Rail replacement buses... not checking tickets

[Richardr]

Using the likes of KeyGo and similar operators' smartcards means the area of impossibility (today) is a lot further than just the London area.

Last time I caught a replacement bus someone asked about tickets before boarding and the assistant who was there checking that people were boarding for the right route said that they just assumed anyone getting the replacement bus had a ticket.

 

[Taunton]

Yes, particularly in London where no mechanism to charge for Oyster or Contactless has been put in place (other than in a few cases where the replacement bus has been registered as a normal service).

It is not particularly a revenue shortfall, as such TfL replacement services commonly just work to an intermediate point where passengers can board a train, possibly on a different line, through to destination, ending up paying the same fare. For example, a replacement bus for the DLR takes you to Canary Wharf, whence you can continue by Jubilee or Liz Line to Central London. Fare the same.

To overcome this would require the full panoply of Oyster and Contactless readers, which would be quite impractical for the trivial loss on wholly local journeys, especially given any Londoner under 16 or over 60 travels for free on buses anyway. London buses equipment is not practical since buses charge for each boarding, whereas rail does for the overall journey. Much of this local usage seems to disappear when the service is substituted anyway, there are far less on the RRBs than normally on the train.

 

[ThisIsSurbiton]

London buses equipment is not practical since buses charge for each boarding

It's a lot more flexible than that, even for Oyster cards, where it all has to be processed on the machine. The early version of the bus "hopper" fare was done using a feature originally developed for tram feeder buses to continue a journey with only one fare, there is/was also a feature to end/refund an Underground journey upon boarding the bus when affected by sudden disruption - many more combinations would be possible with contactless, and the on-bus kit will be replaced over the next few years anyway.

This may cost more than it's worth of course. A longer-term closure could justify it. What happened on the Northern line replacement buses a few years ago? Something like this, I expect.

 

[RJ]

It’s down to TOC staff to check tickets, not the bus drivers. From time to time some TOCs send reminders to bus operators to tell their drivers not to check passengers’ tickets.

When passengers ask about tickets I say I don’t check tickets and advise them to sit down and speak to the train company about that. And when I’m working on a station and it’s rail replacement buses, there’s no access to validation equipment so passengers are advised to go to the ticket office at the other end.

There’s a revenue block at Radyr this week, checking everyone who changes from the replacement bus service to the train. The coordinator at Merthyr Tydfil was checking tickets and tried to check mine - I was the owner of the bus and part of the crew as I was hitching a ride to the workshop!

 

[Surreytraveller]

This is actually fairly simple to resolve.

If you want to multiply the cost of the replacement buses by about twenty to send the bus drivers on a ticketing training course, and pay others overtime while they're on the course

 

[jon0844]

From the operators point of view, they are getting paid the same whether it's just 1 person boarding or it goes full, so not their problem if no checks are done.

Some stations may have rail staff who could check tickets, but in most cases if there is anyone (at a major station) it is likely a co-ordinator that works for someone like Transport UK, so they won't be checking tickets either. Of course they could be advising people to have tickets ready, or implying checks might be carried out, but will most likely be bluffing. In some cases, some staff or drivers may feel it isn't fair for people to get a free ride and unofficially check - but they probably shouldn't. Still, their bus, so if a driver wants to play silly buggers then that's between them, the bus company and the TOC to argue and consider what action is necessary.

Some stations will keep standby buses for when they become overcrowded, and clearly if you're letting people travel for free and everyone knows it is free, you'll potentially be leaving people behind. What if those being left behind have tickets and those onboard went for free?

And what about stations where you can pay contactless. There's now no way to tap in or out!

RRBs are a bit of a minefield when it comes to revenue, and I think most operators will essentially allow people to travel for free and hope that if the buses only form part of a longer journey, people will likely buy tickets in those cases. Most people are probably inherently honest and pay because they know that's what is expected.

 

[Doctor Fegg]

RRBs are a bit of a distress purchase anyway - journey planners will often route around them as they’re so much slower, and many people will choose to travel at a different time (or not at all) to avoid one. The Oxford-Worcester RRB I caught on Tuesday night had eight passengers on it, a fraction of the number who’d take the train, and most were off by Charlbury, the second stop.

I appreciate the situation is different for high-frequency urban routes, but for evening and weekend RRBs at least, I suspect the revenue lost to ticketless travel is minimal.

(There’s a moral argument, albeit totally impractical, that the RRB element of any rail fare should be capped at £2 these days anyway. Would make for an interesting Delay Repay-like scenario…)

 

[Andy Pacer]

This is actually fairly simple to resolve.

You just write into the contracts that operators providing rail replacement are responsible for validating tickets or write into the contract of the bus coordinators. Plenty of handheld devices available for any typical smartphone, plus Ticketer bus equipment can now scan and read rail barcode tickets and smartcards.

It would be extremely labour intensive for bus operators to have all rail baecode tickets programmed in for Ticketer machines to be able to validate, and the bus crew would still need to be able to manually check paper tickets and the various other varieties.

And what about coach operators (or even bus operators) who don't use electronic ticket machines?

 

[Silver Cobra]

It’s down to TOC staff to check tickets, not the bus drivers. From time to time some TOCs send reminders to bus operators to tell their drivers not to check passengers’ tickets.

When passengers ask about tickets I say I don’t check tickets and advise them to sit down and speak to the train company about that. And when I’m working on a station and it’s rail replacement buses, there’s no access to validation equipment so passengers are advised to go to the ticket office at the other end.

There’s a revenue block at Radyr this week, checking everyone who changes from the replacement bus service to the train. The coordinator at Merthyr Tydfil was checking tickets and tried to check mine - I was the owner of the bus and part of the crew as I was hitching a ride to the workshop!

That's very interesting. So would this mean that the Stagecoach drivers who entered a 10-minute standoff over passengers having no tickets on a rail replacement service they were operating a month ago (that I posted about in a previous thread) were actually in the wrong? I guess where they have to check tickets in their day job it's just second nature for them to do it on rail replacement duties.

 

[RJ]

That's very interesting. So would this mean that the Stagecoach drivers who entered a 10-minute standoff over passengers having no tickets on a rail replacement service they were operating a month ago (that I posted about in a previous thread) were actually in the wrong? I guess where they have to check tickets in their day job it's just second nature for them to do it on rail replacement duties.

I’m pretty sure operators have specifically been told not to check passenger’s tickets.

 

[Busman652004]

I have seen GWR conductors on rail replacement buses in Cornwall. Passengers not always overjoyed to see them.

 

[Skipness]

A useful. Hornsby model?

 

[DJ_K666]

I've used a few rail replacement buses in the last year,but very few ask to see tickets, is there a reason behind it ?

When I've done RRB with Brighton & Hove I never checked tickets. As far as I was concerned it's a train and you don't show your ticket to the train driver

Either that orbit was the most cursory glance and almost like 'Eh what? Ok yeah.'

 

[etr221]

An issue that needs careful legal consideration is that a railway passenger is a passenger on a railway; a train is merely the thing that they use to be so (as the railway has a sensible prohibition of people just proceeding along it, without using a train). A bus passenger on the other hand is using a bus to travel along a roadway; and so cannot be a railway passenger (even if its a RRB).

As an experience, when Tramlink services were being worked by Tram replacement buses (provided by TfL operators), I made a number of journeys where I had a choice between a genuine TfL bus (and having to touch in), and a Tram replacement TfL bus (where I couldn't) - for travel between the same bus stops (by 'closed' Tramstops) ... as a Freedom Pass holder it didn't matter to me, were I a PAYG user it would have.

 

[Llandudno]

Tickets were checked at Llandudno Junction yesterday morning by a TfW employee before allowing boarding RRB to Chester.

However, in keeping with Avanti’s total disregard for north Wales customers the Avanti replacement limited stop bus shown on journey planners at 0740 from Llandudno Junction to Chester failed to operate meaning that connections at Chester were missed.

The next all stations bus at 0800 from Llandudno Junction to Chester took 115 minutes to get to Chester and missed onward hourly connections to Crewe and Manchester Airport by about 2 minutes…!

 

[Russel]

During the regular weekend Greater Anglia replacement buses to Ingatstone, Whitham etc, I've seen GA staff wearing Hi-Vis vests with Revenue Protection or similar printed on the back, but I've never actually had my ticket checked by them, that would involve disrupting their socializing...

Not saying I agree with it, but I can see why people chance it, the chance of a ticket check in almost non existent and let be honest, paying train prices to sit on a bus and the associated extended journey times is a bit of a kick in the teeth.

 

[richw]

The coach drivers were always told not to check tickets on rail replacement, when I’ve done it. We’re not trained on rail tickets, and we were told a rail employee would carry random checks where possible. Generally speaking rail replacement was a free ride for many especially on the branch lines

 

[LlanishenBull]

If there's a train not running, there's a train guard and driver not working I assume?
Perhaps they should be working on RRB?
Many services will be replaced by several buses of course, but many are one to one replacements.

 

[Haywain]

If there's a train not running, there's a train guard and driver not working I assume?
Perhaps they should be working on RRB?

As what?

 

[LlanishenBull]

As what?

Well, the thread is about fare dodging on RRB, so perhaps assign someone not able to work on a train to that train's replacement?

If us great unwashed know there's a decent chance of our tickets being checked then perhaps we're more likely to consider buying one?

 

[Haywain]

Well, the thread is about fare dodging on RRB, so perhaps assign someone not able to work on a train to that train's replacement?

Oh, you mean a specialist in ticket checking? Like, erm, a train driver?

 

[Jan Mayen]

Oh, you mean a specialist in ticket checking? Like, erm, a train driver?

No, the train driver will be driving the bus. The train conductor simply becomes the bus conductor. What could possibly go wrong?

 

[LlanishenBull]

I meant the guard of course to check tickets. You're right though, a driver could do it too and other rail staff not gainfully employed if there are no actual trains running, I'm sure checking tickets wouldn't be too onerous?

 

[185143]

I was on a Northern RRB once and the driver had asked us for tickets upon boarding. Seemed to just be interested in wether you had *a* ticket rather than the specifics, which is fair enough.

That was until someone boarded and when asked produced a (I presume) Northern staff pass. He didn't ask anyone after that, which I found quite amusing!

 

[island]

What did the RPIs do with these ticket-less passengers? Other than 'requesting' that they purchased a ticket for the journey taken what could they legally do?

The passengers can legally be required to pay a reasonable price for the journey just made under the common law principle of quantum meruit. Whether the published train fare would be classed as "reasonable" is something I shall not go into.

Someone seeking to leave without paying would also be at risk of criminal prosecution in England and Wales for making off without payment (s3 Theft Act 1978) or in Scotland for fraud (common law).

 

[AlterEgo]

I meant the guard of course to check tickets. You're right though, a driver could do it too and other rail staff not gainfully employed

Why not just ask the bus driver to do it?

 

[sprunt]

Why not just ask the bus driver to do it?

Because the bus driver (well, most of them, there are probably one or two ticketing nerds who are bus drivers) has no idea what restriction codes mean, and no way of finding out. You could ask them to check that the passenger has any ticket at all, but nothing really beyond that.

 

[TUC]

Does anyone really think that passengers are clamouring to have their tickets checked on RRBs? This discussion seems to be a classic rail enthusiast obsession.

 

[AlterEgo]

Because the bus driver (well, most of them, there are probably one or two ticketing nerds who are bus drivers) has no idea what restriction codes mean

Neither do random rail staff who aren't revenue trained, and certainly not train drivers. Which is the point I was replying to. Just get the bus driver to check people have some kind of ticket and on they go. Or don't. Bigger things to worry about.

Does anyone really think that passengers are clamouring to have their tickets checked on RRBs? This discussion seems to be a classic rail enthusiast obsession.

Quite!

 

[LJA]

Id imagine that the amount of people intentionally fare dodging on a rrb is pretty small.

Certainly not worth the additional time cost and effort of checking every ticket