Northern Penalty Fares Areas

[ForTheLoveOf]

How do you deal with those who won't pay/refuse to pay?

How is that any different if you have Penalty Fares? They'll surely be more likely to refuse to pay a Penalty Fare than the normal fare!

 

[cactustwirly]

Not have penalty fares. Not hide behind rules and regulations. Have pro-active staff who do go up and down trains collecting fares. Simply fares so that you don't have to be Barry Doe to understand the system.

Some understanding that people don't actually read every sign and notice that is pinned up on every station, bus stop or notice board.

At the very least, if the poster says "red zone" just make sure that it is red and not 2 difference shades of purple.

But surely people are going to read a massive yellow sign?

 

[scrapy]

Scarborough to Hull was previously advertised as a penalty fares route but is now blue on the map. Driffield definitely had signage a few weeks ago. Westhoughton has penalty fares signage and ticket machines on both platforms offering promise to pay yet according to the maps isn't a penalty fares station. All very confusing.

 

[Puffing Devil]

How is that any different if you have Penalty Fares? They'll surely be more likely to refuse to pay a Penalty Fare than the normal fare!

With no legal sanction, they get to walk. There is, at least, the chance to get the BTP involved with a legal framework.

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

With no legal sanction, they get to walk. There is, at least, the chance to get the BTP involved with a legal framework.

The railway already has the right to boot people off if they don't make use of ticketing facilities. That was the original whole point of Byelaw 18, before a minor grammatical change in 2005 made it a nice little money-spinnner for the TOCs!

Penalty Fares don't give the TOCs any more physical rights - and the only time the BTP would get involved is if there was an offence being committed. Which would come, unsurprisingly, from laws like the Byelaws or RoRA, neither of which have any dependence on Penalty Fares!

Don't get me wrong, I think there is a time and a place for Penalty Fares. But the indiscriminate manner in which they seem to be spreading across the network, especially on lines that are well outside the kind of line they were originally designed for (intensively served, primarily DOO, surburban lines), is making them dishonourable.

 

[Wallsendmag]

There were staff at Thornaby yesterday handing out what appeared to be penalty fare information leaflets for passengers leaving a Saltburn - Darlington service.

Although no TVM has been installed at British Steel Redcar yet which must be an oversight

What about Teesside Airport?

 

[Kite159]

What about Teesside Airport?

Oh yeah, another oversight

Can't have those dodgers trying to get past the RPIs at Darlington claiming they boarded at Tees-Side Airport as reasons for not bothering to buy a ticket.

 

[ainsworth74]

What about Teesside Airport?

Hmm I wonder if fitting a ticket machine to the one open platform may cause that remaining platform to become dangerous? Perhaps we can then finally close the whole station and be done with it?

 

[Intermodal]

The Whitby line is Penalty Fares also, and there is no TVM at Kildale. I don't think Commondale has one either.

 

[Kite159]

The Whitby line is Penalty Fares also, and there is no TVM at Kildale. I don't think Commondale has one either.

Not one at Battersby, but the one at Egton was buzzing away to itself.

 

[bearhugger]

Currently on platform 2 at Middlesbrough, there are two people in Northern hivis giving out leaflets and saying Penalty Fares are beginning 18th March in the area.

 

[Starmill]

Ahh it was Middlesbrough to Whitby that went over to Penalty Fares. Got my wires crossed.

But stations from Middlesbrough to Whitby are also not shown as Penalty Fares routes on the map!

 

[Starmill]

With no legal sanction, they get to walk. There is, at least, the chance to get the BTP involved with a legal framework.

Penalty Fares aren't stated by anyone as used for people who refuse to pay - most TOCs threaten or attempt to carry out prosecution in thise cases.

Penalty Fares schemes have no impact on the likelihood that BTP will attend when called.

As an aside, if BTP are called upon to deal with a revenue-related matter, my experience is that they are unlikely to have any knowledge at all of the legal position. I can speak from the experience of being isntructed to leave First Class by a BTP officer, due to a dispute the guard took up over my ticket despite the fact that I had a perfectly valid First Class ticket.

 

[Deerfold]

They still seem to be doing very little with these new powers. I travelled into Leeds from Keighley on Saturday *and* Sunday. On Saturday the guard came through selling tickets - the only person who wouldn't buy one had a railcard and was annoyed at being told he couldn't be sold a railcard-discounted ticket and that he'd buy one at Leeds. After the guard had gone he appeared to be buying one on his phone instead.
On Sunday the guard's machine was not working so he announced that passengers should have tickets already, but anyone who didn't would have to queue up to buy at Leeds. There was no mention of penalty fares from either.

 

[Tetchytyke]

The Whitby line is Penalty Fares also, and there is no TVM at Kildale. I don't think Commondale has one either.

Not according to that Northern map it isn't!

How do you deal with those who won't pay/refuse to pay?

Using the existing criminal legal framework to deal with fare evaders?

Penalty Fares only work on honest people. Dishonest people won't pay the Penalty Fare either!

 

[Tetchytyke]

But surely people are going to read a massive yellow sign?

It's not that massive, not that legible, and certainly not coherent.

Take Durham, which will get the "massive yellow sign" despite only four trains a day being subject to the provisions of said massive yellow sign.

 

[Puffing Devil]

They still seem to be doing very little with these new powers. I travelled into Leeds from Keighley on Saturday *and* Sunday. On Saturday the guard came through selling tickets - the only person who wouldn't buy one had a railcard and was annoyed at being told he couldn't be sold a railcard-discounted ticket and that he'd buy one at Leeds. After the guard had gone he appeared to be buying one on his phone instead.
On Sunday the guard's machine was not working so he announced that passengers should have tickets already, but anyone who didn't would have to queue up to buy at Leeds. There was no mention of penalty fares from either.

This is the root of the problem - the guards just don't seem to care.

 

[Starmill]

This is the root of the problem - the guards just don't seem to care.

I am sure they don't. What is in it for them? Nothing!

 

[Intermodal]

Not according to that Northern map it isn't!

Outrageous. It was the first line they introduced in the North East.

 

[Tetchytyke]

This is the root of the problem - the guards just don't seem to care.

Not all guards may have PF powers, but even if they do, why have the aggro?

As I've said before, PFs only work against fundamentally honest people. The soft targets. The persistent fare evaders in Airedale don't care and a guard on their own certainly won't make them change their mind.

 

[Paul Duck]

Machines now in place at Allens West so just ourselves left to go.

 

[Puffing Devil]

I am sure they don't. What is in it for them? Nothing!

Not all guards may have PF powers, but even if they do, why have the aggro?

As I've said before, PFs only work against fundamentally honest people. The soft targets. The persistent fare evaders in Airedale don't care and a guard on their own certainly won't make them change their mind.

This all points to the need for better and stronger revenue enforcement - making the risk of getting caught outweigh the benefits of doing so.

This means the guards should be warning passengers to buy before they board (within the rules). That's their job, that's why they should do it. If my staff were tasked to carry out a reasonable instruction, I would expect them to do it.

Though this is the railway and the power of the staff is disproportionately high in relation to the amount of damage a dispute can cause, perhaps why things are allowed to slide and management is afraid to engage. [/RANT]

 

[Starmill]

This means the guards should be warning passengers to buy before they board (within the rules).

This does happen, but it's quite rare.

That's their job, that's why they should do it.

So is patrolling the train. Doesn't mean they're going to do it.

If my staff were tasked to carry out a reasonable instruction, I would expect them to do it.

Seems railway management take a different view to you.

 

[Tetchytyke]

This all points to the need for better and stronger revenue enforcement - making the risk of getting caught outweigh the benefits of doing so.

The law is already there. The problem is enforcement. Guards can't be the enforcer, certainly not without security or backup. Assaults on guards working in Airedale are rare but not uncommon.

PFs work on people who will acquiesce. There are plenty in places like Keighley who won't back down.

It's easy to pontificate from behind a computer screen about what guards should do. I don't blame them not picking fights when they're on their own. They're collecting the revenue.

 

[Starmill]

West Midlands Trains have issued staff briefs to their conductors practically begging them not to get into a dispute with any passengers over tickets, because there have been so many cases of staff being assaulted, which causes significant disruption and delay to the service and can lead to staff having time off work. Some of their conductors logically read that and don't inspect tickets at all. And a lot of this is in a supposed Penalty Fare area where there is often just a cash only machine and no enforcement at all unless you use a gated station.

 

[robbeech]

PFs work on people who will acquiesce. There are plenty in places like Keighley who won't back down.

Does Keighley have a machine that’s not locked away when the ticket office closes now?


Does a guard issuing a penalty fare get the increased commission or do they just get the amount they’d get if they issued the ticket normally?

 

[Starmill]

I don't think Northern's guards even can issue Penalty Fares?

 

[FQTV]

It's not that massive, not that legible, and certainly not coherent.

Take Durham, which will get the "massive yellow sign" despite only four trains a day being subject to the provisions of said massive yellow sign.

Durham already has the “massive yellow sign” which, at least on Platform Two, is quite small, and actually a sticker on the glass barrier that used to abut the gateline.

The top of the “massive yellow sign” is about 80cm off the ground.

You’d have to kneel to read it.

Bobbing down to crotch height immediately adjacent to where lots of folks tend to stand around might prompt proceedings leading to quite different penalties, however.

 

[Deerfold]

Does a guard issuing a penalty fare get the increased commission or do they just get the amount they’d get if they issued the ticket normally?

It doesn't (as of Sunday, when I was last there). The machine takes some time to connect to the booking system too, so you cannot collect tickets as soon as the ticket office opens (fortunately the ticket I was collecting on Sunday was from Leeds, so I bought a local ticket and collected my ticket there).

 

[Intermodal]

I don't think Northern's guards even can issue Penalty Fares?

Correct