Role of Conductor and Revenue Protection Officers

Cuboid said:

Personally as a smaller enthusiast of trains I think myself & the general population would find all of this easier if you could pay (card, cash, digital payments like Apple/Google Pay) for a ticket via any method (TVM, booking office, mobile app, PTE-cards or on the train.) at any time of day or week.

The issue shouldn't be how you purchased your ticket. It's the fact you have one at all. Penalties should only apply to those that outright refuse to purchase one if caught or challenged.

You will never have 100% of travelling passengers paying for tickets so you just have to accept that and work towards minimising the people who refuse to pay for one. Just like you never have 100% people in a shop pay for items, some stuff gets stolen and each store is likely to have a permitted (very tiny) percentage of 'loss' that is an accepted risk within the business.

I commute to/from work using a WYCA M-Card. My trips on the West Yorkshire network aren't even counted unless I tap in/out at Leeds (if I've been dropped off there or want to go into Leeds for something), or whenever the barriers in Huddersfield work. How can a ToC differentiate lost revenue from people not paying tickets, against my style of season card that doesn't have defined station start/end points?

Click to expand...

I have to say I tend to agree with most of this.

Penalty fares are only really going to work properly on an urban network, with frequent stops, simple ticketing, lots of barriered stations, and no regular on board ticket sales.

Save the enforcement for people who are deliverately avoiding paying the correct fare - i.e. adults buying themselves Child tickets, travelling over distance, point blank not buying one for whatever reason (no money for example), hiding in toilets, and there are plenty of other scenarios.

Ticket Machines and Unusual Ticket Types

I'm a season ticket holder in the West Midlands Railway area, which is supported by TfWM (Transport for West Midlands). One of the little known offers they operate is for season ticket holders making off-peak journeys within the wider conurbation, to be accompanied by adults and/or children with their return ticket costing £1/50p (respectively). It's a good deal, but relies on the ticket issuer being able to confirm that the season ticket holder does indeed have a season ticket. This therefore explains why no machine has this ticket type available.

So, my observation is that ticket offices are generally closed during off-peak hours, thereby making it not possible to purchase the appropriate ticket before travelling. Sometimes the guard will sell you the ticket, in which case all is well. However, the guard will say they have no ticket machine with them or that the machine isn't working - and advise you to purchase the ticket at the destination. I've sometimes done that, but you can face the additional faff that the 'ticketed concourse' desk has been vacated, the barriers are open and the only option is to join a slow queue at the ticket office in Birmingham New Street. I wonder how many people give up at this point and just walk out the station...

Y Ddraig Coch said:

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....

Click to expand...

I'd love to know how you read that into his statement.

On Norwegian Rail services (now renamed as “Vy” from NSB) there are clearly marked carriages on services for “Valid Ticket Holders Only” - that’s colour coded door wise. A couple of others are marked as “Ticket Sales” carriages for anyone without a ticket.

In those carriages there are on board staff selling tickets - anyone sat in the Valid Tickets Only carriages get an on the spot fine with no dispensation granted.

Works quite well.

Intermodal said:

I'd love to know how you read that into his statement.

Click to expand...

It seems crystal clear to me, I don't understand what your point is?

CentralTrainer said:

On Norwegian Rail services (now renamed as “Vy” from NSB) there are clearly marked carriages on services for “Valid Ticket Holders Only” - that’s colour coded door wise. A couple of others are marked as “Ticket Sales” carriages for anyone without a ticket.

In those carriages there are on board staff selling tickets - anyone sat in the Valid Tickets Only carriages get an on the spot fine with no dispensation granted.

Works quite well.

Click to expand...

Interesting idea but I'm not sure it would work in the UK.

221129 said:

What should happen is all those passengers should buy their tickets before boarding and stop fare evading. (Pay when challenged is still fare evasion.)

Click to expand...

Well not if the ticket office is closed/isn't one or the ticket machine is broke.

Y Ddraig Coch said:

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....

Click to expand...

If you read my post it states that if they could have bought a ticket, maybe I should have been clearer, if they could have bought the ticket they required.

Pluto said:

It seems crystal clear to me, I don't understand what your point is?

Click to expand...

My point was that this poster completely ran with his internal biases towards railway staff being terrible and made a huge assumption that RPI was giving penalty fares to people who were not deserving of one.

Intermodal said:

My point was that this poster completely ran with his internal biases towards railway staff being terrible and made a huge assumption that RPI was giving penalty fares to people who were not deserving of one.

Click to expand...

I think he was questioning what a passenger is supposed to do if they can't get the ticket they require from a TVM.