Ticket Awareness at Piccadilly Manchester

soundsmill · 7 May 2013

I traveled from an unmanned station, Flowery Field to Manchester Piccadilly around 8am on a crowded train in November 2012 and joined a long queue on the platform to obtain a ticket like most mornings.
There was only one operator issuing tickets and the card reader was broken by the time I reached him. There were several uniformed operatives on the platform but only one issuing tickets.
I was asked to buy a ticket from the main booking office before I left the station. The queue at the booking office was long and I decided, wrongly, to ignore the request to buy a ticket.
1 the train was late in arriving that morning
2 I had queued and attempted to buy a ticket already and more staff on the platform should have had ticket machines.
On leaving the station I was approached by a member of staff (he just appeared from nowhere) as to why I had not complied with the request to buy a ticket.
During the conversation with him he told me I would have the opportunity to explain why I made the decision to not to buy a ticket and the level of fine would be apportioned according to its merit.
I have not had that opportunity and have just received a letter from Northern to pay a fixed penalty of £80 plus the original fare of £3.40 within 14 days or face legal proceedings.
I have my suspicions it was a setup with a broken card machine and with so many operatives on the platform observing with radio communication. I left by the Fairfield St entrance some distance away from the platform and down 2 escalators and he just appeared.
I'm no fare dodger, I had an annual pass for over 20 years until I qualified for free travel after 9.30am. I now use a ticket app to get my ticket the day before to avoid chaos of getting a ticket at Piccadilly.
Any advice or do I just pay? I have phoned them and left a message.

RailUK Forums

Swirlz · 7 May 2013

I'd highly recommend you pay the £83.40 before you find yourself in front of 3 Magistrates.

Easy to get a much harsher sentence in court. They'd almost be guaranteed to win if using the Section 5 Regulation of Railway Act 1889 offence.

You say you're not a fare dodger, but you tried to leave without paying, i.e. dodging the fare!

jb · 7 May 2013

As you've described it you are bang to rights regarding the more serious category of ticketing offences, and could be convicted of a recordable offence (carries a criminal record) if they chose to go down that route.

Pay up, move on and stick to your wise day-before purchase strategy.

455driver · 7 May 2013

soundsmill said:
I'm no fare dodger,

By what you have written I am afraid you are, pay up quickly before they change their mind, cancel the settlement and go for a RoRa offence.

MichaelAMW · 7 May 2013

How long was it between the the time your train was scheduled to arrive at Manchester and the time you left the station?

pemma · 7 May 2013

Have you previously had to give your name to a ticket inspector?

It's just that Northern started a new scheme to combat fare evasion towards the end of last year starting with the Glossop line and the details indicated a £80 fixed penalty would be for people who had already received a warning. The scheme was discussed in this thread: http://www.railforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=74377

yorkie · 7 May 2013

jcollins said:
Have you previously had to give your name to a ticket inspector?

It's just that Northern started a new scheme to combat fare evasion towards the end of last year starting with the Glossop line and the details indicated a £80 fixed penalty would be for people who had already received a warning. The scheme was discussed in this thread: http://www.railforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=74377

When there is clear evidence of intent to avoid payment, I do not think they necessarily issue a warning before going for the fixed penalty, based on numerous previous threads on this subject.

talltim · 7 May 2013

Aren't there some guidelines about how long you should have to queue to get a ticket?

Phirstman · 7 May 2013

talltim said:
Aren't there some guidelines about how long you should have to queue to get a ticket?

5-10 minutes I believe based on TOC (?). They aren't bound to it like we are to paying for a ticket however, and long queues do not excuse fare evasion.

yorkie · 7 May 2013

talltim said:
Aren't there some guidelines about how long you should have to queue to get a ticket?

There are, but the guidelines are not enforced, and it's implied that if they apply only to buying at your origin. In this case the OP appears not to have queued for any length of time at Manchester Piccadilly.

cjmillsnun · 8 May 2013

soundsmill said:
I traveled from an unmanned station, Flowery Field to Manchester Piccadilly around 8am on a crowded train in November 2012 and joined a long queue on the platform to obtain a ticket like most mornings.
There was only one operator issuing tickets and the card reader was broken by the time I reached him. There were several uniformed operatives on the platform but only one issuing tickets.
I was asked to buy a ticket from the main booking office before I left the station.

So far so good. These things happen and the staff were being reasonable.

The queue at the booking office was long and I decided, wrongly, to ignore the request to buy a ticket.
1 – the train was late in arriving that morning
2 – I had queued and attempted to buy a ticket already and more staff on the platform should have had ticket machines.

And here is where you lose any sympathy. You made a journey, you have to pay. It's as simple as that! They may have only had a limited number of advantix machines. again, it happens.

On leaving the station I was approached by a member of staff (he just appeared from nowhere) as to why I had not complied with the request to buy a ticket.
During the conversation with him he told me I would have the opportunity to explain why I made the decision to not to buy a ticket and the level of fine would be apportioned according to its merit.

That's the normal procedure, however there is no merit in that you were given an opportunity to pay and you decided not to. It's an open and shut case really

I have not had that opportunity and have just received a letter from Northern to pay a fixed penalty of £80 plus the original fare of £3.40 within 14 days or face legal proceedings.

I strongly advise you accept their generous offer.

I have my suspicions it was a setup with a broken card machine and with so many operatives on the platform observing with radio communication. I left by the Fairfield St entrance some distance away from the platform and down 2 escalators and he just appeared.

Broken card machines happen all the time. Having worked in retail it could be the simple fact that the telephone line to the bank has failed.

It would be quite normal in these circumstances for RPIs to be positioned at all exits and to be alerted by their colleagues about who needed to pay.

I'm no fare dodger,

Yes you are. Your own post proves it... I'll quote the relevant section again...

The queue at the booking office was long and I decided, wrongly, to ignore the request to buy a ticket.
1 – the train was late in arriving that morning
2 – I had queued and attempted to buy a ticket already and more staff on the platform should have had ticket machines.

Making excuses doesn't remove the requirement to pay your fare.

I had an annual pass for over 20 years until I qualified for free travel after 9.30am. I now use a ticket app to get my ticket the day before to avoid chaos of getting a ticket at Piccadilly.

In that respect you at least seem to have learned your lesson.

Any advice or do I just pay? I have phoned them and left a message.

Take it on the chin and move on. They were quite within their rights to take you to court without any settlement offer at all.

323235 · 8 May 2013

Avantix machines do not have an online telephone connection. The failure to authorise the payment would likely although not exclusively be down to the transaction limit on the card being reached or it having a zero transaction limit. Either that or perhaps a problem with a faulty card reader.

ian959 · 8 May 2013

soundsmill said:
I have my suspicions it was a setup with a broken card machine and with so many operatives on the platform observing with radio communication. I left by the Fairfield St entrance some distance away from the platform and down 2 escalators and he just appeared.
I'm no fare dodger

Interesting conspiracy theory but completely irrelevant. By your actions in ignoring the instructions given to you by the staff, you are most definitely a fare dodger. Now maybe you meant to say that you have never dodged a fare before but the fact is you are now indeed a fare dodger. Best advice to you, as already given above several times, is to pay up on the penalty notice because they have you dead to rights for a RoRA conviction which would would be a recordable offence.

causton · 8 May 2013

I don't believe it was a set up but yes, with radio communications one of the staff members probably saw you get off the train, start to queue for a ticket, then walk out of the queue without buying a ticket towards the exit, which would have prompted them to investigate further as to why you suddenly now don't need to have a ticket! (Working in a shop, the same happens when there is a queue at the tills, once or twice people's shopping has mysteriously disappeared and they have left, and it seems to have teleported into their bag after the cashiers noticed the items disappearing and contacted the front of house! Now the queues and technical failures are not a set up in this instance either but if you call that a conspiracy then... maybe it was...)

silencio · 8 May 2013

What date did this offence take place?

trentside · 8 May 2013

323235 said:
Avantix machines do not have an online telephone connection. The failure to authorise the payment would likely although not exclusively be down to the transaction limit on the card being reached or it having a zero transaction limit. Either that or perhaps a problem with a faulty card reader.

If the person taking payments is not accepting card full stop, it's more likely to be a problem with the Avantix equipment. Both Dione and Thyron card readers are horrendously unreliable, outside of issues with not being able to do offline transactions there are problems getting them to pair correctly with the Avantix PDA (even when they claim to have done it successfully), problems with battery life and just failing to authorise any transaction. Obviously hardware failures are not the customers fault - it just requires them to be sent towards an alternative place to pay, the impetus is on them to do this, unlike the OP.

dcsprior · 9 May 2013

Swirlz said:
I'd highly recommend you pay the £83.40 before you find yourself in front of 3 Magistrates.

Easy to get a much harsher sentence in court. They'd almost be guaranteed to win if using the Section 5 Regulation of Railway Act 1889 offence.

You say you're not a fare dodger, but you tried to leave without paying, i.e. dodging the fare!

I think "fare dodger" is overly harsh. I see that phrase used a lot on here to mean "someone who hasn't bought a ticket, when they should've done" but I think "fare dodger" means something to actively avoid a fare - e.g. hiding in a toilet when the conductor comes, an adult buying a child ticket, etc.

I actually have some sympathy with the OP here as I've been in a similar situation myself in a non-travel context

Many years ago, a group of friends and I ate dinner in a local pub/restaurant. At the end, we asked for the bill - it never came; 15 minutes later, we asked again - it never came. This went on for over an hour, with my friends and I making it clearer and clearer that we'd already asked many times. In the end we all decided that we were not going to continue to wait, said "bugger that" and walked out. If this had been in a shop, I'd have simply put down my purchases and walked out, but in a restaurant I had already received the service, so was required to pay for it. It is therefore not cut'n'dried that what I did was morally right, but I would argue that the company had not taken my payment when I'd offered it and would also say that the cost of the meal was effectively payment for the wasted hour of my time

However, there's a time to make a point, and when you're being offered a chance to avoid prosecution for an offence you're guilty of on paper is not that time.

soundsmill said:
I have my suspicions it was a setup with a broken card machine and with so many operatives on the platform observing with radio communication. I left by the Fairfield St entrance some distance away from the platform and down 2 escalators and he just appeared.

See Hanlon's razor

jb · 9 May 2013

dcsprior said:
I think "fare dodger" is overly harsh. I see that phrase used a lot on here to mean "someone who hasn't bought a ticket, when they should've done" but I think "fare dodger" means something to actively avoid a fare - e.g. hiding in a toilet when the conductor comes, an adult buying a child ticket, etc.

I dunno, this one sounds as described like it would be a slam-dunk RoRA prosecution if it came to that, and I think that's the tacitly accepted metric for the "fare dodger" terminology on here.

It's pretty hard to argue with it for a situation where, for whatever reason, the punter simply decides not to pay.

transportphoto · 9 May 2013

silencio said:
What date did this offence take place?

I don't really believe why such information is relevant to be honest, it's not going to assist us in anyway.

TP

DaveNewcastle · 9 May 2013

transportphoto said:
silencio said:

What date did this offence take place?

Click to expand...

I don't really believe why such information is relevant to be honest, it's not going to assist us in anyway.

I doubt it's particularly helpful now either, as I'm beginning to suspect that the OP might not come back to post, (although they may still be reading and we wouldn't know).

Anyway: I'm guessing that silencio might have had in mind Section 7 of the Criminal Procedure Rules which provides a 6 month period in which a Magistrates Court may be notified of an intention to prosecute following an alledged Offence, and, that the OP reported that the incident took place last November. That would be approx. 6 months ago, hence the question of the date.

Some people on here have been animated by the prospect of an alledged Offence failing to be prosecuted as a consequence of a Railway prosecutor finding themselves out-of time, leading to a special interest in 'incidents' of about that 6-month vintage.

silencio · 9 May 2013

It was just a query for another for another avenue to explore.

12CSVT · 10 May 2013

jb said:
It's pretty hard to argue with it for a situation where, for whatever reason, the punter simply decides not to pay.

It is also clear that the TOC didn't exactly make it easy for the punter to pay.

The TOC failed to provide ticket issuing facilities at the OP's origin station.
The TOC failed to issue tickets on the train.
The TOC failed to provide adequate ticket issuing facilities on the platform at the OP's destination.

Expecting the OP (whose train was late arriving at its destination) to then be inconvenienced further by joining a massive queue at the ticket office is hardly satisfactory.

MichaelAMW · 10 May 2013

12CSVT said:
It is also clear that the TOC didn't exactly make it easy for the punter to pay.

The TOC failed to provide ticket issuing facilities at the OP's origin station.
The TOC failed to issue tickets on the train.
The TOC failed to provide adequate ticket issuing facilities on the platform at the OP's destination.

Expecting the OP (whose train was late arriving at its destination) to then be inconvenienced further by joining a massive queue at the ticket office is hardly satisfactory.

I agree, whick is why I asked the OP how long it was between the due time of their arrival and their final leaving the station.

island · 10 May 2013

12CSVT said:
It is also clear that the TOC didn't exactly make it easy for the punter to pay.

The TOC failed to provide ticket issuing facilities at the OP's origin station.
The TOC failed to issue tickets on the train.
The TOC failed to provide adequate ticket issuing facilities on the platform at the OP's destination.

Expecting the OP (whose train was late arriving at its destination) to then be inconvenienced further by joining a massive queue at the ticket office is hardly satisfactory.

To the extent that this is a good point, the appropriate action is to complain to Northern on the first three items and Virgin Trains on the last. It does not excuse a passenger from paying before he leaves the station, nor from prosecution for failing to do so.

Haywain · 10 May 2013

12CSVT said:
It is also clear that the TOC didn't exactly make it easy for the punter to pay.

The TOC failed to provide ticket issuing facilities at the OP's origin station.
The TOC failed to issue tickets on the train.
The TOC failed to provide adequate ticket issuing facilities on the platform at the OP's destination.

Expecting the OP (whose train was late arriving at its destination) to then be inconvenienced further by joining a massive queue at the ticket office is hardly satisfactory.

The OP didn't say it was a massive queue, he said it was "long". But he didn't apparently wait to see how quickly it moved, so there isn't much in the way of grounds for complaint. It is after all queuing time that's important, not the number of people in front of you. And as a regular traveller from a station without ticket issuing facilities he really should expect a little time to be involved in buying a ticket at the end of the journey. Ultimately, it seems he saw a queue and decided not to bother paying.

185 · 11 May 2013

Haywain said:
The OP didn't say it was a massive queue, he said it was "long". But he didn't apparently wait to see how quickly it moved, so there isn't much in the way of grounds for complaint. It is after all queuing time that's important, not the number of people in front of you. And as a regular traveller from a station without ticket issuing facilities he really should expect a little time to be involved in buying a ticket at the end of the journey. Ultimately, it seems he saw a queue and decided not to bother paying.

I don't disagree, but the PTE expressed concern that passengers were being held, often for over 15 minutes which is excessive.

A long term solution needs considering for the huge number of unstaffed busy stations in Manchester.

mullin · 11 May 2013

To actually have some g4s staff at Piccadilly who know station names in the area and have an idea of how to spell them too without asking you to spell it out would be quite nice (and get the queues moving too)!
Don't try splitting tickets with the ones at Wallgate either, they're even worse!!!

londonbridge · 12 May 2013

DaveNewcastle said:
Anyway: I'm guessing that silencio might have had in mind Section 7 of the Criminal Procedure Rules which provides a 6 month period in which a Magistrates Court may be notified of an intention to prosecute following an alledged Offence, and, that the OP reported that the incident took place last November. That would be approx. 6 months ago, hence the question of the date.

Along similar lines, I once witnessed a passenger assault another, gave a witness statement to BTP, later heard that the CPS spent so long dithering over what to charge the guy with (common assault, GBH, ABH, etc) that the six months expired and no action was taken.

Bakerbloke · 20 Jun 2013

Just seen this post for the first time. This used to happen to me at Piccadilly. You were more than happy to pay the fare. Just not to queue excessively for a second time. One time I queued for 15 minutes at the ticket office.. I found the staff at the top of platform 13 and 14 had a card machine that always worked and much shorter or no queue. Write to Northern and ask for a ticket machine to be installed at your station. Where the card machine stops working the staff should make this known to the people along the queue straight away.

D841 Roebuck · 20 Jun 2013

About 3 years ago, I travelled into Manchester Vic from an unstaffed station. Neither the card reader on the train nor that belonging to the G4S staff at the gateline would work, and - unusually - I had no cash on me.

The solution was straightforward - I explained the situation to the "gripper" and suggested I nip upstairs to the atm at the arena. He was happy to agree to this, and two minutes later cash had been obtained and the fare paid. So common sense does sometimes apply, and some G4S staff are very capable of using it.

Ticket Awareness at Piccadilly Manchester

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