People's attitude to buying tickets.

[rs101]

I'm not certain whether it is an exact comparison but Tesco makes it very easy to pay. Besides the regular check-outs my local Tesco has a lane for 'less than 10 items' (or whatever), self scan machines, machines for those who scanned while they shopped and the cigarette counter where you can pay for items - like a Mars bar. Contrast with my local station - ticket office open for 3-and-a-half hours a weekday (but 'staff may not be available during staffing times' - there are days when it is unstaffed), ticket machine (no mention that it only took cards) which has not worked for some time and has now been replaced by a traffic cone. When I used the 'help point' as I needed to pick up a pre-purchased ticket, I was advised to go the next station in the wrong direction. If Tesco made it just as difficult to pay (for instance, if the little Tesco's were largely unstaffed, had a machine by the door which only took cards and didn't always work), I bet shop lifting would be rife!

I am not excusing travelling without a ticket in any way, but once you do it and get away with it, I bet it is easier next time around.

Indeed - the concept of customer service and making it easy for customers to pay seems completely alien to some rail operators.

My local station (Manningtree) in theory has a ticket office and 2 machines (one of which is card only).

Was buying a ticket on Saturday and very nearly missed my train even though I was at the station 15 minutes before scheduled departure.

The cash/card machine was out of action and the ticket office had a notice up saying it was closed due to staff shift changeover and would reopen in 30 minutes (well after the train I wanted to catch and I wasn't going to wait another 30 minutes for the next 'fast' train to London).

Other passengers were taking forever to buy tickets thanks to the inspired idea of moving the machines out of the lobby, where the screen was easily readable, and putting them outside, in direct sunlight!

Luckily, the line was running as efficiently as ever and the train was 5 minutes late, so I managed to buy a ticket.

No idea if I could use a mobile ticket or not - that's a complete mess around here. Last time I checked, I could use them for advance tickets on the Norwich line or any tickets on the Southend line. Same TOC and app, but different restrictions!

 

[Mutant Lemming]

Am not sure this 'advice' from Scotrail is correct either. Surely if you board somewhere on the West Highland Line (or any of the large number of unstaffed, non-machine stations) for instance , you should be able to get the 'best fare' from the guard as much as anywhere else - or at the very least the 'always' is wrong?

Buying your ticket You’ll always get the best fare if you buy your ticket before boarding your train. You also remove the risk of having to queue for a ticket at busy times when you get off. Find out the different ways to buy your ticket at www.scotrail.co.uk/buy-before-you-board

 

[philthetube]

Don't need gates, just PF first offence, prosecute second, (and not bylaws) CCTV on ticket offices and machines = excuses about machines not working of long queues easily checked.

 

[furlong]

You’ll always get the best fare if you buy your ticket before boarding your train.

So has Scotrail unilaterally decided to disregard industry quotas that would normally restrict the availability of the 'best fare' for a particular journey?
And every point of sale can issue the 'best fare' now? And their ticket machines now sell the complete range of rovers, as well as priv tickets, do they?
Someone should print that out and try holding them to the claim! (It should be reported to the ORR and perhaps the ASA.)

 

[Bantamzen]

I think the end result of this issue isn't as big as some people might think, with about 3% of revenue going uncollected IIRC. Now 3% isn't ideal, but considering the abovementioned issues I think it's a pretty good figure.

That's 3% of the revenue lost that they know of, there will be more, indeed in some areas considerably more.

As for the issue in general, quite clearly TOCs need to do more in terms of making it easier & better to buy before boarding. Ideally more & more people would be using E/M-Ticketing or smartcard options, but this would be better done as a network-wide initiative, driven by DfT rather than on a TOC by TOC basis. Sadly the nature of this current government is to leave as much to someone else as possible, so I don't expect any National Rail standardisation of electronic ticketing any time soon. So more TVMs (this does seem to be slowly happening in my corner of West Yorkshire), improvements to user interfaces (UIs) & better ticketing options are all things that can be rolled out over time as TOCs work towards an increasingly buy before boarding policy.

However, in order to drive passenger attitude changes to buying before boarding, a simple discount could be applied to tickets bought online, on mobile apps, at ticket offices & at TVMs. Not a huge discount, a couple of percent would do but it could be the kind of driver that would quickly change the habits of most passengers. And where on-station facilities where unavailable, a refund of the lost discount could be applied for. I am aware that this won't be to everyone's taste, but offering incentives for buying in advance of a service is an increasingly common method for service providers not only to gather revenue more effectively, but to gauge and grow demand. However the argument that people want to pay cash, or just don't like TVMs is diminishing rapidly as society changes it's habits. There are increasing number of occasions where one simply does not have the choice but to use some form of electronic payment method, and there are more than enough technical solutions to handle just about every situation now.

Of course the above idea would be helped if people actually took time to report issues when the arise. I've seen discussions on social media about issues with (for example) faulty TVMs, asked those discussing it if they've reported it to the TOC only to get a response along the lines of "its not my job". Whilst TOCs should increasingly be able to regularly monitor the health of their TVMs either directly or indirectly via CCTV, that little bit of help from the travelling public can help resolve problems that little bit quicker.

As for the most persistent evaders, I like the idea of the three strikes system. Start with a penalty fare for the first time, then a more substantial fine / bylaw prosecution for a second, followed by potential criminal prosecution for the third (each stage subject to appeal of course). It won't capture every one, nor deter every evader but well publicised it should convince most that it simply isn't worth. This will of course still require checks at stations and/or on trains, but I'm convinced that a stronger policy will help resolve most issues.

 

[The_Train]

The simple solution is to ensure that each station has some way of purchasing a ticket thus removing the need for train staff to ever need to sell tickets on board. I understand that this requires TVMs to not only accept multiple methods of payment but also to work or at least advise staff when it is not working. If signalling centres can know if some points have failed miles away from where they are, surely something can be implemented into the TVMs which notifies someone when they have failed? A train guard can then be advised to expect to have to sell tickets to anyone boarding at the relevant station

 

[BanburyBlue]

You might be, but the subject of this thread is about people getting the idea that it acceptable to board a train without having first bought a ticket. As I and others have pointed out, in many places it is perfectly acceptable.

However, having stated that there are plenty of places and cases where it is perfectly acceptable for people to board without a ticket, I have to say that I think the main reason that people think that it is acceptable, is because in most cases it is tolerated. My station is now in a Penalty Fare area, but guards routinely sell tickets on the train without any suggestion that the person buying the ticket on the train has done anything wrong. They just sell the same ticket as the person could have bought at the TVM or ticket office. I can't ever recall anyone within my earshot ever being charged a penalty fare. Repeatedly letting someone get away with something sets a precedent - it is then unrealistic in my view to then claim that the person should have realised that they were doing wrong. To take the supermarket analogy, if a supermarket catches you walking out without paying for your shopping, they do not just let you pay for your shopping and go on your way without pointing out that you have done anything wrong!

The only way to beat this perception that it is acceptable to board without a ticket is to take a zero-tolerance approach, anything else is by definition tolerance. However, as Bookd says, for this to work, the TOCs would have to provide adequate ticket-purchasing facilities. Certainly the one TVM on my station is nowhere near adequate in the morning rush-hour, which I suspect is why guards don't enforce the penalty fare policy - they would have a riot on their hands if they did. I suspect that most people on this forum could name many stations that come nowhere near the 5 minute target for selling tickets in the rush-hour. Let alone all the stations that have no ticketing facilities at all. It would be too expensive for the TOCs to provide proper ticketing facilities at every station on the network. Which is why boarding without a ticket is tacitly accepted, with just the occasional clamp-down as a token effort to enforce the rules. It is perhaps not a coincidence that those areas that are hotest on penalising for ticketless travel are those that have the best ticket-issuing facilities, such as L&SE.

And to an extent I think this is a good deal of the problem. If Guards don't enforce FP's and just sell tickets, people assume that's the way it's supposed to work. So then confused when a week later, they get given a FP for doing exactly the same thing they did the week before. That said, surely the TOC's must know this? They must have data from the guard's ticket machines showing what has been sold and make them wonder why a specific guard has sold lots of tickets but not issues any Fixed Penalties?

 

[IceAgeComing]

I've fallen foul of that Scotrail thing before; and then got penalised when I did the right thing and tried to buy a ticket before biardong. Both times were at Falkirk Grahamston station which has a ticket office but no ticket machines. One day I arrived 15 minutes before my train to Stirling; massive queue at the one window open so I think that I'll just buy on the train and then have to pay for an Anytime Return rather than a railcard Off-Peak Day Return because the guard was like "you should have bought at the station". Next time I go to Grahamston they have the ticket office light on and one of the curtains up but no one is there so I wait by the window thinking that the ticket window is open. 15 minutes later my train pulls in but I wait and it goes away only for the staff person to come 30 seconds later and say "we're closed; buy on the train". So at that time it was one of those damned if you do and damned if you don't things and it probably explains why some guards just let people pay on board.

 

[Belperpete]

The TVMs at my local EMT stations are internet-connected, in order to be able to sell by credit-card and issue tickets for collection. RPIs are able to remotely check their status through the internet connection without needing to look at CCTV monitoring.

Most rural stations now having lighting, so have power for a TVM. Providing the internet connection will still be an issue at some rural locations. However, with 4G, not as big a problem as it was just a few years ago.

 

[mallard]

RPIs are able to remotely check their status through the internet connection without needing to look at CCTV monitoring.

Of course, there are many faults that cannot be detected remotely (e.g. someone jammed chewing gum in the card slot, spraypaint obscuring the screen, damage to pin entry keypad, etc.), so having RPIs saying "computer says it's fine, have a PF" is not solving the problem.

 

[Bantamzen]

Of course, there are many faults that cannot be detected remotely (e.g. someone jammed chewing gum in the card slot, spraypaint obscuring the screen, damage to pin entry keypad, etc.), so having RPIs saying "computer says it's fine, have a PF" is not solving the problem.

This is where passengers can help by reporting issues as soon as they encounter them, that way the TOCs can take them off-line so that RPIs can see there is an issue.

 

[mallard]

This is where passengers can help by reporting issues as soon as they encounter them, that way the TOCs can take them off-line so that RPIs can see there is an issue.

Do any TOCs have an easy way to do that? I don't think I've seen anything other than a generic customer service number on signage.

I'm not sure I'm keen on the whole "call up a customer service line, try to explain to the callcenter worker who is likely in a different country and knows little about the UK's railways what the issue is, hope they don't just fob it off as outside their remit and actually have a way of contacting someone relevant" procedure. I suppose there's always the "take a photo and tweet it at the TOC" option. Even explaining the problem to the guard on the train might just come across as "this is my excuse as to why I shouldn't be prosecuted for not having a ticket"...

 

[Bantamzen]

Do any TOCs have an easy way to do that? I don't think I've seen anything other than a generic customer service number on signage.

I'm not sure I'm keen on the whole "call up a customer service line, try to explain to the callcenter worker who is likely in a different country and knows little about the UK's railways what the issue is, hope they don't just fob it off as outside their remit and actually have a way of contacting someone relevant" procedure. I suppose there's always the "take a photo and tweet it at the TOC" option. Even explaining the problem to the guard on the train might just come across as "this is my excuse as to why I shouldn't be prosecuted for not having a ticket"...

What easier way would you like other than calling a telephone number or posting on a social media site such as Twitter? I've used Twitter a couple of times & always had a response that the issue has been passed on for resolution within a few minutes. And as you mention there is always the guard. I think most companies having spend some considerable amount of time, effort and money installing revenue protection machines like TVMs are hardly going to ignore reports that they are out of order & not collecting that revenue.

 

[Belperpete]

Of course, there are many faults that cannot be detected remotely (e.g. someone jammed chewing gum in the card slot, spraypaint obscuring the screen, damage to pin entry keypad, etc.), so having RPIs saying "computer says it's fine, have a PF" is not solving the problem.

I would assume that the RPI can see more than a simple working / not-working. If the RPI can interrogate to see what time the machine last sold a ticket by cash and card, then that would cover most of these problems.

 

[island]

I think the core of the problem is the “pay only when challenged” brigade, who have an attitude that the train network is there and travelling anyway and they need to make an effort to collect fares.

 

[Haywain]

I think the core of the problem is the “pay only when challenged” brigade, who have an attitude that the train network is there and travelling anyway and they need to make an effort to collect fares.

Indeed. Whilst there may be plenty to discuss about providing opportunities to pay, there are still far too many people who, when presented with an unavoidable opportunity to pay, will choose to attempt to pay rather less than is actually due. Many, if not all, of these people will happily avoid that opportunity if the chance to do so arises.

 

[trainmania100]

I personally feel tickets are too expensive. This may be why people fare dodge.

 

[al78]

I personally feel tickets are too expensive. This may be why people fare dodge.

Fare dodging isn't going to decrease the ticket price, if anything, it will make it higher through reduced revenue.

 

[sheff1]

This is where passengers can help by reporting issues as soon as they encounter them, that way the TOCs can take them off-line so that RPIs can see there is an issue.

What easier way would you like other than calling a telephone number or posting on a social media site such as Twitter?

I would be happy to report issues if I could press a button on a help point and get through to someone who could understand the point being made. My experience with Northern help points does not suggest this would be the case - on the last occasion the person answering claimed the station I was at at did not exist, even after I had spelled it out to them twice !

 

[Meerkat]

I personally feel tickets are too expensive. This may be why people fare dodge

I think Lamborghinis are too expensive so maybe I should just steal one?

 

[LowLevel]

I would assume that the RPI can see more than a simple working / not-working. If the RPI can interrogate to see what time the machine last sold a ticket by cash and card, then that would cover most of these problems.

That's not how it works. The Control can interrogate the system status. Revenue protection staff cannot. Revenue protection, guards and station staff are advised of machine faults by a messaging app with a digest updated a few times a day or when a new fault is reported.

I've reported faults plenty of times and been surprised to find Control unaware - sometimes there's either a physical defect or the machine has frozen entirely and doesn't report on it's status at all.

Individual inspectors have no way of doing their own interrogations (certainly at Belper).

 

[Ianigsy]

I think the move to Paytrain operation and then back again is definitely responsible in part.

I grew up on Merseyside and in the 1980s Hamilton Square, Birkenhead Central, Southport and the Liverpool city centre stations had ticket collectors- anywhere else was pot luck as to whether your ticket was checked, but at some stations the booking clerk would shout at you if you didn't leave or show a ticket on the way out! I do wonder whether BR's unofficial policy as regards PTE areas was that as the fares were low and the PTE would make up any shortfall in the running costs, there was no imperative to collect every single fare.

In 1990 I moved to Bristol to study, and to be honest I don't recall any of the stations in the West having ticket collectors by that stage. Later I went on to Canterbury and again, very few barriers anywhere and an occasional cursory check at Victoria.

In the 22 years that I've lived in West Yorkshire, the system has gone from one based on Leeds being the only barriered station and paying on the train, to the current set up with TVMs (made viable by the shift away from cash payment), penalty fares (at the second time of asking) and barriers at all the reasonably substantial stations. It's not really feasible to gate every station (certainly quite a few that I know of don't have anywhere that automatic gates could be installed away from the elements) but the city centre ones make sense.

 

[farleigh]

I think Lamborghinis are too expensive so maybe I should just steal one?

You are missing the point of the post I feel. I read it as a sensible post trying to explain the motivation for fare dodging. Cost is a very real motivation for fare dodging in my opinion. If you are on minimum wage and your daily fare is an hour or two's pay then it will cross many people's mind not to pay.

The example of a Lamborghini is completely different as that is a luxury item and your analogy is way off.

 

[johntea]

My local station is unstaffed, now a 'promise to pay' station, and has one of those huge new Northern TVMs (card only)

The problem is, it seem to be very unreliable, as in I've sat and watched as 10 people have gone to use it and every few transactions it suddenly decides it wants to go 'Out Of Service' for several minutes before suddenly springing back into life! I used it once, it took my payment then froze and went out of service without giving me my tickets! Once bitten twice shy as they say, luckily I have a season ticket 90% of the time so don't have the headache but still!

I have yet to see a single guard enforce the 'promise to pay' scheme on board, in fact the morning train I catch there is no ticket inspection, simply the guard walking down the train 'does anyone need a ticket', yet on the way back there is almost always a full ticket inspection.

What does become quite eye opening is the regulars you get used to on the train that travel every day of the week but instead of buying a cheaper weekly ticket seem to always pay for a full whack anytime return every day instead! I've never quite understood that!

 

[Meerkat]

The example of a Lamborghini is completely different as that is a luxury item and your analogy is way off.

Stealing is stealing, there is no grey area how ever much people try to self justify it.
I think fares would have to be too low to bother collecting before someone willing to evade fares would decide they were going to pay.

 

[yorkie]

The simple solution is to ensure that each station has some way of purchasing a ticket thus removing the need for train staff to ever need to sell tickets on board.

Good luck with that, given the multitude of payment methods available and the huge number of remote stations across the network.

Am not sure this 'advice' from Scotrail is correct either. Surely if you board somewhere on the West Highland Line (or any of the large number of unstaffed, non-machine stations) for instance , you should be able to get the 'best fare' from the guard as much as anywhere else - or at the very least the 'always' is wrong?

Buying your ticket You’ll always get the best fare if you buy your ticket before boarding your train. You also remove the risk of having to queue for a ticket at busy times when you get off. Find out the different ways to buy your ticket at www.scotrail.co.uk/buy-before-you-board

Agreed. Some train companies don't appear to have particularly knowledgeable staff in their marketing/publicity departments*

(* Yes that is an understatement)

 

[The_Train]

Good luck with that, given the multitude of payment methods available and the huge number of remote stations across the network.

Well if the railway can't keep up with technology, then they should remove all ticket offices and all TVMs and have every ticket being sold on the train.

Clearly this isn't going to happen but my point is that there needs to be a constant in how tickets should be purchased. Having some routes which allow purchase on board and others where tickets should be purchased before boarding will always create the issues we are seeing. What the railway needs is to remove all of the potential opportunity for the excuses that we hear more and more for not purchasing a ticket until challenged.

 

[kristiang85]

The example of a Lamborghini is completely different as that is a luxury item and your analogy is way off.

Also a Lamborghini isn't likely to be of poor quality when you purchase it; I know of people who happily dodge fares as they feel they are owed by the railway for the terrible service, lack of seats and delays they get.

Not an excuse as I see it, but I have sympathy for that point of view.

 

[py_megapixel]

Don't forget that a child, who is unlikely to have a debit/credit card, may still want to travel from a station where the ticket machine only accepts card payments.

 

[Bantamzen]

Well if the railway can't keep up with technology, then they should remove all ticket offices and all TVMs and have every ticket being sold on the train.

Clearly this isn't going to happen but my point is that there needs to be a constant in how tickets should be purchased. Having some routes which allow purchase on board and others where tickets should be purchased before boarding will always create the issues we are seeing. What the railway needs is to remove all of the potential opportunity for the excuses that we hear more and more for not purchasing a ticket until challenged.

But then when guards can't get down busy trains to sell tickets....

Unless the railways could guarantee selling tickets onboard, remembering that some passenger journeys are incredibly short, then there has to be another approach. So ticket offices where there is sufficient demand, and TVMs where there is not can be the only solution alongside E & M ticketing. The days of the little, credit card sized paper tickets (or the several feet of loo roll from portable machines) are very much numbered. I suspect that within a decade, they will be as rare as a Nokia 3310 mobile phone!

Don't forget that a child, who is unlikely to have a debit/credit card, may still want to travel from a station where the ticket machine only accepts card payments.

These days there are plenty of solutions for this, ITSO schemes for regular school travel, & these could also be used to load credit and/or pre-paid tickets for children heading off with their mates somewhere. And of course there is also the E & M ticketing solutions for them too. As society slowly shifts from cash to electronic payment as the preferred payment method, so the technology will be used more & more. What is really needed is a UK-wide standard that can be used on all modes of transport. However with a disconnected, privatised system & a government that seems to pay little more than lip service to improving it in many areas, I'm not holding my breath.