Revenue Protection & Security Manager WMT

[Dan61]

Seen the job of Revenue Protection & Security Manager WMT advertise for Birmingham New Street. Is this the protection officers who stand at the electronic gates to check tickets or is the role supervising those on such platforms.

 

[mattdickinson]

Seen the job of Revenue Protection & Security Manager WMT advertise for Birmingham New Street. Is this the protection officers who stand at the electronic gates to check tickets or is the role supervising those on such platforms.

Looks like a bit of both. In charge of those inspecting tickets and expected to "lead from the front" by participating in doing so.

 

[PupCuff]

RPSMs are the specialist revenue protection team. Often see them out doing station blocks, on train revenue exercises, that kind of thing. They issue Penalty Fares, report for prosecution; they always struck me as a professional bunch back when I used to commute on LNRs off Liverpool. They don't manage staff directly as far as I'm aware but they work really closely with other staff eg Gateline, Conductors, Station Security etc to reduce ticketless travel through stuff like gathering intelligence. Probably a lot of likelihood of abuse unfortunately given that the sorts of people who intentionally don't buy tickets are often the same people who are violent towards the staff, but if you're able to deal well with conflict it probably isn't too bad a job, plenty of variety.

 

[C J Snarzell]

The job title differs between TOCs but essentially it is enforcing ligitimate travel and dealing with fare evasion and acts of anti-social behaviour, such as drunkeness or youths misbehaving.

It can be a confrontational job and RPO's are subject to all manner of abuse. They can even be assaulted from time to time, but I believe they wear body cams now which deters most idiots from 'having a go'.

I can't speak for WMT, but Merseyrail and Northern use outside teams from Carlisle Security - the regular RPO's act as team leaders with them. They also work with the British Transport Police, so it is an interesting varied job.

CJ

 

[JG2021]

They're not the ones that stand on the gate line day in day out they do station blocks, go on train, they can also be at the gate line on the odd occasion if they're targeting repeat offenders. They work closely with BTP, receive intel from colleagues if they're having trouble with fare evaders and thats when they go and target certain trains/stations. They are also expected to take part in 'on call' shifts as they are management grade so every few weeks you'll be on call incase anything happens on the network you're first on the scene sort of thing helping out.

 

[C J Snarzell]

Dan61

Did you submit an application for the role? I notice WMT have removed the vacancy from the Abellio careers page. No doubt they've had an avalanche of applications as per usual.

CJ

 

[Mojo]

Looks like a bit of both. In charge of those inspecting tickets and expected to "lead from the front" by participating in doing so.

I don’t think they’re actual managers in the true sense of the word and aren’t I charge if any staff, but London Midland made their revenue staff a managerial grade to get them to work more flexibly and offer them less conditions than would be expected for true operational roles.

 

[ArchangelA]

I used to work alongside these good people. Basically they are all manager grades without people to manage (apart from the odd one or two). The titles come with their job. They work either in teams-setting up static revenue blocks at stations on their patch, or travel in teams/pairs/singular conducting revenue checks onboard trains and at stations. They also build up revenue intelligence pictures and patrol the worst routes for fare evasion to try and catch those responsible.
You need to be a special type of person to do their job as they are constantly dealing with the usual fare dodger type who will either stand and argue the toss, throwing in the odd bit of personal abuse or even assault, and give dodgy details until the cows come home. So you'd need to be fairly confident in your own abilities and not take people on face value. You need to be really resilient. The areas they they cover (in my own personal opinion) have the cream of the crop of fare dodgers and you will rarely meet a nice one because nobody likes being fined when they've been used to travelling for free most of their lives. Would I do their job- hell no, but horses for courses and all that!
Baring in mind that revenue collection will be passing to Great British Railways soon, will this job be safe in the long-term working for a TOC?

 

[Mojo]

Baring in mind that revenue collection will be passing to Great British Railways soon, will this job be safe in the long-term working for a TOC?

I don’t think that level of detail has been bottomed out yet. Certainly the papers I’ve seen yet suggests that its more modelled on the DLR / Overground set up, where revenue protection is the responsibility of the private train operators, with a fraud target set by TfL.

 

[ArchangelA]

I don’t think that level of detail has been bottomed out yet. Certainly the papers I’ve seen yet suggests that its more modelled on the DLR / Overground set up, where revenue protection is the responsibility of the private train operators, with a fraud target set by TfL.

Yeah early days yet