Best way to stop fare evasion

[SussexSeagull]

Must be enough genuine passengers to have warranted reintroducing the shuttle service though.

I imagine if you are starting your journey in Hove, or Portslade even, the buses are a good option (especially if you don't live near the station) but anyone already on a train from further afield is probably going to use the shuttle.

 

[crablab]

Occasionally they get caught out if there’s a revenue team doing a sting at Reading West, but GWR must lose a fair bit on this route.

Not for long... Reading West will be fully barriered post-renovation

 

[Kite159]

Must be enough genuine passengers to have warranted reintroducing the shuttle service though.

More with providing connections from the Littlehampton - London trains so passengers can head to/from Brighton?

 

[Kilopylae]

There's a fair chance that this would naturally follow if there were fewer fare dodgers.

If fare dodging is common then no-one wants to accept that they or their friends are criminal. If it's rare, then fewer people will be or know fare dodgers and it will be easier to condemn it. This in turn generates a virtuous circle where potential fare dodgers won't try it for fear of being found unacceptable in their community.

So if the railway goes for the suggestions we've made here, they can anticipate an attitude shift on top of the work they do.

I agree, as Peter says,

it is actually looking to be a bit embarrassing if you have bought a ticket.

and this is only because it's perceived as "not that deep". If fare evasion wasn't so easy, it wouldn't be so socially uncontroversial.

 

[neilmc]

Unfortunately for every scam perpetrated by a passenger there is one perpetrated by the rail industry itself. Sometimes these are due to the attitude of poorly trained staff who know less about the ticketing system than the customer, sometimes these are deliberate. The Disputes threads show many examples - passengers finding that the only ticket machine is on the opposite platform which necessitates a long detour, passengers being told that perfectly valid journeys cannot be made with the ticket held, tickets being regularly sold on train except when the RPI conduct a sting, and what I would consider official scams such as morning passengers from Preston to London having to drive north to Lancaster to obtain a cheap fare on the exact same train (in fact most journeys to London and the entire Cross-Country network I'd place in this category).

And, with the exorbitant cost of rail travel (unless you are doing a short off-peak journey in, say, a PTE area or have discovered some devious way to use the routing guide) the general public have quite a high tolerance of ticketless travel which wouldn't be extended to people nicking stuff from their local supermarket. It's not like you've ripped up the seat and carried it away, you just sat in it. You reaps what you sows, train peeps.

I have to say I've ripped off the rail industry big time by not using a train at all in the last three years. When I have an ENCTS bus pass and an economical car, catching UK trains is throwing money away.

 

[Energy]

Or do we need a social attitude shift where fare dodging is seen as unacceptable?

When its not uncommon to find £300 rail fares it'll be difficult to make fare dodging seem unacceptable.

 

[30907]

When its not uncommon to find £300 rail fares it'll be difficult to make fare dodging seem unacceptable.

And how many people dodge £300 fares?

 

[Energy]

And how many people dodge £300 fares?

It doesn't matter how many people dodge them, while the public perspective is that trains are very expensive, its going to be difficult to make fare evasion heavily frowned upon.

 

[ComUtoR]

Next joke

I wasn't joking.

 

[markymark2000]

Barriers have quite a few drawbacks, and I suspect do little to deter the determined fare evader i.e. criminal. Roving teams of ticket inspectors would probably also go a long way to addressing other areas of anti-social behaviour if they were properly trained and deployed.

Barriers work more than you think. Evening trains especially, people know the barriers will be open and get on without a ticket based on knowing that their destination the barriers will be open. For a good number of years, back when tickets were sold on Merseyrail, it was common for people to get on along the Wirral line and by the time the guard got to them, they would state Spital as their origin. On the return leg, they knew the barriers would be open so wouldn't get caught (I know a number of people who did this).

Rail Replacement buses too, as drivers aren't allowed to check tickets and coordinators rarely do, people freeload on them. As soon as there is a 'barrier', in this example, a person asking for tickets, suddenly a lot of phones come out and a lot of tickets which are bought to the station (For arguments sake, people get a ticket from A-B on the train, if challenged, knowing that B-C is a bus. All too often, when challenged, people get on replacement buses saying 'I don't need a ticket for the bus' or 'it's a free service' etc etc). As soon as tickets get checked, it's amazing to see the amount of tickets checked and amount of people who start walking (if stations are close enough).

As soon as people know tickets won't be checked, they freeload. Barriers are a big deterrent. As has been said about Abbey Wood, now there are barriers, people are walking further to get to a station without barriers so that they can fare evade. That is as good evidence as you're going to get that barriers stop evasion.




In my opinion, we need barriers open for longer hours and TOCs need to take a bigger stand against fare evasion, not having the railway completely open for free travel pre 7am and post 7pm (when the majority of barriers close/open respective)
We need for the hundreds of additional agency staff, which TOCs now like to employ, to start enforcing tickets. I know that some operators have travelling security on lines which can have trouble. Why can't these start enforcing tickets as well. If a TOC has a guard travelling as a passenger, why not put them on revenue protection duties in the front 2 carriages while the normal guard controls the doors and enforces the rear carriages. Make use of the staff that are already being paid to be there.

Until TOCs start taking fare evasion seriously, fare evasion will keep happening. Same as trespass and vandalism, people get away with it or a slap on the wrist and so the message sent to society is that it's ok to do these things.

 

[py_megapixel]

We need for the hundreds of additional agency staff, which TOCs now like to employ, to start enforcing tickets.

Additional staff may be needed, but it's important to ensure that they are competent. In my experience it appears that the agency staff such as Northern employ at certain stations have not recieved adequate training, both in ticketing matters and in customer service, to be carrying out that role. This is not really the staff's fault, of course, but it's a issue nonetheless.

 

[mike57]

We need for the hundreds of additional agency staff, which TOCs now like to employ, to start enforcing tickets.

Would these a massive number of additional staff cover their wages and employment costs with fare evasion reduction, if as I suspect the answer is probably no, then all you are doing is increasing the cost of operating the railway, so you haven't really solved the problem.

Which brings me back to my original comment Take a much stronger line with persistant offenders, like any criminal activity the only deterrant is where 'the crime is not worth the time' That probably means targeted activity at known hotspots, and the courts and justice system supporting the crime reduction by dealing with persistant offenders in a way that deterrs others.

 

[Pompey00]

Barriers work more than you think. Evening trains especially, people know the barriers will be open and get on without a ticket based on knowing that their destination the barriers will be open. For a good number of years, back when tickets were sold on Merseyrail, it was common for people to get on along the Wirral line and by the time the guard got to them, they would state Spital as their origin. On the return leg, they knew the barriers would be open so wouldn't get caught (I know a number of people who did this).

Rail Replacement buses too, as drivers aren't allowed to check tickets and coordinators rarely do, people freeload on them. As soon as there is a 'barrier', in this example, a person asking for tickets, suddenly a lot of phones come out and a lot of tickets which are bought to the station (For arguments sake, people get a ticket from A-B on the train, if challenged, knowing that B-C is a bus. All too often, when challenged, people get on replacement buses saying 'I don't need a ticket for the bus' or 'it's a free service' etc etc). As soon as tickets get checked, it's amazing to see the amount of tickets checked and amount of people who start walking (if stations are close enough).

As soon as people know tickets won't be checked, they freeload. Barriers are a big deterrent. As has been said about Abbey Wood, now there are barriers, people are walking further to get to a station without barriers so that they can fare evade. That is as good evidence as you're going to get that barriers stop evasion.




In my opinion, we need barriers open for longer hours and TOCs need to take a bigger stand against fare evasion, not having the railway completely open for free travel pre 7am and post 7pm (when the majority of barriers close/open respective)
We need for the hundreds of additional agency staff, which TOCs now like to employ, to start enforcing tickets. I know that some operators have travelling security on lines which can have trouble. Why can't these start enforcing tickets as well. If a TOC has a guard travelling as a passenger, why not put them on revenue protection duties in the front 2 carriages while the normal guard controls the doors and enforces the rear carriages. Make use of the staff that are already being paid to be there.

Until TOCs start taking fare evasion seriously, fare evasion will keep happening. Same as trespass and vandalism, people get away with it or a slap on the wrist and so the message sent to society is that it's ok to do these things.

Exactly people how how to cheat the system as Gateline starts 6am till 10pm Mondays to Friday and Saturday it’s 8am till 8pm then Sundays 9:00am till 6:00pm so people know best times to do so and like said when comes bus replacement I’ve helped with it before and cause we can’t check tickets a lot of them hitched a free ride instead. They should have me revenue on stations and trains and making security so only ways in and out if they have Gateline is through the ticket barriers and not any other way. Another thing is people jumping on at smaller stations and getting off at barrier stations and realising they either pay or evade it and most time mouth off to you.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

Exactly people how how to cheat the system as Gateline starts 6am till 10pm Mondays to Friday and Saturday it’s 8am till 8pm then Sundays 9:00am till 6:00pm so people know best times to do so

This could be tackled (at some, but not maximum, cost) by sometimes staffing and using the barriers outside of the normal hours - possibly by using a roving team of staff rather than the regular staff assigned to that station. How often would barriers have to be staffed on (say) Saturday evenings for potential evaders to get the message 'there's a chance that you'll be caught without a ticket on a Saturday evening so it's better to buy upfront'?

 

[Pompey00]

This could be tackled (at some, but not maximum, cost) by sometimes staffing and using the barriers outside of the normal hours - possibly by using a roving team of staff rather than the regular staff assigned to that station. How often would barriers have to be staffed on (say) Saturday evenings for potential evaders to get the message 'there's a chance that you'll be caught without a ticket on a Saturday evening so it's better to buy upfront'?

Exactly more hours and staff there more people buy ticket as they will know there’s change getting caught especially friday and Saturday evenings as they are busy.

 

[Bald Rick]

I wrote this many years ago, but to me the answer is simple, albeit with controversial elements:

1) You must have a valid ticket before boarding a train, without exception
2) There must be an opportunity to buy a ticket at every station, located obviously at the entrance(s) to the station building or platform. Ticket machines card only to reduce the need for staff to visit
3) Clear signage and occasional announcements to this effect must be present at the station and on the train
4) Increased ticket checks on trains; on all long distance services sufficient to check every ticket on every train, on local / regional services sufficient to check 50% of passengers boarding at unbarriered stations, and 10% of passengers at barriered stations.
5) £100 fine for invalid ticket
6) £500 fine for second offence in a rolling 2 years
7) £5000 fine for third offence in a rolling 2 years
8) independent appeals process (like the Parking fines appeals process)
9) a high level of training for all revenue inspectors, in particular how to use ‘discretion’ appropriately.
10) two years notice of the above process being implemented, with plenty of publicity.

end of sermon.

I’m sure many will challenge much of this!

 

[baz962]

I wrote this many years ago, but to me the answer is simple, albeit with controversial elements:

1) You must have a valid ticket before boarding a train, without exception
2) There must be an opportunity to buy a ticket at every station, located obviously at the entrance(s) to the station building or platform. Ticket machines card only to reduce the need for staff to visit
3) Clear signage and occasional announcements to this effect must be present at the station and on the train
4) Increased ticket checks on trains; on all long distance services sufficient to check every ticket on every train, on local / regional services sufficient to check 50% of passengers boarding at unbarriered stations, and 10% of passengers at barriered stations.
5) £100 fine for invalid ticket
6) £500 fine for second offence in a rolling 2 years
7) £5000 fine for third offence in a rolling 2 years
8) independent appeals process (like the Parking fines appeals process)
9) a high level of training for all revenue inspectors, in particular how to use ‘discretion’ appropriately.
10) two years notice of the above process being implemented, with plenty of publicity.

end of sermon.

I’m sure many will challenge much of this!

Not challenging, just curious. Card only machines. What about say a first time user or tourist with cash only or a card fails. And I still wonder how we deal with people that just won't buy and won't give details to the guard/revenue etc.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

Card only machines. What about say a first time user or tourist with cash only

Is this, now, a problem of any extent at all? How many people - at all - travel without some sort of credit or debit card?

or a card fails

But this does have to be coped with - as does ticket machine failure for whatever reason. But surely a rare enough occasion to be tackled as an exception rather than a rule? Maybe allow ticket inspectors (generic term) to issue some sort of late payment ticket - if you comply (phone up/use the website to pay) in 24 or 48 hours of it being issued there's no penalty but otherwise it becomes an automatic penalty. And keep track of the names and addresses given to allow the 'less sympathy for a second occurrence' measure at points (6) and (7) to kick in if the problem is a failed card (so customer failure) rather than a failed ticket machine (railway failure).

 

[Trainbike46]

I wrote this many years ago, but to me the answer is simple, albeit with controversial elements:

1) You must have a valid ticket before boarding a train, without exception

I think there are some lines that should continue allowing buying on board; It's simply not cost-effective to place ticket machines at very quiet stations.
For other stations, solutions like the northern Promise-to-Pay notices are a way to reduce the risk of non-payment if someone wants to buy a ticket with cash or that isn't available from the TVM. Obviously, a process should also be in place for dealing with situations where all ticket machines are out of order at a station

2) There must be an opportunity to buy a ticket at every station, located obviously at the entrance(s) to the station building or platform. Ticket machines card only to reduce the need for staff to visit

idem

3) Clear signage and occasional announcements to this effect must be present at the station and on the train
4) Increased ticket checks on trains; on all long distance services sufficient to check every ticket on every train, on local / regional services sufficient to check 50% of passengers boarding at unbarriered stations, and 10% of passengers at barriered stations.
5) £100 fine for invalid ticket
6) £500 fine for second offence in a rolling 2 years
7) £5000 fine for third offence in a rolling 2 years
8) independent appeals process (like the Parking fines appeals process)
9) a high level of training for all revenue inspectors, in particular how to use ‘discretion’ appropriately.
10) two years notice of the above process being implemented, with plenty of publicity.

end of sermon.

I’m sure many will challenge much of this!

The rest of this sounds rather reasonable! Regarding fines, the current situation of fines being (partially) based on income is something that I like, but it does rather complicate the process. The idea of repeat offenders being fined more sounds reasonable though. For the ticket checking targets, maybe something like scan targets for guards combined with roving RPI teams would help achieve that. I do think it's important to give guards some flexibility in doing their jobs though

 

[Ken H]

I saw the on-train/tram ticket inspectors in Brussels when I lived there. 4-5 people in uniform got on the train. The doors were locked shut till they had done the train/tram. that started at one end and worked through so there was no escape.
no barriers for Brussels/trams. you just get on. But the frequent inspections were enough to stop fraud.
I think I was inspected once per week on average.

 

[Bald Rick]

What about say a first time user or tourist with cash only or a card fails.

First time users will be overwhelmingly young, and overwhelmingly have a phone with which to buy a ticket (and be overwhelmingly competent at doing so!).

Tourists - how did they pay for their ticket to get into the country?

More generally, many buses are now card only, airlines are, etc etc.

Card failures / machine failures. Same process as now.

 

[baz962]

First time users will be overwhelmingly young, and overwhelmingly have a phone with which to buy a ticket (and be overwhelmingly competent at doing so!).

Tourists - how did they pay for their ticket to get into the country?

More generally, many buses are now card only, airlines are, etc etc.

Card failures / machine failures. Same process as now.

Like I said not disagreeing, just interested. As per the tourist one, when abroad I quite often leave my card in my hotel safe and use cash and that's despite the total opposite of home , where I rarely use cash and almost always use the card. I didn't realise and don't know the process for card failures. I was also asking this as my card wouldn't work on an air machine in a petrol station that I use around twice a week and so luckily my son tapped his card and it worked, so machine ok and card not it would appear. Several days later and my same card worked without doing anything, such as contacting bank etc.

 

[zwk500]

I wrote this many years ago, but to me the answer is simple, albeit with controversial elements:

1) You must have a valid ticket before boarding a train, without exception
2) There must be an opportunity to buy a ticket at every station, located obviously at the entrance(s) to the station building or platform. Ticket machines card only to reduce the need for staff to visit
3) Clear signage and occasional announcements to this effect must be present at the station and on the train
4) Increased ticket checks on trains; on all long distance services sufficient to check every ticket on every train, on local / regional services sufficient to check 50% of passengers boarding at unbarriered stations, and 10% of passengers at barriered stations.
5) £100 fine for invalid ticket
6) £500 fine for second offence in a rolling 2 years
7) £5000 fine for third offence in a rolling 2 years
8) independent appeals process (like the Parking fines appeals process)
9) a high level of training for all revenue inspectors, in particular how to use ‘discretion’ appropriately.
10) two years notice of the above process being implemented, with plenty of publicity.

end of sermon.

I’m sure many will challenge much of this!

I'd change two things: Point 9 should be in 4th position and Point 2 should also include e-tickets being available for all journeys, with clear links/QR codes and instructions present at stations.

I'd also like Snipers to be part of this solution, but not sure if they should come in at point 4) or point 7).

 

[py_megapixel]

Exactly more hours and staff there more people buy ticket as they will know there’s change getting caught especially friday and Saturday evenings as they are busy.

I am certainly in favour of more ticket inspections if it will genuinely combat fare evasion, but more staff is no good if the TOC does not provide good quality training in customer service and in how the ticketing system works. In extreme cases inadequate training could cause more harm by good, such as by causing passengers to be unnecessarily challenged over tickets which are in fact valid, or leading someone to believe that their ticket is valid when it is not.

 

[Peter Sarf]

Is this, now, a problem of any extent at all? How many people - at all - travel without some sort of credit or debit card?

But this does have to be coped with - as does ticket machine failure for whatever reason. But surely a rare enough occasion to be tackled as an exception rather than a rule? Maybe allow ticket inspectors (generic term) to issue some sort of late payment ticket - if you comply (phone up/use the website to pay) in 24 or 48 hours of it being issued there's no penalty but otherwise it becomes an automatic penalty. And keep track of the names and addresses given to allow the 'less sympathy for a second occurrence' measure at points (6) and (7) to kick in if the problem is a failed card (so customer failure) rather than a failed ticket machine (railway failure).

It is one of the things I feel needs to be looks at - the opportunity needs to exist to be able to pay the fare within a reasonable time - counted in days not hours. It is something I have an issue with with the growing number of congestion charges and tolls. It is a nasty habit to fine someone who has not paid due to error, ignorance or plain oversight. To be fined straight away with no option to pay your way makes the "victim" feel they are being labelled as a bad person. This leads to future disrespect for the "system". I know someone who entered the London congestion charge zone without knowing it existed and is still anti London to this day. Must be careful not to demonise people who make simple mistakes but must come down hard on repeat offenders.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 20 Oct 2022 ==

I'd change two things: Point 9 should be in 4th position and Point 2 should also include e-tickets being available for all journeys, with clear links/QR codes and instructions present at stations.

I'd also like Snipers to be part of this solution, but not sure if they should come in at point 4) or point 7).

Snipers are impractical. Someone has to then go out and clean up the mess on our spotlessly clean railways.

Oh I just thought - taggers, yes please. Seriously though - my view of taggers is they should not be there and should not be doing what they are doing. Its not a grey area like fares evasion/mistakes. But the railways seem to be toothless on tagging which I see as far more damaging to the atmosphere presented to decent folk than fare evasion.

How do people view fare evasion in relation to other problems like tagging ?.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

It is one of the things I feel needs to be looks at - the opportunity needs to exist to be able to pay the fare within a reasonable time - counted in days not hours. It is something I have an issue with with the growing number of congestion charges and tolls. It is a nasty habit to fine someone who has not paid due to error, ignorance or plain oversight. To be fined straight away with no option to pay your way makes the "victim" feel they are being labelled as a bad person. This leads to future disrespect for the "system". I know someone who entered the London congestion charge zone without knowing it existed and is still anti London to this day. Must be careful not to demonise people who make simple mistakes but must come down hard on repeat offenders.

Agreed that there should be some way to pay without penalty for an innocent error. But why should the time to pay be 'days rather than hours'? Someone who arrives at a station for the next train but without a ticket has only minutes rather than days to remedy the matter (by going to the ticket office or ticket machine, or buying a ticket on their phone) so why should they then get days to do what they should have done in minutes?

Someone who has made an innocent mistake would surely have been expecting to pay for their journey on the day. What is needed is time enough for them to reach somewhere where they have full access to their financial resources (put less grandly, time to get home and access the website on their iPad rather than their iPhone, or find their spare credit card, or phone up their bank and get whatever was blocking their card taken off) and then make the payment that they expected to make at the start of their journey. Given that there are very few railway journeys that can't be completed in a day, expecting payment to be made the same day - maybe the next day to allow for overnight travel - isn't unreasonable, and doesn't give an advantage to the traveller who didn't pay at the right time over their neighbour who did get their ticket before boarding the train.

 

[zwk500]

Oh I just thought - taggers, yes please. Seriously though - my view of taggers is they should not be there and should not be doing what they are doing. Its not a grey area like fares evasion/mistakes. But the railways seem to be toothless on tagging which I see as far more damaging to the atmosphere presented to decent folk than fare evasion.

How do people view fare evasion in relation to other problems like tagging ?.

On a practical basis, both are in the same boat for me - you'll never catch 100% of them, but we could make a bigger effort for the 80% or so we can deal with.
A discussion of how to deal with tsgging probably warrants its own thread, but we have had them before and it can get messy.

 

[Pompey00]

I wrote this many years ago, but to me the answer is simple, albeit with controversial elements:

1) You must have a valid ticket before boarding a train, without exception
2) There must be an opportunity to buy a ticket at every station, located obviously at the entrance(s) to the station building or platform. Ticket machines card only to reduce the need for staff to visit
3) Clear signage and occasional announcements to this effect must be present at the station and on the train
4) Increased ticket checks on trains; on all long distance services sufficient to check every ticket on every train, on local / regional services sufficient to check 50% of passengers boarding at unbarriered stations, and 10% of passengers at barriered stations.
5) £100 fine for invalid ticket
6) £500 fine for second offence in a rolling 2 years
7) £5000 fine for third offence in a rolling 2 years
8) independent appeals process (like the Parking fines appeals process)
9) a high level of training for all revenue inspectors, in particular how to use ‘discretion’ appropriately.
10) two years notice of the above process being implemented, with plenty of publicity.

end of sermon.

I’m sure many will challenge much of this!

Yh I 1000% agreed but there will be Still be people who avoid buying tickets and using the same excuse every time.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 20 Oct 2022 ==

I am certainly in favour of more ticket inspections if it will genuinely combat fare evasion, but more staff is no good if the TOC does not provide good quality training in customer service and in how the ticketing system works. In extreme cases inadequate training could cause more harm by good, such as by causing passengers to be unnecessarily challenged over tickets which are in fact valid, or leading someone to believe that their ticket is valid when it is not.

More inspections is needed and gated and none gated stations.

 

[py_megapixel]

More inspections is needed and gated and none gated stations.

I don't disagree with this. My point is that the staff carrying out those inspections need to be well qualified to do that. It's a minority, but unfortunately there are gateline staff who simply do not understand the ticketing system or how to provide basic customer service, presumably because of a failure on the part of the TOC to train them adequately. And if it isn't done properly, a move to vastly increase the number of inspections in a short space of time risks exacerbating this issue and thus doing more harm than good.

 

[Bald Rick]

I know someone who entered the London congestion charge zone without knowing it existed and is still anti London to this day.

I’m sorry, but if they missed all the signs both by the side of the road and on the roads themselves, then either their eyesight is too poor to drive or they were paying insufficient attention to drive.

1000% agreed but there will be Still be people who avoid buying tickets and using the same excuse every time.

of course. But after the third time and a £5k fine, most will surely think again. For those that don’t there’s no hope regardless of the penalty.