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Percentage of travellers caught without valid tickets in Penalty Fare areas

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benk1342

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To RPIs and other staff: when doing ticket checks on routes where buying before boarding is compulsory, approximately what percentage of passengers would you say do not have a valid ticket? From what I've witnessed on FCC it's usually about 1 person per (full) carriage, or around 1-2%, which strikes me as pretty good considering how infrequent the checks are. Of course that's generally during commuting hours. Is it worse in other parts of the country? What is considered an unusual or unacceptable level?
 
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yorkie

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Edit: thread title has now been changed to clarify

To RPIs and other staff: when doing ticket checks on your respective routes approximately what percentage of passengers would you say do not have a valid ticket?
In the morning on several rural routes it must be close to 100% ;)
From what I've witnessed on FCC it's usually about 1 person per (full) carriage, or around 1-2%, which strikes me as pretty good considering how infrequent the checks are. Of course that's generally during commuting hours. Is it worse in other parts of the country? What is considered an unusual or unacceptable level?
Ah, I don't think you meant the question in the opening paragraph literally, so I am wondering what you did mean? Perhaps you meant refusing to purchase a ticket, or did you mean to restrict the scope of your question to routes where purchasing before boarding is compulsory?

I'm also puzzled as to what 'good' relates to? A GC guard would see it as 'good' if they had a train full of people wishing to purchase GC only fares on-board as that would be huge revenue for the company and commission for the guard. I don't think a GC guard would see it as 'good' if all customers already had valid tickets; I'd imagine they'd be rather disappointed!

I suspect the question was intended for Penalty Fare services where purchasing before boarding is compulsory as it doesn't make sense otherwise. But even then, a passenger can be without a ticket that is 'valid' without being deemed to be 'caught', and even PF routes do not have fully working facilities at 100% of stations 100% of the time.
 
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benk1342

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In the morning on several rural routes it must be close to 100% ;)

Ah, I don't think you meant the question in the opening paragraph literally, so I am wondering what you did mean? Perhaps you meant refusing to purchase a ticket, or did you mean to restrict the scope of your question to routes where purchasing before boarding is compulsory?

Sorry! You're right, I meant routes where purchasing before boarding is compulsory. As I unfortunately don't have much experience traveling on non-compulsory routes those slipped my mind.
 

yorkie

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Sorry! You're right, I meant routes where purchasing before boarding is compulsory. As I unfortunately don't have much experience travelling on non-compulsory routes those slipped my mind.
No probs, thought that must be it! I have changed the thread title to clarify :)
 

Clip

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Ok. Yorkie cleared some bits up there with regards to issues.

As to answer the original question - do you mean how many people do guards/RPIs come across who do not have a valid ticket?

From my TOC - Id say not many to a lot as all depends on the day/time. But you really wouldnt believe how many people have an invalid ticket when they get caught. its staggering. For my line anyway
 

LexyBoy

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On my commute (Reading-Didcot) I'd estimate that someone's pulled up in my carriage (about 40 passengers) on roughly 1 in 10 occasions when there's a check, with more in the morning than the afternoon. Most of the time this will be tickets not valid due to time restrictions (wrong Advance or using an Off Peak), with a minority Railcard-less or worse.
 

stut

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On my commute (FCC GN route), there's rarely anybody caught at peak times - think I've seen it once in the last few years, and that's from a barrierless station. On occasion, you'll get someone travelling on an off-peak ticket in the evening peak (usually in the school holidays), but they almost always let this slide.

The evenings and weekends are a different story. But that's when the barriers are open and the RPIs largely absent. Oh, apart from last weekend, where we were inspected on-train an impressive 3 times on a 50-minute journey!
 

142094

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Tyne and Wear Metro is stated as 5% ticketless travel, although I'm not sure if this includes people going overdistance (probably not).
 
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