated from Dorridge) and I needed the toilet. It was engaged. I tried again just after Lye and still engaged. There was only a couple of people on the train. My Nan noticed the toilet became finally vacant again, after a man had appeared from it at The Hawthorns. Another fare dodger.

I should've gone and got the conductor but I forgot after Lye about it. So fare dodging in the toilets. So an advantage to Southern with their 508s!

 

[shinkansen1966]

People travelling to Oxted from other parts of the line now buy tickets. Even when the guard doesn't get to them on the train.

Didn't people buy tickets before ? None of them ?

 

[RJ]

Why do barriers bother people? I have a Zone 1-2 annual Travelcard and it only adds a negligible amount of time to get through them. So used to them that they don't bother me in the slightest. Plus, they made my job easier as when the fare evaders realised they couldn't get through, they'd come straight round to me for a nice Penalty Fare or TI report!

 

[jon0844]

I prefer being able to use my Oyster in London than mess around with a paper ticket outside London, so if we got smartcards for the whole of the UK then it would make ticket gates a lot quicker.

 

[shinkansen1966]

Why do barriers bother people?

On National Rail services, they can reject valid tickets. And you run into problems when barrier staff of one TOC are enforcing the rules of another TOC. As has happened to me.

I've been given wrong information about the validity of train tickets which makes me wonder if staff have been properly trained when enforce the rules.

I have a Zone 1-2 annual Travelcard and it only adds a negligible amount of time to get through them.

In then most part, they're fine for London. Especially when you have an Oyster PAYG where the barriers are also used to calculate your fare.

So used to them that they don't bother me in the slightest. Plus, they made my job easier as when the fare evaders realised they couldn't get through, they'd come straight round to me for a nice Penalty Fare or TI report!

I'm starting to think TOCs rely on penalty fares to supplement their income. Just as councils do with parking fines.

 

[class377man]

All stations should have barriers. The only people who will object are fare evaders.

It certainly isn't practical to have barriers at every station. Putting them at stations like Golf Street and Dovey Junction is very obviously going to cost FAR more than it earns in revenue, not to mention they would have to be staffed at all times anyway.

 

[OxtedL]

Didn't people buy tickets before ? None of them ?

Passengers to Croydon and north thereof would have always done so (because of barriers at these destinations), but judging from the occasional times that manual checks were done at Oxted P1 side on a school morning with kids commuting to the big local secondary - and I imagine at other times as well - fare evasion was rife.

I can personally tell you with some shame that I had lost count of the number of times that I had thrown myself onto a train somewhere on the line at the last minute and achieved free travel to Oxted, unchallenged by anyone at all. Now it is a case of hunting down the guard with a vengeance.

I wouldn't mind betting that flows around Hurst Green and Lingfield are also losing similar proportions of revenue to that I witnessed at Oxted. There is a lot of short hop travel on the Oxted Line, particularly by young people. There aren't really many alternatives in terms of other transport, north-south road travel in the immediate vicinity of Oxted is actually quite difficult and there are few useful bus routes.

That £1.40 train fare for the 2 minute journey is very attractive to teenagers for uses that aren't travel related, whatever they may be. If you travel 5 or 6 times a week and only get challenged once, you have made £7+ profit. Gates eradicate that logic.

They leave in its place massive crushes when packed trains arrive and passengers have to be processed by just three gates. Ah well.

 

[Old Timer]

Labour's rail policy (or lack of rail policy) annoys me almost as much as the Tories rush and botched privatisation in the first place..

Interesting then that the EU has chosen the UK model as the preferred option for Privatisations throughout the EU

...TOCs shown contempt for the public with fares hikes and ever greater complexity. Backed up with constant reminders about penalties for infringements. Some members of the public respond with same contempt by avoiding fares.

I have contempt for food manufacturers and supermarkets who reduce the size of the packaging and/or who have rised prices out of all belief. For example a loaf of bread has gone from £1.00 a year ago to £1.35/39.

On the basis of your comment then I am presumably justified in thieving from shops ?

And ignoring the new 20mph speed restrictions, and indeed ignoring anything that does not meet my approval ?

 

[WestCoast]

Interesting then that the EU has chosen the UK model as the preferred option for Privatisations throughout the EU

Do you mean the Net Tendering model, where a subsidy is based on top of the fares the TOC collects? Currently other EU states are using forms of Gross Tendering, where the operators are simply paid to operate the service by a regional administration or 'PTE' of some sort.

 

[shinkansen1966]

Interesting then that the EU has chosen the UK model as the preferred option for Privatisations throughout the EU.

Fools.

On the basis of your comment then I am presumably justified in thieving from shops ?

No.

 

[Lampshade]

Interesting then that the EU has chosen the UK model as the preferred option for Privatisations throughout the EU

The EU's always making the right decision though :roll:

 

[Old Timer]

.....No.

Oh.... just fare evasion then ?

 

[Minilad]

I'm starting to think TOCs rely on penalty fares to supplement their income. Just as councils do with parking fines.

And there is an easy way not to receive a Penalty Fare or a Parking Fine. Yep you guessed it. Buy a ticket and don't park where you shouldn't

 

[strange6]

A lot of fare dodgers feel the need for the toilet when boarding the train! I had a young lad with exactly that need a week last Friday on the Liverpool to Manchester Airport service. He must have been doing something naughty before he boarded at Lime Street because a bobby came on the train and sat at the rear until he nabbed him at St Helens Junction and swiftly took him off the train. A few empty packets of Paul Raymond publication cover wrappings was found at the seat vacated by the way. Dirty beast!

 

[sheff1]

All stations should have barriers. The only people who will object are fare evaders.

Most stations around here don't have staff or ticket machines.

Surely both are more important than barriers, unless by 'barriers' you mean the old arrangement whereby the booking clerk collected tickets from alighting passengers at small stations and at larger ones ticket checking staff sat in booths at the entrance/exit.

If you don't mean that then I object to be called a fare evader.

 

[shinkansen1966]

And there is an easy way not to receive a Penalty Fare or a Parking Fine. Yep you guessed it. Buy a ticket and don't park where you shouldn't

Indeed.

So what will the TOCs with all this extra money ?
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Oh.... just fare evasion then ?

I do not condone fare evasion. I don't find fare evasion surprising given that the TOCs have

• reduced Network Card benefits by first scrapping a second card holder, and later introducing and then increasing a minimum fare
• reduced the number of trains on which off peak tickets are available
• scrapping restaurant cars on services on the East Coast and Anglia services
• replaced the buffet car with a roving trolley on Cross Country and Midland services
• asked the government to bail them out then they got their sums wrong: Connex SouthEast, National Express East Coast, GNER
• by some years, delaying the introduction of Oyster PAYG to their services in London
• with government sanctions, increased fares above the rate inflation
• provide inaccurate information about ticket validity
• and now, introduced ticket barriers which reject valid tickets

 

[sheff1]

Clearly you need gates everywhere, or a ticket to be marked/validated upon entry. A machine could mark the time/location so would also help staff for subsequent investigations.

This, used widely elsewhere, is a much better option than barriers in my opinion. But, to work effectively, you need ticket issuing facilities at all stations, which we are a long way from in this country.

--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Why do barriers bother people?

Because:

1. they reject valid tickets - not occasionally, but frequently. You than have the hassle of getting someone to let you through, sometimes treating you almost as a fare evader because the machine has rejected the ticket.

2. they retain tickets which are valid for continuation of your journey so you have the hassle of getting someone to retrieve it for you.

3. they do not accept many types of ticket - rovers, rangers, PTE tickets, print at home etc.

 

[shinkansen1966]

1. they reject valid tickets - not occasionally, but frequently. You than have the hassle of getting someone to let you through, sometimes treating you almost as a fare evader because the machine has rejected the ticket.

2. they retain tickets which are valid for continuation of your journey so you have the hassle of getting someone to retrieve it for you.

3. they do not accept many types of ticket - rovers, rangers, PTE tickets, print at home etc.

This my objection to the widespread, rapid and seemingly indiscriminate introduction of ticket barriers. Not to mention all the other reasons in my above post - see list of bullet points.

 

[Old Timer]

The EU's always making the right decision though :roll:

For the benefit of them, not the UK.

...I do not condone fare evasion. I don't find fare evasion surprising given that the TOCs have

• reduced Network Card benefits by first scrapping a second card holder, and later introducing and then increasing a minimum fare
• reduced the number of trains on which off peak tickets are available
• scrapping restaurant cars on services on the East Coast and Anglia services
• replaced the buffet car with a roving trolley on Cross Country and Midland services
• asked the government to bail them out then they got their sums wrong: Connex SouthEast, National Express East Coast, GNER
• by some years, delaying the introduction of Oyster PAYG to their services in London
• with government sanctions, increased fares above the rate inflation
• provide inaccurate information about ticket validity
• and now, introduced ticket barriers which reject valid tickets

A very emotional and adolescent argument.

 

[shinkansen1966]

For the benefit of them, not the UK.

In spite of my lengthy rants about the TOCs, I've no great objection to rail privatisation, if we'd followed a more controlled approach to involving the private sector.

We could separate track and trains as we do now. Track operator remains in state hands allowing specific government grants to upgrade tracks like West Coast mainline.

InterCity services to be separated and either privatised in total or contracted out, but always kept as a single entity.

Fewer TOCs: eg combine Southern, South East and South West. But finance them as we do with London buses on a gross tendering basis rather than the current net tendering basis.

Welsh and Scottish government to assume complete responsibility of all aspects of ScotRail/Welsh trains. Again on a gross, not a net tendering basis.

PTEs to run their local service on a gross tendering basis, specifying need and financing accordingly.

One website selling all tickets.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

A very emotional and adolescent argument.

May be, may be not.

Was any of the above list of bullet points factually inaccurate ?

 

[WelshBluebird]

All stations should have barriers. The only people who will object are fare evaders.

All stations?
Even stations where there are no facilities to buy tickets?
Even stations where there are no staff to assist when required?
Even stations where there are no staff to sort out things like wrongly rejected / eaten tickets? Etc etc etc.

It wasn't so long ago that most stations had staffed ticket barriers. You couldn't even get on or off a Cross City station without showing some sort of ticket. You still got a lot of ticket checks on board trains. Didn't hear any complaints about barriers then.

Of course, the difference is that they are staff. They are humans. They are not pre-programmed machines that often break.
They can help you if needed, they can sell you a ticket if you need one, they won't reject your ticket for no reason, they won't take your ticket for no reason etc etc.

 

[yorkie]

And there is an easy way not to receive a Penalty Fare ... Yep you guessed it. Buy a ticket ...

Penalty Fares are intended for people who bought the wrong ticket (in certain circumstances), or forgot their railcard, etc. so that doesn't quite always work. It's not always obvious to some passengers that the cheapest Epsom to London Zones 1-6 ticket isn't valid between Epsom & Ewell West, but is valid from Ewell West onwards, while it is valid between Epsom & Ewell East. They could be given a penalty fare for making that honest mistake, and PFs are intended for people who make such mistakes.

It's interesting that PFs have yet again cropped up in a topic about fare dodgers, when they are not applicable to dodgers. As NX put it, "A penalty fare is simply a charge that National Express East Anglia is allowed to make under the Penalty Fare Regulations and Rules. It is not a fine and anyone who is charged one is not being accused of avoiding, or attempting to avoid, paying his or her fare. ‘Fare dodging’ is a completely different matter. It is a criminal offence and we treat it as such by prosecuting offenders under criminal law."

 

[Old Timer]

Penalty Fares are intended for people who bought the wrong ticket (in certain circumstances), or forgot their railcard, etc. so that doesn't quite always work. ....[/I]"

I am sorry old chap but I must disagree.

The NCoC make it clear that it is the passenger's responsibility to ensure that they have the correct ticket for the journey that they are making.

We all know that given half a chance a number of travellers will buy an off peak return in the hope of using it before it is available. That together with deliberate ticketless travel was the reason for the PF arrangement.

Passengers have to take some personal responsibility for their actions.

 

[WelshBluebird]

Welsh and Scottish government to assume complete responsibility of all aspects of ScotRail/Welsh trains. Again on a gross, not a net tendering basis.

I know its off topic, but I am a little curious.

Would you suggest that is done based on the ToC (so all ATW services become the responsibility of the welsh government etc)? Or simply all services that are in wales?

If it is the former, then why should the welsh government (via whatever company they decide on) control services that serve many stations in England?
If it is the latter, then what about services like the Cardiff to Holyhead service that passes through some parts of England on its way, or the Cardiff - London, Cardiff to Portsmouth etc etc services.

Just curious really .
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

I am sorry old chap but I must disagree.

The NCoC make it clear that it is the passenger's responsibility to ensure that they have the correct ticket for the journey that they are making.

We all know that given half a chance a number of travellers will buy an off peak return in the hope of using it before it is available. That together with deliberate ticketless travel was the reason for the PF arrangement.

Passengers have to take some personal responsibility for their actions.

There is a difference between a legitimate genuine passenger who has bought a ticket but has forgotten a railcard or something, and someone who deliberately tries to travel without a ticket with a specific intention to not pay.
Now, you may disagree, may say the consequence should be the same, whatever. But there is a very clear difference.