Platform ticket challenge at Leeds

[greyman42]

So much scope for abuse. 10p to pass through the barrier. Board a busy train where the guard/conductor cannot get through (even if so inclined). Alight at an unstaffed station. 10p journey - "job's a good 'un." Freeloaders' charter.

I would have thought that very few people buy platform tickets nowadays. If you are doing it on a regular basis you will soon bring attention to yourself.

 

[MichaelAMW]

You have to ask at the ticket office. Most manned stations will give you one if you ask for them, however, some TOCs like SWR have a policy where they'll refuse to issue them, citing "potential for misuse". I had this issue at Waterloo last year where I wanted one for Waterloo East, but the SWR TO refused to give me one, because "it isn't our station" and "we don't give them out any more because you'll just use it for fare evasion". After speaking with the SE guys at the gateline, they let me straight through.

Nice. Direct accusation of a serious criminal offence when you just wanted to do the right thing.

 

[3141]

Ah, yes........
When you could spend an hour on the platform, buy a three-piece suit from Burton's, go to the pictures, buy a packet of Woodbines, eat fish and chips out of newspaper for supper, catch the last bus home and still have change from half-a-crown.

Platform tickets did cost one penny and you usually got them from a machine.

The 3-piece suit would have cost about £7.10 shillings, the pictures probably about 2s 9d, but I remember a cinema in Longsight, Manchester in 1959 where it was only 1/3, fish and chips about 1/-, and the conductor might let you on the last bus for nothing after you'd told him your sob story about how the price of suits had gone up and you'd no money for the fare.

 

[darloscott]

I was let through both barriers at Leeds on Sunday as I turned up at the southern entrance (Leeds Dock water taxi!) wanting to buy a Northern day rover, showed them the form and was waved through which I was expecting to have to walk round.

 

[johntea]

I wonder how many get challenged for simply following others through the barriers, I'm sure the regulars would get noticed but during rush hour it would probably be like looking for a needle in a haystack! Now and again you do see obvious revenue protection lurking around the barriers but most of the time just the gateline staff who are far too busy dealing with valid tickets not being accepted by the barriers to be keeping an eye on things.

95% of the time there is at least one barrier wide open too with a member of gateline staff trying to look after it, but it varies on them doing quite a decent check of tickets as people walk through right through to 'too busy chatting to their mate' and letting everyone through no questions asked!

Interesting how barrier operations vary across stations, some of the smaller ones will simply not let you through the barriers at all until you've proven to them you have a valid ticket and will only let you through manually once they've physically seen you try and come up with the error code a couple of times...Harrogate comes to mind, London Underground are quite strict too! (In fact it took me about 5 minutes to convince them once that the barrier which had just swallowed my day travel card needed retrieving and that it had not just swallowed a end of journey ticket!)

 

[pt_mad]

I would hope that to be true, but in reality things just don't work the way they should. Some people will always work around the system, even when it should be obvious that they are trying it on. I can imagine scenarios where people could regularly use platform tickets for cheap travel, using some story to justify being a regular buyer of them (I'd give examples but you don't know who might be lurking, so don't want to give any potential dodgers ideas!).

But perhaps a simple solution exists, where available platform tickets are based on a deposit scheme. So you buy one for say £5.10, then when you have finished and are departing you simply return said ticket to the office & get your deposit minus the £0.10 for the actual cost. This should deter many from using them for cheap travel, especially where average singles are less.

If only that were so, I suspect the same dodgers get away with it again and again and again!

Honestly the odds are they're going to get caught. There will be a very very very small minority of passengers who just travel once, and don't pay. And they may slip through. But persistent offenders are upping the odds of being noticed significantly, found out and caught. And stations and guards soon get to recognise regular troublesome faces.

The same people won't keep getting away with it. You'd only need a revenue check once a fortnight and to catch the same person twice in the month to flag up serious problems for that person. In the grand scale they will be caught if they are a regular offender.

Think of it like this. When people park in council controlled paid parking areas, like council car parks or council streets where parking is paid for when you park there, it is not 100 percent that a parking warden will come and check your car. In fact, the odds are chances are your car won't be checked if you park for an hour. Park for two hours the odds increase. There may be a warden on duty there may not be. They may have a few days off or be sick, or be in another area, or only check that car park two days a week. But you wouldn't really want to risk parking without a ticket, as the consequences of being caught are just not going to be worth it. And nobody calls for more parking wardens. I'd hazard a guess you're probably more likely to have a ticket checked at some point before during or after your rail journey than you would be having your car checked parked in a council car park in some local areas. And parking wardens have a bad name even though they're justifying the fee the huge majority of paying users are paying to park. But people perceive the risks and consequences of being caught parking in local authority bays without a ticket to be quite serious. And with railway revenue evasion it could end up criminal. Even more serious. There are some who don't care about those consequences and they take the risk, and thousands are caught and there are court prosecutions and it's going good to affect their outside lives. Those who don't care about that fine, they're welcome d to those risks. Bit But most reasonable people would worry about that and would t want that and so the order is that the vast vast majority of passengers will pay willingly and happily.

There are probably a good many who don't realise it can become a criminal matter deliberately evading your fare otherwise they'd ensure they purchased a ticket before hand absolutely every time .maybe the potential consequences should be publisized more and that would help and make fare paying passengers feel a bit more looked after and valued than some do now. Although I suppose on the rail industry it's very customer service oriented and tocs wouldn't want to frighten people who may be elderly and have trouble using a ticket machine at an unmanned station and turn them away though fear etc and other such situations. So the balance needs to be right.

 

[Antman]

Honestly the odds are they're going to get caught. There will be a very very very small minority of passengers who just travel once, and don't pay. And they may slip through. But persistent offenders are upping the odds of being noticed significantly, found out and caught. And stations and guards soon get to recognise regular troublesome faces.

The same people won't keep getting away with it. You'd only need a revenue check once a fortnight and to catch the same person twice in the month to flag up serious problems for that person. In the grand scale they will be caught if they are a regular offender.

Think of it like this. When people park in council controlled paid parking areas, like council car parks or council streets where parking is paid for when you park there, it is not 100 percent that a parking warden will come and check your car. In fact, the odds are chances are your car won't be checked if you park for an hour. Park for two hours the odds increase. There may be a warden on duty there may not be. They may have a few days off or be sick, or be in another area, or only check that car park two days a week. But you wouldn't really want to risk parking without a ticket, as the consequences of being caught are just not going to be worth it. And nobody calls for more parking wardens. I'd hazard a guess you're probably more likely to have a ticket checked at some point before during or after your rail journey than you would be having your car checked parked in a council car park in some local areas. And parking wardens have a bad name even though they're justifying the fee the huge majority of paying users are paying to park. But people perceive the risks and consequences of being caught parking in local authority bays without a ticket to be quite serious. And with railway revenue evasion it could end up criminal. Even more serious. There are some who don't care about those consequences and they take the risk, and thousands are caught and there are court prosecutions and it's going good to affect their outside lives. Those who don't care about that fine, they're welcome d to those risks. Bit But most reasonable people would worry about that and would t want that and so the order is that the vast vast majority of passengers will pay willingly and happily.

There are probably a good many who don't realise it can become a criminal matter deliberately evading your fare otherwise they'd ensure they purchased a ticket before hand absolutely every time .maybe the potential consequences should be publisized more and that would help and make fare paying passengers feel a bit more looked after and valued than some do now. Although I suppose on the rail industry it's very customer service oriented and tocs wouldn't want to frighten people who may be elderly and have trouble using a ticket machine at an unmanned station and turn them away though fear etc and other such situations. So the balance needs to be right.

It's the other way round, the person travelling once without a ticket possibly having made an innocent mistake is more likely to be caught than a regular fare dodger. A Southeastern guard was telling me recently about regular fare dodgers in the Dover area who slip through the ticket gates behind somebody else if they are closed and if they see the guard coming down the train they make a dash for the toilet.

 

[whhistle]

I wonder if this situation came about because of the way the conversation went?

Platform Staff: What platform are you going to?
Customer: Why do you want to know?

It sort of sounds suspicious already. The customer is already on the defensive after being asked a relatively innocent question.

Platform Staff: What platform are you going to?
Customer: Platform 7. Why do you ask?

Sounds a little better, although still a little defensive.

Platform Staff: What platform are you going to?
Customer: Platform 7 to meet my wife off the train.

No come back from the platform staff here as you've answered the question.

Maybe they're just interested. Maybe they're doing a small survey. Maybe they're just going through some mechanic tick box excercise.

Not a dig at the OP (as they chose the third option anyway) but it's an interesting topic as many people seem almost offended if they're being asked what they're doing.

Another, similar but different situation is when having ticket printed by a ticket staff member.
If the customer asks "what platform is my train?", this suggests the ticket seller has looked at the tickets. Why would they? It's none of their business where the customer is going, maybe they don't care. On the other hand, some people may get uppity about the ticket person looking at the tickets.
Can't win.

 

[pt_mad]

It's the other way round, the person travelling once without a ticket possibly having made an innocent mistake is more likely to be caught than a regular fare dodger. A Southeastern guard was telling me recently about regular fare dodgers in the Dover area who slip through the ticket gates behind somebody else if they are closed and if they see the guard coming down the train they make a dash for the toilet.

Although the key point being that these people are known to staff to be regular fare dodgers. So they're known to the railway. They've obviously been caught or they wouldn't be known. So the railway has done it's job and fished this person/people out and they are recognised and have to attempt to hide in toilets. What reasonable person would want to travel being a known fare evader and being chased by staff? Or being embarrassed if theure told they've done this before in front of a train full wanting to get in their way? Those who:d want that experience are welcome to it. Most would rather have a clear conscience and not have to worry like a fugitive avoiding any authority while traveling.

 

[talltim]

No, they never do at Leeds

Surely thats pretty much the only point of a platform ticket?

 

[Antman]

Although the key point being that these people are known known to staff to be regular fare dodgers. So they're known to the railway. They've obviously been caught or they wouldn't be known. So the railway has done it's job and fished this person/people out and they are recognised and have to attempt to hide in toilets. What reasonable person would want to travel being a known fare evader and being chased by staff? Or being embarrassed if theure told they've done this before in front of a train full wanting to get in their way? Those who:d want that experience are welcome to it. Most would rather have a clear conscience and not have to worry like a fugitive avoiding any authority while traveling.

Sorry but the reality is totally different.

Anyway this is getting off topic now so I'll leave it there.

 

[themiller]

Platform tickets used to have a time limit on them when I was young (30 minutes?). Is this still the case?

 

[XCTurbostar]

Platform tickets used to have a time limit on them when I was young (30 minutes?). Is this still the case?

The last time I bought one (2016) at Bristol Temple Meads, the gateline staff had never seen one before and had no idea what to say to it. It had a limit of one hour (although I was spotting so I was on the platform for about 2 Hours) When I needed to get off the platform, I just followed all of the commuters from a busy HST and walked straight through the open barriers. I’m told the barrier staff leave them open to avoid congestion on the platform.

 

[xotGD]

At Leeds this morning, two police officers were 'chatting' to a chap who seemingly thought that he could just use the station as a short-cut to get from Granary Wharf into town. Despite the barriers.

 

[onlinespotting]

Leeds was one of the few stations that retained manned ticket barriers until the present barriers were fitted. Up until a few years after the 2001 refurb there was a platform ticket machine by the barriers- And it was 10p back in the 80’s

 

[Wombat]

I wonder how many get challenged for simply following others through the barriers, I'm sure the regulars would get noticed but during rush hour it would probably be like looking for a needle in a haystack! Now and again you do see obvious revenue protection lurking around the barriers but most of the time just the gateline staff who are far too busy dealing with valid tickets not being accepted by the barriers to be keeping an eye on things.

I have followed someone through the barriers on one occasion (at Waterloo, during the morning rush) and was instantly intercepted by a revenue protection guy. How he managed to spot it in that crowd is a mystery to me; perhaps one develops an omniscient sense for these things after a while.

 

[rich r]

At Leeds this morning, two police officers were 'chatting' to a chap who seemingly thought that he could just use the station as a short-cut to get from Granary Wharf into town. Despite the barriers.

I cut through from Granary Wharf to the main concourse sometimes. But to be fair, I do stick my season ticket in the barriers at both sides - I just skip the actually getting on and off a train bit.

 

[Chris999999]

I wonder if this situation came about because of the way the conversation went?


It sort of sounds suspicious already. The customer is already on the defensive after being asked a relatively innocent question.


Sounds a little better, although still a little defensive.


No come back from the platform staff here as you've answered the question.

Maybe they're just interested. Maybe they're doing a small survey. Maybe they're just going through some mechanic tick box excercise.

Not a dig at the OP (as they chose the third option anyway) but it's an interesting topic as many people seem almost offended if they're being asked what they're doing.

Another, similar but different situation is when having ticket printed by a ticket staff member.
If the customer asks "what platform is my train?", this suggests the ticket seller has looked at the tickets. Why would they? It's none of their business where the customer is going, maybe they don't care. On the other hand, some people may get uppity about the ticket person looking at the tickets.
Can't win.

It is a bit like immigration when you enter this country. I find I am always asked some casual question about where I have been/what the weather was like etc.

They don't care what answer you give but they do care about how you answer - your body language, your casual response etc. It tells them much more about whether you have the right to enter the country, or whether you are concerned because of some "anomalies".