SWR cracking down on Vauxhall - Waterloo doughnuts/short fares - Also GTR

[Puffing Devil]

Get ready for a spate of posts!

South Western Railway has launched a major enforcement operation targeting 'short faring'; specifically passengers traveling from further out who purchase cheap barcode tickets for the short Vauxhall-to-Waterloo leg simply to clear the barriers at Waterloo. SWR estimates that up to 95% of e-tickets on that specific route were being used fraudulently, risking roughly £1 million in lost revenue.

In the first four weeks of targeted checks, SWR reports protecting £45,000, with about a third of identified offenders shifting to correct fares. However, the operator noted that fare evaders are already adapting by attempting to buy short-hop barcode tickets from other nearby London stations instead.

Evening Standard Article

 

[Watershed]

We've already seen a lot of these cases on the forum. The funny thing is that if people were a bit more clued up they'd stop dropping themselves in it as soon as a threatening email arrives... We usually only get people coming to the forum after they've already responded admitting guilt.

 

[swt_passenger]

The BBC ran basically the same story a couple of days ago. Two points stand out, they believe only a third of those people suspected are now paying their correct fare, and they note that another (unnamed) station has recently had an 89% increase in e-tickets.

Could that be Queenstown Rd?

 

[Haywain]

Could that be Queenstown Rd?

I guess we'll find out in due course!

 

[MikeWh]

Could that be Queenstown Rd?

Maybe, though it could be a number of stations. Queenstown Road has the additional jeopardy that hardly any trains call there, and those that do only use a small number of platforms at Waterloo.

 

[Haywain]

SWR reports protecting £45,000, with about a third of identified offenders shifting to correct fares.

That suggests that they haven't actually caught loads people but that they can see that that many have changed what they are buying. The value, to the TOC, of sending a letter that prompts someone to change their habits should not be underestimated.

 

[swt_passenger]

Queenstown Road has the additional jeopardy that hardly any trains call there, and those that do only use a small number of platforms at Waterloo.

My thoughts exactly, a very easy one to set a trap for, especially on the mainline side of the station…

 

[Recessio]

So is the situation that people are buying Waterloo to Vauxhall tickets, but actually going much further? That sounds pretty daft to me, because how do they get through barriers at the country end - or not get caught by inspectors on the journey? (I don't think I've ever been inspected between Waterloo and Vauxhall, it's always much further down the line)

 

[signed]

So is the situation that people are buying Waterloo to Vauxhall tickets, but actually going much further? That sounds pretty daft to me, because how do they get through barriers at the country end - or not get caught by inspectors on the journey? (I don't think I've ever been inspected between Waterloo and Vauxhall, it's always much further down the line)

Either getting out/in at unbarriered stations or doing a donut (eg. Waterloo-Vauxhall then Weybridge-Woking as a random example) paying nothing in the middle and praying that they get checked either late enough to be inside their tickets validity or not at all

 

[jfollows]

So is the situation that people are buying Waterloo to Vauxhall tickets, but actually going much further? That sounds pretty daft to me, because how do they get through barriers at the country end - or not get caught by inspectors on the journey? (I don't think I've ever been inspected between Waterloo and Vauxhall, it's always much further down the line)

They board their trains at a leafy suburban station which doesn’t have ticket gates, and buy a return from Vauxhall to Waterloo to be able to leave the train and use the barriers at Waterloo. They hope that there will be no onboard ticket inspection, which is unusual. It’s not especially clever, and SWR are aware of it. The same in the return direction. And, as said above, if they have a barrier where they join, they buy an additional short ticket from there to be able to get through the barrier.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

They board their trains at a leafy suburban station which doesn’t have ticket gates, and buy a return from Vauxhall to Waterloo to be able to leave the train and use the barriers at Waterloo.

Often bought discounted with a non-existent (or expired) railcard.

 

[Trainman40083]

They board their trains at a leafy suburban station which doesn’t have ticket gates, and buy a return from Vauxhall to Waterloo to be able to leave the train and use the barriers at Waterloo. They hope that there will be no onboard ticket inspection, which is unusual. It’s not especially clever, and SWR are aware of it. The same in the return direction. And, as said above, if they have a barrier where they join, they buy an additional short ticket from there to be able to get through the barrier.

And then SWR just set the barriers to reject the short fare tickets, so they can be inspected.

 

[jfollows]

And then SWR just set the barriers to reject the short fare tickets, so they can be inspected.

Yes, it's especially stupid because - as already said here I'm sure - the vast majority of people who really travel Vauxhall-Waterloo do so on Oyster or contactless, they don't buy real tickets. So anyone with a ticket is a suspect. And a ticket without a barrier scan entering at Vauxhall just adds to the evidence against; any of the few people who really travel and buy tickets will have this. No, it's not a requirement to scan tickets if the barriers are open of course, but it's unlikely in the morning peak.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 5 Aug 2026 ==

I could do Wilmslow-Handforth and Levenshulme-Manchester on local services, but it’s unusual not to have tickets inspected on local trains here, although the only thing the inspector can do is to sell a ticket to people who couldn’t be bothered to buy one before boarding. Then there’s a proper inspection by people with powers to issue penalty fares and report for prosecution, and all the people who previously couldn’t be bothered are upset.

 

[swt_passenger]

I wonder if there’s a good case to just stop selling Vauxhall to Waterloo as e-tickets. Anyone definitely wanting to make a real journey between the two stations, (avoiding Oyster or contactless PAYG), could always use a TVM, or TOD - collect at Vauxhall only.

Did the ‘inventors’ of the e-ticket system never realise that they’d designed such a useful enabler for people to short fare? Seems to me nearly every new great idea comes with additional scope for fare dodging.

 

[jfollows]

I suspect the push for e-tickets has come from people incented to save money, eg by commision on the basis of savings made, and rarely thought of the unintended consequences.

 

[fandroid]

I got the impression from the media articles that SWR were going to stop Vauxhall to Waterloo being fulfillable as e-tickets. It makes a lot of sense except that genuine travellers with Railcards will either have to get an Oyster Card or buy from machines or ticket office.ed (or get an SWR Tap2Go account)

 

[JonathanH]

I wonder if there’s a good case to just stop selling Vauxhall to Waterloo as e-tickets. Anyone definitely wanting to make a real journey between the two stations, (avoiding Oyster or contactless PAYG), could always use a TVM, or TOD - collect at Vauxhall only.

Did the ‘inventors’ of the e-ticket system never realise that they’d designed such a useful enabler for people to short fare? Seems to me nearly every new great idea comes with additional scope for fare dodging.

I think we are heading ever closer to a requirement to scan tickets at the departure and arrival station. There will always be a station which is closer to the destination than a passenger is travelling from, and the possibility of buying after boarding, where people see an opportunity not to pay the full fare.

 

[Haywain]

No, it's not a requirement to scan tickets if the barriers are open of course, but it's unlikely in the morning peak.

It's not, but the people who haven't entered at Vauxhall won't know whether the barriers were open or not, so will be very easily trapped by the lack of a scan.

I wonder if there’s a good case to just stop selling Vauxhall to Waterloo as e-tickets.

On the contrary, I think the eTicket option makes it much easier to catch people out on this. It would be a different matter at a station that wasn't barriered.

 

[hwl]

Maybe, though it could be a number of stations. Queenstown Road has the additional jeopardy that hardly any trains call there, and those that do only use a small number of platforms at Waterloo.

I'd expect "Wandsworth Common - London Terminals" to be in with a shout as it would be much harder for SWR to track what is going on as the starting operator is Southern (At least till there is GBR level action on fraud). [Closest non SWR station with all SWR Clapham Jn platform interchange options and minimal enforcement at Wandsworth Common].
Clapham Junction, Wandsworth Town, Earlsfield, Putney and Wimbledon have know long hours of gateline operation and are within the SWR and Queenstown Road is effectively limited to the "international" gatelines at Waterloo.

 

[Haywain]

I'd expect "Wandsworth Common - London Terminals" to be in with a shout as it would be much harder for SWR to track what is going on as the starting operator is Southern (At least till there is GBR level action on fraud). [Closest non SWR station with all SWR Clapham Jn platform interchange options and minimal enforcement at Wandsworth Common].

Are we here to make suggestions as to how people might dodge their fares?

 

[LittleRedTrain]

One has to wonder whether there's a perverse incentive to leave some of these 'obvious' fare evasion options open as a 'honeypot'.

If most of the people being caught doing this are serial fare evaders, or regularly use invalid/expired railcards, catching them 'bang to rights' performing an obvious evasion enables the TOCs to then do a data trawl and charge them for a big bunch of discounted Anytime Singles and an admin fee for all their past misdemeanours.

This gets even easier for the TOCs if they can scare most people to settle based on 'data trawl' investigation e-mails alone, rather than needing to be caught in person by an RPI.

Potentially a lot cheaper than having proper ticket inspections on every train and station.

Whether it's morally right is another question altogether... but then the moral option is to pay the correct fare each time!

 

[WesternLancer]

I wonder if there’s a good case to just stop selling Vauxhall to Waterloo as e-tickets.

I can see the problem with that, being that when word gets round the various social media where these sorts of evasion tactics get shared people will just be advised to short fare from somewhere else - eg Clapham Jct or wherever - whare do you stop when it comes to withdrawing the e-tickets?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 5 Aug 2026 ==

One has to wonder whether there's a perverse incentive to leave some of these 'obvious' fare evasion options open as a 'honeypot'.

If most of the people being caught doing this are serial fare evaders, or regularly use invalid/expired railcards, catching them 'bang to rights' performing an obvious evasion enables the TOCs to then do a data trawl and charge them for a big bunch of discounted Anytime Singles and an admin fee for all their past misdemeanours.

This gets even easier for the TOCs if they can scare most people to settle based on 'data trawl' investigation e-mails alone, rather than needing to be caught in person by an RPI.

Potentially a lot cheaper than having proper ticket inspections on every train and station.

Whether it's morally right is another question altogether... but then the moral option is to pay the correct fare each time!

Seems to perhaps be Greater Anglia's' approach - of the e-mails they send out speculatively it would be informative to know what the success rate is financially in terms of people who
a) get scared and confess and pay up
b) at least stop evading in future (harder to quantify)

 

[hwl]

Are we here to make suggestions as to how people might dodge their fares?

No we are having a party game of pin the tail on the donkey for the new most popular station will be after closing the Vauxhall loop hole.
I have no doubt that SWR are already are already monitoring lot of other stations and have been for while, this is just round 1).

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 5 Aug 2026 ==

One has to wonder whether there's a perverse incentive to leave some of these 'obvious' fare evasion options open as a 'honeypot'.

If you remove the loop hole stations in batches of 1 with a reasonable gap in-between SWR then have a interesting finger print in usage for people to explain away!

The only way to change this is some major changes to e-ticket retailing but this is probably beyond RDG and trainline would be very unhappy.

Interestingly the new ticket gate being trialled could take photo of the individuals which would open up more enforcement opportunities.

 

[Sun Chariot]

I'm often curious what drives the behaviour to fare-avoid (as opposed to all the excuses given). The thrill / the bravado of committing a minor crime? Peer-pressure?

 

[Fawkes Cat]

I'm often curious what drives the behaviour to fare-avoid (as opposed to all the excuses given). The thrill / the bravado of committing a minor crime? Peer-pressure?

Money saving?

 

[Farigiraf]

Money saving?

I'm guessing for most people it's initially that, and then over time an addictive behaviour forms through positive reinforcement by not getting caught.

 

[Sun Chariot]

Money saving?

I deliberately didn't use that scenario.
Real financial hardship should - in my view - be a cutback on the non-essential leisure, "nice to have" food & drink, vapes...
Genuine financial hardship should not start with a behaviour of fare-evasion, shoplifting, etc.
That's why I believe the "risk versus reward" of fare-evasion is initially driven by the factors I mentioned in my previous post.

 

[Merle Haggard]

I'm often curious what drives the behaviour to fare-avoid (as opposed to all the excuses given). The thrill / the bravado of committing a minor crime? Peer-pressure?

What about the fare evader thinking that they're so clever, easy for them to win against the stupid railway and its stupid staff?
And, if challenged, thinking that they are so clever that they'll be able to talk their way out of it?
Narcissism perhaps.

 

[Sun Chariot]

What about the fare evader thinking that they're so clever, easy for them to win against the stupid railway and its stupid staff?
And, if challenged, thinking that they are so clever that they'll be able to talk their way out of it?
Narcissism perhaps.

Absolutely and that scenario I envisage within my "bravado" bucket.

 

[AlterEgo]

What about the fare evader thinking that they're so clever, easy for them to win against the stupid railway and its stupid staff?
And, if challenged, thinking that they are so clever that they'll be able to talk their way out of it?
Narcissism perhaps.

Probably. It's a step up from the usual rip off of "oh I clicked 16-17 saver by accident, what do you mean it gives a bigger discount than 26-30?" plausible deniability nonsense.

Everyone caught provably short faring should simply be prosecuted for a year. It'll soon sort a few attitudes.