Rail Penalty Fares Reform Consultation

[yorkie]

The Penalty Fare needs to offer a serious deterrent to the casual evasion of fares.

Penalty Fares are not intended to be issued to fare evaders, at least that's what train companies say. They are issued to people who make a mistake under certain circumstances.

Here is an example of a circumstance in which Northern think an honest fare paying passenger should be issued a Penalty Fare:

Northern £20 Penalty Fare - A Lesson Learned :-)

I'm looking for advice please. Could you help? I made an honest mistake. Yes, honestly :) I was issued a £20 penalty fare for travelling without a ticket from Bamber Bridge to Preston. I always buy a ticket before travelling. Always. I'm a 60 year old idiot! :) On Tuesday I had an...

www.railforums.co.uk

This is what Chiltern say:

https://www.chilternrailways.co.uk/sites/default/files/files/timetables/Chiltern%20Penalty%20Fares.pdf

A Penalty Fare is a charge that Chiltern Railways is allowed to make under the Regulations and Rules. It is not a fine, and anyone who is charged one is not being accused of avoiding, or attempting to avoid, paying their fare.

‘Fare dodging’ is a completely different matter: it is a criminal offence and we treat it as such by prosecuting offenders

It is important to remember, when submitting responses to this consultation, that we are talking about a fare with a high value charged to people who are NOT being accused of any wrongdoing. They are people who have either not had time to buy a ticket (which could mean 'only' allowing 5 minutes and a level crossing barrier preventing them accessing the only machine at the station) or who have forgotten to buy a ticket, lost their ticket, or many other scenarios.

They are not (supposed to be) issued to deliberate fare evaders.

 

[Haywain]

Lots of people get penalty fares, there should not be a discount for those that can afford to pay early, I believe in some Scandinavian Countries Speeding fines are a percentage of your income. This would punish all more equally and make those very wealthy think again.

Those who cannot afford a penalty fare should ensure that they do not get into a position where they may be issued with one.

 

[yorkie]

Those who cannot afford a penalty fare should ensure that they do not get into a position where they may be issued with one.

How does one manage that? Arrive 20 minutes early for every train, bring every possible payment method and buy the full Anytime undiscounted Fare and stick to the shortest permitted route?

Even then it cannot be guaranteed to avoid a PF!

People have been issued a penalty fares when holding perfectly valid fares and/or having had no opportunity to buy a fare on many occasions that I am aware of; there are insufficient safeguards to ensure PFs are only issued where appropriate.

 

[Bletchleyite]

How does one manage that? Arrive 20 minutes early for every train, bring every possible payment method and buy the full Anytime undiscounted Fare and stick to the shortest permitted route?

Even then it cannot be guaranteed to avoid a PF!

People have been issued a penalty fares when holding perfectly valid fares and/or having had no opportunity to buy a fare on many occasions that I am aware of; there are insufficient safeguards to ensure PFs are only issued where appropriate.

And this is why I think they need a statutory appeals body which would independently deal with appeals. Perhaps also a penalty to the TOC for issuing one that is then subject to a successful appeal.

 

[plugwash]

They are not (supposed to be) issued to deliberate fare evaders.

If it was really about honest mistakes then there would be no need for penalty fares.

The problem is in many cases it's impossible to distinguish between an honest mistake and a fare evader adopting a "pay when challenged" strategy. So they need to make the penalty for "honest mistakes" sufficiently high to make the pay when challenged crowd decide they are better off paying before they are challenged.

 

[yorkie]

And this is why I think they need a statutory appeals body which would independently deal with appeals. Perhaps also a penalty to the TOC for issuing one that is then subject to a successful appeal.

If only! Sadly there is no chance of that.

The system is heavily stacked against the customer.

If it was really about honest mistakes then there would be no need for penalty fares.

Chiltern Railways disagree with you.

The problem is in many cases it's impossible to distinguish between an honest mistake and a fare evader adopting a "pay when challenged" strategy.

In other words, "guilty until proven innocent"

So they need to make the penalty for "honest mistakes" sufficiently high to deter the pay when challenged crowd.

I don't think charging a very high fare for people making an honest mistake is going to deter people who intentionally avoid the fare.

 

[Bald Rick]

Increasing the cost of the penalty fare if not paid promptly feels like a tax on the poor.

Just awful.

Like Parking tickets?

 

[Watershed]

Like Parking tickets?

Small difference - parking charges are primarily a means to enrich landowners and their appointed agents.

The level of Penalty Fares should not be increased (as the DfT states in the consultation) just because it's an easy way of raising more revenue.

The railway can count itself lucky that it has the right to impose a penalty with a reversed burden of proof.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Small difference - parking charges are primarily a means to enrich landowners and their appointed agents.

Conspiracy-tastic there. Parking charges (if you mean the ones you get a "fine" for not paying) are a fee paid to hire a piece of land for you to park your vehicle upon. There is no reason whatsoever that you should have a right or expectation for it to be free, and the default with a piece of privately owned land is that you can not park on it unless you have expressly asked permission of the landowner or there are terms displayed for doing so.

Nothing like motor vehicles for enhancing peoples' sense of self-importance!

Penalty Fares should not be increased, as the DfT appears to be suggesting, because it is a good way of raising more revenue.

PFs do not exist to increase revenue, they exist to prevent revenue loss from people casually not paying their fares (or not putting enough effort into ensuring they do so).

 

[Non Multi]

Those who cannot afford a penalty fare should ensure that they do not get into a position where they may be issued with one.

i.e. Stay away from the railway altogether and travel by other means.

I think PFs deter people from rail travel and clearly the current scheme isn't a deterrent to chancers.

The DfT and the industry is fairly hopeless at the selling tickets before you depart thing. My local experience from the last 2 decades is of using stations with solitary TVMs that were regularly out of order, with ticket offices shut by lunchtime/or with no office at all.

I always enjoy* having to wave money at the person at the destination gate line pleading to just pay for the fare.

Occasionally I decided that I couldn't be bothered with the above, and the local bus company won my custom instead.

To the rail industry, and the DfT: Raise your game.

 

[furlong]

Penalty Fares are not intended to be issued to fare evaders, at least that's what train companies say. They are issued to people who make a mistake under certain circumstances.

This is what Chiltern say:

Anyone charged one is being treated as having acted dishonestly.

This "mission creep" has become a major part of the problem. Penalty Fares are absolutely intended to to be issued ONLY to dishonest fare evaders as a time-saving out-of-court disposal. Where there is reasonable doubt, the normal fare should be charged - not a Penalty Fare - and the appeals mechanism provides a backstop for that reasonable doubt.

You get to the station, see big signs telling you to use a simple machine before you get on the train, so you insert a few coins as if you were paying for parking, press a large green button and get a permit, taking less than ten seconds. It's very hard to argue later that you weren't able to do that.

From the SRA 2002 guidelines:

A penalty fares scheme reverses the normal ‘burden of proof ’ which would apply if a person was prosecuted for not paying their fare.
...
For this reason, we [SRA, 2002] see our main role as making sure that the interests of honest passengers are protected

That main role has been inherited by the DfT. In which part of this consultation is the DfT hydra acting to protect the interests of honest passengers?

From one of the Parliamentary debates for the original bill:

The innocent are protected by the Bill, but it is only fair that the dishonest traveller should be caught. However, even when he is caught he is not a criminal

One of the social benefits of this Bill is that it will take most ticketless travel outside the scope of the criminal law and will free the hard-pressed magistrates' courts to deal with other serious business.

If, however, a passenger on a train is not in possession of a ticket, he is not to be treated as a criminal under this Bill. He is simply asked to pay a penalty fare, which is a civil penalty and not a criminal one. If there are good reasons why he has not been able to obtain a ticket before travelling, not even this civil penalty will be due.

A lot has changed on the railway since Penalty Fares were introduced and it really is high time that the DfT held a proper review into how best to deter fare evaders on the railway today in ways that continue to protect honest passengers and don't provide train companies with perverse incentives to ignore the inconvenient parts of the rules and to penalise their "customers" instead of giving them the benefit of the doubt.

 

[Watershed]

Conspiracy-tastic there. Parking charges (if you mean the ones you get a "fine" for not paying)

No, I'm referring to the inflated "parking charges" (commonly known as fines) that are levied for breaching the conditions of certain car parks.

Those are a method of enrichment, no more, and it is a travesty of justice that the Supreme Court played right into their hands.

There is nothing wrong with landowners wanting to charge a reasonable sum for people who want to park their cars on their land.

Neither is there anything wrong with train companies wanting people to pay their fare.

But there is a big problem when those that break the rules - even inadvertantly or in a way whereby no revenue is at risk - are heavily penalised just because it makes it easier for the landowner/railway to enforce the requirement to pay.

 

[Starmill]

It's a bit bizarre to say in the consultation that this is all about creating a deterrent, given that there are other ways that many train companies would rather deter people from "fare evading", particularly threats of prosecution. Furthermore, an enormous number of trains and journeys haven't ever been subject to Penalty Fares anyway. Although some companies do have their scheme highly visible e.g. Greater Anglia, you'd barely notice Penalty Fares are in operation at all from many Northern or West Midlands Trains stations.

Presumably they couldn't write that Penalty Fares are a cost effective revenue stream which it would be nice to enhance, however, as it doesn't sound as good.

Ticket gates for example are almost always not really an enforcement mechanism, but do act as a very effective deterrent, because you could physically barge your way out of them or jump over them and nobody would stop you. Very few people will try that though, and knowing that your destination station has ticket gates is a very effective deterrent to trying to get away without paying therefore.

 

[Watershed]

Presumably they couldn't write that Penalty Fares are a cost effective revenue stream which it would be nice to enhance, however, as it doesn't sound as good.

They come close to outright admitting it:

By acting as an effective deterrent, more revenue will be generated by the railway, which can be re-invested to improve the quality of passenger services.

Again, like so many of these things, there is nothing inherently wrong with proposing changes to the system. Maybe changes are needed - even ones that are "anti"-passenger.

But going in with one fixed outcome in mind - an increase to the level of Penalty Fares - and leaving everything else untouched is not a consultation. It's a bottom-covering, rubber-stamping exercise.

 

[Starmill]

PFs do not exist to increase revenue, they exist to prevent revenue loss from people casually not paying their fares (or not putting enough effort into ensuring they do so).

Sure that's what you would like, but equally it means that it's pretty easy to get away with lax revenue protection, which has been very common. A £40 penalty fare on an average fare of about £5 means that the train company can allow 87.5% of "fare evaders" to get away with it and still break even. I imagine this is what's driving this really. They don't need people to buy more tickets if they can earn more through Penalty Fares, and they are desperate not to pay for any extra revenue protection resources.

 

[AlterEgo]

Sure that's what you would like, but equally it means that it's pretty easy to get away with lax revenue protection, which has been very common. A £40 penalty fare on an average fare of about £5 means that the train company can allow 87.5% of "fare evaders" to get away with it and still break even. I imagine this is what's driving this really. They don't need people to buy more tickets if they can earn more through Penalty Fares, and they are desperate not to pay for any extra revenue protection resources.

That seems to be the long and short of it. The railway after COVID is going to have to show that it is saving costs on things like staffing while also being stricter about protecting their revenue.

 

[Watershed]

That seems to be the long and short of it. The railway after COVID is going to have to show that it is saving costs on things like staffing while also being stricter about protecting their revenue.

Which essentially means externalising the cost of employing revenue protection staff onto an unlucky handful of those without tickets (whether for good reasons or otherwise).

Of course, you could argue that that's not so unfair - after all, a reasonable percentage of Penalty Fare recipients are probably pay-when-challenged types (at best).

But, again, it is distasteful to reverse the criminal burden of proof with a statutorily imposed penalty, simply because you are too cheap to pay for proper and widespread revenue enforcement.

There is also the issue that, without the required reforms (to clarify questions like "what happens if the level crossing is down and you can't get to the ticket machine?"), a number of people will be unfairly penalised, and even more heavily than before.

 

[RPI]

Personally I think the surcharge option is best, I.e. you charge the full anytime single then a "penalty" on top, easier to understand, easier to enforce. Example, the other day, Westbury to Newbury, the PF was £30.00 (£20.00 to Pewsey then £10.00 Pewsey to Newbury) yet the Anytime Single was £36.00, the latter option i dont have to write out a notice, argue about giving details etc etc.
I know this scenario is part of the bigger picture of how ludicrous it is that we have a system where split ticketing is cheaper but the whole thing top to bottom needs wiping clean and starting again. As for byelaw 18, I think it should stay but certain TOC'S need to stop abusing it.

 

[infobleep]

Personally I think the surcharge option is best, I.e. you charge the full anytime single then a "penalty" on top, easier to understand, easier to enforce. Example, the other day, Westbury to Newbury, the PF was £30.00 (£20.00 to Pewsey then £10.00 Pewsey to Newbury) yet the Anytime Single was £36.00, the latter option i dont have to write out a notice, argue about giving details etc etc.
I know this scenario is part of the bigger picture of how ludicrous it is that we have a system where split ticketing is cheaper but the whole thing top to bottom needs wiping clean and starting again. As for byelaw 18, I think it should stay but certain TOC'S need to stop abusing it.

I don't understand how you can have two penalty fares for one journey.

 

[Watershed]

I don't understand how you can have two penalty fares for one journey.

One was a Penalty Fare to the next stop (£20 Westbury to Pewsey), the other was the Anytime Day Single from Pewsey to Newbury (as the passenger presumably wished to continue on the same train).

As for byelaw 18, I think it should stay but certain TOC'S need to stop abusing it.

How do you stop TOCs from abusing it whilst keeping it on the books? If intent to avoid payment cannot be proven, why shouldn't the matter simply result in a Penalty Fare?

 

[infobleep]

One was a Penalty Fare to the next stop (£20 Westbury to Pewsey), the other was the Anytime Day Single from Pewsey to Newbury (as the passenger presumably wished to continue on the same train).

So if they had purchased a ticket from Westbury to Pewsey, the cost might have been even cheaper as that was the only penalty fare part of the journey. Assuming a single ticket isn't £20.

 

[RPI]

So if they had purchased a ticket from Westbury to Pewsey, the cost might have been even cheaper as that was the only penalty fare part of the journey. Assuming a single ticket isn't £20.

Yep as split ticketing along the Berks & Hants always works out cheaper if the trains are stopping everywhere

 

[matt_world2004]

They should amend the penalty fare rules so they cannot be charged when the railway has not suffered a financial loss as a result of the mistake

Seeing people on the tfl rail getting their details taken for having an Heathrow express ticket or London underground ticket is pretty galling.

 

[DJ_K666]

Lots of people get penalty fares, there should not be a discount for those that can afford to pay early, I believe in some Scandinavian Countries Speeding fines are a percentage of your income. This would punish all more equally and make those very wealthy think again.

That's what the railways do in Germany and (I think) France. There are np ticket barriers but loads of inspectors around. You're pretty much guaranteed at least one ticket check on board. And under cover police can jump trains and check tickets too.

 

[Bletchleyite]

That's what the railways do in Germany and (I think) France. There are np ticket barriers but loads of inspectors around. You're pretty much guaranteed at least one ticket check on board. And under cover police can jump trains and check tickets too.

Penalty fares are not income based in any country I know of - in Switzerland it's either CHF80+fare (IC/IR) or CHF100 in total including fare (regional). Germany I think is a similar figure but EUR (the EUR and CHF are not hugely different in value).

Also in Germany you can purchase a ticket on board any service that is not shown as "Einstieg nur mit gueltiger Fahrkarte", which is mostly Verbund-area regional services, though I believe there's a supplement for buying on board.

An example of that marking can be seen here: https://www.bahnbilder.de/bild/deut...laufnahme-eines-ex-silberling-auf-der-rb.html

 

[ta-toget]

That's what the railways do in Germany and (I think) France. There are np ticket barriers but loads of inspectors around. You're pretty much guaranteed at least one ticket check on board. And under cover police can jump trains and check tickets too.

On which note, they have been installing ticket barriers for the Trains à Grande Vitesse (possibly the Transport Express Régional as well, I'm not sure), and they have of course existed on the Paris Metro for a while, and other metros in France. They are called (in some places) portiques anti-fraude (anti-fraud gates). According to this article and video from 2019 (in French), they caused delays and congestion in the station, but they help to reduce violence towards ticket-checkers and tackle fraud, which has an annual cost of €300 million. Unions, of course, claimed it was for cost-saving reasons, and objected to the potential loss of jobs for the cheminots. In some cases, according to another article (in French), people had to show their tickets to a person before being allowed access to the platform. This article (French) talks about a new type of gate installed at Saint-Lazare (mainly for metro use, rather than mainline in this instance.). These new gates at Saint-Lazare were made/designed by Conduent, according to this French article.

 

[Paul Kelly]

Also in Germany you can purchase a ticket on board any service that is not shown as "Einstieg nur mit gueltiger Fahrkarte", which is mostly Verbund-area regional services, though I believe there's a supplement for buying on board.

Off-topic, but I've read that from next year it will no longer be permitted to buy tickets on board Deutsche Bahn services. But you will be allowed to buy an e-ticket online, up to 10 minutes after the train departs, with no penalty.

 

[DorkingMain]

They should amend the penalty fare rules so they cannot be charged when the railway has not suffered a financial loss as a result of the mistake

Seeing people on the tfl rail getting their details taken for having an Heathrow express ticket or London underground ticket is pretty galling.

The revenue for TfL Rail and Heathrow Express goes to entirely different places, so someone has suffered a loss.

I'm sceptical of this approach anyway. It would not be very difficult to reach a situation where people would just buy a ticket that was cheaper than the one they actually needed, and then if you don't get caught, you win, and if you do get caught, you can argue you haven't deprived the railway of their money entirely and just be charged an excess.

 

[matt_world2004]

The revenue for TfL Rail and Heathrow Express goes to entirely different places, so someone has suffered a loss.

I'm sceptical of this approach anyway. It would not be very difficult to reach a situation where people would just buy a ticket that was cheaper than the one they actually needed, and then if you don't get caught, you win, and if you do get caught, you can argue you haven't deprived the railway of their money entirely and just be charged an excess.

Doesn't matter there has been no attempt to defraud.

If the fare is lower the railway has suffered a loss and can be issued a penalty fare accordingly.

 

[DorkingMain]

Doesn't matter there has been no attempt to defraud.

If the fare is lower the railway has suffered a loss and can be issued a penalty fare accordingly.

The railway is not one homogenous entity where all the money goes to one place, particularly in the case of Heathrow Express which is a privately funded railway.

If you start adding too many reasons why someone shouldn't be given a penalty fare it becomes impossible to give them to anyone.