Fare Evasion, An own Goal cannot help.

LMS 4F · 4 Mar 2020

it appears that Fare Evasion is a considerable problem across all routes and TOCs. I wonder if a lot of it is not as a result of actions by the railway and is in fact an own goal.
When nearly all tickets were purchased at the station, face to face as it were, coupled with most stations manned then fare evasion took place but not that easily.
However so many innovations have removed face to face sales and have surely increased opportunities to abuse the system.
Rail cards without photos, Oyster and the like with touch in and out, many more types of tickets are some of what I have in mind. Not least how any guard is expected to know all the various permutations

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LMS 4F · 4 Mar 2020

LMS 4F said:
it appears that Fare Evasion is a considerable problem across all routes and TOCs. I wonder if a lot of it is not as a result of actions by the railway and is in fact an own goal.
When nearly all tickets were purchased at the station, face to face as it were, coupled with most stations manned then fare evasion took place but not that easily.
However so many innovations have removed face to face sales and have surely increased opportunities to abuse the system.
Rail cards without photos, Oyster and the like with touch in and out, many more types of tickets are some of what I have in mind. Not least how any guard is expected to know all the various permutations

I don't pretend to have the answer but the railwa must surely look to itself to try and come up with systems less easily abused. The fact that the ticket machine at my local station has been out of order for at least a week doesn't help. It is no better on buses, I have used my pass literally hundreds of times and have never been asked to show my photo to the driver, most of whom don't even look at the passenger.

telstarbox · 4 Mar 2020

How expensive would it be to man all stations compared to the extra revenue it would bring in?

Mag_seven · 4 Mar 2020

Have more on train checks with the ability to pay on the train without having to purchase up front - it seems to work in Strathclyde.

Kite159 · 4 Mar 2020

Mag_seven said:
Have more on train checks with the ability to pay on the train without having to purchase up front - it seems to work in Strathclyde.

Which all that does is allow those who will pay only when challenged no benefit of buying a ticket in advance if their journey uses two stations without barriers.

Ticket Examiner not present or in the other unit, or doesn't reach said person, hey they get a free trip. If they get caught then it's no extra to pay.

------------

Even if you have a network of fully manned stations, it won't stop someone attempting to doughnut the fare. The costs will simply outweigh any benefits

Deerfold · 4 Mar 2020

LMS 4F said:
When nearly all tickets were purchased at the station, face to face as it were, coupled with most stations manned then fare evasion took place but not that easily.

Round here I'm not sure how long back you'd have to go for that to be the case. I've been travelling extensively round West Yorkshire since 1985 and most stations were not manned then. Most of the unmanned stations didn't even have ticket machines until very recently. From my nearest staffed station, if I want to get the first train of the day in either direction or any train after 1915 (1800 on a Sunday) and the ticket machine is locked away.

I'm guessing increasing staffing would be very expensive to stop a minority of non-payers who don't get caught by ticket checks and RPIs.

Is there any evidence of what fare evasion levels were when every station was staffed?

Hadders · 4 Mar 2020

I’m involved in what could broadly be considered revenue protection but not on the railway.

What is needed is a multi strand approach. For example:

- On urban networks where the volume of passengers is large and it isn’t possible to physically check tickets on board then stations should be barriers. If quieter stations don’t justify barriers due to lower usage then at least having barriers at one end will protect revenue (and possibly increase it if passengers only touching in one direction get a maximum fare). British Rail’s practice of charging 10p or £1 more for a return is a master stroke in protecting revenue because on a normal return journey there are 4 opportunities (at the start and end of each journey) and as long as a ticket is checked at one of these 4 places you’ll protect the bulk of the revenue.

- longer distance and inter regional services should have a ticket check on board, this can be backed up at busier stations with a barrier check.

- There should be an opportunity to purchase a ticket (or a permit machine) at every entrance to every station. Where this isn’t feasible or the ticket you require is not available (e.g. very remote stations and lines) then there should be a facility to buy on board (but this should be the exception)

- Standard signage should be used at all stations making it absolutely clear that you must purchase a ticket before boarding a train (subject to the exceptions above).

- Ticket sales on board the train should cease other than for the exceptions described above (selling tickets onboard send out the wrong message).

superjohn · 4 Mar 2020

I’m sure TOC’s have thoroughly analysed the balance between lost revenue and the cost of providing better ticket selling, more barriers or RPI teams. The result is what we have now.

Lots of big numbers are thrown about in publicity about ticketless travel but they tend to be based on the flawed ‘Microsoft’ model of revenue loss, ie. they estimate the loss by assuming that every fare evader would have paid the full fare if they had no choice. In reality, many are chancers who simply wouldn’t travel at all if they had to pay.

A perfect example is Southeastern’s Metro service in Southeast London. In the evening fare evasion is rife with people hopping between largely unmanned stations. If every station had barriers in operation at all times many chancers just wouldn’t bother. Meanwhile, the vast majority of revenue in the area is from season ticket travel. The amount to be gained by increasing the staffing would be miniscule in the whole scheme of things and would never cover the extra costs.

D841 Roebuck · 4 Mar 2020

The obvious solution to the problem is that employed in Luxembourg...

mikeg · 4 Mar 2020

D841 Roebuck said:
The obvious solution to the problem is that employed in Luxembourg...

Which is? Also given how small the Luxembouregois network is I doubt many comparisons could be made.

jfollows · 4 Mar 2020

mikeg said:
Which is?

Making the public transport free to use.

But I do think there's some element of "own goal" because the railways evolve using a set of arcane rules, which don't make sense to the average passenger. Why should I be able to save £60 going to Birmingham using split ticketing compared to the person sat next to me making the same journey? Well, the answer is because I have invested a lot of personal time and effort to understand the ticketing system. Why is it hard to book a return from Wilmslow to Sale? Well, it isn't, but train/Metrolink tickets were a recent subject of discussion on this forum, so it's not simple. If I go via Navigation Road, is my ticket valid? No, but nobody cares.

I wonder if the level of fare evasion is proportionally lower in London than elsewhere, because of a simple zonal fare system. And, I know, there's pink readers and things which mean it is't perfectly simple, but it's generally simpler to explain to someone who doesn't care about learning the details.

BanburyBlue · 4 Mar 2020

I think some of the problem, especially at smaller stations without barriers, is that railway companies have not enforced the idea that a ticket is required before you travel. So people jump on a train (usual excuse about running late, queue at ticket office/machine etc), and when the guard/train manager (or whatever they are called) turns up will sell them a ticket, rather than issue a penalty fare. And I'm sure in some cases, if they get off without seeing the guard/train manager, and are at another station without barriers will just walk through with no attempt to pay.

You often get comments on this forum from people who get approached by Revenue Protection people, who are surprised when penalty fares are issued, and go on to say "I'm normally allowed to buy a ticket on the train".

Of course a lot of people seem to treat fare evasion as a 'victimless crime' and don't seem to have a thought over the seriousness of what they're doing. And think no-one ever checks, or that they will ever get caught.

LMS 4F · 4 Mar 2020

It seems to me that the lack of face to face buying means that people who wouldn't think of shoplifting or committing damage or any other criminal behaviour are happy to evade rail fares. I base this on the reported conviction of a man in London a few years ago who was I believe a stockbroker. Also people on here worried about affecting their university or employment prospects when caught, people who would not be normally involved in criminal behaviour.
I also consider the understandable attitude of the TOCs in issuing penalty charges to those who are caught to have a negative affect. After all they keep the money but are they again encouraging evasion because some will know they won't face court so may well judge it to be worth the risk.

alistairlees · 4 Mar 2020

Merseyrail has (almost) all stations staffed from first train to last train, and has done for some time. This is supplemented by occasional RPI checks. Only a few (larger) stations have barriers. How does fare evasion on this network compare with other networks?

Djgr · 4 Mar 2020

alistairlees said:
Merseyrail has (almost) all stations staffed from first train to last train, and has done for some time. This is supplemented by occasional RPI checks. Only a few (larger) stations have barriers. How does fare evasion on this network compare with other networks?

But the few larger stations are where the bulk of the travellers (paying and potential evaders) wish to go. But I tend to favour the Luxembourg approach, at least for local networks.

matt_world2004 · 4 Mar 2020

Fare evasion needs to be seen to be more than a revenue protection role, the security to deter fare evasion also deters other anti social behaviour and suicides. A visible staff presence and a gateline can often have a considerable effect on the safety of the staff and passengers who use a certain stations. Small barriers to accessing the railway lines (like gatelines) can act as a small block for someone in a suicidal state of mind too and while it may not prevent them totally it can reduce them

I'm betting the gateing of the gwml inner suburban stations will reduce crime and suicides considerably on that route

Kite159 · 5 Mar 2020

I can remember a story a couple years ago when GA & TfL revenue staff switched off the oyster readers on the platforms at Stratford, and challenged anybody they saw attempting to touch them for either the ticket used to reach Stratford or the ticket they are using to continue their journey.

There was a lot of penalty fares & passengers caught out travelling in ticketless from stations without barriers, touching in before continuing their journey

Mitch in Notts · 5 Mar 2020

A couple of months ago I boarded a train at Gainsborough Central around 1330hrs. The guard never came round (1 other passenger in my carriage) and never announced his ticket machine was broken or anything. So I had a free ride to Retford. I have since read there is a ticket machine in the Car Park at Central Station - but not on the platform. I arrived on foot and would not go looking for a ticket machine in a car park unless there was a big sign up. Train companies need to help themselves more!

LMS 4F · 5 Mar 2020

Kite159 said:
I can remember a story a couple years ago when GA & TfL revenue staff switched off the oyster readers on the platforms at Stratford, and challenged anybody they saw attempting to touch them for either the ticket used to reach Stratford or the ticket they are using to continue their journey.

There was a lot of penalty fares & passengers caught out travelling in ticketless from stations without barriers, touching in before continuing their journey

This is exactly my point. The issue of Oyster and similar, whilst no doubt making life easier for millions of people, has allowed many others to avoid paying their correct fare. No doubt it is discussed in workplaces and pubs thus spreading the news wider.
Did TFL give any consideration to fraud when they launched Oyster, did they Plan for it and has anyone any real idea how much is lost in revenue? I suspect the answer to all these questions in a resounding no.
Surely some simple measures such as photos on rail cards and the like would repay their cost and slight inconvenience enormously.

Envy123 · 5 Mar 2020

Not to mention keyGo sometimes being downright broken. I touched in and out perfectly from Huntingdon to Hadley Wood, broke my journey there and continued to Farringdon. Was not charged at all for the journey, despite me touching on the reader.

I'll wait a day more in case there's a delay, but I'll be on the phone with Thameslink to chase up on this.

Fawkes Cat · 5 Mar 2020

alistairlees said:
Merseyrail has (almost) all stations staffed from first train to last train, and has done for some time. This is supplemented by occasional RPI checks. Only a few (larger) stations have barriers. How does fare evasion on this network compare with other networks?

I'm not sure how much impact the staffing of the stations has on limiting fare evasion. The staff are in the ticket office, and I walk past the office twice a day at my local M'rail station without showing my ticket or being stopped. As it happens, I have a season ticket so I am not doing anything wrong - but it's easy enough for anyone to do the same, whether they hold a ticket or not.

PeterC · 5 Mar 2020

Mitch in Notts said:
A couple of months ago I boarded a train at Gainsborough Central around 1330hrs. The guard never came round (1 other passenger in my carriage) and never announced his ticket machine was broken or anything. So I had a free ride to Retford. I have since read there is a ticket machine in the Car Park at Central Station - but not on the platform. I arrived on foot and would not go looking for a ticket machine in a car park unless there was a big sign up. Train companies need to help themselves more!

"Hunt the ticket office/machine" is a game that has been popular right back to BR days. The old Blackfriars layout had an entrance to the northbound Thameslink that bypassed the ticket office.

superjohn · 5 Mar 2020

In terms of people who are going to cheat the barriers or simply not pay in another form, Oyster probably hasn’t made a lot of difference. The sheer numbers of people passing through stations and the limited powers gateline staff have to detain anyone they do catch mean there isn’t much that can be done to prevent it.

In terms of more sophisticated evasion like ‘doughnuting’ it has provided them with a rich source of data to make intelligence led investigations and catch people who would never have been noticed previously. This can be seen in action on the recent Channel 5 series about the work of TFL revenue protection.

There are frequent blockades on the DLR platforms at Stratford and they do seem productive. The DLR network being almost entirely unstaffed and without barriers means there will always be an increased level of evasion. As it was built that way there would be a huge cost to introduce staff (with associated facilities) and barriers at stations, no doubt TFL have judged that not to be worth the benefit. A ‘continuation exit’ barrier line at the upper DLR platforms at Stratford might be worthwhile but I suspect the limited space may result in dangerous congestion at peak times.

One thing I often see is DLR train staff operating from the front seat and not checking tickets on trains that are far from full. Then again I suppose the limited options and potential risk to themselves if they do meet someone without a ticket mean that it wouldn’t make a huge difference to revenue if they did.

Hadders · 5 Mar 2020

LMS 4F said:
This is exactly my point. The issue of Oyster and similar, whilst no doubt making life easier for millions of people, has allowed many others to avoid paying their correct fare. No doubt it is discussed in workplaces and pubs thus spreading the news wider.
Did TFL give any consideration to fraud when they launched Oyster, did they Plan for it and has anyone any real idea how much is lost in revenue? I suspect the answer to all these questions in a resounding no.
Surely some simple measures such as photos on rail cards and the like would repay their cost and slight inconvenience enormously.

Journey history with ouster can Ben tracked enabling a picture to be built up. You can’t do that with paper tickets.

More and more Underground stations have barriers but you simply couldn’t handle the throughout of passengers if you had to queue up to buy tickets and had to have them manually inspected.

Also bear on mind that the cost of employing someone on minimum wage is around £12 an hour once you factor in on costs etc. That’s around £80k a year for one member of staff 06:00 until midnight. You’ll need more than that to cover breaks, busy spells. Are you going to recover that amount of lost revenue?

LMS 4F · 5 Mar 2020

Hadders said:
Journey history with ouster can Ben tracked enabling a picture to be built up. You can’t do that with paper tickets.

More and more Underground stations have barriers but you simply couldn’t handle the throughout of passengers if you had to queue up to buy tickets and had to have them manually inspected.

Also bear on mind that the cost of employing someone on minimum wage is around £12 an hour once you factor in on costs etc. That’s around £80k a year for one member of staff 06:00 until midnight. You’ll need more than that to cover breaks, busy spells. Are you going to recover that amount of lost revenue?

As no one seems to know how much revenue is lost then how much could be prevented is also not in own. I don't imagine a return to every station fully manned or a return to only paper tickets.
However it must be possible to use all this technology in such a way that opportunities to evade fare is reduced.
For instance why is it allowed to use Oyster for part of a journey and the rest on another ticket. This seems to me to be an area easily tightened up. Likewise why are there so many different railcards. Perhaps do away with them all and reduce all fares instead thus removing at a stroke one large area of abuse. I speak as one who has a railcard.
I am left to conclude that within the top of the industry there is no real desire to do more than tinker with the problem. Until they know the extent of the problem then nothing will change, What gets measured gets done, is worth bearing in mind.

Fawkes Cat · 5 Mar 2020

LMS 4F said:
As no one seems to know how much revenue is lost then how much could be prevented is also not known

Just because it's not known to us here, it doesn't follow that it's not known to the railways. And without any special knowledge, it seems to me that surely how much fare income is not collected is the sort of thing that companies would want to keep to themselves as being 'commercially sensitive', in that it's information that competitors would find useful in deciding how to compete.

Hadders · 5 Mar 2020

LMS 4F said:
As no one seems to know how much revenue is lost then how much could be prevented is also not in own. I don't imagine a return to every station fully manned or a return to only paper tickets.
However it must be possible to use all this technology in such a way that opportunities to evade fare is reduced.
For instance why is it allowed to use Oyster for part of a journey and the rest on another ticket. This seems to me to be an area easily tightened up. Likewise why are there so many different railcards. Perhaps do away with them all and reduce all fares instead thus removing at a stroke one large area of abuse. I speak as one who has a railcard.
I am left to conclude that within the top of the industry there is no real desire to do more than tinker with the problem. Until they know the extent of the problem then nothing will change, What gets measured gets done, is worth bearing in mind.

I’m certain that the train companies will be aware of the potential scale of fare evasion on their network but they are not going to openly disclose it.

I don’t really understand what you’re proposing about using Oyster for part of a journey. Say I’m making a journey from Stevenage to South Kensington the most cost effective way for me to do this is to buy a paper ticket to Finsbury Park and then use Oyster onwards to South Kensington. Oyster isn’t available at Stevenage. Are you saying that the whole of the country should be covered by Oyster (this isn’t really feasible) or are you saying I should only be able to make this journey using a through paper ticket (which would be much more expensive).

As for Railcards I agree that some simplification would be welcome but they’re chiefly a commercial device to increase overall rail travel (and thereby revenue) by offering a discount to certain groups of people. These groups are mostly disadvantaged (e.g. disabled or senior), rewarded for loyalty (e.g. Gold Card) or generally used to encourage rail travel (e.g. F&F, Network). If you abolished Railcards and reduced overall fares then I strongly suspect that revenue would go down.

Fare Evasion, An own Goal cannot help.

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