East Midlands Railway’s Revenue Protections Officer and onboard staff have given out a massive 9,642 Notices and seen the successful prosecution of 1,470 fare dodgers in court.
The recovery of a combined £493,000 has taken place from the 1st of January to the 13th of October will work towards reducing costs for the taxpayer.
Fines and prosecutions were delivered for an array of reasons such as travelling without a valid ticket, travelling fraudulently on a child’s ticket or travelling beyond their tickets destination.
Those who were taken to court were found to be travelling without a ticket and refused to pay for their journey and the fine incurred.
Neil Grabham, Customer Services Director at East Midlands Railway, said:Â “The vast majority of our customers always buy a ticket, and they understand that for the railway to successfully operate, improve, and secure investment, fares need to be paid for.
“Sadly though, there are a minority of determined people who always look to evade paying or look for ways to work the system.
“We have recently added to our revenue protection teams and created a totally new fraud team, all of whom will be doing everything they can to reduce ticketless travel and hold persistent offenders to account.”
For further information on the fare policies of East Midlands Railway, please visit:Â https://www.eastmidlandsrailway.co.uk/help-manage/about-us/policies/penalty-fares
Responses
It’s the same with other train operators including Greater Anglia, Southeastern, c2c, Govia Thameslink Railway, LNER, Avanti West Coast, West Midlands Railway, London Northwestern Railway, Northern, Transpennine Express, ScotRail and other rail operators.
Its the tip of the iceberg, so many folk not bothering to buy a ticket and hope they’ll get away with it, then when they’re challenged, they get abusive. More so in the evenings , when ticket barriers are left open, people openly wait until 2000-2030 when they know barriers are left open and then travel, in the knowledge many guards don’t check tickets for fear of assault, whether verbal or physical and who could blame them ? Plus BTP, there’s simply not enough of them, sometimes the guards call for BTP and they don’t turn up, sending the wrong message to the criminals who won’t buy tickets. I recall an incident a couple of years ago, when the guard called for BTP, the officer actually turned up, asked how much the fare was for, it was £6.40, the officer walked away and said I’m not going to the trouble of dealing with the offender for £6.40!