Ticket inspectors and gateline staff sometimes not checking tickets properly or at all

[JulienD]

Sometimes I get to the ticket barriers and the person there opens them straight up without even bothering to check my ticket. Or they just see a orange and white slip which could be something like a ticket receipt that would be completely invalid for travel and just move on.

Once I was displaying the completely wrong ticket in my wallet's window for the ticket inspector and they didn't even ask. It was a sleeper reservation for the trip I did on the Night Riviera the day before and I was going back on a day train, my return ticket was underneath the sleeper reservation. Maybe it was because of disruption on the day (8/7) that meant ticket checks were only loosely being conducted.


What's the point of ticket barriers if staff just open them straight up without properly checking tickets? And what's the point of ticket inspectors if they don't check tickets properly?

 

[Mattplans]

Just laziness I suppose, or perhaps some staff don't have the correct equipment to check Aztec (qr) code tickets. I am sure at Farringdon, and some other LU managed stations where NR trains call, you could get away with waving any random qr code in front of some staff.

 

[themeone]

I recently travelled to Reigate and about 12 people got off the train. I noticed the one exit barrier was immediately opened so no tickets were checked at all. This was in the middle of a weekday so, given Reigate is a commuter town, I imagine this happens quite a lot there.

 

[Gloster]

But there is still the possibility that you might be stopped and fully checked, which has a considerable dissuasive effect. Yes, ideally every single ticket will be checked every time, but life is not so neat and simple.

At my local commuter station when I were nobbut a lad, we had a new platform/tickets porter for a while. At first he checked everybody, but he soon got to know the regulars, both commuting and shopping, and would pretty well wave them through, just taking any tickets offered. Unfamiliar faces might well be asked for their ticket.

 

[xotGD]

Being old-school with my little rectangles of cardboard, I find that some grippers give them a thorough look, and even occasionally punch a hole of mark with a pen, while others just see that there isn't a phone for them to beep on and lose interest.

 

[izvor]

What's the point of ticket barriers if staff just open them straight up without properly checking tickets?

TBH I've wondered this myself. Apart from the deterrent factor, and maybe data collection, to me they seem to serve no useful purpose. Gateline staff round here no longer seem to draw ticket machines, so anyone rocking up without a ticket is just waved through. What else can they do? Just point them to the nearest ticket machine and watch them hoof it - a brilliant honesty box system for the dishonest!

With or without barriers, a huge increase in roaming revenue protection officers would be the best way forward IMO. My gut feeling is they would pay their way in the long term, with or without the saving in not installing expensive barriers. But I'm sure someone has done the sums and found otherwise.

 

[Ianigsy]

Merseyrail guards and inspectors don’t yet have the means to check that a card has been tapped in at the start of a journey, it seems - several times I’ve produced my bank card from my pocket having tapped in.

 

[1D54]

Showed a new style qr ticket to a member of the barrier staff last night to bypass gate line and was let through without any inspection at all. I said i needed to keep ticket for DR purposes but scanning out wouldn't have made any difference as they are not kept. I now have a ticket that can be used again.

 

[Sonic1234]

Gatelines are to create a deterrent. Most people who consider not buying a ticket will if there are gates, and will buy the correct ticket. Online purchasing has made it easier to buy the wrong ticket, but even now that will be a small % of journeys.

A lot of gateline staff are agency and security contractors, not trained in ticketing beyond the very basics. It's not their revenue they are protecting, so why cause conflict with customers? Worse case outcome for them is the station doesn't want them back and the security agency redeploys them to stand in the doorway of Sainsbury's.

With or without barriers, a huge increase in roaming revenue protection officers would be the best way forward IMO

Last thing we want, groups of probably badly trained people roving the network trying to catch you out. Revenue protection captures the meek and compliant without police backup. What do you do with the person who remains silent? Gives false details? Gives details of a friend? Runs away? Will use violence? An oppressive enforcement environment and frequent conflict with passengers isn't desirable.

 

[swt_passenger]

Merseyrail guards and inspectors don’t yet have the means to check that a card has been tapped in at the start of a journey, it seems - several times I’ve produced my bank card from my pocket having tapped in.

TfL revenue staff cannot see if a bank card is tapped in on a rail or tube service either, it’s not that unusual an issue. The check is just recorded and the ‘system’ sorts out whether you were already touched in later.

 

[saismee]

When people are leaving, gateline staff cannot issue penalty fares or do anything really, unless revenue protection staff are present. Gateline staff aren't there  for revenue protection duties, they are there to assist passengers using the gate, such as to guide parents with small children or people with large luggage to the wide gates. I've seen many children get pulled through the barriers by a careless parent, only to get trapped and potentially injured.

It is a deterrent in the same way that a locked door is a deterrent to burglary. You can easily smash a window or hop a barrier, but it's much more obviously wrong than trying a door handle or boarding a train with nobody looking.

 

[izvor]

A lot of gateline staff are agency and security contractors, not trained in ticketing beyond the very basics. It's not their revenue they are protecting, so why cause conflict with customers?

My nearest staffed station employs both its own gateline staff, and agency. The TOC staff are well trained in ticket validity, the agency staff are clearly not. But my estimate is that they both let through roughly the same percentage of ticketless travellers. As I said above, what else can they do? I'm not advocating conflict, whoever takes the revenue hit (and it's usually not the TOC anyway).

Last thing we want, groups of probably badly trained people roving the network trying to catch you out.

No one is advocating "groups of badly trained people" but apart from that I disagree. I think most honest passengers, who witness freeloaders getting away with it on a daily basis, would welcome more vigorous checks. And they would certainly prove a greater deterrent than expensive, but ultimately porous, barriers.

 

[Adam Williams]

I think most honest passengers, who witness freeloaders getting away with it on a daily basis, would welcome more vigorous checks.

In my experience, members of the public tend to have this view until they're incorrectly made to purchase new tickets or prevented from going through the gate with their entirely valid ticket (whilst following their itinerary!) and then delayed as a result of it.

 

[izvor]

In my experience, members of the public tend to have this view until they're incorrectly made to purchase new tickets or prevented from going through the gate with their entirely valid ticket (whilst following their itinerary!) and then delayed as a result of it.

That's a fair point, and mitigating that scenario would depend most of all on thorough training of enforcement staff. (The ones I have witnessed recently have been superb in their approach to "problem" passengers.) It's happened to me twice in my decades of rail travel, and yet I would still advocate more proactive and plentiful checking, though I can only speak for myself.

 

[Crithylum]

I have never had a proper ticket check on an Elizabeth line gateline, despite needing to be let through at least a dozen times. I find that GA gatelines usually have proper checks, which actually deters me from using a loophole ticket.

 

[1D54]

which actually deters me from using a loophole ticket.

What is a loophole ticket?

 

[Kite159]

Showed a new style qr ticket to a member of the barrier staff last night to bypass gate line and was let through without any inspection at all. I said i needed to keep ticket for DR purposes but scanning out wouldn't have made any difference as they are not kept. I now have a ticket that can be used again.

So admitting to reusing that ticket because it wasn't scanned on the train or at the gateline?

Or just planning to keep it to fraudulently claim for a delay knowing it hasn't been scanned to disprove the claim?

 

[Crithylum]

What is a loophole ticket?

A (cheaper) ticket which is not intended to be valid for a certain journey but actually is.

 

[Sonic1234]

In my experience, members of the public tend to have this view until they're incorrectly made to purchase new tickets or prevented from going through the gate with their entirely valid ticket (whilst following their itinerary!) and then delayed as a result of it.

Any form of revenue protection causes friction for genuine customers, the question is what is the acceptable level of friction, particularly as contactless and Project Oval is all about reducing friction and that is the way to succeed in business these days - see the success of Amazon.

Personally, I always travel with a valid ticket. Other people's ticketing arrangements are not my concern. Station staff never add anything to my journey, while I'm sure there are a lot of good staff out there, gatelines and ticket checks just get in the way.

It's happened to me twice in my decades of rail travel, and yet I would still advocate more proactive and plentiful checking, though I can only speak for myself

I had to run from a RPI that didn't know what break of journey was once.

 

[sheff1]

Gateline staff aren't there  for revenue protection duties, they are there to assist passengers using the gate ........

Why then do they seek to prevent people with valid tickets from passing through the gateline ......... St Pancras Thameslink and Nottingham I am looking at you (gateline staff at other stations also try this now and again but at those two stations I have encountered it on multiple occasions).

 

[mmh]

I think most honest passengers, who witness freeloaders getting away with it on a daily basis

How do these honest passengers (yourself, presumably) witness this? How can any passenger possibly know whether another passenger has (or needs) a ticket?

 

[izvor]

How do these honest passengers (yourself, presumably) witness this? How can any passenger possibly know whether another passenger has (or needs) a ticket?

Do you really need to ask this question? Good grief, I find it hard to avoid witnessing obvious fraudulent train travel most times I travel. Kids (usually teenage or young adult males) crashing through barriers, climbing over them, pleading poverty with gateline staff, vaulting fences to access platforms, playing dumb (or worse) with train conductors; I could continue. Do you never observe such behaviour? If so I'd like to know which branch of paradise you inhabit! Or do you just find it acceptable or presume innocence in all cases? Appears pretty obvious criminal fraud to me.

(yourself, presumably)

Compared to these undesirables, yes.

 

[Haywain]

Do you never observe such behaviour?

I certainly don't observe it with the same frequency as you apparently do, and I certainly don't live in a place that has ever been referred to as paradise.

 

[Tetchytyke]

I think most honest passengers, who witness freeloaders getting away with it on a daily basis, would welcome more vigorous checks.

At certain stations you will see the odd person tailgating or vaulting a barrier, or otherwise 'freeloading.' But what people don't see is all the other people who are going through the barrier properly and who are paying for their fare. I'm thinking of somewhere like East Croydon or Canning Town where you might have a couple of hundred people go through the barriers in a few minutes. People don't notice the 200 people who go through it properly because that's the normal state of affairs. They do notice the two people who bash through the barrier though.

Question is, what do "more vigorous checks" look like? If someone is prepared to vault a barrier and the barrier staff can't stop them, what do you think an RPI on a train can do any differently? The only authority that will stop them is a significant police presence, ideally with an anti-knife arch, but you can't really have that at every station.

All you can really do is add friction in certain places and remove friction in others for an overall outcome that the vast majority of people will find it easier to pay than they will to avoid paying.

But some people will always find a way to avoid paying. North Shields station the T&W Metro is a great example. They put ticket gates in so people started jumping the fence at the end of the platform. They made the fence higher so people starting lifting each other over the fence. They then put spikes on the top and- I kid you not- I saw someone climbing over the fence wearing what looked like oven gloves to avoid the spikes.

 

[Harratt4]

East Croydon is a station I know very well. You would indeed have to pass through it with your eyes closed not to see the barrier bumping and tailgating if you used it more than a couple of times. It is also a station where there are usually around a dozen or more staff of various grades and roles, seemingly TOC and agency standing (or a lot of the time leaning) around the gate line/s achieving precisely nothing. I think that is what rubs "honest" passengers (me and my local friends) up the most. The fact that rightly or wrongly the company sees what they are doing and do literally nothing. Worse still, those of us who do pay for tickets are paying for multiple people to stand around doing nothing. We're paying twice, once for the freeloaders who don't pay and once for staff to watch them do it.

Now I accept the point about violence and aggression and I am sympathetic to it, but the optics, frankly are terrible.

 

[saismee]

Question is, what do "more vigorous checks" look like? If someone is prepared to vault a barrier and the barrier staff can't stop them, what do you think an RPI on a train can do any differently? The only authority that will stop them is a significant police presence, ideally with an anti-knife arch, but you can't really have that at every station.

Land Sheriffs or TSOs (I think that's the term). They very much can get hands-on and they certainly do whenever I see them, though only if they have to. Quite exciting to watch a bit of justice.

If I'm honest though, the obvious fare dodgers are quite uncommon. Most fare dodging is with short fares, doughnuts, improper railcards, or using tickets at the wrong times on purpose.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Now I accept the point about violence and aggression and I am sympathetic to it, but the optics, frankly are terrible.

I totally agree.

I also get the assault risk thing, but pubs and nightclubs are required to employ people whose specific job is to get physically involved with people who need to be ejected from the premises due to inappropriate behaviour. I see no reason why a gateline at a problem station (or indeed supermarkets) should be any different. Companies exist whose specific purpose is providing such staff under contract.

 

[saismee]

I totally agree.

I also get the assault risk thing, but pubs and nightclubs are required to employ people whose specific job is to get physically involved with people who need to be ejected from the premises due to inappropriate behaviour. I see no reason why a gateline at a problem station (or indeed supermarkets) should be any different. Companies exist whose specific purpose is providing such staff under contract.

I also agree with optics totally. At my station we have absolutely caused some scenes when someone has aggressively bumped the barriers, and we have the right staff to remove them.

Gateline staff are there for safety and customer service. If they had powers to detain and get hands-on with people, what then happens when someone gets trapped in a gate during this?

When fare dodging starts going up at problem stations, BTP, RPIs, and other security staff are deployed temporarily to "push back" against the fare dodging to bring it back under control. This obviously isn't perfect or frequent enough in my opinion, but it does happen.

 

[CharlieSpotted]

Gateline staff are there for safety and customer service.

Citation needed! Certainly, nobody seems to have told them this...

 

[Tetchytyke]

Land Sheriffs or TSOs (I think that's the term). They very much can get hands-on and they certainly do whenever I see them

Land Sheriffs is, AFAIK, just a trading name for a private security company. They're just security guards- nothing more, nothing less.

I'd agree that at 'problem' stations it would be a good idea for the railways to have trained security staff there, people who are trained in how to physically (and safely) remove people from the premises.

But even they can't be everywhere.

If they had powers to detain and get hands-on with people

Gateline staff, like all railway staff, do have the power to detain people or eject people from the premises.

What they don't generally have is the training and professional experience to either detain or eject people safely, which is why they're usually told not to.