Futuristic Revenue Protection Techniques

[HSTEd]

So - firstly I want to say that I don't want to relitigate the DOO debate, so please lets not have another one of those arguments.

But rather I am interested in the technical question of the best way to provide revenue protection without reliance on universal on board ticket checks or universal installation and staffing of barriers at all 2400 stations on the network.

So with those two constraints, no universal onboard ticket checks (spot checks are allowed but can't be blanket all the time) and say restricting barrier deployment to a thousand stations or less (which would cover a very large fraction of entries and exits), how would you deploy revenue protection?

A couple of ideas

1. We could make use of Permit to Travel-style machines that could print a time encoded QR code - that would prove the person was at a particular station at a particular time. If the machine was placed in the entrance and away from the platform it could make it difficult for people to claim they started at an unbarriered station nearer their destination. You could use an ePaper display to provide a backup for people with smartphones to perform the same function - or indeed a six or eight digit number for those people without phones when the PTT machine is out.
This QR code or number would be presented to the ticket machine at the barriered station in order to buy a ticket prior to exiting through the gateline
Obviously, this does not protect against journeys ending at unbarriered stations, but most journeys are likely to start or end at a barriered station, and with returns being how they are I'm not sure a proper outbound ticket and a short finishing single would be much cheaper than a proper return!


2. You could force people changing platforms at interchange stations through a gateline, but that would be difficult to achieve with many existing station layouts. This would prevent people making very long distance journeys through major interchanges between unbarriered stations without buying a proper ticket for at least the first part of their journey.

3. Variation of option 1, but we replace all paper tickets with MiFARE style programmable cards (which are extremely cheap these days). You could then place validators at station entrances and require people to validate before beginning their journey. If they are far away from the platform it would be difficult to start at a station closer to the destination.


I'm sure there are many others, so anyone have other ideas?

 

[Bletchleyite]

I think we will, soon enough, reach the point where cash acceptance can cease. I know this has been debated to the hilt but I genuinely think it's not far off, maybe 10-20 years.

Once that's happened, TVMs are much cheaper and most people will use contactless or phones, so you can make a ticket before travel compulsory with no exceptions, as per Swiss regional services. If the TVM is broken, as I believe Metrolink used to do, you could have a number to phone to obtain a reference number entitling ticketless travel (and also meaning the fault is promptly reported).

 

[Non Multi]

TfL on the Elizabeth Line seem to be doing something fairly futuristic at one of my local stations now. One of the gateline exits with barriers is now remotely monitored and unstaffed due to the small number of passengers that use that side of the station.

On either side of the ticket barrier there's a touchscreen panel to contact a member of staff if you can't get through, and some sort of scanner or camera enclosed in a chunky housing that you must insert your ticket so it can be checked remotely.

 

[Bletchleyite]

TfL on the Elizabeth Line seem to be doing something fairly futuristic at one of my local stations now. One of the gateline exits with barriers is now remotely monitored and unstaffed due to the small number of passengers that use that side of the station.

On either side of the ticket barrier there's a touchscreen panel to communicate with a member of staff if you can't get through, and some sort of scanner or camera enclosed in a chunky housing that you must insert your ticket so it can be checked remotely.

Remote monitored gatelines aren't unusual, but having a ticket scanner is a new one on me, though I've been asked to wave one at a CCTV camera before, and also been totally ignored and just had to push through to get out, with alarms going off everywhere and nobody giving a monkey's.

I could see things moving to a system of stations with no staff being gated and monitoring being totally remote in a call centre.

 

[Non Multi]

Remote monitored gatelines aren't unusual, but having a ticket scanner is a new one on me, though I've been asked to wave one at a CCTV camera before, and also been totally ignored and just had to push through to get out, with alarms going off everywhere and nobody giving a monkey's.

I could see things moving to a system of stations with no staff being gated and monitoring being totally remote in a call centre.

I wouldn't be surprised if a more vandal-proof version is used by TfL in the near future at other TfL station entrances that are currently ungated.

A more basic version might appeal to the DfT for their stations, e.g. the touchscreens substituted with an intercom, similar to the platform Help Point units.

 

[AngusH]

The more distant future may be facial recognition and object tracking:

Facial recognition bars lawyer from Girl Scout trip to Rockettes Christmas show

Kelly Conlon was blocked because her New York firm is involved in a personal injury claim against operator of Radio City Music Hall

www.theguardian.com

Also amazon shops

Amazon to open store without checkouts in UK

Automated shop allows customers who have Amazon Go app to simply walk out with items

www.theguardian.com

Passenger enters somewhere and the system picks them up on the system.
Then they get tracked every moment of the journey until they exit the system.

Ticketing status is attached when it becomes available (e.g they hold a mobile phone ticket, scan ticket at a barrier or get inspected by a ticket inspector)

Origin is automatic and destination becomes visible when the passenger either declares a destination or exits at a station.

Anyone who is identified as being (without a ticket / over-travelled / off route) can be challenged/blocked at barrier/arrested.

People who didn't pay in the past can be rejected for future travel.
(although they could only be physically stopped at a barrier obviously)


Not at all dystopian!

At it's best it would be absolutely seamless, just walk in and walk out!
It could go horribly wrong, but that won't happen, so no worries.


edit: actually if done right, it could even open the barriers automatically as you stepped forward, so you wouldn't even need to scan your ticket if you have one on your phone.

 

[Worm]

We need to invent a machine that can shake the fare jumper by their ankles to see what falls out

 

[sleepy_hollow]

We need to invent a machine that can shake the fare jumper by their ankles to see what falls out

More or less the Hunger Games approach in which the railway is a lawless no-mans land in which all travellers are treated as criminals, which seems to be the approach of most posts in this thread, and most threads about fare collection. Essentially the railway's existential crisis, the inability to provide an attractive service at an attractive price.

Try the other way, remove all penalties and offences, except the offence of failing to purchase a ticket when requested by a railway official, or to provide a correct name and address for billing. The liability would be to purchase a ticket from the next station after first contact. So RPIs on ticket blockades would be able to insist on purchase of a platform ticket. This would push the railway to futuristic, customer friendly approaches.

....

Passenger enters somewhere and the system picks them up on the system.
Then they get tracked every moment of the journey until they exit the system.

Ticketing status is attached when it becomes available (e.g they hold a mobile phone ticket, scan ticket at a barrier or get inspected by a ticket inspector)
...

At it's best it would be absolutely seamless, just walk in and walk out!
It could go horribly wrong, but that won't happen, so no worries.
...

The big problem for tap-in and scanning systems with penalties is that the customer never receives any evidence of their purchase, but staff can come along and allege, using a scanner that only they have, that the customer has committed an offence. At some stage it would go horribly wrong as staff could start offering discounted penalties for immediate cash payment.

 

[Worm]

More or less the Hunger Games approach in which the railway is a lawless no-mans land in which all travellers are treated as criminals, which seems to be the approach of most posts in this thread, and most threads about fare collection. Essentially the railway's existential crisis, the inability to provide an attractive service at an attractive price.

Try the other way, remove all penalties and offences, except the offence of failing to purchase a ticket when requested by a railway official, or to provide a correct name and address for billing. The liability would be to purchase a ticket from the next station after first contact. So RPIs on ticket blockades would be able to insist on purchase of a platform ticket. This would push the railway to futuristic, customer friendly approaches.

I think that would require a complete change of thinking from those at the top.

TOCs will look to prevent as much loss of revenue possible even through the narrowest of margins, the trains could have Pullman style service for as cheap as possible; you’d still get fare jumpers some people will go to extreme lengths just to not pay.

The way the TOC look at it, even if less than 1% of passengers dodge the fare, that’s enough revenue lost to justify treating every fare-paying passenger as a criminal ‘just in case’.

 

[43096]

The way the TOC look at it, even if less than 1% of passengers dodge the fare, that’s enough revenue lost to justify treating every fare-paying passenger as a criminal ‘just in case’.

Or "guilty until proven innocent". That is a very good reason why the TOCs should be unable to bring prosecutions.

 

[Nottingham59]

I can see a future where the RFID technology used for tracking marathon runners will be used to check for tickets. This article gives some background:

RFID Tracking | RFID Tracker | RFID Solutions Australia | RFID Specialists | Ramp RFID

Ramp's RFID solutions track inventory, streamline processes, boost sales & improve customer experiences. No more guesswork. 98+% accurate.

ramprfid.com

If you can detect finishing times for tens of thousands of runners, with dozens crossing the finish line at the same time, it should be possible to do the same with train passengers.

I'd envisage detectors in stations and on trains. No need for barriers if the information is good enough, and the detectors are encountered often enough throughout the journey.

 

[Ediswan]

I can see a future where the RFID technology used for tracking marathon runners will be used to check for tickets. This article gives some background:

RFID Tracking | RFID Tracker | RFID Solutions Australia | RFID Specialists | Ramp RFID

Ramp's RFID solutions track inventory, streamline processes, boost sales & improve customer experiences. No more guesswork. 98+% accurate.

ramprfid.com

If you can detect finishing times for tens of thousands of runners, with dozens crossing the finish line at the same time, it should be possible to do the same with train passengers.

I'd envisage detectors in stations and on trains. No need for barriers if the information is good enough, and the detectors are encountered often enough throughout the journey.

A 'many people passing at the same time' RFID system would detect the passing tickets. It would ignore people without a ticket. If there is a readable but invalid ticket, who in those passing has it ?

 

[Nottingham59]

It would ignore people without a ticket. If there is a readable but invalid ticket, who in those passing has it ?

If it were up to me, I'd design carriages that have detectors in every seat and a discreet LED indicator that lit up when it detected a valid ticket nearby (with logic so that any one ticket is signalled only once); counter displays in the vestibules that showed how many tickets it can detect in that vestibule, as in "There are currently three valid tickets in this vestibule, and one in the toilet"; and people counters in each doorway that could report "at the last stop, five people got on the train, but only four valid tickets were detected"). That would make on-board ticket inspection and revenue protection much more productive.

We could add seat-back displays that said "Welcome to Deflowered Railways. We do not detect a valid ticket at this seat. Please immediately contact a member of staff, or purchase a ticket online with a smartphone. Images are being recorded for the purposes of revenue protection."

I'd put detectors with cameras on platforms and corridors and barriers that took images of everyone detected without a valid ticket: "at 1205h on 2 Jan 2022, this individual was in a compulsory ticket area without a valid ticket being detected". Combine that with facial recognition software, you'd soon build up a database of regular offenders that could be used when they are eventually caught.

Though none of these would physically stop unticketed travel, it would provide the information needed to effectively enforce it. Anyway, these are my half-formed ideas. Maybe they would work, maybe they're impractical. What do others think?

 

[mr_jrt]

Surely if you can detect the journey a passenger has taken through some fancy technology, then just charge them the correct fare automatically. The only offence then becomes not having an account with a valid payment method registered. Why try to catch them out when you can just make the system easier to use? Wouldn't work, of course. You would get people wearing disguises of some sort to fool any facial recognition, and any RFID-based id would just get fiddled with, just as people screw with Oyster cards today.

 

[AngusH]

More or less the Hunger Games approach in which the railway is a lawless no-mans land in which all travellers are treated as criminals, which seems to be the approach of most posts in this thread, and most threads about fare collection. Essentially the railway's existential crisis, the inability to provide an attractive service at an attractive price.

Yes absolutely, and there's always a trade off with these things.

The plan of revenue protection should normally be to maximise revenue from the travelling passengers, without causing too much inconvenience. It's not necessarily the right goal to try to achieve 100% payment.

If the experience is too bad then the passengers will decline to travel and the revenue will go down even if the percentage of passengers paying correctly goes up.

(i.e. 100% of 100 people paying is less than 80% of 200 people paying, assuming the same ticket price)

Also in some cases the cost of collection may exceed the value, which may or may not be worth collecting.

So, any system must improve the experience for the passenger as well as help to improve revenue.
Unpleasant experiences don't encourage travel...

 

[Nottingham59]

Surely if you can detect the journey a passenger has taken through some fancy technology, then just charge them the correct fare automatically.

Hitachi are doing something like that in Genoa:

The Engineer - Travelling smart in Genoa: Hitachi Rail's pioneering mobility project

A pioneering new approach to city transport is being trialled in Genoa. Andrew Wade travelled to Italy to experience it up close.

www.theengineer.co.uk

Once you've got this level of oversight, identifying fare dodgers should be relatively easy.

"For a truly seamless travel experience – and one where the operator has full visibility over journeys - the next phase of smart mobility will see our phones acting as smart ticketing devices, granting frictionless access to different modes of transport while also delivering a holistic view of a city’s entire transit network. Passengers benefit from streamlined, integrated travel, while operators have a rich data source to improve services, and smart cities can start bragging about their IQs.

"In Genoa, Italy, a world-first trial is under way to put this next phase of smart mobility to the test. Working with AMT (Azienda Mobilità e Trasporti – Genoa’s equivalent to TfL) Hitachi Rail has installed more than 7,000 Bluetooth beacons throughout the city, connecting 663 city buses, 2,500 bus stops, a metro line, two 50km-long regional bus routes, 12 funiculars & public lifts, and a not-so-maligned cable car. The pilot, running since May, is seen by Hitachi as a beachhead for smart mobility around the world."