“Excuses please”; £200m cost of fare dodging on the railways, figures reveal

Fare dodgers are depriving the rail network and other passengers of an estimated £200m a year, according to figures published by the Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC) which represents Britain’s train operators.

Fare dodgers who choose to travel without buying a ticket are estimated to be making more than 110,000 train journeys each and every day on the rail network.

The figures come as train companies publish a list of some of the more memorable excuses used by passengers caught travelling without a ticket.

Examples of excuses given by fare dodgers for not buying a ticket include:-

“I’m related to The Queen so I don’t need a ticket.”

“I’m in the Zimbabwean SAS, on covert ops.”

“Don’t you know who I am?”

“What’s a ticket?”

“Do I need a ticket? I thought the railway was free.”

“If the ticket man doesn’t see me then I don’t need one.”

“I’m a freeman of the land, I don’t recognise the law and the law does not apply to me.”

An adult travelling with a child ticket said “I thought I was a child until I was 21.”

A passenger claimed he did not buy a ticket because “I didn’t think you would accept my fare.”

“I thought by hiding in the luggage rack you wouldn’t see me.”
The hundreds of millions of pounds lost every year due to fare dodging is money train operators could otherwise invest in improving services for passengers.

It is estimated that the £200m currently lost every year due to fare dodging would be enough to:

– Lease over 1,300 extra commuter carriages, or;
– Lease around 800 extra inter-city carriages for longer distance journeys, or;
– Pay for the upkeep of around 380 stations for the next five years.

Train companies have a number of safeguards in place aimed at ensuring that customers unable to buy a ticket are not given a penalty fare. Staff are regularly updated about ticket machines which may not be working and other circumstances which may prevent people from buying tickets. Passengers should check with their train operator what its policies are on ticketing and fare evasion.

David Mapp, Commercial Director for the Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC), said:
“It’s frustrating for the vast majority of honest passengers who do pay for their ticket when fare dodgers’ selfish actions suck millions of pounds out of the railways each year. That’s money both train companies and passengers alike would rather see going back into further improving services.

“Train companies deal with fare dodgers in a fair but firm manner. Where there is a genuine reason for someone travelling without a ticket, train companies will always use their discretion. Strong deterrents are in place to ensure that the vast majority of passengers don’t end up paying for the few who think they can get away without buying a ticket.

“As these excuses show, there are always some people who choose to spend time thinking up an excuse rather than buying a ticket.”

A Skoda, Football Fans and a Shed

Two shifts for the price of one this week (Oh how I love overtime).

Friday

Pretty much an uneventful shift for once.  Once again working platforms 4-7 so should have been busy but, due to delays elsewhere, many of the trains we should have had were swapped to different parts of the station.  My Railway Enthusiast side reared it’s head as I made a quick dash over to platform 12 to help barrier the Mk3 “Pretendolino” set powered by Freightliner’s 90048 (Thank God for camera phones).

Freightliner Class 90 Locomotive 90048 on the Pretendolino Set

Saturday

Problems on my inbound journey saw me arrive at work with 10 minutes to spare (2 Hours to do a 45 minute journey, thanks London Underground).

After signing on and checking the plan for the evening, I realised that I would be “controlling” the team and it was my responsibility to make sure that we checked as many trains on our assigned platforms as possible.  A quick check of our daily orders showed that we would be fairly busy, which can be a blessing or a curse.

First half of the shift passed without incident and after a quick bite to eat it was back to the coal face for the second half.  News reached us that we were expecting between 400 and 1000 England fans returning from Wembley, luckily this is where planning came in and we heralded the arrival of extra staff from Birmingham and Manchester to make up the staff shortage we were suffering.

After the first train of our second half, the rail enthusiast in me kicked in again as we had a visitor.

EWS Class 66 Diesel 66183 after arrival at Euston

EWS Class 66 Diesel 66183 arrived on platform 16 with the return leg of UK Railtours Midland and Great Central No.2 Railtour. Cue me crossing the bottom of the platforms with my phone in hand to get a couple of shots before it vanished to Wembley Depot (this job does have its benefits).

A welcome break from the norm but it was back to work as the first fans arrived for their trains home.

A couple of trains passed until the first issue of the evening an old favourite of mine, adults travelling on child tickets.  After the usual questioning the “children” bought adult tickets and continued on their way with a flea in their ear about not doing it again.  The first batch of England fans came and went unusually happy after what was a poor showing by the team, some even offering to share their beverages with us(No dry trains tonight),an offer that we cannot accept.

In this job, you get used to dealing with the same problems on every shift with the most frequent being people on Advance tickets that have missed their booked train.  Tonight would be no different except for one passenger who tried to board an Anglo Scottish service 2 DAYS early!! A quick bit of friendly discussion about her options and she decided to buy a new ticket so I passed her on to the Train Manager rather than making her go back to the booking office and thus missing the train.

Football fans and trains passed and it finally became time for the last train of our shift and also the day.  Normally this is not a problem but the powers that be decided to board a semi-fast local service in the adjacent platform.  Cue revenue officers trying to differentiate between our passengers and those for the local and you can picture the chaos.  Luckily we managed to gain control and checked the vast majority of passengers right up to departure when a gentleman approached me with a ticket for a train that didn’t exist….

The gentleman asked me where his train was departing from and upon checking his ticket found out that he was travelling from Bournemouth to Wolverhampton routed via Reading on a CrossCountry Trains ticket.  Unfortunately we had no-one able to sell a ticket for him to continue his journey so he had to return to the booking office, all the time pleading with us to let him travel.

My only question with this passenger is, how did he get to us in the first place?  The routing of his ticket should have taken him from Bournemouth to Southampton and then via CrossCountry through Reading to Birmingham and change there for Wolverhampton.  For this passenger to be in front of us he would have had to miss Southampton, continue on to London, cross London and walk up to us, all the time with a ticket that should have been checked on the train from Bournemouth and also rejected at the ticket barriers on both National Rail and London Underground.

Luckily there were still services via another operator to Birmingham so I hope the gentleman managed to complete his journey with no further problems.  Anyway, for me that was the end of the shift and the commencement of a 1.5 hour journey home, thanks again London Underground.

Saturday Night @ The Station (aka Football Fans and Dry Trains)

Now I’ve had time to recover, I can fill you in on events at the work last night.  I will however only give you the highlights so you won’t get bored with the “normal” stuff.

I managed to snag a rare overtime opportunity in connection with the Manchester FA Cup Semi Final at Wembley.

The team was split into two elements ticket checkers and booze busters.  The former is self explainatory whereas the latter needs a little bit of a bio.  The definition of a booze buster is a member (or members) of staff asking people if they are carrying alcohol and if they are, removing it from their possession (with Police help if necessary).  This is all well and good but some football fans are devious bastards people who will go to great lengths to hide their stash, even putting it into their childrens backpacks.

Irritations of the shift:

“Official” Charter Trains on adjacent platforms to our scheduled services causing us to delay boarding and change platforms. (Many thanks to the MCFC stewards for their help, patience and understanding)

Two 16 year old “men” approaching me with child tickets and when asked how old they were replying “15 mate”, then giving their dates of birth as January 2005.  This is normally not that bad but they refused to provide ID or pay the difference to the adult fare until the Police intervened. (Thanks BTP)

A woman approaching me with a wrongly routed ticket flatly refusing to move off of the platform or pay the excess to allow her to travel. (she eventually left after being “persuaded” by a helpful Man Utd fan)

The Good Bits:

Hilarious scene of several RPO’s doing impressions of Carl Lewis to beat passengers to a train after a (very) late platform change.

Being chatted up by a rather beautiful young lady while helping her board her train.

The superb banter between the RPO’s, Management & BTP Officers on duty.

All in all it was a good shift with very little trouble.  Just goes to prove that not all football fans are animals, I also include in this the Aston Villa, Brighton & Millwall fans travelling home both ways through the station.