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Cutting your fare short

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aleph_0

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All I'm saying is that I would establish the situation to my satisfaction prior to issuing any ticket. I'd pose questions that could not trip up or antagonise an honest passenger.

I never once said that anyone who didn't state their point of boarding first was trying it on, although I can understand why the usual anti revenue protection crowd would want me to have said that. I'm afraid said crowd has to accept that the railway is not a museum which you can traverse without paying.

OK, no you didn't state this. But to quote you from earlier in the thread, where Old Timer was implying that there was something wrong with the passenger asking for a ticket not from their actual boarding station, you said:

RJ said:
Few people who genuinely want the transaction to be done with as quickly as possible would neglect to state where they had travelled from first.

Which suggested you agreed with Old Timer, who was of that view. No-one has suggested that they would object to you then obtaining more information. That would be a good idea. The objection was to Old Timer jumping to conclusions, rather than doing this.

Unfortunately, just as not all customers are as honest as the ones here not all staff us customers encounter will be as knowledgeable as you, so I avoid giving details about my trip and inducing advice unless asked (or I know that it would/should be asked for). That's not anti-revenue, that's just common sense (since I just want to purchase a ticket for my planned route, if I don't know what ticket is suitable, I would first outline my journey instead).

Of course, I'm not trying to claim full knowledge of your job, and usually when I need assistance, staff are excellent. A little knowledge is dangerous, and I would normally avoid trying to say how staff should do their jobs better. But Old Timer asked how this situation under consideration could be dealt with better, and you/everyone else both have the same answer here - ask for more information until you can provide the correct ticket, or you have enough evidence that the passenger was trying to defraud the railway. Doesn't feel particularly anti-revenue to me.
 
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RailUK Forums

RJ

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Truth be told, I don't really have any knowledge, I make it up as I go along and hope for the best :p.
 

reb0118

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Small Point of Order

For the Leeds Suburban example above surely the correct ticket would be a return from Burley Park with an overdistance excess single to Headingly?

The passenger should have stated that they boarded at Burley Park but wished to return to Headingly.

I have great sympathy for the passenger in the above instance but also understand the actions of the railway.
 

yorkie

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If I turned up at York and asked for a York-Manchester with an over-distance excess to Poppleton I think that they would simply issue a Poppleton-Manchester and quite rightly refuse to issue a separate excess, as it would create a huge amount of hassle and would be the same price. There is no problem at all asking for a ticket from further afield.
 

transmanche

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Clearly what this thread needs is a job lot of PERTIS machines!
I was thinking exactly the same thing!

There's one at my local (unstaffed) station, but last time I used it I got told not to.
And the same thing happened to me too. Having put £3 in, the guard suggested that in future that I put in the smallest coin that I had as "the machines are quite unreliable".

So perhaps a PERTIS-type machine that doesn't require any coins to be used? Effectively an automated version of the 'voucher system'.
 

island

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The main problem I see with that would be the local chavs coming along and printing themselves vouchers until the machine runs out and then scattering them around the platform.
 
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