20:31

Welcome to Railway Forum!
Welcome!

Thank you for finding your way to Railway Forum, a dedicated community for railway and train enthusiasts. There's a variety of forums, a wonderful gallery, and what's more, we are absolutely FREE. You are very welcome to join, take part in the discussion, and post your pictures!

Click here to go to the forums home page and find out more.
Click here to join.


Go Back   Railway Forum > News and General Discussion > Railway News from around the World

Northern to install Automated Ticket Gates.

Reply
 
Thread Tools
  #31  
Old 15th August 2007, 13:35
hstudent hstudent is offline  
Senior Member
 
Join Date: May 2007
Location: North West
Posts: 256
Quote:
Originally Posted by swisstrains View Post
We are unlikely to see the smaller stations getting manned ticket offices or even machines but where there are facilities to buy tickets I think it should be made compulsory to buy one and not wait until you board the train. This would take some of the pressure off the conductor and he/she should then be more able to deal with passengers getting on at the stations where ticket facilities were not available.
Today I travelled on a number of Merseyrail electric services where penalty fares are in operation for anyone not having a valid ticket. At one of the stations between Birkenhead and West Kirby 6 ticket inspectors swooped on the 3-car train during it's station stop and checked everyones tickets. A good idea in my opinion.
I did a return MerseyRail journey. On the outward journey there were at least two ticket inspectors on the train but on the return journey there weren't any.


Reply With Quote
  #32  
Old 15th August 2007, 13:38
hstudent hstudent is offline  
Senior Member
 
Join Date: May 2007
Location: North West
Posts: 256
Quote:
Originally Posted by David A Hicks View Post
Where are the metrolink inspectors? Every time I have travelled onboard the Metrolink last year and this year I have not seen a ticket inspector come and ckeck tickets (but I usually only travel between Piccally and Victoria). It is strange as compared to the Sheffield Supertram there is always a ticket inspector on those trams.
I've been on the Metrolink quite a few times and the only time I've seen a ticket inspector was on an evening journey when there was a Man United match on. The inspector boarded at Piccadilly Gardens and alighted before Altrincham but he was more concerned about the tram being as full as possible rather than checking all the tickets.

Stagecoach (operator of the Sheffield Super Tram) have just taken over the Manchester Metrolink so when the engineering works have finished there may be more regular checks.
Reply With Quote
  #33  
Old 15th August 2007, 21:19
swisstrains's Avatar
swisstrains swisstrains is offline  
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: England
Posts: 4,149
Images: 538
Quote:
Originally Posted by hstudent View Post
I did a return MerseyRail journey. On the outward journey there were at least two ticket inspectors on the train but on the return journey there weren't any.
Not having ticket inspectors on every train indicates to me that Merseyrail are confident that their methods are working and that the majority of travellers have a valid ticket?
__________________
John …….My Railwayforum Gallery
Reply With Quote
  #34  
Old 17th August 2007, 09:41
dlh1983 dlh1983 is offline  
Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Huddersfield
Posts: 41
On entry to Huddersfield station you have to either go past people checking tickets or join the back of the ticket office queue. (Ticket machines are also located at the entrance) This caused problems for someone I know who went in to renew their railcard but wasn’t planning to make a rail journey on the same day. After purchasing a new railcard they had to go past the people checking tickets with a new railcard and no ticket. This made one member of staff think that he had made a rail journey without purchasing a ticket. It would also allow someone to go to a window at the ticket office and ask something like “How would I get to Birmingham from here?” and then have access to the platforms without a ticket.

I myself had a problem with automated ticket barriers on the Spanish railway. When you are issued with a ticket there you have to be careful to allow the ink to dry before putting your ticket away. I didn’t and consequently the machine wouldn’t accept my ticket on exit at the station. It should also be noted that on Spanish rail tickets there are arrows showing which way to insert your ticket in to a ticket barrier, suggesting that automated ticket barriers are seen as the norm there.
Reply With Quote
  #35  
Old 11th November 2007, 13:44
John_142's Avatar
John_142 John_142 is offline  
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Lancashire
Posts: 587
Images: 44
"Bring Back the proper RPI's like Merseyrail"
Reply With Quote
  #36  
Old 5th April 2013, 15:23
Ryston Ryston is offline  
Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: DOWNHAM MARKET
Posts: 29
The only answer is to ensure that when someone does get caught to make sure the resulting fine is so large that it will act as a deterrent. Not as many people board a train in the South East now without a ticket because of the possible consequences of doing so. A revenue inspector is not there to collect money mainly but to act as a deterrent. Likewise a speed camera that catches somebody speeding is a speed camera that has failed to do it's job as a deterrent.
Reply With Quote
  #37  
Old 5th April 2013, 20:41
ianrail ianrail is offline  
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Reading
Posts: 327
Interesting to see this old thread reopened because I don't know how many years it is since the mania for creating "open stations" started. It was probably just after privatisation when all the companies seemed to think of was saving money and getting rid of (experienced) staff. Then they found (bit obvious really) that when you removed the ticket barrier a significant number of people decided to travel without bothering to buy a ticket.

To be fair to Great Western, as it was at the time, in this area they got a grip on this fairly quickly and put barriers in the form of ticket gates back in. As well as immediately noticing an increase in ticket revenue, they found that the problem of train vandalism was very much reduced as (again, a bit obvious) vandals tended not to buy tickets before travelling.
Reply With Quote
Reply


Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
 
Thread Tools

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 20:31.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.