Stopping repeated use of Anytime Returns

[Oscar]

This would probably work well. I can think of one problem. SNCF has a different fares structure though: they don't sell returns but sell two singles which are each valid for 24 hours after validation. In the UK return portions of Anytime Returns are valid for a month. So a passenger with (for example) an Edinburgh - Peterborough SOR could probably still get away with reboarding at Dunbar later in the month and validating their ticket again there saying that they had broken their journey there for a few days.

 

[MarkyMarkD]

Why not have ticket validating machines at stations like they do in France ?

Before boarding you insert your ticket into a machine at the entrance to the platform. It prints the date and time on. Any ticket presented on a train that has not been validated should be Penalty Fared

Yes, that's a pretty sensible option which prevents the reuse of return portions (but of course doesn't deal with the BOJ issue which is more tricky).

 

[swt_passenger]

Yes, that's a pretty sensible option which prevents the reuse of return portions (but of course doesn't deal with the BOJ issue which is more tricky).

Excuses that would be attempted in this country, would include:

I didn't know about the machine.

I didn't see the machine.

I was in a hurry and would have missed my train if I'd used it.

It was over there on the clearly signed route from the main entrance towards the platforms, but I'm far too self centred to follow signs so I couldn't use it...

 

[MarkyMarkD]

LOL. Indeed.

They could be on the train instead of on the platform, but it still wouldn't make people use them.

 

[Cheshire Rover]

Barrier every major station and have the barrier machine print or mark the ticket as it goes through. All season tickets to be chipped to allow passage through the barrier as you do with an oyster card. I suppose cost would be an option but the cost could be offset by the reduction in lost fares.

 

[clagmonster]

have the barrier machine print or mark the ticket as it goes through. All season tickets to be chipped to allow passage through the barrier as you do with an oyster card. I suppose cost would be an option but the cost could be offset by the reduction in lost fares.

With paper tickets, the last barrier pass is recorded on the magnetic strip anyway. Guards can check details of the last barrier pass by swiping the ticket in their Avantix machine.

 

[HowMuch?]

An effective system to control "Open Return" fraud while allowing BOJs ?

If there really are very few Breaks Of Journey on anytime or offpeak returns, then TOCs won't spend money on fancy systems to support BOJs. Or would move to ban BOJs if they got in the way of any new system to control Return Coupon fraud.

But TOCs might continue to tolerate BOJs if a cheap system could accommodate them and still secure against fraudulent extended use of tickets.

Here's a suggestion for such a low-tech "Self-validation" system. The only physical requirement is that the return coupon (or an additional mandatory "Ticket Use" coupon) should carry a grid with empty Date/From/To columns.

This system is not easy for fraudsters to get round, because it does not rely exclusively on on-train ticket checks. But it still allows you to have BOJs, even ones you suddenly decide on while en-route.

Process

- Before going through the barriers at the station where you are starting from, or where you are resuming after a BOJ : You fill in the next Date and From boxes. These will be requied by gate staff and train staff.

- Before exiting the Destination, or BOJ, station barriers : (There's no need to do this if changing trains and staying within the barrier) You fill in the To box. All three boxes will be required by gate staff.

- If you manage to fill all the grid rows you can surrender the coupon for a new one (the first Date, and the last Date and To would be copied over).

Security

A fraudster MIGHT not fill in the grid, counting on no Train Manager and unstaffed, unbarriered stations. But what system is proof against that? I think that most people are either basically honest - or will be honest so long as they don't repeatedly see others not 'playing the game' and getting away with it.


Devil's advocate.

Would this help the TOCs if they wanted to change the rules to limit the number of BOJs or the duration of return trip (once started) ? Yes !

- All BOJs are listed and the coupon could have the BOJ limit printed on it (or excess rows VOIDed). This would be annoying, but perhaps not too bad if the number allowed was linked to the length of the journey. If number of BOJs was zero for "short trips in peak time" it would almost eliminate the (I'm guessing here) main problem : commuters on short, packed journeys who assume they'll rarely need to show their ticket. With zero BOJs allowed, the first ticket check stamp invalidates the ticket from future use.

- The system identifies when the return journey started. Train or barrier staff can easily check if the return journey is taking too many days.

 

[All Line Rover]

I wouldn't care too much about TOC's banning BoJ IF they still permitted starting/finishing short. So basically, as soon as you get exit a station, your ticket has been used and is now "worthless." Of course, all stations would need to have barriers or validators if this was to be implemented.

For journeys that involve walking between stations (or crossing London) you could say that you have 2 hours in which to resume your journey after arriving at the first station, after which your ticket is worthless.

I wouldn't like the above, and ranger tickets would have to be introduced to compensate on routes that have lots of intermediate stations with lots of leisure travellers. But it's better than banning flexibility entirely.

 

[HowMuch?]

Protecting Short Starts and Stops

One way TOCs might want to control fraudulent repeated use of return coupons is to restrict Breaks of Journey. It's perhaps even the simplest way, because if Breaks of Journey aren't allowed, the first TM stamp invalidates the ticket for future use.

But any fiddling with BOJ rules might affect short starting/stoping (as All Line Rover says). This is specifically allowed at the moment, and we wouldn't want to find it's been quietly dropped becase of clever new wording about BOJs and because of the way new control systems work in practice.

Short starts might be particularly at risk, because when you do a short start you could be said to be resuming from a BOJ that never happened - which a clever new system might not allow.

Also, if we hear of any horsetrading over the number of permissible BOJs, we need to remind whoever that any rules and systems must allow (in the way we want, hopefully) for the fact that a short start, and possibly a short stop, might use up one BOJ.

 

[yorksrob]

Personally, I find BOJ very useful and wouldn't want it to be removed. I also find long term returns useful for visiting the family so wouldn't want those to be done away with.

I agree with The Blackwatch that some sort of gripper which shows the code of the next station stop at the time of gripping as well as the date would be preferable.

 

[All Line Rover]

- Before exiting the Destination, or BOJ, station barriers : (There's no need to do this if changing trains and staying within the barrier) You fill in the To box. All three boxes will be required by gate staff.

How would this work at unstaffed stations, which make up the vast majority of UK stations?
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Personally, I find BOJ very useful and wouldn't want it to be removed. I also find long term returns useful for visiting the family so wouldn't want those to be done away with.

The simple solution would be for TOC's to price Off-Peak Singles at 60% of the price of Off-Peak Returns, rather than the current 10p less. Yes, it would rely on more frequent on train ticket checks (such as, erm... Virgin, with whom a made a long distance return journey to London two days ago and did not have my ticket checked once), but it would benefit passengers greatly.

 

[Chapeltom]

BoJ cannot be removed, as someone who regularly does BoJ I'd be extremely annoyed if my right to do this was removed. And yes I use Anytime Returns 3 times a week on my Uni commute but have never once re-used it.

 

[HowMuch?]

Good Point, obviously.

At unstaffed stations it would rely on your honesty. But if you didn't fill in the TO box when you left the train, you'll have to put something in it before you resume your journey. And when you do resume your journey (assuming here), you have to put this station's name in the FROM box anyway...

Sure, a fraudster could once or twice get away with not filling in the TO station when he gets off, and resuming his journey further back up the line (but not as far back as the previous FROM box of course). Not perfect, no. But I think we are now talking a very small number of fraudsters. And this is not something a regular traveller could do for long without being spotted. And it would hardly suit a commuter.

The great benefit of this is that you have to put on record what you are doing. Which makes it vary easy to prove fraud once you are spotted. And I think having to write down a falsehood (rather than simply let a passive dishonesty slide by) is just one step too far up the dishonesty ladder for most people.

 

[MikeWh]

How many breaks of journey would this grid allow? Currently there is no limit below the number of intermediate stations on the permitted route with most stations on it. How would you cater for someone taking a month to return down the ECML from Newcastle to London and breaking at every station en-route?

 

[All Line Rover]

BoJ cannot be removed, as someone who regularly does BoJ I'd be extremely annoyed if my right to do this was removed. And yes I use Anytime Returns 3 times a week on my Uni commute but have never once re-used it.

What is your commute, and at which station do you have a BoJ? Would it really be much more expensive to buy separate tickets - i.e. from your origin to the BoJ station, and from the BoJ station to your destination?

 

[syorksdeano]

The best solution available right now is a Zifa (is it Zifa?) clipper, showing the date and headcode of the train travelled on. Alas, I think only Virgin, East Coast and XC use them at the moment.

The only problem with these is that you can quickly wipe the ink off and it doesn't look like it has been stamped. This is because of the coating on the ticket doesn't soak through the ticket quickly enough. Now I seem to remember that when tickets got stamped then the ink stayed, but I assume that now because of the ticket machines used that because of the way that they are printed that the coating on the ticket can't be changed.

Whatever happened to just using a hole punch to mark the ticket?

 

[WelshBluebird]

Whatever happened to just using a hole punch to mark the ticket?

Well I would guess partly it is because you can only put a hole in a ticket so many times until it falls to pieces, and even less times until you can't read what it is supposed to say.

 

[Skymonster]

I regularly travel Nottingham-London on open returns. I'll admit that in the bad old days when neither Nottingham nor St Pancras were barriered and Midland Mainline weren't very diligent with ticket checks and crossing through used tickets, I've used return portions of open returns more than once. I don't do it now - primarily because I don't want to defraud the railway, but also because stations are barriered and EMT are more thorough with ticket checks. However, I've often wondered how they'd detect if I used a return portion more than once, by on the second occasion buying a single just to the first stop out from St.Pancras and then claiming my open return had previously been used only that far on a BOJ and was thus still valid for the rest of the journey - the barriers at Nottingham are usually open in the evening so the return ticket is not retained and could thus easily be used again in such circumstances.

Now I know! I think they'd have a hard time proving that the ticket had already been used all the way to Nottingham. I'm not going to do it, but I see the potential for fraud is definitely there unless a better method of recording BOJ is set up.

Andy

 

[DynamicSpirit]

BoJ cannot be removed, as someone who regularly does BoJ I'd be extremely annoyed if my right to do this was removed. And yes I use Anytime Returns 3 times a week on my Uni commute but have never once re-used it.

Agreed. I find them extremely useful too. A couple of other points in defence of BoJ.

1. If you go by car, you can break your journey as often as you like. If train is to compete with car, unnecessarily preventing train passengers from doing things that you can do by car doesn't seem the most sensible strategy.

2. What happens if a missed connection or late train means you're stuck at a station for a couple of hours? Should people really be prevented from popping out for a quick look round the shops etc. in that situation?

3. Some journeys require you to leave the station anyway due to short walks between connecting stations (Wigan NW/Wallgate for example). It would seem odd if those journeys attracted different conditions from other journeys.

I do like the idea of pricing singles at half the cost of a return - it's always seemed odd to me that if I want to make a journey that isn't a straight there+back, I get in effect penalized by much higher fares. Personally I'd prefer more stringent ticket checks to prevent fraud
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Before going through the barriers at the station where you are starting from, or where you are resuming after a BOJ : You fill in the next Date and From boxes. These will be requied by gate staff and train staff.

Lost me at this point. You mean every time I travel by train I have to make sure I have a pen or pencil with me, and when I get to the station I have to scrabble round for several seconds trying to write things on my ticket? No thanks!

(Although on the bright side, the deterrent to people travelling by train if this system was implemented would probably reduce overcrowding!)

 

[LexyBoy]

BoJ cannot be removed

There's confidence! ATOC can do as they wish and if they want to ban BoJ on all ticket types nobody's going to stop them. I don't think it's likely to happen though, at least not with Anytime tickets.

1. If you go by car, you can break your journey as often as you like. If train is to compete with car, unnecessarily preventing train passengers from doing things that you can do by car doesn't seem the most sensible strategy.

Exactly. I'm of the opposite opinion to All Line Rover on this one - I'm not too bothered about stopping/starting short, but not being able to use BoJ would be a real killer for me.

Unfortunately the pricing managers of many TOCs don't consider competing with the car on flexibility, and are more concerned by headline Advance fares rather than promoting multi-stop journeys at a reasonable price. I'm of the opinion that TOCs would benefit if the flexibility available in most SVR fares were better known - many people don't know that they can break their journey and take alternative routes.

 

[John @ home]

Some journeys require you to leave the station anyway due to short walks between connecting stations (Wigan NW/Wallgate for example). It would seem odd if those journeys attracted different conditions from other journeys.

These journeys have attracted different conditions for more than 12 years.

DEFINITIONS

In these Conditions:- ...
"Break your journey" means leaving a Train Company's or Rail Service Company's premises after you start your journey other than to:-
(i) Join a train at another station, or
(ii) Stay in overnight accommodation when you cannot reasonably complete your journey within one day, or
(iii) comply with directions of Train Company's staff.

This definition is substantially unchanged in Condition 16 of the current National Rail Conditions of Carriage.

ATOC can do as they wish and if they want to ban BoJ on all ticket types nobody's going to stop them.

ATOC is a trade association, not a regulator. They are unable to alter the National Rail Conditions of Carriage without permission from the relevant Regulator, currently DfT. DfT's recent practice has been not to agree such alterations without prior public consultation.

 

[LexyBoy]

ATOC is a trade association, not a regulator. They are unable to alter the National Rail Conditions of Carriage without permission from the relevant Regulator, currently DfT. DfT's recent practice has been not to agree such alterations without prior public consultation.

Whilst I was being slightly tongue-in-cheek, the trouble with an association representing heavily government subsidised companies being regulated by a government department is that it means a cry of "it's costing us money" goes a lot further than it should.

 

[John @ home]

Whilst I was being slightly tongue-in-cheek, the trouble with an association representing heavily government subsidised companies being regulated by a government department is that it means a cry of "it's costing us money" goes a lot further than it should.

That is one of many reasons why I support the current government's proposal to transfer protection of passenger interests to the rail regulator and turn it into a powerful passenger champion.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

These journeys have attracted different conditions for more than 12 years.

Interesting. How are the current conditions different?

 

[Mutant Lemming]

There's confidence! ATOC can do as they wish and if they want to ban BoJ on all ticket types nobody's going to stop them. I don't think it's likely to happen though, at least not with Anytime tickets.



.

They can discourage people from buying them though by making them disproportionately expensive.

 

[DarloRich]

The best solution available right now is a Zifa (is it Zifa?) clipper, showing the date and headcode of the train travelled on. Alas, I think only Virgin, East Coast and XC use them at the moment.

Are they ink based? the ink is easy to remove (as was demonstrated to me by a rather dodgy chap!)

He even showed me how to get the impression of the stamper out of the ticket.

Clearly, i will not go into detials but it was not hard at all to doctor the ticket to make it easy to use again.

 

[John @ home]

Interesting. How are the current conditions different?

Sorry if my explanation was too short. You wrote:

Some journeys require you to leave the station anyway due to short walks between connecting stations (Wigan NW/Wallgate for example). It would seem odd if those journeys attracted different conditions from other journeys.

My point was that journeys which involve a walk between stations have attracted different conditions from other journeys for over 12 years.

Initially, the phrase "Break of journey" was not defined. The last set of Conditions which did not define it was the 2000 version.

The 2002 version of the Conditions introduced a definition of "Break of journey", which I quoted in post #51. This introduced the concept that "leaving a station" is a necessary, but not always sufficient, element of "Breaking a journey". This remains in today's National Rail Conditions of Carriage.

The purpose of my post #51 was to point out that a walk between stations is not a "Break of journey". It is therefore unlikely to be affected by any future limitation on "Breaks of journey".

 

[island]

Are they ink based? the ink is easy to remove (as was demonstrated to me by a rather dodgy chap!)

He even showed me how to get the impression of the stamper out of the ticket.

Clearly, i will not go into detials but it was not hard at all to doctor the ticket to make it easy to use again.

Clearly they need the Deutsche Bahn versions which make a small hole in the ticket as well.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Sorry if my explanation was too short. You wrote:
My point was that journeys which involve a walk between stations have attracted different conditions from other journeys for over 12 years.

Initially, the phrase "Break of journey" was not defined. The last set of Conditions which did not define it was the 2000 version.

The 2002 version of the Conditions introduced a definition of "Break of journey", which I quoted in post #51. This introduced the concept that "leaving a station" is a necessary, but not always sufficient, element of "Breaking a journey". This remains in today's National Rail Conditions of Carriage.

The purpose of my post #51 was to point out that a walk between stations is not a "Break of journey". It is therefore unlikely to be affected by any future limitation on "Breaks of journey".

OK thanks for the clarification, John.

My thinking behing my remark about it being odd if journeys involving station transfers had different conditions was this: If you have to walk between stations, then there are presumably essentially no restrictions on what you can do while engaging in said walk: You can go to the shops, go visit a friend, have lunch in a restaurant, even make a completely separate return rail journey on a different ticket, all provided only that you get back to your connecting station in time for a suitable connecting train that your ongoing ticket is valid for. Now I haven't read the full regulations in your link, but I'd be astonished if all those activities were explicitly forbidden - and of course any such restrictions would be unenforceable since you are of necessity beyond the ticket barriers and back out in the town/village/whereever.

So if you can do all those things if your connection involves exiting rail property, why shouldn't you be able to do those if your connection doesn't involve passing through the ticket barrier? If such a difference in the conditions of travel existed, it would turn those two rail journey types into utterly different things - that's what I would find very surprising (and unreasonable) if such a difference existed.

So - in the link you gave, I've had a look at the definition of 'break of journey'. I didn't scrutinise the entire set of regulations to see if a difference of the nature I've described exists, but I'd hope it doesn't, and that the difference in regulations you mention exists is of a different, more minor, nature?

 

[DarloRich]

Clearly they need the Deutsche Bahn versions which make a small hole in the ticket as well.

indeed!

And he said the more modern, shiney, ticket stock might as well be a wipe clean white board!