Compulsory Ticket Areas

[CyrusWuff]

(Mods: Feel free to move this elsewhere if you think it would be more appropriate)

A response has recently been posted to a FOI request to the Department for Transport regarding railway stations with Compulsory Ticket Areas.

The request was as follows:

Could you provide me with a current list of stations served by National Rail services that feature a Compulsory Ticket Area - as defined in The Railways (Penalty Fares) Regulations 2018 - either in whole or in part?

For the avoidance of doubt, this should include stations served by Caledonian Sleeper, Elizabeth Line, London Overground, Merseyrail, ScotRail and Transport for Wales Rail services where the Department holds that information.

Could you also provide the last date stations were added to and removed from this list, and which stations were involved?

Seems perfectly straightforward, right? Here's the key part of the DfT's response:

I am writing to let you know that your request has been considered under the FOI Act 2000 and that the Department has completed its search for the information. I can confirm that the Department does not hold the information that you have requested.

Which begs the question as to who does have that information, and who is responsible for authorising Penalty Fare schemes since the demise of the Strategic Rail Authority?

 

[gray1404]

Shocking! Totally shocking! I would certainly have them look at this again.

 

[Surreytraveller]

I'm not an expert, but one would have thought the penalty fare legislation would state that the compulsory ticket areas would need to be recorded somewhere and available to the public. Otherwise how could the railway put its case if someone challenged a penalty fare in court?

 

[Benjwri]

The DfT is fundamentally incorrect, unless they are failing to fulfil their obligations. According to the ORR:

Train companies publish their own penalty fares schemes, which must be approved by the Department for Transport.

And according to the railway bylaws,

“Compulsory ticket area” means any area designated as such under a penalty fares scheme and identified by a notice to this effect. Persons who enter a compulsory ticket area without being in possession of a valid ticket may be liable to pay a penalty fare.

Therefore for a CTA to exist it must be included in a companiess Penalty Fare Scheme, which must have been approved by the DfT, and therefore the information must be held by them.

 

[Bungle965]

Perhaps one to be sent off to the Information Commissioner if there’s a belief that they do in fact hold the information?

 

[CyrusWuff]

A side question is: If CTAs were established under British Rail or a Penalty Fare scheme that was approved by the Strategic Rail Authority, where would those records have gone following their demise?

 

[Benjwri]

A side question is: If CTAs were established under British Rail or a Penalty Fare scheme that was approved by the Strategic Rail Authority, where would those records have gone following their demise?

Likely they would have been lost by now, but they would have gone to the DfT, or may be held in a National Archive.

However as I understand a CTA that is active now would still need to be listed in a TOC's current penalty fare scheme to be legally valid.

 

[MotCO]

If no-one has the information, how can CTAs be enforced, and if someone has been charged with not having a ticket in a CTA, is there any way this can be upheld if no-one knows if that station is inside or outside a CTA?

 

[CyrusWuff]

A bit more digging on What Do They Know? has found this FOI request from December 2016, where the DfT provided the requester with copies of the documentation for all of the TOC Penalty Fares schemes.

Sadly a further request in June 2018 resulted in a response from the DfT that the 2018 Regulations no longer require TOCs to seek approval for changes to their Penalty Fares schemes, implying they no longer retained copies.

 

[furlong]

The DfT's response is what I would have expected. As I mentioned on a recent thread, there is no central authorisation or list any more. Nowadays a CTA is simply defined by the notices at the station that say it is a CTA (backed up by mentioning this in the operator's published Penalty Fares documentation). All part of the simplification of Penalty Fares that happened a few years ago.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

The DfT is fundamentally incorrect, unless they are failing to fulfil their obligations. According to the ORR:

And according to the railway bylaws,

Therefore for a CTA to exist it must be included in a companiess Penalty Fare Scheme, which must have been approved by the DfT, and therefore the information must be held by them.

A bit more digging on What Do They Know? has found this FOI request from December 2016, where the DfT provided the requester with copies of the documentation for all of the TOC Penalty Fares schemes.

Sadly a further request in June 2018 resulted in a response from the DfT that the 2018 Regulations no longer require TOCs to seek approval for changes to their Penalty Fares schemes, implying they no longer retained copies.

So presumably we need to ask each TOC for their penalty fares scheme. Without looking (and maybe optimistically) I imagine that we don’t even need to ask and can find the scheme on the TOC website.

 

[Benjwri]

So presumably we need to ask each TOC for their penalty fares scheme. Without looking (and maybe optimistically) I imagine that we don’t even need to ask and can find the scheme on the TOC website.

It certainly used to be the case that they were on websites however as far as I can find no TOC published them anymore.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

It certainly used to be the case that they were on websites however as far as I can find no TOC published them anymore.

So twenty-something politely worded emails (most TOCs are private companies and so aren't FOI-able) it is then.

 

[furlong]

That's largely pointless - the list hasn't changed - unless you're trying to draw this to their attention now and encourage other TOCs to introduce more of them!