Paying only when challenged – cash vs card

[FGW_DID]

just how much is being lost due to theft, not necessarily an absolute figure but an estimate from and authoritative source?

After just a quick Google, according to this article on the BBC News website, it’s approx £100 million per year in London with the source quoted as TfL:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-47358028

People who dodge paying fares when travelling on London transport are costing the system £100m a year, Transport for London (TfL) has said.

The amount lost to fare evasion across the network is nearly £15m higher than previous estimates.

London TravelWatch, TfL's official watchdog, has called for more revenue protection staff and investment in security improvements.

TfL said there was a 15% rise in prosecutions last year.

This is the first time the estimate of lost revenue has reached £100m. The last estimate in 2016 put the annual loss at £86m.

Fares go unpaid in a range of ways on London's transport network, from failing to touch in and out with an Oyster card to the use of counterfeit tickets.

Some 450 revenue inspectors are employed across the network to try to stop fare dodging.

 

[yorkie]

After just a quick Google, according to this article on the BBC News website, it’s approx £100 million per year in London with the source quoted as TfL:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-47358028

That's an article about fare evasion, not theft. These are not the same offense.

I really don't think we are going to get anywhere with this thread ; we have established that some people want to remove cash as a valid payment method and some people want to say cash is only accepted if the customer doesn't have a card in their possession. Neither of those desires are likely to become reality any time soon.

 

[AM9]

After just a quick Google, according to this article on the BBC News website, it’s approx £100 million per year in London with the source quoted as TfL:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-47358028

The figure on the TfL network with a totally different rail network with about 370 stations, legally enforced cashless buses, millions of passengers every day, - a lot of whom are tourists, and peak-hours where barriers are routinely opened for safety reasons, is not really relevant to the sprawling network of rail backwaters on Northern that have card-only TVMs and no barriers on hundreds of unmanned stations.

 

[FGW_DID]

Stop moving the goalposts!

Are we talking about people not paying fares or are we actually talking theft of cash from TVMs? I am perfectly aware of what the theft offence consists of!

it was AM9 who mentioned ticketless travel and theft in the same sentence:

…………stop ticketless travel' rhetoric, just how much is being lost due to theft……………

 

[FGW_DID]

From the Northern Rail website seeing as they keep getting referenced:

https://www.northernrailway.co.uk/legal/fines-penalties/fines-and-penalty-faqs/825-myth-busting

It is estimated that fare evasion costs the rail industry over £200 million a year. A large number of the cases prosecuted by the DRPU involve relatively small amounts of money. This reflects the fares charged for travel on the network operated by Northern. However, these small amounts add up to a large sum and comprise the revenue that Northern is committed to protect. Because of this the DRPU will not regard a case as failing the public interest test just because the sum in dispute is relatively small.

My bold.

 

[TrafficEng]

I just can’t fathom why a normal human being, who isn’t being “awkward for awkwardness sake” isn’t going to buy a ticket from a machine with a card just because they might prefer using cash!

I don’t see why any person with a bit of honesty and integrity about them, even if they prefer using cash, wouldn’t buy a ticket from a working TVM with a bank card!

Having read the whole thread, I think the privacy aspect of this issue hasn't been given due weight.

To answer your two questions, I think a normal human being with honesty and integrity may in some situations want to purchase a train ticket with cash, rather than using a bank card, because they believe they have the right to privacy in making that journey and shouldn't be required to share that information with others.

Before someone responds that any law-abiding citizen shouldn't need such privacy, please consider the scenario of someone living near Stone Crossing being in an abusive relationship and needs to travel to Northfleet for an appointment with a solicitor/counsellor/healthcare professional/refuge/advice centre. Paying by bank card would alert the abuser to the victim's actions, whereas paying by cash allows for the plausible explanation the money was spent on food/drink or something else.

This is of course a relatively obscure reason, but as yorkie and others have said, whilst the law allows for the payment to be made by cash then cash should be accepted. If someone wants to change the law (or policy) then they can lobby for this to happen. At which point other people - perhaps including groups representing those in abusive relationships - could add their perspective to the debate and either prevent the proposal or have suitable amendments to cater for all and any special circumstances that might exist.

 

[TrafficEng]

....It just 'aint gonna happen even with the current lurch to the right that the UK is suffering from.

I don't know about a "lurch to the right", but my experience is the locational and demographic trends (especially in terms of age) among the people who voted for the present government would suggest "rural/small town" rather than "city", and "older" rather than "younger".

In both of the former groups the propensity for traditional methods and a cash-based system is greater than that in the latter groups.

So rather than "even with" I would suggest it is because of the "lurch to the right" that a fully cashless society has been delayed for a few extra years. Middle England is far less enthused by the idea than Inner London.

 

[TrafficEng]

I'm suggesting that the published accepted method of payment should include cash only at staffed ticket windows during their hours of opening, at other times and at other locations including on-board only card would be accepted. London Buses has managed to do this, and I bet more people paid cash on buses than do for train journeys.

Given the risks to guards handling cash that others have raised, as well as the costs and risks of having cash-accepting TVMs at all stations, surely the logical answer is to do the opposite and only place cash-accepting machines on-board the trains?

From a security point of view it would be better for a machine rather than a person to handle the money, plus on-board trains the machines would have CCTV coverage and staff nearby, and wouldn't need people to travel to out of the way locations to collect the cash as that could be emptied on layovers or at the end of the day (depending on usage).

On the cashless buses point, I don't have stats, but around the introduction of Oyster a lot of bus travel was done using paper tickets including day travel cards, bus passes and the Bus Saver. Differential fares meant that generally the only people paying cash on board were those travelling unprepared or tourists who didn't understand the system. Cash had largely died out before it was banned. Attempting to introduce differential cash payment fares for rail travel on the national network would be an 'interesting' exercise and I don't see it as a route any Government is likely to go down when simplification is the current watchword.

 

[Clip]

Given the risks to guards handling cash that others have raised, as well as the costs and risks of having cash-accepting TVMs at all stations, surely the logical answer is to do the opposite and only place cash-accepting machines on-board the trains?

You would still have the issue of people only paying when challenged and the machines getting broken into.

Ideally i would like to think that if people had a card with money on it they would use that to make life simple for themselves but itll never be made compulsory because how would anyone know you even had a card on you if you just had a wedge of notes?

 

[yorkie]

From the Northern Rail website seeing as they keep getting referenced:

https://www.northernrailway.co.uk/legal/fines-penalties/fines-and-penalty-faqs/825-myth-busting

My bold.

What's that got to do with people choosing to use cash?

 

[35B]

You can hardly call not holding a basic bank account with debit card "digital exclusion". It's not a modern technology, it's one that's been around for years.

I can and I do, because it is part of the same prevailing assumption that a technology is so pervasive that all must have it, and those without are edged out to their direct and significant detriment.

 

[35B]

I disagree. Cash is an almighty nuisance and drives crime. Get rid.

Thank you for taking a percentage off my churches income from events, as banks interpose themselves and take their cut.

Meanwhile, other important values from the use of cash, especially for children, are lost in the gadarene rush towards new technology.

 

[ainsworth74]

I think we've gone around this particular subject for quite long enough now. I'm definetly re-reading the same re-heated arguments that always crop up on this sort of topic. More to the point we're also far and away off topic now.