Revenue protection vs. a frictionless experience for passengers

py_megapixel · 16 May 2019

Something which I find very frustrating about the National Rail network is this tendency, as the title suggests, towards prioritising revenue protection over everything else. Here are a couple of stations which seem to follow this trend:

Birmingham New St - Network Rail have put in ticket barriers, but they split the concourse in two to allow a public footpath to run through the station. There is an Interchange corridor but there is inadequate signage as to how to access it, so you end up stuck on the wrong half.
Manchester Oxford Road - There are so few ticket barriers that there can be queues of several minutes to exit the station at busy times. This is made worse by the use of e-tickets on smartphones, which require a barcode to be scanned, which can take a while.

I really think that something should be done about just putting barriers everywhere, minimising the number of station entrances etc. Essentially they are using a few dishonest people as an excuse to inconvenience honest, fare-paying passengers.

I'm just interested to know other people's opinions about this, and any more examples.

RailUK Forums

AMD · 16 May 2019

py_megapixel said:
Essentially they are using a few dishonest people

You would be surprised how many people are 'dishonest' out there....
When Northern put barriers in over the last couple of years revenue at these station went up typically in the double digit % range, one station went up in the region of 24%

Bletchleyite · 17 May 2019

AMD said:
You would be surprised how many people are 'dishonest' out there....
When Northern put barriers in over the last couple of years revenue at these station went up typically in the double digit % range, one station went up in the region of 24%

I'd agree - I would suggest that the vast majority of people take the "pay when challenged" line. The barrier line provides that challenge even if, like LNR stations at off-peak times, they are actually staffed by contracted security guards who have no power other than to ask nicely for you to go to the TVM and buy a ticket if you don't have one, and if you just walk off they have nothing they can do at all.

I don't mind New St, and I don't find exiting and re-entering a particular issue - indeed I probably want to do that to pop to the shop between trains anyway.

Manchester Oxford Road is bad but it really needs a full rebuild (not just for reasons of barrier positioning).

Bertie the bus · 17 May 2019

Bletchleyite said:
I'd agree - I would suggest that the vast majority of people take the "pay when challenged" line.

I assume that is poorly worded and means the vast majority of people who travel without a ticket. A substantial majority of people purchase tickets.

Bletchleyite · 17 May 2019

Bertie the bus said:
I assume that is poorly worded and means the vast majority of people who travel without a ticket. A substantial majority of people purchase tickets.

I reckon more than 50% of people would not purchase tickets if they knew there would not be a challenge, i.e. there was known to be no revenue protection at all. It's the challenge, be that the risk of a PF/prosecution, a closed ticket barrier or the guard coming through and insisting on an Anytime Single, that means more people pay these days.

Certainly until the recent "full period of service" barrier introduction on LNR late-night hops within MK were known by several people I know as "the free train" because there was pretty much no chance of any kind of challenge.

Bertie the bus · 17 May 2019

If people knew for a fact they wouldn't get caught or face punishment they would do all sorts of things, most more interesting and more serious than fare dodging. That still doesn't mean the vast majority of passengers only pay when challenged. They don't. That is a fact.

yorksrob · 17 May 2019

py_megapixel said:
Something which I find very frustrating about the National Rail network is this tendency, as the title suggests, towards prioritising revenue protection over everything else. Here are a couple of stations which seem to follow this trend:

Birmingham New St - Network Rail have put in ticket barriers, but they split the concourse in two to allow a public footpath to run through the station. There is an Interchange corridor but there is inadequate signage as to how to access it, so you end up stuck on the wrong half.

Manchester Oxford Road - There are so few ticket barriers that there can be queues of several minutes to exit the station at busy times. This is made worse by the use of e-tickets on smartphones, which require a barcode to be scanned, which can take a while.

I really think that something should be done about just putting barriers everywhere, minimising the number of station entrances etc. Essentially they are using a few dishonest people as an excuse to inconvenience honest, fare-paying passengers.

I'm just interested to know other people's opinions about this, and any more examples.

I would add Wakefield Westgate - where they've put in barriers but no one wants to pay to upgrade them to read metro cards.

py_megapixel · 17 May 2019

Bletchleyite said:
It's the challenge, be that the risk of a PF/prosecution, a closed ticket barrier or the guard coming through and insisting on an Anytime Single, that means more people pay these days.

You make a good point. Surely then if the penalty fares were raised to minimum £100 or something like that then that would serve two purposes: discouraging fare evasion, and paying for all the fare evaders that remain! That's how it works in Germany, for example.

Parallel · 17 May 2019

At Bath, the ticket barriers to exit have been left open in the morning peak more regularly than not over the last few months. And on one occasion recently it was closed, I was shocked at how many regular commuters I see every morning did a U turn when they saw the barriers closed and go to purchase a ticket from the counter.

Bletchleyite · 17 May 2019

py_megapixel said:
You make a good point. Surely then if the penalty fares were raised to minimum £100 or something like that then that would serve two purposes: discouraging fare evasion, and paying for all the fare evaders that remain! That's how it works in Germany, for example.

Yes, I would be in favour of:
- Decriminalising fare evasion (so a PF would be the only way to deal with it, with a statutory appeals body)
- Setting the PF at a level that would wholly cover the costs of revenue protection and expected lost revenue from non-payers
...then stopping worrying about it.

The exception would be serious fraud, e.g. falsification of tickets, which could be prosecuted using the relevant regular crimes rather than railway specific ones e.g. a fraud charge.

najaB · 17 May 2019

Bletchleyite said:
Yes, I would be in favour of:
- Decriminalising fare evasion (so a PF would be the only way to deal with it, with a statutory appeals body)

I don't know if I'd support going that far, since it is criminal behaviour, but certainly the decision if to/not to prosecute shouldn't be entirely up to the TOC.

DarloRich · 17 May 2019

Bletchleyite said:
I'd agree - I would suggest that the vast majority of people take the "pay when challenged" line. The barrier line provides that challenge even if, like LNR stations at off-peak times, they are actually staffed by contracted security guards who have no power other than to ask nicely for you to go to the TVM and buy a ticket if you don't have one, and if you just walk off they have nothing they can do at all.

agreed - there was so much ticket-less travel in the MK area and into London before the fully staffed gates. It wasn't even hidden. It seems to have fallen.

Bletchleyite said:
I don't mind New St, and I don't find exiting and re-entering a particular issue - indeed I probably want to do that to pop to the shop between trains anyway.

Agreed - this is something the majority of posters here simply fail to grasp. New Street is a really good station for the normal passenger as opposed ot the trai nfan.

py_megapixel said:
You make a good point. Surely then if the penalty fares were raised to minimum £100 or something like that then that would serve two purposes: discouraging fare evasion, and paying for all the fare evaders that remain! That's how it works in Germany, for example.

I doubt it would have any effect. Most people assume they wont be caught.

py_megapixel said:
Essentially they are using a few dishonest people as an excuse to inconvenience honest, fare-paying passengers.

I think you are living a very sheltered life! People are always on the fiddle!

Wtloild · 17 May 2019

Agree, there's a lot of opportunist ticketless travel going on, on various forms of transport - I used to see it all the time travelling to/from the then unstaffed Burnley Manchester Road.
My daughter informs me that a common one with mobile bus tickets is one person buys one, takes a screenshot of the bar-code, and shares with all their friends, which as seemingly true is a spectacular own-goal from the company involved.
More generally, my wife packed in her job and started working in a supermarket last year. Her first-hand experiences of really widespread and blatant shoplifting (including by neighbours, colleagues and acquaintances) have been a real eye-opener to us about the opportunism and dishonesty of the much of the general public.

Bletchleyite · 17 May 2019

Wtloild said:
My daughter informs me that a common one with mobile bus tickets is one person buys one, takes a screenshot of the bar-code, and shares with all their friends, which as seemingly true is a spectacular own-goal from the company involved.

Only because they aren't enforcing it. Because you have to register your details and card details to buy a mobile ticket, they know who originated the copies, so once their ticket machine system flags up implausible multiple use it would be easy to pursue them. Obviously bus operators don't have the same Byelaws as the railway do, but as private companies not obliged to serve anyone they could issue some permanent bans "pour encourager les autres" and publicise this - that would really muck with the lives of the perpetrators. That, or a fraud charge may well stick.

Kite159 · 17 May 2019

Case in point that some folk will try and get away without paying is look at Edinburgh when services depart from a barrier-less platform, last week I was on the 68 hauled set towards Glenrothes and the assistant guard caught a good half dozen passengers in the front coach* wanting singles to stations on the inner circle. I would imagine it will be the same for the XC & LNER services which go beyond Edinburgh.

(*This was on platform 19 so the pay when challenged lot had to walk past 5 coaches so they knew what they were doing, like seasoned Pay when Challenged on Northern know if it's a pair of non-gangwayed units if they go to the front unit there is less chance of being asked for tickets [only for the front unit to have an assistant ticket examiner on board who 'pounces']

Revenue protection vs. a frictionless experience for passengers

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AMD

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