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Should guards be given more powers to enforce the law?

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RLBH

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It's not so much about criminality, it's more around fining people and using the courts, if I was found with no ticket a fine is a bit like the fine for not using a seat belt in a car!
Which is, practically speaking, treating it as a criminal offence. Under the current system, it's largely treated like a commercial exercise, carried out by commercial staff from the TOCs.

There's no doubt in my mind that doing so would massively reduce the level of fare evasion. But the public relations impact of having a 'police officer' check tickets might very well put people off of rail travel. It would be possible to have virtually 100% effective revenue protection (stadium-style turnstiles at every platform entrance and exit, for example) but doing so would cost so much that the railways are financially better off tolerating a small level of fare evasion.

What doesn't help is complex fare structures and ticketing systems where someone with no intent to evade a fare can be easily caught out, and where revenue protection staff can easily believe that someone with a valid ticket is evading the correct fare. Using BTP for revenue protection would make these problems far, far worse.
 
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Intermodal

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How common are altercations between rail staff and passengers
Verbal altercations? A guard may have several in one day on a bad day/Saturday evening shift. If I had one a day I would not be surprised, but of course some days do go by without issue.

Physical altercations? I believe Northern estimate they have one per day across their service area.
 

bramling

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How common are altercations between rail staff and passengers

Depends.

Revenue is probably the biggest one. RPIs in particular are naturally highly prone to it, but equally their role has special arrangements to mitigate against this, like working in teams and sometimes with support from BTP. Guards are also prone to disputes over revenue, but slightly less so as they aren’t expected to pursue things to the same extent as an RPI. Remember booking office and gateline staff too, the latter in particular can have conflicts on a constant basis when someone turns up without a ticket or gets the arse when their Oyster card doesn’t work and staff aren’t able to resolve the problem.

I think the above significantly outweighs all other conflict issues by some margin, but difficulties can also crop up during disruptions or when people are instructed to do something.

And a wildcard, signallers can get grief over level crossings too, from impatient motorists outside the box to impatient people on the phone from UWCs.

As to how often, it varies. Sometimes people will go for many shifts with no problems, other times a shift will be problem after problem. Naturally some people are better at diffusing situations than others, but it’s hard to avoid conflict completely - as anyone whose ever dared to wear something looking remotely like a railway uniform and been in a station during disruption will know very well!
 

muz379

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of course the other key thing is that the figures only reflect reported incidents , I know plenty of Guards and station staff who dont even bothering what they consider minor incidents . However one persons idea of minor might be different to another persons .
 

Sprinter153

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Many companies actively discourage their staff from engaging in confrontational situations and as an increasing number of guards are women no reasonable person would expect them to "enforce the law" when confronted with some mouthy chav.

You don't have to be a woman to be vulnerable. I'm a 5 ft 2 in male guard and I learned long ago that there's no point enforcing rules when the company will blame you for getting assaulted!
 

gray1404

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I was on a train 3 weeks ago and the person opposite me didn't have a ticket. When the revenue protection staff said they would hold the train at the next station the other person was not bothered. They then tried to drag me into the situation by saying to the person without the ticket that this man here will not be happy nor will the other passengers if you hold up the train. I responded by saying to the person without a ticket that it wouldn't bother me in the slightest as I've got all the time in the world. When I did get off the train the 2 RPIs got off as well and I told them very clearly that I did not appreciate them trying to drag me into a ticketing matter and potentially put me in a situation of harm and told them never to do that again.

I had a guard do something similar to this before when I was using a totally valid split ticket. He didn't like it and got very cocky with me and went down the line of "all these passengers have paid their fare." and then tried to involve another passenger. Once the guard realised I had be filming the whole incident on my phone he left and I also told the other passenger to had got involved to mind their own business in future. I had a totally valid ticket.
 

2L70

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How common are altercations between rail staff and passengers

Depends, usually one of two things

1. Revenue
2. Anti Social Behaviour

Having worked Intercity and local trains Intercity is worst for it.

I had a bad incident on one of our problem lines few years back, got threatened, person ran off(and Police washed their hands of it)

The On Call Manager was brilliant and disgusted when Police only took minimal action.

One of the Guards coaches at a nearby depot when hearing about it said “it’s the Railway get used to it” and this person Trains new Guards up, good way to give you confidence!
 

muz379

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You don't have to be a woman to be vulnerable. I'm a 5 ft 2 in male guard and I learned long ago that there's no point enforcing rules when the company will blame you for getting assaulted!
Indeed ,

Even the fittest , strongest , sturdiest and most capable of defending themselves guard can be vulnerable to a group of equally capable people .

The other side of things is everyone is vulnerable to false accusations , some of them of a serious nature . I have heard of incidents (i dont know how true) of school children for example making reports that guards or revenue staff have engaged in wholly inappropriate behaviour towards them . Serious false accusations like that can not just ruin a staff members career but even their life .
 

Mark J

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I think that revenue staff should wear bodycams (whilst going up and down the train) much like the Police do.

That way those that cause aggro to train staff and fare evaders, a clearer 'mug shot' can be provided. It will also provide evidence against false accusations, as mentioned a couple of posts above.

For those that will likely bang on about 'privacy', many trains already have CCTV on board.
 

Antman

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I think that revenue staff should wear bodycams (whilst going up and down the train) much like the Police do.

That way those that cause aggro to train staff and fare evaders, a clearer 'mug shot' can be provided. It will also provide evidence against false accusations, as mentioned a couple of posts above.

For those that will likely bang on about 'privacy', many trains already have CCTV on board.
Some revenue staff already have bodycams.
 

Steam Man

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I think that revenue staff should wear bodycams (whilst going up and down the train) much like the Police do.

That way those that cause aggro to train staff and fare evaders, a clearer 'mug shot' can be provided. It will also provide evidence against false accusations, as mentioned a couple of posts above.

For those that will likely bang on about 'privacy', many trains already have CCTV on board.
I won’t wear them
 
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