Fare Dodging - the new national sport?

[mrmartin]

My personal guess is the biggest £ loss the railway sees in terms of 'fare evasion' is people reusing unchecked return tickets. Loads of professional people will happily reuse the return leg of an £200 anytime return over and over if they don't get their ticket marked, a bit like how people used to reuse stamps if they don't get marked without thinking there is anything wrong with it.

I'm not sure though if barriers are set to reject an already used ticket. Regardless the staff will let you through anyway if you show them it.

This must be the main driver for abolishing returns?

 

[Haywain]

This must be the main driver for abolishing returns?

The sort of misuse you suggest is a driver to moving to eTickets as these will, when correctly scanned, give a much clearer picture of when and where they have been used. As a bonus they also allow an easy reference to previous buying and usage patterns when someone os caught misusing them.

 

[Sonic1234]

queueing at the barriers because they don't have enough

This is why I've never liked GTR's policy of rejecting all Advance tickets at the barriers. It also shows they have little faith the Southern OBSs will check tickets.

 

[eroded]

The sort of misuse you suggest is a driver to moving to eTickets as these will, when correctly scanned, give a much clearer picture of when and where they have been used. As a bonus they also allow an easy reference to previous buying and usage patterns when someone os caught misusing them.

Not sure I follow - scanning an eTicket is akin to a guard spoiling the return portion of a paper ticket.

Unless people are stupid enough to attempt to rescan an eTicket that has already been used on a previous day.

 

[pokemonsuper9]

Why they introduced this new 16-17 railcard beats me. It would have been simpler to change the child ticket age to be under 18.

- To get £60 (over two years) from people.
- If the age was decreased it'd be easier for late teens/early 20s to get away with a child ticket.
- To get penalty fares from the ones that don't buy the railcard if they fail the quickfire age test.

 

[Haywain]

Not sure I follow - scanning an eTicket is akin to a guard spoiling the return portion of a paper ticket.

Yes but a ticket that hasn't been marked by a guard and has been through a barrier remains unmarked. An eTicket may not be marked but it won't pass a scan after its use has been completed.

Unless people are stupid enough to attempt to rescan an eTicket that has already been used on a previous day.

It can be quite surprising to find out how stupid people can be in pursuit of saving a pound or two.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 24 Feb 2023 ==

- If the age was decreased it'd be easier for late teens/early 20s to get away with a child ticket.

If the age for child tickets was increased, it would also have to apply in Scotland.