Railcards users to face additional checks when buying tickets

[AlterEgo]

Evidence please.

Not even in the Top 13 reasons in this survey: https://d3cez36w5wymxj.cloudfront.n...9/Motivations-and-barriers-to-train-usage.pdf (page 13) - cost, reliability/strikes, convenience are paramount.

 

[Sonic1234]

So free range for those who might select a railcard when they don't hold one if the only punishment is to pay the difference if they get caught?

At what point does it become the railway's fault for not checking tickets enough? If people are really getting away with 200 journeys with an invalid ticket before getting checked, it starts to become where it's not just the passenger at fault.

Or we accept this sort of behaviour from a minority on economic grounds. Better to let a few people select a railcard discount they're not entitled to rather than staff the trains. I'm sure this is Thameslink's thinking, and as they accept the Network Railcard on all their services, the railcard price is the correct price (yes minimum fare but £13 doesn't get you far these days, £35 for the card but whatever....).

 

[redreni]

Not even in the Top 13 reasons in this survey: https://d3cez36w5wymxj.cloudfront.n...9/Motivations-and-barriers-to-train-usage.pdf (page 13) - cost, reliability/strikes, convenience are paramount.

Well, hang on, the option to say 'I am worried about making a mistake with my ticket and getting in trouble" wasn't among the options from which respondents could choose. Nor was anything to do with fares and ticketing, other than cost.

 

[Haywain]

Well, hang on, the option to say 'I am worried about making a mistake with my ticket and getting in trouble" wasn't among the options from which respondents could choose. Nor was anything to do with fares and ticketing, other than cost.

And you think that proves you right?

 

[AlterEgo]

Well, hang on, the option to say 'I am worried about making a mistake with my ticket and getting in trouble" wasn't among the options from which respondents could choose. Nor was anything to do with fares and ticketing, other than cost.

Have you got hold of the methodology and the list of questions? Only the top responses are shown, not all questions. Also, fares came up a few times, including complexity/simplicity, if you browse the presentation.

 

[father_jack]

At what point does it become the railway's fault for not checking tickets enough? If people are really getting away with 200 journeys with an invalid ticket before getting checked, it starts to become where it's not just the passenger at fault.

I've been meaning to say on this thread that a lot more people have their railcards checked than they think. With a lot of ticket sales through the Trainline (spit) these days there's the point to be made that on the top of a ticket shown from their app it will say "Show Railcard" which it will only show if the railcard is valid. So you can move on with your checking quickly. If the ticket is in a wallet or from other sales channels you have to ask to see the railcard separately and often it's from the Trainline app from where they could have shown you both from in the first place !

 

[nanstallon]

And that, in a nutshell, is why a significant proportion of the population are terrified of the idea of travelling by rail.

I appreciate this sort of thing doesn't happen as often as some may think - that's a separate point and a perfectly reasonable one - but to say having a valid ticket rejected and being told by somebody in authority that you are travelling without a valid ticket, under conditions where you can be fined and/or sued and/or prosecuted for this (the last of which could affect your career) is "just an inconvenience", is wide of the mark.

Quite so. Railways have the attitude that the customer is always wrong. Good old British customer service!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 22 Mar 2026 ==

And you think that proves you right?

It does.

 

[Haywain]

It does

It doesn't. It's hyperbole at best

 

[Bikeman78]

Not in my experience, unless you get terribly upset about being asked to present a reservation or a railcard.

Plenty of stations on Southern seem to be set to reject super off peak tickets. Trying to persuade revenue protection that the 0800 from Horsham is valid with a super off peak is a tiresome process. How else am I meant to get to Paddington for the 1016 departure? There are no time restrictions on the Southern leg of the journey.

 

[Haywain]

Plenty of stations on Southern seem to be set to reject super off peak tickets. Trying to persuade revenue protection that the 0800 from Horsham is valid with a super off peak is a tiresome process. How else am I meant to get to Paddington for the 1016 departure? There are no time restrictions on the Southern leg of the journey.

I accept that can be frustrating but does it really "come across as aggressive"?

 

[AlterEgo]

It does.

How would it prove anything? It wasn't asked.

Indeed, that backs up my point. Not that the enforcement is bad or good or indifferent, but rather that people in general simply aren't put off by the prospect of getting into trouble. They don't think they will, because it doesn't cross their mind. The idea that loads of potential custom is lost because of heavy handed revenue enforcement is just projection; I've never heard any "normal" list it as some sort of reason that they don't use the train.

 

[Sonic1234]

Quite so. Railways have the attitude that the customer is always wrong. Good old British customer service!

Increasingly so on the railway. TOCs have realised the majority of their customer base is on the train because there is no other option for their journey, or the other options are even worse, so they don't need to worry about customer retention. Even if you get annoyed with the service and never use the train again, there's someone else to take your seat. Same can be said of other businesses which are over capacity: quite a few McDonald's would be pleased, not horrified, if you said you are going elsewhere. They can't cope with the business they have.

I accept that can be frustrating but does it really "come across as aggressive"?

It's friction, and customers expect less friction these days. See Amazon and TikTok Shop.

 

[redreni]

And you think that proves you right?

No, I think this particular survey is irrelevant to the question under discussion because as far as I can tell, it asks its questions in a "tick all that apply" format, but it doesn't allow respondents to say they're worried about being accused of fare dodging when they're doing no such thing. Not unless they write it in.

An obvious analogy - which doesn't prove me right by any means but which I do find interesting - is the disconnect between the number of people who say in surveys that they don't cycle in their local area because it is stressful or dangerous, versus the increase in cycling that is observed when high quality safe cycling infrastructure is installed. And that's even the case when the surveys present the respondents with a clear option to say they don't cycle because it is too dangerous.

Businesses that want to increase sales don't just rely on surveys asking people what they think about the current offering. They experiment with changing the offer and pay attention to how consumers respond.

It may suit the rail industry to believe its ticketing system and the way things are enforced on the ground doesn't put off legitimate travellers who want to pay their fare. My view on this is, I readily admit, informed largely by anecdotal evidence. It is based on conversations I've had with people who prefer to drive to football matches or take the official supporters' coach (if there is one), rather than the train, as well as village gossip passed on to me by my elderly parents (it seems whenever anyone in the village is foolish enough to go anywhere by train, if they are not a regular train traveller, some sort of disaster befalls them, often to do with their ticket, being on the wrong route or the wrong train, or similar. Whether that's entirely true or not, that is what people in my parents' village who never take the train seem to believe).

I could, of course, be completely wrong about what I think based on anecdotes. The way to check wouldn't be to do a survey. It'd be to experiment - perhaps on one part of the network - with training frontline staff to deal with ticketing irregularities that appear to be unintentional in a completely different and more sympathetic way, and see what happens to passenger numbers and to revenue.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

(it seems whenever anyone in the village is foolish enough to go anywhere by train, if they are not a regular train traveller, some sort of disaster befalls them, often to do with their ticket, being on the wrong route or the wrong train, or similar. Whether that's entirely true or not, that is what people in my parents' village who never take the train seem to believe)

Are you familiar with how gossip works?

Whoever got an appreciative audience for 'I went for the train and my journey worked exactly as planned '?

 

[redreni]

Are you familiar with how gossip works?

Whoever got an appreciative audience for 'I went for the train and my journey worked exactly as planned '?

Is the GB rail industry familiar with how word of mouth works?

Keeping most of your customers happy most of the time is bound to lead to ruinous word of mouth. It's necessary to do better than that.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

Is the GB rail industry familiar with how word of mouth works?

Keeping most of your customers happy most of the time is bound to lead to ruinous word of mouth. It's necessary to do better than that.

This is a substantially different argument from

a significant proportion of the population are terrified of the idea of travelling by rail

 

[Cdd89]

To address a point I read upthread (sorry, I can't easily find it!), one reason why Two Together needs to be on a railcard rather than rolled into GroupSave is because otherwise you could stand at the ticket machine looking for a "friend" who was going to the same destination.

None of them are mandatory to carry or own. Are you saying people should not be able to travel by train/receive their entitled discounts unless they have optional photographic ID? Try getting that one past the Right.

If you seek to take a domestic flight in the UK, or a ferry to Northern Ireland as a foot passenger, you are required to show photographic ID as a revenue protection requirement of the airline or operator. The ID scope may be quite flexible (things like a bus or train pass often counts!) but there is precedent for this in a domestic context; I agree with @AlterEgo that extending this to railcards would not be controversial as long as core use remained ID-free. I wasn't happy when BA made the change a few years ago, but I was clearly in a minority.

 

[talldave]

To address a point I read upthread (sorry, I can't easily find it!), one reason why Two Together needs to be on a railcard rather than rolled into GroupSave is because otherwise you could stand at the ticket machine looking for a "friend" who was going to the same destination.

What's wrong with that? It could create a whole new peer to peer travel sharing culture (a bit like car sharing) encouraging a new genre of lone travellers to get out and explore. We could call it GroupFrog?
But of course this is the railway so innovation must be nipped in the bud early and rules from the 1800s strictly enforced, because "we've always done it that way "!

 

[yorksrob]

Not even in the Top 13 reasons in this survey: https://d3cez36w5wymxj.cloudfront.n...9/Motivations-and-barriers-to-train-usage.pdf (page 13) - cost, reliability/strikes, convenience are paramount.

Yes, cost right up there. Now that the industrial relations issues have settled down quite a lot, I'd expect this to overtake strikes as a barrier.

 

[Mag_seven]

As I think we are all now well aware of the additional checks, now is probably the time to bring this thread to a close.

thanks all