Have them arrested.
Arrested for what? Attempting to buy a ticket from the guard and not from the TVM??
Have them arrested.
As an RPI myself who works primarily in an area with guarded trains you're dead right, guards have so much more to deal with than tickets, on our patch we react to feedback from Conductors/Train Managers and Ticket Examiners mainly via WhatsApp groups etc.
I have the time to argue with someone for however long it takes, I can jump off with them at the next station to continue which means no delay to the train or other passengers and we can also follow things up, these days we have a mass of information available to us, we've successfully obtained details of people using Facebook and Twitter, again, RPI'S have the resources to do this.
Ultimately it's what the RPI role is there for and the guards know that any issues they can report to us to target.
What does help us is when guards sell a ticket but issue a warning to the customer even if just handing them one of our "yellow cards" which are penalty fare warnings, some guards even have a joke about it with the passenger saying if you get a second yellow you get a red
I am passionate about keeping cash as an option to pay for services/products. Cash can never fail. I am sad that many TVMs are card only.
The whole promise to pay system is open to abuse I feel. Although I appreciate that it still allows a kind of way to pay for cash purchasers, I feel a TVM which accepts cash would ultimately be the one stop solution and then, anyone who boards without a ticket should have an RPO come down hard on them. I do feel that a full range of tickets, including Ranger tickets should be available from a TVM.
An RPO can then wipe the floor with anyone without a ticket. Guards can sell tickets but warn that passengers should buy before boarding. The pay when challenged brigade amount to a significant percentage of fare evaders.
In my area (the Westcountry) the majority of TVM'S take cash and cards with one or two exceptions, it's a bit less of a risk having cash in them now as very few people pay with cash so the machines hardly have any in them, when emptied some contain literally just a couple of quid but in other areas I totally understand why they have card only machines because of the risk of a break in, in those areas more people I expect pay with cash too.I am passionate about keeping cash as an option to pay for services/products. Cash can never fail. I am sad that many TVMs are card only.
The whole promise to pay system is open to abuse I feel. Although I appreciate that it still allows a kind of way to pay for cash purchasers, I feel a TVM which accepts cash would ultimately be the one stop solution and then, anyone who boards without a ticket should have an RPO come down hard on them. I do feel that a full range of tickets, including Ranger tickets should be available from a TVM. It's 2019, there's the technology out there for a TVM to do most of the things a ticket office can.
An RPO can then wipe the floor with anyone without a ticket. Guards can sell tickets but warn that passengers should buy before boarding. The pay when challenged brigade amount to a significant percentage of fare evaders.
For a short period. Once people realise the issue is being taken seriously and punishment severe, the issue would soon go away.Are you having a laugh. The majority of stations have 2 or three platforms if you're lucky. Take a platform out with a held train and there will be delays. It is inevitable.
Ah yes, one of the lesser known Human Rights, the one to buy a ticket from a guard if the TVM doesn't sell it.If a ticket machine does not sell the ticket you want then you have legal right to buy on the train.
How else is one to acquire a ticket, if the TVM doesn't vend the required one?Ah yes, one of the lesser known Human Rights, the one to buy a ticket from a guard if the TVM doesn't sell it.
Yes, lots of stations remain unbarriered, for all the good reasons you point out. However, the vast majority of journeys will involve at least one barriered station, was my point.I think you'll find that the vast majority of stations are, and will remain, un barriered. There can often be no economic case for installing barriers at many stations, even if they are already staffed. Often the physical layout of the station prevents it, or the level of train service provided is not sufficient. The costs of gating an otherwise open station which might only have 1 or 2 trains per hour each way is phenomenal, and thats before you even think about employing sufficient staff to man the barriers all day every day.
I think that lots of people here need to be realistic.
All the more reason to do more about it.It isn't 1 person. Its massive numbers of fare evaders
Fantastic. Finally someone with some common sense. More of this please, a lot more.As an RPI myself who works primarily in an area with guarded trains you're dead right, guards have so much more to deal with than tickets, on our patch we react to feedback from Conductors/Train Managers and Ticket Examiners mainly via WhatsApp groups etc.
I have the time to argue with someone for however long it takes, I can jump off with them at the next station to continue which means no delay to the train or other passengers and we can also follow things up, these days we have a mass of information available to us, we've successfully obtained details of people using Facebook and Twitter, again, RPI'S have the resources to do this.
Ultimately it's what the RPI role is there for and the guards know that any issues they can report to us to target.
What does help us is when guards sell a ticket but issue a warning to the customer even if just handing them one of our "yellow cards" which are penalty fare warnings, some guards even have a joke about it with the passenger saying if you get a second yellow you get a red
There is no requirement to do so and people cannot be penalised for not doing so.I asked a Southeastern revenue inspector about this today and he said that the general rule of thumb is that if there is no ticket office or it's closed then passengers can board the train without a ticket on the proviso that they buy one at the earliest opportunity and ideally they should go straight to the conductor when they board the train and ask to buy a ticket although he acknowledged that in some situations that might not be practical, long train, laden with luggage or a buggy
DOO refers to the operation of the train; there are loads of trains which are DOO but have staff inspecting/selling tickets (ie. TTI, OBS and OBM roles on TOCs such as Scotrail, GTR, Southeastern; all these roles could reasonably be referred to as "conductors" though that isn't the official job title), equally there are trains which have non-commercial Guards who are absolutely not "conductors" and are unable to issue tickets (e.g. on SWR)and of course on DOO trains there is no conductor anyway
How else is one to acquire a ticket, if the TVM doesn't vend the required one?
That sounds like a reference to the old "Condition 3" of the National Rail Conditions of Travel, which was abolished a few years ago.A member of Greater Anglia revenue protection staff was involved in a heated argument with a passenger about this recently, I seem to remember because the TVM at Stowmarket could not sell them a ranger/rover ticket and the ticket office there was closed. His supposed solution was ‘buy a ticket which will get you to the nearest staffed station with an open ticket office and then exchange it there for the ticket you want’. This is possibly sound advice in some situations, but what do you do if your journey doesn’t go through any staffed stations with open offices, or if you would delay your journey by getting off at Diss or wherever to exchange your ticket (some passengers actually have destinations to reach...) This is probably a good reason why Northern have established the Promise to Pay scheme (I do think that at minor stations in PF schemes the machines ought to be made to print these, or some form of permit to travel, to avoid these situations).
I've never heard of 'part credit' being granted for a ticket brought (but ultimately not needed) purely to exchange for a ticket that wasn't available at the origin.So far every time I've known someone buy a part ticket in such circumstances has been advised against doing that in future.
Cash can never fail.
However, the vast majority of journeys will involve at least one barriered station, was my point.
Possibly so, due to the large % of barriered stations in the SE (but not as many as some may think). But in South Yorkshire, for example, there are no barriered stations at all.
None at Sheffield (almost 10 million passengers est 2017/18) or York (also almost 10m in 2017/18) and I can't recall a barrier at Doncaster either (almost 4m in 2017/18). So a very large number of journeys within the region pass through no barriers BUT I always have to pass through a barrier at St Pancras, Manchester Piccadilly, Leeds, Huddersfield and Nottingham. That's possibly a high proportion of journeys starting in South Yorkshire.The barriers at Newcastle are often not in operation.
If a passenger joins at a station where they could have bought a ticket but didn't buy a ticket then they can be penalised, someone gets on at a station with just a TVM and seeks me out explaining that they didn't understand the machine etc I'll probably sell a ticket, if I get to them and they're just sat there then say the same then I'm more likely to PF them. I know this argument has been done to death before!There is no requirement to do so and people cannot be penalised for not doing so.
If a passenger joins at a station where they could have bought a ticket but didn't buy a ticket then they can be penalised, someone gets on at a station with just a TVM and seeks me out explaining that they didn't understand the machine etc I'll probably sell a ticket, if I get to them and they're just sat there then say the same then I'm more likely to PF them. I know this argument has been done to death before!
So are you saying, if the tvm doesn't sell the ticket the passenger was looking for so gets on hoping to get it from the guard , you would PF them? So basically, they should buy a more expensive or less flexible ticket than they require are entitled to for fear of PF from someone like you?
Hmmm....
What I was saying?A TVM isn't an adequate substitute for a ticket office, many people will be totally bewildered by a TVM and prefer a human interaction where you tell the ticket office clerk or on board conductor where you want to go, when you're coming back etc and they find the best price for you.
Also this notion of a passenger who could not buy their ticket being required to go straight to the on board staff when they get on the train. All well and good on a two car train on a rural branch line but not so easy on a 12 car in the rush hour and how is the average passenger supposed to know which trains do or don't have on board staff?
None at Sheffield (almost 10 million passengers est 2017/18) or York (also almost 10m in 2017/18) and I can't recall a barrier at Doncaster either (almost 4m in 2017/18). So a very large number of journeys within the region pass through no barriers BUT I always have to pass through a barrier at St Pancras, Manchester Piccadilly, Leeds, Huddersfield and Nottingham. That's possibly a high proportion of journeys starting in South Yorkshire.The barriers at Newcastle are often not in operation.
I think the general theme here is:- barriers are all well and good, untill the staff required to operate them become too expensive or disinterested or worse, too abused.The barriers at Huddersfield are often open, especially at weekends when they are hardly ever in use due to staff shortages.
The barriers at Dewsbury are very rarely used, and if they are, it's only ever Mon to Fri peak times.
The barriers at Leeds and Liverpool are about as waterproof as a tea bag and it is perfectly easy to pass through without a valid ticket. Either tailgate someone because they are slow to close or just walk out of the open assistance gate, where the completely uninterested staff member will make no attempt at all to check whether you have a valid ticket.
At Piccadilly you can avoid the barriers by walking out of the end of platform 1 or using the Fairfield Street Lift from the bridge which goes straight down to the street.