I would rather revenue enforcement operations were split and became a function of the btp. There would be no financial incentive to prosecute when it's not in the public interest then. Such as those with a valid ticketIn my opinion if a crime has been committed it should be up to the CPS to prosecute and the operating companies should lose their right to bring private prosecutions.
I would rather revenue enforcement operations were split and became a function of the btp. There would be no financial incentive to prosecute when it's not in the public interest then. Such as those with a valid ticket
If the current railway offences had to stay (and that is itself a separate question), there's no reason it should be treated any different to shoplifting, albeit it's really a much less serious offence than that. Small scale cases are handled in-house, big cases handed over to the police.The problem becomes if you hand revenue enforcement over to the police, where previously a revenue officer may have used their discretion to sell a ticket or issue a warning, the police will be duty bound to investigate the crime. Where previously details had been taken and the train company elect to request payment of the fare and issue a warning, instead it'd be a summons without even the option of settling out of court. And BTP's workload would quite easily double or treble, meaning a resultant increase in cost, which will be passed on to the TOCs, which ultimately, will be passed on to the passenger through their train fares (though some of that would be mitigated by the redundancy of revenue protection officers). Additionally, I think there's more risk of the police themselves getting ticket validity wrong and claiming that it isn't valid when it is as railway revenue is a complex area as in many cases the BTP aren't 'railway people' so to speak, they are police officers.
Would the public not see it as disproportionate having a police officer carrying handcuffs and a taser checking their tickets and not a rail staff member carrying a t-key and a ticket machine?
In my view TOCs dealing with their own revenue protection matters is a sensible way of doing things as it means that valuable police, CPS etc time is not wasted with a deluge of 'low level' offences (ie, we're talking dodging a train ticket not murder).
I think the idea would be to have revenue inspections as a seperate role to policing with staff working in regions to police ticketless travel.The problem becomes if you hand revenue enforcement over to the police, where previously a revenue officer may have used their discretion to sell a ticket or issue a warning, the police will be duty bound to investigate the crime. Where previously details had been taken and the train company elect to request payment of the fare and issue a warning, instead it'd be a summons without even the option of settling out of court. And BTP's workload would quite easily double or treble, meaning a resultant increase in cost, which will be passed on to the TOCs, which ultimately, will be passed on to the passenger through their train fares (though some of that would be mitigated by the redundancy of revenue protection officers). Additionally, I think there's more risk of the police themselves getting ticket validity wrong and claiming that it isn't valid when it is as railway revenue is a complex area as in many cases the BTP aren't 'railway people' so to speak, they are police officers.
Would the public not see it as disproportionate having a police officer carrying handcuffs and a taser checking their tickets and not a rail staff member carrying a t-key and a ticket machine?
In my view TOCs dealing with their own revenue protection matters is a sensible way of doing things as it means that valuable police, CPS etc time is not wasted with a deluge of 'low level' offences (ie, we're talking dodging a train ticket not murder).
I think the idea would be to have revenue inspections as a seperate role to policing with staff working in regions to police ticketless travel.
There should be a public interest test before bringing prosecution's/penalty fares. I don't think it is in the public interest to prosecute people who have an invalid ticket where there has been no financial loss to "the railway"
I think you've critically misunderstood the public interest test. There is not ever going to be public interest in a conviction over an avoided £3.40 train fare on the basis of the economics of funding the railway. It may be in the public interest for some other reason, but I find it extremely difficult to think of one.I would say there is a reasonably high public interest actually. The subsidy to keep the railways running comes from the taxpayer and the more fares evaded the more the taxpayers have to shell out in increased subsidy.
Maybe but this isn't legally relevant to whether the case is in the public interest, unless there's enough evidence of an offence of assault or anti-social behaviour.Additionally, there is a great correlation between those fare evading and those who choose to commit other crimes such as using the rail network for drug dealing or assaulting rail staff, or engage in anti-social behaviour on the railways and effective revenue protection acts as a strong deterrent to those who engage in such illicit activities.
Again this is muddled thinking. It is who lost what, and how much it was actually worth that matters.It's also very difficult to prove no financial loss. If one were to pay £4.20 for a ticket to Wolverhampton from Birmingham but then instead travelled to a destination where the fare was identical, without looking, let's say, Water Orton, clearly there will still be a financial loss somewhere as different TOCs will be getting a different share of the fares income.
I think you've critically misunderstood the public interest test. There is not ever going to be public interest in a conviction over an avoided £3.40 train fare on the basis of the economics of funding the railway. It may be in the public interest for some other reason, but I find it extremely difficult to think of one.
Maybe but this isn't legally relevant to whether the case is in the public interest, unless there's enough evidence of an offence of assault or anti-social behaviour.
Again this is muddled thinking. It is who lost what, and how much it was actually worth that matters.
It always comes down to this circular argument, doesn't it . TOCs love to trot it out when justifying new anti-passenger measures.I would say there is a reasonably high public interest actually. The subsidy to keep the railways running comes from the taxpayer and the more fares evaded the more the taxpayers have to shell out in increased subsidy.
The same sort of logic could be used to say that statistically speaking a much greater percentage of people of minority ethnic backgrounds are convicted of committing crimes, so we'll just use the fact they're guilty of one crime, and punish them for the other crimes they probably also committed. I don't think I need to elaborate much further on why such sweeping generalisations and stereotypes are unacceptable. We might as well scrap rights like the presumption of innocence whilst we're at it...Additionally, there is a great correlation between those fare evading and those who choose to commit other crimes such as using the rail network for drug dealing or assaulting rail staff, or engage in anti-social behaviour on the railways
Now this may indeed be provable (and it certainly seems logical), but effective revenue protection needn't mean criminalisation of people committing really quite minor offences such as fare evasion. I think it's rather telling that, by comparison, the standard treatment for being caught with a small quantity of cannabis is a warning that doesn't even generate a criminal record. Are we suggesting that a trivial economic crime is worse than doing drugs?effective revenue protection acts as a strong deterrent to those who engage in such illicit activities.
So you're suggesting that passengers should be punished because of the artificial splitting up of the industry between what are now no more than glorified government contractors? This is really one of those cases where it's rail industry 'logic' overriding any kind of common sense. It's true that if lots of people did this, it would be harder to find out some idea of passenger numbers, but the percentage of people doing something like this is tiny so would barely affect the figures.It's also very difficult to prove no financial loss. If one were to pay £4.20 for a ticket to Wolverhampton from Birmingham but then instead travelled to a destination where the fare was identical, without looking, let's say, Water Orton, clearly there will still be a financial loss somewhere as different TOCs will be getting a different share of the fares income.
The fragmented nature of the railway should be no reason to prosecute someone when there was no financial loss to the collective railway.where there has been no financial gain by the defendant and there has been no financial loss to the railway. There is no public interest in prosecuting imhoI would say there is a reasonably high public interest actually. The subsidy to keep the railways running comes from the taxpayer and the more fares evaded the more the taxpayers have to shell out in increased subsidy. Additionally, there is a great correlation between those fare evading and those who choose to commit other crimes such as using the rail network for drug dealing or assaulting rail staff, or engage in anti-social behaviour on the railways and effective revenue protection acts as a strong deterrent to those who engage in such illicit activities.
So you should be able to travel on United with a Virgin Atlantic ticket? No overall loss to the Airline industryThe fragmented nature of the railway should be no reason to prosecute someone when there was no financial loss to the collective railway
It always comes down to this circular argument, doesn't it . TOCs love to trot it out when justifying new anti-passenger measures.
Taxpayers aren't having to shell out a penny of extra subsidy just because a defendant accused of fare evasion has failed to pay their fare. Exactly the same services would have been operated, and thus exactly the same costs incurred, regardless of whether or not that passenger had ever travelled on the train. Now, the taxpayer subsidy will of course fail to be reduced by the amount of the unpaid fare, but that is a completely different matter to subsidy having to be increased.
The argument ultimately boils down to two unsupportable principles. Firstly, that the defendant in question should be considered guilty of a crime just because they failed to reduce taxpayer subsidy, when they could just have lawfully not travelled at all, which would also have involved failing to reduce subsidy. So this effectively criminalises the mere act of deciding to take the train, even though from a societal view point (emissions etc.) taking the train is frequently the best option and thus one that should be encouraged.
Secondly, it applies a penalty out of all proportion to the crime being committed, namely a fine typically several orders of magnitude larger than the evaded fare, plus potential loss of employment or employment prospects. This is done not because the crime in question is truly serious, but purportedly to send a message discouraging others to try and do the same. That is unsupportable because one person is then unduly punished for the ill intentions of others - this is the sort of 'collective responsibility' nonsense that schools dish out as a lazy and poorly considered punishment.
A further point arises when the strict-liability Byelaw offences are considered. These criminalise behaviour that could perfectly well be innocent, merely because it would be operationally inconvenient or not economically feasible to produce the evidence required to prove any mens rea. That might be considered acceptable for something that actively endangers others in society, such as speeding, but it's difficult to justify it for what is, at worst, an economic crime. So effectively the 'innocent until proven guilty' paradigm is abandoned because it's easier not to bother with it.
The same sort of logic could be used to say that statistically speaking a much greater percentage of people of minority ethnic backgrounds are convicted of committing crimes, so we'll just use the fact they're guilty of one crime, and punish them for the other crimes they probably also committed. I don't think I need to elaborate much further on why such sweeping generalisations and stereotypes are unacceptable. We might as well scrap rights like the presumption of innocence whilst we're at it...
Now this may indeed be provable (and it certainly seems logical), but effective revenue protection needn't mean criminalisation of people committing really quite minor offences such as fare evasion. I think it's rather telling that, by comparison, the standard treatment for being caught with a small quantity of cannabis is a warning that doesn't even generate a criminal record. Are we suggesting that a trivial economic crime is worse than doing drugs?
So you're suggesting that passengers should be punished because of the artificial splitting up of the industry between what are now no more than glorified government contractors? This is really one of those cases where it's rail industry 'logic' overriding any kind of common sense. It's true that if lots of people did this, it would be harder to find out some idea of passenger numbers, but the percentage of people doing something like this is tiny so would barely affect the figures. Not to mention that, again, an internal industry squabble shouldn't spill over to become the passenger's problem - and any half-decent crack at the ticketing system would have seen PAYG and/or zonal fares systems implemented long ago.
The fragmented nature of the railway should be no reason to prosecute someone when there was no financial loss to the collective railway
Where united and virgin Atlantic part of a universal ticketing system with their franchise specifications set by the government or a devolved authority.So you should be able to travel on United with a Virgin Atlantic ticket? No overall loss to the Airline industry
The railway is fragmented because it is privatised - it is private companies running their services. They do not care if you have paid £4.20 to West Midlands Trains if you then travel on Avanti without buying a ticket which is valid for their service.
Airline comparisons are always wanting, but the nearest comparison would be asking whether you should be allowed to travel on a United Express flight with a ticket for United (pre-supposing that walkup flight tickets were still a thing), or whether you should be penalised for travelling on Virgin Atlantic instead of Delta (even though both are part of an alliance and indeed have revenue pooling agreements on many transatlantic routes). In either case there is a close legal relationship between the companies (NB United Express is actually a contracted out operation) and they advertise as one integrated network.So you should be able to travel on United with a Virgin Atlantic ticket? No overall loss to the Airline industry
That is more of a fundamental left vs right political ideology issue. Either way, the current approach is eminently inconsistent, for no apparent reason; that we both agree on. I'd argue it's fare evasion that is punished far too harshly, you may disagree.I'm afraid whilst many will agree with you, the 'crime doesn't justify the punishment' line just won't work on me. Being caught with a small quantity of cannabis and getting a warning which doesn't even get you a criminal record is literally of no benefit to anyone. I would support the legalisation of cannabis (benefits include increase in tax revenue, potential medical uses etc) however if we are going to keep it illegal, it should have stronger punishments. Whilst I understand and respect the view of the left-wing tending to favour rehabilitation, I favour the fear of punishment as the primary means of preventing reoffending. If you know that dodging your ticket is going to have you down to the tune of a few hundred pounds and mean a very difficult conversation with the boss, there is much less incentive to do it.
If all services were operated on an open access basis then it would be true competition. As it is, there is cross-TOC competition for a limited number of flows but mostly this is just due to historical or operational reasons. Under the current EMAs and even under the franchise system that came before, the only true competition comes between bidders for the contracts at the time of tender. Pretending that the railway can compete within itself is almost entirely farcical. Admittedly the industry tried to fight against this dogmatically induced madness, but it's had plenty of time to get its act together.I would point out that it isn't 'artificial splitting up of the industry' - it's private companies who are ultimately competitors in the marketplace.
That is a separate issue. In a properly integrated public transport system (or at least train ticketing system), all conurbations would be zonally priced. So it wouldn't make any difference whether you go to Water Orton or Wolverhampton if they're both in 'Birmingham Zone 6'. This sort of system is half-there but only in some areas. Again, it is unsupportable to penalise passengers for industry failings. It's the easy option though so it'll continue to happen.I don't disagree that there are plenty of opportunities to explore PAYG ticketing but those systems work best on a local or regional level and then you risk having issues where you leave, say, 'Greater Manchester Zone 6' and enter 'West Yorkshire Zone 6'.
The operation of the rail network is already nationalised by many definitions of the term. It's not about suggesting changing the makeup of the industry; it's about making the industry recognise that it is one transport mode, one system, where different parts are operated by different contractors, but ultimately all working towards the same goal. Stuff like the pathetic Gatwick Express vs Southern/Thameslink brand discrimination is a prime example of what I mean.My opinion is that you are clouding the debate with your personal views that the rail network should be one nationalised entity and currently (though who knows what will happen after the current EMAs are up) I'm afraid it simply is not.
They should care, because their paymasters (the DfT) are getting the same cash either way. Of course "that's not how it works"The railway is fragmented because it is privatised - it is private companies running their services. They do not care if you have paid £4.20 to West Midlands Trains if you then travel on Avanti without buying a ticket which is valid for their service.
Didn't we have this conversation about a week ago?In my opinion if a crime has been committed it should be up to the CPS to prosecute and the operating companies should lose their right to bring private prosecutions.