We have seen many posts where passengers are unable to produce a ticket on a train when asked, because their phone, which held the ticket, has run out of battery. This then tends to lead to the whole, presumably expensive, exercise of filing a report for prosecution.
Would a simpler option be for Ticket Inspectors to carry a mobile phone battery pack and offer to lend the pack to the passenger for a fixed fee of say £20, to enable the phone to be woken from the dead and a ticket produced for inspection. (The loan will only be for a couple of minutes just to retrieve the ticket.) In this way money is collected without having to incur the cost of initiating a prosecution. If the passenger refuses, then the usual processes kick in.
The only other thing is whether the Ticket Inspector needs to issue a zero cost ticket to enable the passenger to pass through barriers at the journey's end since presumably the phone will be dead again.
Any thoughts?
Would a simpler option be for Ticket Inspectors to carry a mobile phone battery pack and offer to lend the pack to the passenger for a fixed fee of say £20, to enable the phone to be woken from the dead and a ticket produced for inspection. (The loan will only be for a couple of minutes just to retrieve the ticket.) In this way money is collected without having to incur the cost of initiating a prosecution. If the passenger refuses, then the usual processes kick in.
The only other thing is whether the Ticket Inspector needs to issue a zero cost ticket to enable the passenger to pass through barriers at the journey's end since presumably the phone will be dead again.
Any thoughts?