I commuted from Becontree for several years until a few months ago. The gate
there was similarly rarely locked. For about the first 18 months of the
barriers being in operation, the gates themselves - although operational
during the off-peak- were never used when I came through at about 8am and
6.30pm and no staff were on duty in the public area. The gate then became
manned until later with the bariers operational, but the manual gate was
permamently open so everyone went through there, despite a sole ticket
inspector always sitting in the box. No wonder our service was so poor,
according to their ticketing figures the loadings east of Barking must have
been negligible. Incidentally, sometimes (in the evening peak when going
home from work) everyone would have to go through the gate as kids would sit
on top of the barriers chatting and basically daring anyone to challenge
them while the ticket inspector sits in the box.

I once- only once- saw a large scale ticket check going on (at least a dozen
staff/police) and they could not cope with the number of people without
tickets and most just went past as they were all occupied (I didn't have to
show my pass). On other rare occasions I got off the train in the peak and
the gate was locked. Without fail, of the first alighters to reach the
ticket hall several would have no ticket so would vault the barriers/gate
until someone forced the manual gate, and the queue of the ticketless would
follow. This is at 6.30 pm in full view of staff and cameras.

I just cannot understand why along this whole stretch of District line you
have lone people sitting there bored out of their minds afraid to challenge
anyone when they could travel as a group of 6 or 8 people and properly check
just one of these stations at a time at random.

What is ridiculous is that at the other end of my journey (Notting Hill
Gate) there are regularly large groups of ticket inspectors between the
central line escalator and the barrier checking tickets (I'd say I have had
to show my ticket - well, lump of plastic - here about 4 times this year
already. Why? 10m further on we have to go through the gates and it isn't
even possible to tell whether someone has come through zone 1 or not (as
plenty of people cross zone 1 on a zones 2+ ticket) from the central line as
eastbound passengers would arrive in the ticket hall from the same
escalator. Have commuted through Notting Hill Gate virtually every day since
1998 and have only twice seen people push through the barrier without
paying, but see this regularly elsewhere, and that's without considering the
total lack of enforcement on sections like the suburban district line.

As you can tell, this subject gets me going! Cannot abide the thought that I
subsidise fare dodgers who are getting away with it with the complete
knowledge and acceptance of LU.

PS Does this remind anyone of bendy buses?



"Malcolm & Nika" wrote in message
...
The gates are monitored from the booking office. This is normal practice
on
smaller stations.
The manual gate should be kept locked. It will be appearing on a report to
local managers. Time left open is reported in milliseconds (!), and its a
performance target to get this within limits. Its upto local managers to
enforce this but somewhere someone is getting a headache from higher up to
fix it.
Also NCC can see what is happening regarding the gates and they also will
contact stations to point out any irregularities.
Someone somewhere knows.......


"Chris Read" wrote in message
...

My nearest LU station is Upney on the District.

Sometimes the gates are left open.

Sometimes the gates are operational.

The gateline is never directly supervised, though there is always
someone
in
the ticket office, from where there is a good view of the gateline - and
of
course the whole place is covered by CCTV.

Here is my point. The *side* gate for those with luggage/the
disabled/cyclists is *always* left unlocked, whatever the time of day or
day
of the week. As a result, everyone has got to know of this, and uses
this
gate to save retrieving their ticket from their pocket/handbag. No doubt
those who wish to travel fraudulently know about this too.

I had always assumed that if the automatic gates were in operation, the
side
gate should default to the locked position to 'complete the set' - and
vice
versa. If it is the policy of LU to leave the side gates unlocked around
the
clock, what on earth was the business case for investing in gates at
outlying stations? If, however, there are rogue staff members who leave
the
side gate open for the sake of an easy life (and I do sympathise with
them,
given the levels of aggression in society today), why haven't LU
discovered
this yet?

Chris