With yet another thread having come up in D&P about a battery having run out and a hefty out of court settlement being demanded, is there a simple fix to all this staring the railway in the face?
Most train tickets are bought by the person who will use them with no intention of transfer, and of the ones that aren't, they are bought for a known individual such as husband, wife, friend or children. So why not offer the option of tickets being named, in return for which if a phone battery had run out, you could later produce the ticket in the same manner as you can a forgotten Railcard or season ticket to have any penalty cancelled, as with a name on it it wouldn't likely have been used by someone else?
There doesn't seem to be much scope for abuse unless you know someone of the same name, and e-ticket scans can similarly be checked which would identify misuse like someone going through a gateline with it showing that transfer had taken place. Yet it would deal with this issue quite nicely. It could be limited how often an individual could do it in order to further control abuse - perhaps free the first time in a rolling 12 months and then £10 admin fee for the second and third instance - beyond that you really do need to think about what you're doing.
Obviously tickets could still be issued unnamed for those who prefer that, but then if you can't produce the ticket you could be prosecuted.