Andy Pacer
Established Member
I had no ticket checks at all on a West Mids Daytripper on Monday, just the barriers at Moor St and New St (on the occasion that they weren't already open).
From Northern's latest Stakeholder Update issued today;
"Building Back Revenue
During the last few months passenger numbers have been steadily increasing, particularly dominated by leisure travel and the staycation market and we’ll be monitoring the impacts and trends of the return to work closely. With more people travelling we are also looking at building back revenue. We have more on our long term strategy below*, and we have recently trialled onboard revenue duties out of two depots to ensure they can be undertaken safely with COVID measures in place. Feedback has been positive enabling a wider roll out."
I understand the depots trialled were Barrow and Skipton with Huddersfield, Leeds and Harrogate to come very soon. A guard on a Hope Valley train today said he thought they'd be involved within the next fortnight.
"Building Back Revenue
Covid-19 has presented many challenges to our business, one of which was around revenue protection. To ensure the safety of customers and colleagues we, along with the wider industry, initially stood down the majority of revenue protection activity and focussed on encouraging customers to safely buy digital tickets. However, as we learnt how to adapt to the impact of Covid, we were quickly able to reintroduce revenue protection at our stations.
We are now able to safely reintroduce revenue duties on board our trains, initially from Barrow and Skipton depots, and have now rolled that out across the network. In addition to revenue duties it provides a visible staff presence in the train to deliver excellent customer service. Our policy of Buy Before You Board (BBYB) remains, in line with the requirements of the National Rail Conditions of Travel, but the number of customers who are either unaware of their obligation or choose to ignore it remains too high. We will encourage and educate customers to BBYB through a new awareness campaign to be launched in the coming months.
Adapting to Changing Behaviour
Customer purchasing behaviour is also changing, with an increasing number of ticket sales now via digital channels, a proportion that will see sustained growth, especially in a post Covid retailing world. The way we protect our revenue is also evolving to reflect these changing preferences.
Database analysis and customer touch point information, such as tapping a smart card at a gate line or validating a mobile phone ticket, allows an element of remote revenue protection activity, rather than everything being based ‘on the ground’. Unfortunately, the move to digital channels, presents fresh opportunities for those that would choose to exploit new means of avoiding paying for their journey. This is no different to payment and financial transactions in other sectors and means we are developing a fresh approach to these challenges, while still retaining our visible activity on trains and at stations.
As we develop our revenue protection model to meet these challenges we are introducing a team of Digital Fraud Investigators, who will complete deep dive data analysis into all our digital systems to identify unusual customer behaviour and potential fraud activity, in addition to new PACE (Police & Criminal Evidence Act) trained officers who will be frontline based and react to the information provided by the Investigators. These are new roles in our business and reflect the focus we place on customers paying for the journey they make.
During 2019 and into the early part of 2020, we reduced our ticketless travel rates, but we now face a fresh challenge in this area following the impact of Covid, but we are ideally placed to ensure this is at the forefront of our minds as we build back better."
I hope that means that doesn't mean that passengers who have genuinely had no opportunity to pay, or have taken all reasonable steps to pay but ran into problems, are going to be subjected to new levels of harassment. Given Northern / Carlisle Securty's past record, I remain cynical.
Yesterday and today have used Southeastern, Avanti, Northern, EMR, TFW. TPE and Merseyrail.
Only had one sighting of anyone walking through a train and that was on Merseyrail when there was a ticket check by 2 revenue protection(or similar) gents.
As noted elsewhere, been in and around the Central Belt this week, coming up from New Mills.
Northern: nobody in sight
Avanti: tickets checked on two of three trains, including between Stockport and Crewe, which I've never had before. Nobody fussed that I didn't have a reservation for the Stockport to Crewe, or that I didn't sit in my reserved seat (somebody was in it, and the train was dead) from Crewe to Glasgow. Only check on Glasgow to Crewe was on the platform prior to boarding.
Scotrail: barriers in use at Central, Queen Street and Edinburgh, but other than that not a single check. One check for mask usage between Edinburgh and Prestonpans, but no other staff visible on board at any point.
EDIT: I tell a lie, just had a ticket check on my last leg back to New Mills! The guy checking it isn't wearing his mask properly, mind...
It isNo checks on any of the c2c trains I've travelled on so far today. (Although that may be normal)
Northern trains are now saying "Please do not eat or drink aboard". Not very noticeable so I doubt many are taking any notice.View attachment 83741
Did these include Southern and/or South Western railway?Did an Isle of Wight trip yesterday, tickets checked on three of my mainland trains, but not on the island.
SWR x2 checks, GWR x1 check.Did these include Southern and/or South Western railway?
Thanks for your response. Good to hear SWR guards doing checks againSWR x2 checks, GWR x1 check.
No checks on any GTR, but then again I was only on them for one or two stops, so wouldn't expect it.
I saw a swr rpi at woking Monday with a ticket machine over his shoulder, so they must be booking the equipment out again now, for their rpi's at least.Thanks for your response. Good to hear SWR guards doing checks again