On Feb 3, 12:31*pm, Bruce wrote:

About 3.5% of journeys on German public transport are not paid for,
according to statistics from the Association of German Transport
Operators (VDV). In less compliant Berlin, it is 6%. That might not
sound a lot to the cynical visitor, but it's too much for the VDV,
which is demanding harsher punishments for fare dodgers: an increase
in on-the-spot fines from €40 to €60 (£50), and €120 for repeat
offenders.

That seems a good idea, so long as some discretion is possible for
genuine cases (e.g. if you forget your personalised[1] season ticket,
and get PFed, you can get the money back against an admin fee).

Generally, in an open system, the PF should be set at a level that
fare dodging doesn't cause a loss to the operator. If that's the
case, they can just stop worrying about it.

[1] Or smartcard, where it is possible to prove that it wasn't used.
That would require touching in to be mandatory even for season
tickets, though, with a PF of some sort (a lesser one, I guess) for
not doing.

Neil