Northern to introduce a Penalty fare scheme

[Starmill]

There have been a few cases where failing to meet the standards of 'best practice' have resulted in actual consequences. Southeastern were required to part suspend their Penalty Fares scheme a few years ago because too many of the stations didn't have ticket machines that worked often enough. GWR released information suggesting a move to a new scheme (to take together their current 3 schemes) which seems now very unlikely to ever happen (under the current franchisee). Exactly why this is remains unclear, but it's possible that it's related to the cost of the neccesary improvements. Their current 'West' scheme has always perplexed me, including as it does only 5 stations west of Plymouth - even Penzance is not included. Some changes to Southern's Penalty Fare scheme were recently approved, this involved a number of unstaffed stations joining the scheme after GTR installed card-only ticket machines. I think this now means that every station served by Southern is now covered by a Penalty Fare scheme, although I'm not certain on that score as their leaflet has had the map removed. East Midlands Trains Penalty Fare scheme was recently extended to include the Robin Hood line, despite there not being any staffing increases (that I'm aware of?). A large number of the stations are still unstaffed. It seems like an entirely inapprpriate candidate for Penalty Fares to me but apparently it was good enough for the DfT. There have also been a number of bizarre inconsistencies where stations have been included in Penalty Fare schemes despite having no way at all to buy tickets, such as Dronfield and Weeley. Spondon and Colwall are ostensibly included in the Penalty Fares schemes even today, despite not having ticket machines, because they have PERTIS. There are probably more examples of this - I do not understand how it is remotely appropriate.

Merseyrail have probably got the best Penalty Fare scheme - there are almost no holes in it. The only improvements I would suggest would be a few more ticket machines at key stations that lack them (e.g. Birkenhead Central).

On balance, even if it does not follow best practice Northern's penalty fare scheme is likely to be an improvement, but only really because they are currently well known for operating in a different universe to best practice.

 

[johntea]

So these posters have been put up at Leeds...

Looks like it isn’t far away!

 

[janb]

So these posters have been put up at Leeds...

Looks like it isn’t far away!

Starts 6th December, Airedale/Wharfedale lines.

 

[323235]

They should have also added wording to that warning poster what you do if the ticket type you want isn't available in addition to saying if your destination isn't available.

On that poster it also implies if you want to renew a monthly season ticket providing you are on the database you can do but doesn't explicitly say if you can use a promise to pay if you aren't already on the database / haven't yet acquired a photo card.

Can you register on the database when you get a photo card only?

Is the ticket exchange mechanism properly in place? e.g. exchanging a single ticket to Leeds for a monthly season or rover ticket.

 

[yorkie]

Will Carlisle security be around on Saturdays and Sundays?

 

[Smidster]

So these posters have been put up at Leeds...

Looks like it isn’t far away!

Yet another example of Northern going about things in the wrong way.

I endure the misery of the commute on the Airedale line and they need to at least start by trying to educate people on what they should be doing. Every day staff will come through the train with the "anybody needing a ticket" message even in situations where it would not have been possible to avoid a ticket office / machine. On these occasions there is no attempt to say why they should be buying elsewhere or the potential consequences.

The vast majority of people are not trying to evade fares but are just doing what they have always done. Ignorance isn't an excuse but I wish they would spend more time going after the (relative) "bad" guys and less putting normal folk into really uncomfortable and intimidating situations.

 

[xotGD]

Yet another example of Northern going about things in the wrong way.

I endure the misery of the commute on the Airedale line and they need to at least start by trying to educate people on what they should be doing. Every day staff will come through the train with the "anybody needing a ticket" message even in situations where it would not have been possible to avoid a ticket office / machine. On these occasions there is no attempt to say why they should be buying elsewhere or the potential consequences.

The vast majority of people are not trying to evade fares but are just doing what they have always done. Ignorance isn't an excuse but I wish they would spend more time going after the (relative) "bad" guys and less putting normal folk into really uncomfortable and intimidating situations.

I fully agree. Airedale services currently operate as a paytrain, no questions asked. Bizarrely, you'll get a full ticket check on departure from Skipton where everyone has had to pass through the barriers and then just 'who needs a ticket?' further down the line where there is an opportunity to fare dodge.

Expect to see a lot of arguments when passengers who have bought their ticket on the train for years suddenly get charged a £20 penalty.

 

[Solent&Wessex]

I fully agree. Airedale services currently operate as a paytrain, no questions asked. Bizarrely, you'll get a full ticket check on departure from Skipton where everyone has had to pass through the barriers and then just 'who needs a ticket?' further down the line where there is an opportunity to fare dodge.

Expect to see a lot of arguments when passengers who have bought their ticket on the train for years suddenly get charged a £20 penalty.

I would be amazed if it isn't any different to the ill fated ATN Penalty Fares scheme on the Airedale and Wharfedale lines.

Only Authorised Penalty Fare collectors can issue PFs. Guards are not authorised PF collectors. I'll wager that Northern will employ so few proper authorised PF collectors that very little will change. The Guard will just continue to do "anyone want to buy a ticket" call overs. Fare dodgers going from Crossflatts to Saltaire (for example) will just sit there in silence. Genuine people will pay. Even when Carlisle staff are employed on stations they are so ineffective they might as well not be there. And don't forget that many stations still are vastly under resourced in terms of TVMs etc. Even Keighley, a large very busy station with 3 entrances (all of which bypass the ticket office) only has 1 TVM, and that is inside the booking hall which is locked when the ticket office is closed.

The only think likely to change is that people travelling to Skipton or Leeds (both with barriers) might end up with a PF instead. Everyone else travelling between the unbarriered / unstaffed stations inbetween will continue to travel for free.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The Guard will just continue to do "anyone want to buy a ticket" call overs.

This has to stop - PF schemes have no credibility if tickets are sold on board.

If guards receive commission, just pay them off with a suitable sum. Nobody will argue with not doing tickets and keeping the money anyway.

The only way we can realistically penalise for on-board sales but keep them is to do something like SBB used to do and have a smaller on-board charge for ticket sales (£5 per ticket would probably do[1]) unless you can prove you came from a station unable to sell the ticket/take the method of payment you want, and make purchase on-board/at destination legal. But PFs are more effective if done properly.

[1] The success of the "bag tax" proves that a "penalty"/"fee" of this kind doesn't have to be big to succeed - £0.05 is enough to make people think if they really want a bag or not. What it needs is to be clearly stated as a fee, which just selling Anytime tickets doesn't do.

 

[Clip]

Yet another example of Northern going about things in the wrong way.

I endure the misery of the commute on the Airedale line and they need to at least start by trying to educate people on what they should be doing. Every day staff will come through the train with the "anybody needing a ticket" message even in situations where it would not have been possible to avoid a ticket office / machine. On these occasions there is no attempt to say why they should be buying elsewhere or the potential consequences.

The vast majority of people are not trying to evade fares but are just doing what they have always done. Ignorance isn't an excuse but I wish they would spend more time going after the (relative) "bad" guys and less putting normal folk into really uncomfortable and intimidating situations.

Well maybe, before you slate northern about going about it the wrong way, they will have trained their staff about when this starts and that they are not to do the usual that they do now?

Fair enough if in practice things are still the same then have a pop, but to preempt it is just as wrong in my eyes.

 

[furlong]

Fair enough if in practice things are still the same then have a pop, but to preempt it is just as wrong in my eyes.

Exactly, give them a fair chance to adjust to the new rules! Penalty Fares scheme rules are pretty clear that tickets can only be sold on board if the passenger is issued with a printed warning that a Penalty Fare could have been charged and attention is drawn to this warning.

 

[Starmill]

It was given by the SRA as an example of bad practice to someone who is the only person on the train be an Authorised Collector. I understand that Southern and Southeastern do operate in this manner, but with a rather large hole: if someone is about to be issued with a penalty fare and the train arrives at a station and the passenger leaves the train at that station, the custom is for the RPI to get off with them and complete their Penalty Fare on the platform. If they are working alone this is not possible. Thus, in general, guards don't issue penalty fares - and OBMs / OBSs can't just abandon their train in order to do so.

As such, in Penalty Fare areas, the guard has two options: one is to sell tickets, the other is to not do revenue.

 

[furlong]

If guards receive commission, just pay them off with a suitable sum. Nobody will argue with not doing tickets and keeping the money anyway.

Invest in training them all as Authorised Collectors. (Commission can still be paid on PFs.) Word should soon get around that tickets sold on board without a Promise to Pay will cost at least £20.

Authorised collectors
4.26 Authorised collectors and other staff who sell tickets on trains often receive commission on the value of the tickets they sell. Some operators also pay staff a small amount of commission (typically 5%) on the value of the penalty fares charged. We have no objection to this, as long as the percentage is small and the relevant instructions about the use of discretion and the circumstances in which penalty fares may or may not be charged are strictly followed.

Selling tickets on penalty fares trains
4.34 The basic principle of any penalty fares scheme is that passengers must buy their tickets before they get on their train. If passengers find that they can buy their ticket on the train from the conductor or guard, it undermines this message. For this reason, we will not allow tickets to be sold on penalty fares trains unless either:

a the on-train staff are trained as, and act as, authorised collectors, so they can charge a penalty fare to any passenger who is liable for one; or

b the on-train staff issue a printed penalty fares warning, as well as a ticket, to any passenger who is liable to a penalty fare, and draw the passenger’s attention to the warning.

In the case of (b), on-train staff must be given suitable training (and, when necessary, refresher training) in how the penalty fares scheme works, and how to issue these penalty fares warnings. A system must also be in place to make sure that on-train staff use the warnings properly. Where the warnings are issued using a portable ticket machine, such as ‘SPORTIS’, machine print-outs might be used to check that staff are issuing them. Any system must make sure that each individual conductor or guard is regularly monitored.

 

[johntea]

"If you are wishing to pay by cash at a card only TVM you must obtain a Promise to Pay notice"

Take Saltaire as an example - is a typical passenger catching a train in the Skipton direction really going to know to wander over to the Leeds platform to visit the singular TVM to obtain a PTP?

 

[Starmill]

"If you are wishing to pay by cash at a card only TVM you must obtain a Promise to Pay notice"

Take Saltaire as an example - is a typical passenger catching a train in the Skipton direction really going to know to wander over to the Leeds platform to visit the singular TVM to obtain a PTP?

They clearly cannot and should not be enforcing that without suitable publicity and not fewer than 1 ticket machine per platform.

 

[gray1404]

Would the NRCoT need updating to reflect the requirement to obtain a promise to pay notice. There is currently no such reference to them in the NRToC (unless you could argue the term Permit to Travel covers it).

 

[najaB]

They clearly cannot and should not be enforcing that without suitable publicity and not fewer than 1 ticket machine per platform.

This doesn't stop other TOCs from operating Penalty Fares schemes so I don't see it stopping Northern.

 

[furlong]

Would the NRCoT need updating to reflect the requirement to obtain a promise to pay notice. There is currently no such reference to them in the NRToC (unless you could argue the term Permit to Travel covers it).

I'm reading it as just a new and improved name for a Permit to Travel.

 

[TUC]

So these posters have been put up at Leeds...

Looks like it isn’t far away!

The poster should also say that the Penalty Fare does not apply if the TVM is not accessible for a disabled passenger (such as if they are visually impaired).

 

[Starmill]

I'm reading it as just a new and improved name for a Permit to Travel.

That would be fine if that were written down somewhere prominent, rather than being no more than your guess.

 

[furlong]

That would be fine if that were written down somewhere prominent, rather than being no more than your guess.

Not really a guess:

“Permit to Travel” means a document obtainable from self-service machines at some stations that allows you to travel by train until you have a reasonable opportunity to buy the Ticket you need for your journey, for a period of not more than 2 hours from the time of issue.

in the Conditions of Travel. (One problem I see with that definition is that the public docs from Northern so far don't seem to have stipulated that 2 hour limit, and without that limit it doesn't count as a Permit to Travel and so they would need to agree a new version of the Conditions of Travel before bringing in the scheme.)

 

[gray1404]

In that case the PF notices and the type of "ticket" one would request on the TVM should also be described as a Permit to Travel. Promise to Py is a new and different term.

 

[furlong]

As long as it meets that definition with the 2-hour limit, whatever they call it, the Conditions of Travel are unchanged. But without that limit, then they'd be relying on 6.3(b) - a notice saying you can board with a Promise to Pay. Messy, but not necessarily a problem.

 

[Moonshot]

This doesn't stop other TOCs from operating Penalty Fares schemes so I don't see it stopping Northern.

No it doesnt .....and in the bigger picture of Northerns network, a policy of 1 TVM per platform would probably equate to 1100 machines at least. Not going to happen.

 

[Starmill]

It wouldn't, you would strip out ticket machines at all at stations with fewer than around 5000 passengers a year. Money is being frittered away on Ardwick, Denton, Reddish South etc for zero benefit. Then you can start making exceptions for stations with more than 2 platforms but fewer than 2 entrances. Finally, I would suggest removing some TVMs from stations with more than 3 (such as Todmorden, why does it need 4 plus booking office?) to stations with just one at present.

Then it would only be around 10-20% more than the 700 or so that are on order or installed. Easy. What you don't do is leave a station with almost 900,000 passengers a year with only one single machine and no booking office.

Not really a guess:

It is really, there is no evidence that this thing is one of those documents at all. It might be an informed guess, but it's still a guess. If a 'Permit to Travel' can include a 'Promise to Pay', why is that not mentioned in the conditions? If a 'Promise to Travel' draws on the definition given for a 'Permit to Travel' in the NRCoT then you would expect this to be directly referenced. It isn't.

Messy, but not necessarily a problem.

How much of a problem it is will also be in proportion to how well communicated this is to customers. As there are only a couple of weeks to go and we still have no ideas on that, I'm not hopeful. If a change to the NRCoT needs to be made (as seems likely), there doesn't appear to be long to get out the new version for everyone in advance, does there?

Final point to note is this. If they are going by that tiny little box of text on the poster only, it simply says what I should do if I wish to pay by cash at a machine that is card only. It doesn't add any caveats, so presumably I can collect a promise to pay at Leeds and exchange it for a ticket on the train to Skipton? If so, sounds like a great convenience gain to me.

 

[furlong]

Well there needs to be a particular notice at every station announcing the pending introduction 3 weeks beforehand, has that happened yet? Or is it not really going to be able to start in "a couple of weeks"?

the operator must arrange for notices to be displayed in clearly visible positions at each station which is to become a penalty fares station, advising passengers that a penalty fares scheme is to be introduced. These notices must be displayed for at least three weeks before the scheme is introduced, and must be in line with rule 4.3.

(This is normally a different notice from the one required when the scheme starts.)

 

[Starmill]

I have no idea what notices are up or where. The proposed date for introduction is 2 weeks and 3 days away.

 

[furlong]

So these posters have been put up at Leeds...

Looks like it isn’t far away!

If this isn't yet in operation why aren't they covered up? They shouldn't be pretending they have a Penalty Fares scheme in operation if they don't!

 

[furlong]

There may be another compliance problem with that poster at Leeds. Under Rule 4.3(ii)

4.3 Warning notices must:
...
explain clearly when a penalty fare may be charged;

It doesn't appear very clear that one may be charged only on two particular routes.

Otherwise we're back to the same confusion from people boarding other Northern services from the station and not being told about Penalty Fares on board and assuming the notice doesn't really mean anything.

 

[Starmill]

I pointed this out a while ago, but Northern's website department think this started some time back:

AT THIS TIME PENALTY FARES ONLY APPLY TO NORTHERN SERVICES ON THE AIREDALE AND WHARFEDALE LINES IN WEST YORKSHIRE.

https://www.northernrailway.co.uk/penalty-fares

Good job on your Capslock and all that, but what about explaining which stations 'the Airdeale and Wharfedale lines' actually include. Presumably the final part of that sentence signifies that Skipton and Cononley are excluded.