In article ,
e (Richard M Willis) wrote:

I would be much happier if
a) PFs were renamed PostPay or whatever.
b) This implicit connexion between "not paying yet", "evading" and
"penalty" were broken.
c) Ticket checks were absolute, i.e that there was a 100% chance of
having your ticket checked at least once per journey, and in such a
way that there was a definite definition of "stealing from the
railway" and a definite way of telling whether a prosecution was
appropriate. (I.e. if you've crossed outside a line-in-the-sand and
have made no *attempt* to pay, then that is an automatic arrest)

I took a trip on Greater Manchester Metrolink from St Peter's Square to
Eccles and back this morning. I noticed they refer to the local
equivalent as the "Standard Fare". It's 80 quid with 21 days to pay. My
return ticket, bought on the platform, was UKP 1.90. No-one looked at
the ticket in either direction.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

MIG wrote:
Neil Williams wrote:
Jonathan Morris wrote:

Even after the £20 introduction last year, a gripper 'caught' a guy in
a suit that had £20 in his hand and gave it over before the inspector
said a word. He'd clearly worked out that it was cheaper than a ticket
every day. Sadly, he's right to think it.
On the main line, that should be 20 quid or twice the full single fare
for the journey made. For some commuters into London that is likely to
take it well over that.

It's a good point, though. I'd like to see it increase to the level of
a parking fine, as the amount evaded is usually of a similar magnitude.
60 quid standard, discounted to 30 quid if paid on the spot/within one
month, increased to 90 quid if left too long, would be a good start.
TOCs do like prosecuting people instead of late, but that they have to
resort to this is IMO showing the failure of the penalty fare.


No, the person with the £20 was showing evidence of deliberate
fare-evasion, and should have been prosecuted, risking a fine of £1000
or gaol or whatever is. Plenty of people have been prosecuted when
this sort of routine behaviour is observed.

Unless it was a case of, person gets on train. Person then realises he
left his season ticket in his other trousers. Person sees gripper
coming, and says to himself, "it's a fair cop, I'll pay the penalty
fair," and hands over GBP20. Not saying that is what happened, but it
could be offered as a defense in court. In order to make a prosecution
stick, I would have though proof of *intent* to defraud would be needed.

Robin

Peter Goodland wrote:
boeuf

Your use of this word reminds me that there is a rule on French trains,
that if you are unable to buy a ticket before boarding the train (or
validate a pre-purchased ticket),
you must make yourself known to the on-train staff immediately on boarding.

This means that you are caught without a ticket having sat down, you were
intending to evade payment.

Of course this wouldn't work here on trains with DOO

Reminds me of one of my more endearing memories of Connex SE. I leave
work on a Friday afternoon to go up to London for the evening (I had a
sesason ticket to Gravesend for normal travel). Ticket office is shut
(not supposed to be). No PTT machine on the station. Quickfare machine
is broken (vandalized). I phone connex "customer services", and it goes
something like this:

me: "I'm at Belvedere station, trying to travel up to London. This is a
penalty fare zone, but the ticket office is shut and the only machine is
broken. What should I do?"
Connex: "Board the next train and find the conductor on board who can
sell you a ticket."
me: "These are driver only trains. There is no conductor."
Connex: "Oh" [long pause] "um" [further pause] "you'll have to buy one
at your destination then."

Robin

R.C. Payne wrote:
MIG wrote:
Neil Williams wrote:
Jonathan Morris wrote:

Even after the £20 introduction last year, a gripper 'caught' a guy in
a suit that had £20 in his hand and gave it over before the inspector
said a word. He'd clearly worked out that it was cheaper than a ticket
every day. Sadly, he's right to think it.
On the main line, that should be 20 quid or twice the full single fare
for the journey made. For some commuters into London that is likely to
take it well over that.

It's a good point, though. I'd like to see it increase to the level of
a parking fine, as the amount evaded is usually of a similar magnitude.
60 quid standard, discounted to 30 quid if paid on the spot/within one
month, increased to 90 quid if left too long, would be a good start.
TOCs do like prosecuting people instead of late, but that they have to
resort to this is IMO showing the failure of the penalty fare.


No, the person with the £20 was showing evidence of deliberate
fare-evasion, and should have been prosecuted, risking a fine of £1000
or gaol or whatever is. Plenty of people have been prosecuted when
this sort of routine behaviour is observed.

Unless it was a case of, person gets on train. Person then realises he
left his season ticket in his other trousers. Person sees gripper
coming, and says to himself, "it's a fair cop, I'll pay the penalty
fair," and hands over GBP20. Not saying that is what happened, but it
could be offered as a defense in court. In order to make a prosecution
stick, I would have though proof of *intent* to defraud would be needed.

Robin


Yes, it was evidence enough to be worth looking at, but if it was
observed to be routine there could be a prosecution. With station
staff this would be a lot easier than with roaming inspectors of
course, because they'd remember the faces.

"R.C. Payne" wrote in message

me: "These are driver only trains. There is no conductor."
Connex: "Oh" [long pause] "um" [further pause] "you'll have to buy one
at your destination then."

Did you take a picture of the vandalised ticket machine and closed
booking office ? Did you record the phone call with CS ?

Richard [in SG19]



--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

"MIG" wrote in message
ups.com...


Yes, it was evidence enough to be worth looking at, but if it was
observed to be routine there could be a prosecution. With station
staff this would be a lot easier than with roaming inspectors of
course, because they'd remember the faces.

Why does routine payment of a PF constitute evidence for prosecution ?
There's no law against deliberately paying a PF and doing so every journey.

To constitute evidence, they'd have to observer the persun paying a
PF "every so often", and then having covert cameras (with NO RPIs checking
tickets), to prove that the persun was attempting to pay ONLY WHEN
CHALLENGED.

Richard [in SG19]




--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

Richard M Willis wrote:
Why does routine payment of a PF constitute evidence for prosecution ?
There's no law against deliberately paying a PF and doing so every journey.

Indeed, you might decide that you usually get a seat in standard class,
therfore have a standard ticket. Then one day there are no seats
available, so you sit in first class and penalty-upgrade on train, as
over the year it's cheaper than a first season, as you dont need it
very often, but dont know in advance when you do.

To constitute evidence, they'd have to observer the persun paying a
PF "every so often", and then having covert cameras (with NO RPIs checking
tickets), to prove that the persun was attempting to pay ONLY WHEN
CHALLENGED.

If there is no one to buy the ticket (at whatever fare) from on the
train, or your end station, what should you do?

I had a very confused woman in the ticket office at Reading station
when I attempted to buy a CDR from Twyford to Reading, with a permit to
travel (the barriers were open). She couldn't understand why I wanted
to buy the ticket (ignoring honesty, I'd already paid £2 on the PTT,
and I'd have to get a CDS on the way back, whcih is only 10p less. Had
a similar incident going into Ealing Broadway too.

Since then I've never put more than the difference between a single and
return ticket into a PTT machine, in case the station I get to can't
deal. The PTT wouldn't be valid on the return trip (2 hours)

Richard M Willis wrote:

Why does routine payment of a PF constitute evidence for prosecution ?
There's no law against deliberately paying a PF and doing so every journey.

There is; the railway byelaws require the purchase of a ticket before
starting the journey unless no opportunity is available to do so. This
makes an utter nonsense of the whole concept of PFs.

Far more sensible would be to decriminalise ticketless travel, and
instead enforce only by way of increased PFs on a similar model to
parking tickets.

Neil

"Neil Williams" wrote in message
oups.com...
Richard M Willis wrote:

Why does routine payment of a PF constitute evidence for prosecution ?
There's no law against deliberately paying a PF and doing so every
journey.

There is; the railway byelaws require the purchase of a ticket before
starting the journey unless no opportunity is available to do so. This
makes an utter nonsense of the whole concept of PFs.

Can you give a citation for this ?

I have been repeatedly and explicitly told by PF inspectors and the
like that you can board a train purposely without purchasing a ticket
as long as you have no INTENTION to defraud, and are prepared to
pay the PF (which I am).

If what you say is true, then it is indeed a nonsense situation: we should
not have the situation where someone has breached the law and they can
escape prosecution simply by paying for a (more expensive) ticket.
If you contravene the law, you should be prosecuted. There should not
be two ways about it.

I wish they'd barrier the whole damn network and make ticket-purchasing
universal. (i.e. you can get ANY ticket FROM any station TO any station,
including all the weird combinations/addons/conditions you can get now.

Far better would be just to engineer potential for fraud out of the network
so we wouldn't need (so many) ticket checks. I don't know how they'd do
this,
however.

Richard [in SG19]



--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

Peter Goodland wrote:
boeuf

Your use of this word reminds me that there is a rule on French trains,
that if you are unable to buy a ticket before boarding the train (or
validate a pre-purchased ticket),
you must make yourself known to the on-train staff immediately on boarding.

This means that you are caught without a ticket having sat down, you were
intending to evade payment.

Of course this wouldn't work here on trains with DOO

--
Peter



It seems to be interpreted in the UK, eg on the DLR, that you have to
approach the conductor in order to avoid paying a penalty fare.

But in fact, if by doing so you prove that you are not evading your
fare, you render yourself liable to a penalty fare. If you are evading
the fare, you can't be penalty fared and should be prosecuted.

Yet more inconsistency and confusion, willingly propagated by the
operators who want people to believe that PFs are fines. SWT, for
example, gets away with posters that refer to penalty fares as a means
of preventing or deterring fare-evasion.