Great Western Coffee Shop

Does it? Should it? There's a list in the Bristol Post of people fined for fare dodging on the railway.
https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/dodge-rail-fare-fine-cost-3497516
The fares they didn't pay range from £2 to £180.50 yet all* received the same fine: £440 plus £44 to victim services and £160 costs. The only part that varied was "compensation" equal to the cost of the unpaid fare but that is dwarfed by the other parts of the penalty. I think this raises a number of questions, such as:
Should the fine be proportional to the unpaid fare?
Should it perhaps be proportional to the offender's financial capabilities as well?
How do these fines compare to those for eg theft?
Is jail appropriate for persistent fare dodgers?
A lot of the fares not paid were less than £20; are those paying the same fine for much higher unpaid fares likely to feel they have got off relatively lightly?
What is the deterrent effect of a sliding system (say, ten times the fare, so in these cases from £20 to £1805 – other multiples of course available) compared to a fixed fine?
How would variable fines affect the court process?
etc...


*Apart from one who was "proven to have entered a train for the purpose of travelling, without having a ticket, at Temple Meads on May 31." Perhaps she was apprehended before the train went anywhere or it was unproven where she'd been intending to go? Half the fine and £12.50 compensation.

AFAIK fines are usually related to the income of the person convicted, the apparent imposition of a flat rate in the cases reported does seem at odds with this.

I think that fines should be proportional to amount of the fare evaded, but with a minimum penalty of say £100, no matter how small is the fare avoided. Ten times the fare avoided plus £100 might be reasonable.

The fine is normally related to the means of the defendant. However, it looks in all those cases were dealt in absence with the defendant not responding to the original notice.  In that case income is assumed to be £440 per week and the guidance for the offence is for a fine equal to one week's income.  Compensation would be for the original fare.  Punishment is always for the offence and usually is not affected by the value of the fare not paid.  Victim surcharge is 10% of the fine and costs are always for a fixed amount.

Bear in mind thaty to reach court, it is very likely that they've been caught before & penalty fared....so this is at least a second time (might be more too) around

Ah ha! That makes sense, and I wasn't aware of the system. In that case did the woman fined £220 turn up in court and declare a lower income, or was it that her crime was lesser and deemed worthy of only half a week's income?

The figure of £220 suggests that she was charged with a lesser offence with a fine of 50% weekly income, i.e. failure to produce a ticket.  The appropriate guidelines are at https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/offences/magistrates-court/item/railway-fare-evasion-revised-2017/ (https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/offences/magistrates-court/item/railway-fare-evasion-revised-2017/) if you want to explore further

She was proven with entering a train for the purposes of travel without a ticket, whereas all the others were proved to have travelled.  Not sure why that means only half the fine though.

She got off at Clifton Down, not Avonmouth?

Mr Marshall's fine of £440, costs £160, £44 charitable donation to the victims and £2 original train fare, £646 in total, would have paid for season tickets to cover the same journey for 2 years and 7 months. Every day, all day long if he wanted.

Let’s hope Mr. Marshall hadn’t been getting away with it for nearly three years then. ;)

Like many on the SBL!

What powers do revenue protection staff have on the Severn Riviera Express? I've seen people say they can't pay and not even be asked to get off at the next stop.

It would be interesting to have a bit more information about the circumstances under which people were fined for ticketless travel on the Severn Beach Line. In particular, how did they distinguish those who didn't intend to pay from those who would have done if they'd been given the opportunity?

When fare collection is so haphazard and inconsistent that people become accustomed to not paying, isn't there an argument that it would be better to fix the system rather than conduct what was presumably some kind of sting operation on your hapless passengers?

Methinks some of the fare dodging I've seen on the line over the years is far from hapless but I agree that revenue protection there is a bit of a dog's dinner and something has to change.
It would be a nice start to install a ticket machine at the new Portway Station when Bristol City Council remember that they are supposed to be building it.


Edit, I realize that it's not just BCC but last I heard, the ball was still in their court.

The questions are largely peculiar to the Severn Riviera, where the only gateline station is Temple Meads, the fares were originally set by Bristol City Council from May 2008, and the volume of passengers means and short distances between stations make it difficult to even demand a ticket at times. I believe that responsibility for whatever financial support was needed for the railway passed to national government in 2015, but I am sure I recall Bristol City Council discussing a fare increase after then, which came to naught.

Revenue protection is indeed haphazard - I have been on trains with few passengers, where the TM has not left the rear cab except to open doors at stations. The operation that resulted in the fines recorded by the Post wasn't just the SBL, though, which must have been a part of a coordinated action by GWR and BTP rather than a few rogues who happened to get unlucky. As Red Squirrel points out, finding what the difference is between gazing out of the window while the TM walks by and provable criminal behaviour would be interesting.

What then to do about it? The last TVM to be installed at a remote station (Clifton Down in this case) didn't last long. In any case, one machine at a station where so many board peak services isn't going to give everyone chance to buy before boarding, and from then on the station stops arrive quickly. The ticket prices are so low that the revenue coming in would take a long time to cover the cost, so maybe a better option would be to follow the buses with a mobile phone app offering a discount on the cash price. As well as on the bus, I use such an app at the cinema occasionally, and it takes no longer to scan the QR code that it does to rip a ticket in half and thread the stub onto a piece of string. That would release sufficient time for the TM to sell tickets to anyone who hasn't pre-bought with enough certainty of having to pay a fare to make it workable. Let's face it, £6 per week for a season ticket within either zone, or nine quid for the whole length of the line, is less than you would pay to park the car for a day in the central area. I am sure that some of the development and back office cost would be ponied up by WECA or BCC anyway, especially if it integrates with the bus app.

Although a couple could be identified as being on the SBL (caught at Avonmouth) the majority were caught by checks at Bristol Temple Meads.  Given the size of some of the fares avoided they were clearly not from the SBL.

There's no indication they were all caught as the result of one operation or on one day.

There was a trial at Redland Station a few years back using an adapted street parking ticket machine which would just issue tickets valid on the Beach Line. It proved unreliable and was put out of use then later removed.
I think there still is a more modern ticket machine working at Clifton Down but only on one of the platfoms.

As I mentioned. The one caught at Avonmouth wasn't at Temple Meads, though. Some of the high-value ones must have avoided more than one check before getting there. Interesting.

There are quite a few £109 fares, which suggests they got on a Paddington on one of the ungated platforms and had a nasty surprise when they got off at Temple Meads. If only they had thought to seek out the Train Manager during the journey.

...and it works about half the time.

Does anybody know if those card tap in thingies that have been installed at the Beach Line platform entrances two or three years ago are doing anything yet? The cost of doing this could not have been insignificant and I've never seen anyone use them.

I travelled from Tivvy Parkway to Bristol today. A revenue protection guy got on at Taunton and checked all tickets and railcards, cheerfully and politely. The young, but not young enough, lad in the seat across the aisle from me was travelling on a child ticket, despite finally admitting to being 19. The inspector ( I heard his name but shan't publish) was very good, and would have been excellent at my former job. I didn't hear a caution, but he set about the interview very much as I would have, spotting the first two obvious lies then using them to unpick the lad's story of having been bought the ticket by a friend, and having been told to use a certain date of birth. If he has an ounce of sense, he will pay the penalty fare if offered, or face £440 plus extras. He pleaded poverty, and asked how he was supposed to be able to afford the fare from Exeter to Gloucester, which rather demolished his earlier claim of ignorance, backed up by a clumsy lie. Rather like eating dinner in a restaurant then asking how you are supposed to be able to afford it.

My compliments to the inspector. He did a very good job of it. Admitting to deliberately using a child ticket to get through the barriers suggests a degree of premeditation, and being given the ticket by a friend with instructions on what to say sounds not dissimilar to conspiracy to defraud in my experience.