Are fines on the UK railways too overkill?
In general, no, but there are two specific aspects of the system which I think are unfair and unjustifiable.
The first is using Anytime fares when calculating settlement offers for Off-Peak journeys. There's no moral basis for doing so, since the Anytime fare bares no relation to the fare that was avoided i.e. the fare that would otherwise have been paid. The only basis for doing so is that the TOCs can, and therefore they do. I would like to see this changed, in legislation if necessary.
The second is in the specific case of expired railcards which the holders are eligible to renew (e.g. two-together railcards, not 16-17 railcards when the holder is no longer eligible). The loss to the railway should be calculated based on the cost of the railcard, not the cost of the fares, since if the holder had done what they should have done (i.e. renew the railcard) then that's the extra revenue that would have been received.
Where it becomes particularly unfair is when these two aspects are combined into the same event. For example someone forgets to renew their two-together railcard for an offpeak return from London to Manchester:
- What they should have paid: two off-peak returns plus two-together railcard = £143.80 + £30 = £173.80
- What they actually paid: two off-peak returns = £143.80
- Loss to the railway = £30
- What the railway calculates: Four anytime singles = 4 x £184.70 = £738.80 (+ investigation costs)
That's a 2462% markup when calculating their losses!
The genuine revenue lost is £30 and that should be the basis of the TOC calculations. And even for those ineligible for railcard renewal, then the revenue loss is the discount given (e.g. £71.95 in this example). Of course there should be some form of discouragement, but that should be in the order of the penalty fare (e.g. £100) or investigation costs (e.g. £150). Not with thousands of percent markup in addition.
I read the forums regularly and variations on this scenario crop up from time to time, and my heart goes out to the people involved since it's manifestly unfair.