What's the point in ticket barriers at stations?

adrock1976 · 8 Apr 2019

Timmyd said:
Something I don’t understand is installing gates and then leaving an open access to the station for disabled use. Both West Norwood and Gipsy Hill have been gated by Southern - and are manned much of the time - but both have level access gates always left open on the London-bound platforms. Suffice to say few of the passengers using them seem disabled, and a large number seem to have no need to touch in either....

I had not realised that you are also a qualified doctor, bearing in mind that not all disabilities are visible.

Assuming it is the same individuals who use the level access gate that do not touch in, perhaps maybe at least one of those individuals may prefer to use a paper season/travelcard as it may work out better for them?

Of course, if a large amount of those individuals do not possess paper tickets and have not touched in, TfL's Oyster section of the website would flag up an unusually high number of incomplete journeys (assuming there is a touch out at the other end) with the Oyster or contactless card being eventually blocked from further use.

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mattmtfc · 18 May 2019

sheff1 said:
You believe there is ample space at Lincoln ? Shrewsbury ? Grantham (now removed) ? Durham (up side - also now removed) ?

At all those places I have witnessed unnecessary congestion caused solely by the introduction of barriers in a confined space. I have no doubt others will have witnessed similar elsewhere.

Plenty of times when going from Newark Castle to Lincoln the conductor has been unable to get through the train they have just let people through the barriers at Lincoln and the barrier staff have said have this 1 on the company because even if the conductor has rung through to say either the trains to full for me to get through or my machine isnt working they just dont have the staff or it's just unsafe to have people queuing on the platform side of the barriers. Central trains were told this when they wanted the barriers installing.

Plethora · 19 May 2019

Swanny200 said:
Tyne and Wear Metro have a problem at the moment where their Revenue guys are powerless, they sit at barriers talking to each other and on many occasion have asked someone if they have a ticket and when told No, watch said person jump over the barrier or just walk through, there is simply nothing that they can do.

The Manchester Metrolink has no barriers, and travelling on it is ridiculous. When it's not helping beggars commute into the city centre for free, it's overrun with horrible little kids. At least the beggars aren't usually antisocial (though their trademark urine-alcohol smell doesn't go down well on rush hour services). If they show up the revenue protection people just kick them off as there's no point in detaining or fining them. I would estimate revenue protection staff cover approximately 1/50 services. So they just get back on the following tram.

Barriers would solve all of that, albeit I appreciate it would be impossible to implement for tram stops. I support their presence on the railway though , they have a role to play.

hwl · 20 May 2019

adrock1976 said:
I had not realised that you are also a qualified doctor, bearing in mind that not all disabilities are visible.

Assuming it is the same individuals who use the level access gate that do not touch in, perhaps maybe at least one of those individuals may prefer to use a paper season/travelcard as it may work out better for them?

Of course, if a large amount of those individuals do not possess paper tickets and have not touched in, TfL's Oyster section of the website would flag up an unusually high number of incomplete journeys (assuming there is a touch out at the other end) with the Oyster or contactless card being eventually blocked from further use.

[GIP used to be my local station]
The interesting thing to do is watch what happens with passengers getting off on the country bound platform: Some passengers walk up the steps and go through the gates, others walk up the steps past the gates down the stairs to the London bound platform out the open steel gate without touching out then double back and go past the station front entrance just 6m from the ticket gates. You'll find about 200-250 doing this is school uniform between 0730 and 0830 as they can use their U16 Oyster cards to get through the barriers at Overground Stations but not Southern ones.
The revenue blocks also show lot of adults exiting the side gate without a ticket/valid Oyster.

Plenty of other south London stations aren't full gated so there are plenty of non paying journey opportunities overall so this won't get picked up by TfL's systems.

When the station was gated in 2009, the gate line with side gate locked needed 4-8 ex Gurkhas on duty for the first 2 months to handle the issues at the gateline to reinforce behavioural change.

infobleep · 20 May 2019

hwl said:
[GIP used to be my local station]
The interesting thing to do is watch what happens with passengers getting off on the country bound platform: Some passengers walk up the steps and go through the gates, others walk up the steps past the gates down the stairs to the London bound platform out the open steel gate without touching out then double back and go past the station front entrance just 6m from the ticket gates. You'll find about 200-250 doing this is school uniform between 0730 and 0830 as they can use their U16 Oyster cards to get through the barriers at Overground Stations but not Southern ones.
The revenue blocks also show lot of adults exiting the side gate without a ticket/valid Oyster.

Plenty of other south London stations aren't full gated so there are plenty of non paying journey opportunities overall so this won't get picked up by TfL's systems.

When the station was gated in 2009, the gate line with side gate locked needed 4-8 ex Gurkhas on duty for the first 2 months to handle the issues at the gateline to reinforce behavioural change.

Why can't the zip cards open the Southern Station barriers? If they are valid, could things be amended so it could be opened?

hwl · 20 May 2019

infobleep said:
Why can't the zip cards open the Southern Station barriers? If they are valid, could things be amended so it could be opened?

They aren't valid till after 0930 at which point they will open barriers, hence the kids have to avoid barriers before 0930

infobleep · 20 May 2019

hwl said:
They aren't valid till after 0930 at which point they will open barriers, hence the kids have to avoid barriers before 0930

Surely that problem also exists on London Overground or does that have different rules?

hwl · 20 May 2019

infobleep said:
Surely that problem also exists on London Overground or does that have different rules?

Different rules - they get free travel before 0930 on LO but they don't on other TOCs.

Hence enter at an LO controlled station with LO and other services e.g. Peckham Rye using the ZIP card then travel on Southern and avoid the barriers at the other end.

infobleep · 20 May 2019

hwl said:
Different rules - they get free travel before 0930 on LO but they don't on other TOCs.

Hence enter at an LO controlled station with LO and other services e.g. Peckham Rye using the ZIP card then travel on Southern and avoid the barriers at the other end.

Do they ever do revenue blocks to catch them all l

hwl · 20 May 2019

infobleep said:
Do they ever do revenue blocks to catch them all l

Apparently not...

jagardner1984 · 20 May 2019

Clearly ticketless travel is problem for anyone who wants the railway to grow and be fair for everyone.

But I do wonder if there is something better that can be done at long distance termini (with or without barriers). I recently boarded a Euston service from GLC platform 2, and the enormous queue of people with heavy luggage queueing, stopping to get a ticket out, then shuffling along, then dropping the ticket, then trying to drag said luggage along without dropping ticket again, all to show ticket to a train manager who then checked them again on train immediately on departure, did seem a little strange and unwelcoming to the largely tourist crowd.

In the days of RFID readers all over the place, it does seem a bit mad you can't have a key tag, a phone in your pocket, smart watch or contactless card that would let you simply walk up to some form of barrier/gate, be scanned for some form of valid travel on the way, and then board the train.

trainophile · 20 May 2019

jagardner1984 said:
Clearly ticketless travel is problem for anyone who wants the railway to grow and be fair for everyone.

But I do wonder if there is something better that can be done at long distance termini (with or without barriers). I recently boarded a Euston service from GLC platform 2, and the enormous queue of people with heavy luggage queueing, stopping to get a ticket out, then shuffling along, then dropping the ticket, then trying to drag said luggage along without dropping ticket again, all to show ticket to a train manager who then checked them again on train immediately on departure, did seem a little strange and unwelcoming to the largely tourist crowd.

In the days of RFID readers all over the place, it does seem a bit mad you can't have a key tag, a phone in your pocket, smart watch or contactless card that would let you simply walk up to some form of barrier/gate, be scanned for some form of valid travel on the way, and then board the train.

I've never had my ticket checked at GLC when boarding a Euston train from platform 1 or 2. I think you were just unlucky that day. This would also explain why most of the passengers weren't prepared to have to fish their tickets out at that point.

Kite159 · 20 May 2019

trainophile said:
I've never had my ticket checked at GLC when boarding a Euston train from platform 1 or 2. I think you were just unlucky that day. This would also explain why most of the passengers weren't prepared to have to fish their tickets out at that point.

I've had a couple checks in the past, normally only on the services which call at Motherwell. I suspect where the Train Manager can normally do a full ticket inspection in the hour or so between Glasgow & Carlisle, they probably get the odd "pay when challenged" chancer for Motherwell

gnolife · 20 May 2019

Kite159 said:
I've had a couple checks in the past, normally only on the services which call at Motherwell. I suspect where the Train Manager can normally do a full ticket inspection in the hour or so between Glasgow & Carlisle, they probably get the odd "pay when challenged" chancer for Motherwell

That'll go remarkably badly for them, given that Motherwell routinely has ticket inspections at the exit to the platform.

Kite159 · 20 May 2019

gnolife said:
That'll go remarkably badly for them, given that Motherwell routinely has ticket inspections at the exit to the platform.

Who will only be able to sell the anytime single ticket so the chancer has nothing to lose

phantomphish · 21 May 2019

hwl said:
Apparently not...

Hello, I'm a rare poster here but thought I'd offer some recent news...

In fact, apparently so - revenue blocks do occur in South London, such as Peckham Rye on 2nd May 2019:

14 Penalty Fares issued
60 Passengers reported for prosecution
2 arrests for people wanted on warrant

It wasn't a one-off either, the next one just hasn't happened yet :lol:

infobleep · 21 May 2019

phantomphish said:
Hello, I'm a rare poster here but thought I'd offer some recent news...

In fact, apparently so - revenue blocks do occur in South London, such as Peckham Rye on 2nd May 2019:

14 Penalty Fares issued

60 Passengers reported for prosecution

2 arrests for people wanted on warrant

It wasn't a one-off either, the next one just hasn't happened yet

In light of previous comments and discussions, were any of them children? :grin:

CanalWalker · 21 May 2019

The obvious answer to fare evasion is to, after renationalisation, abolish fares entirely and pay for the railways out of central taxation, raised by swinging increases in the cost of motor car use. And the same for bus services.

Up the revolution!

RLBH · 21 May 2019

CanalWalker said:
The obvious answer to fare evasion is to, after renationalisation, abolish fares entirely and pay for the railways out of central taxation, raised by swinging increases in the cost of motor car use. And the same for bus services.

Up the revolution!

I was fully prepared to ridicule this for the insanity that it clearly is. Not least because much of the time, cars are the only sensible way to make certain journeys - unless you expect my wife's 55 minute commute to take three hours, or for people to somehow wrestle a flat-pack dining table onto the Number 56 bus back from IKEA. Much less the fact that rural areas are, and always will be, dependent on some form of private transport.

But at the same time, the cost isn't totally ludicrous. UK motoring taxes are about £38 billion. The railway farebox is about £8 billion. A 21% increase in the cost of driving probably could be done, though increasing the cost of fuel by 15/litre (ish) - plus commensurate increases in Vehicle Excise Duty - might equally well cause a revolution.

CanalWalker · 24 May 2019

RLBH said:
I was fully prepared to ridicule this for the insanity that it clearly is. Not least because much of the time, cars are the only sensible way to make certain journeys - unless you expect my wife's 55 minute commute to take three hours, or for people to somehow wrestle a flat-pack dining table onto the Number 56 bus back from IKEA. Much less the fact that rural areas are, and always will be, dependent on some form of private transport.

But at the same time, the cost isn't totally ludicrous. UK motoring taxes are about £38 billion. The railway farebox is about £8 billion. A 21% increase in the cost of driving probably could be done, though increasing the cost of fuel by 15/litre (ish) - plus commensurate increases in Vehicle Excise Duty - might equally well cause a revolution.

I never suggested that that there was never any need to use cars (though IKEA do deliver to your door). But a large proportion of car journeys are optional which reflects the relatively low cost of motoring: much cheaper in real terms than it was when I started motoring 50 years ago. But people have become accustomed to cheap motoring just as, apropros another thread, they have to cheap flying

phantomphish · 24 May 2019

infobleep said:
Do they ever do revenue blocks to catch them all l

Did anyone go through Peckham Rye this evening? :lol:

david252 · 11 Jun 2019

I noticed recently that the gates had been completely removed at Grantham

LowLevel · 12 Jun 2019

david252 said:
I noticed recently that the gates had been completely removed at Grantham

Virgin Trains East Coast cost cutting. They ripped the barriers out at Grantham, Newark Northgate and Darlington and either redeployed the staff or made them redundant. Funnily enough it occurred just before a franchise commitment to staff any operational barriers correctly came into force.

It's now rare to work a train through Grantham without selling a ticket once again, it didn't take the 'pay when challenged' folk long to reappear.

Perverse privatised railway logic in that most fare evaders will either be on the Northern or EMT local services so who cares, or by deploying RPIs they can pick them up on the train instead.

tsr · 12 Jun 2019

phantomphish said:
Did anyone go through Peckham Rye this evening?

There's been a spate of very successful revenue operations happening around GTR lately, but it has featured both stations with gatelines and those without. (Some quite interesting agencies being involved in the checks, too - far beyond anything a mechanised barrier could achieve.)

At the very least, the last couple of months should have provided a lesson for quite a number of fare-dodgers that they're being watched... at last...

infobleep · 12 Jun 2019

tsr said:
There's been a spate of very successful revenue operations happening around GTR lately, but it has featured both stations with gatelines and those without. (Some quite interesting agencies being involved in the checks, too - far beyond anything a mechanised barrier could achieve.)

At the very least, the last couple of months should have provided a lesson for quite a number of fare-dodgers that they're being watched... at last...

Is that all times of rhe day? Some people claim that farr dodging occurs when barriers are left open at set times of the day each day. In other words people know when to fare dodge as barriers always open at certain times.

However at these times wouldn't the guard be more likely to. heck the tickets, knowibg this might be the case? They may of course not even know the barrier manning times.

Kite159 · 12 Jun 2019

LowLevel said:
Virgin Trains East Coast cost cutting. They ripped the barriers out at Grantham, Newark Northgate and Darlington and either redeployed the staff or made them redundant. Funnily enough it occurred just before a franchise commitment to staff any operational barriers correctly came into force.

It's now rare to work a train through Grantham without selling a ticket once again, it didn't take the 'pay when challenged' folk long to reappear.

Perverse privatised railway logic in that most fare evaders will either be on the Northern or EMT local services so who cares, or by deploying RPIs they can pick them up on the train instead.

Wasn't it Durham instead of Darlington which got ripped out?

Esker-pades · 12 Jun 2019

Whatever happened, Darlington certainly has barriers now.

What's the point in ticket barriers at stations?

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