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Post by kmkcheng on Mar 1, 2019 10:34:11 GMT
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Post by sid on Mar 1, 2019 11:22:20 GMT
I wonder how much of this is down to abolishing cash fares? People with invalid oysters used to pay cash but now they often travel for free.
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Post by snoggle on Mar 1, 2019 11:52:06 GMT
I wonder how much of this is down to abolishing cash fares? People with invalid oysters used to pay cash but now they often travel for free. I doubt that has much to do with it. I suspect a great deal is to do with minimal staffing levels on the Tube which results in ticket gates now being left open when in the past they'd have been closed. The other issue is that with declining bus use you'd expect there to be less fraud on the bus network. Some of the people who may be aggrieved at being forced to use the tube at higher cost to them may be tempted to avoid their fare if they can. People learn when loopholes appear in the network and they exploit them. I'd also like to know how many revenue protection staff have been allowed to leave / been sacked. TfL is obsessed with reducing staff and removing staff and substituting technology is a key part of what they've been doing. I was told what's happened to a number of departments (not revenue protection) recently and, for me anyway, it was unbelieveable. Complete loss of skill and experience with people replaced by automated systems or outsourced staff. In my years of involvement in revenue stuff there was always downward pressure on staff numbers - both inspectors but also specialists who did the prosecution work. It was seen as an "easy" area to save money in compared to trying to cut station staff.
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Post by sid on Mar 1, 2019 12:43:24 GMT
I wonder how much of this is down to abolishing cash fares? People with invalid oysters used to pay cash but now they often travel for free. I doubt that has much to do with it. I suspect a great deal is to do with minimal staffing levels on the Tube which results in ticket gates now being left open when in the past they'd have been closed. The other issue is that with declining bus use you'd expect there to be less fraud on the bus network. Some of the people who may be aggrieved at being forced to use the tube at higher cost to them may be tempted to avoid their fare if they can. People learn when loopholes appear in the network and they exploit them. I'd also like to know how many revenue protection staff have been allowed to leave / been sacked. TfL is obsessed with reducing staff and removing staff and substituting technology is a key part of what they've been doing. I was told what's happened to a number of departments (not revenue protection) recently and, for me anyway, it was unbelieveable. Complete loss of skill and experience with people replaced by automated systems or outsourced staff. In my years of involvement in revenue stuff there was always downward pressure on staff numbers - both inspectors but also specialists who did the prosecution work. It was seen as an "easy" area to save money in compared to trying to cut station staff. I've seen a lot of people with invalid oysters still travel, presumably they would pay cash if it were still possible? But I'm sure a lot of people will gladly take a free ride if the opportunity presents itself, personally I've seen two revenue inspectors on buses in the last decade or so and I've never seen any on the tube so I guess they've always been very few and far between?
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Post by busman on Mar 1, 2019 13:21:09 GMT
I wonder how much of this is down to abolishing cash fares? People with invalid oysters used to pay cash but now they often travel for free. I doubt that has much to do with it. I suspect a great deal is to do with minimal staffing levels on the Tube which results in ticket gates now being left open when in the past they'd have been closed. The other issue is that with declining bus use you'd expect there to be less fraud on the bus network. Some of the people who may be aggrieved at being forced to use the tube at higher cost to them may be tempted to avoid their fare if they can. People learn when loopholes appear in the network and they exploit them. I'd also like to know how many revenue protection staff have been allowed to leave / been sacked. TfL is obsessed with reducing staff and removing staff and substituting technology is a key part of what they've been doing. I was told what's happened to a number of departments (not revenue protection) recently and, for me anyway, it was unbelieveable. Complete loss of skill and experience with people replaced by automated systems or outsourced staff. In my years of involvement in revenue stuff there was always downward pressure on staff numbers - both inspectors but also specialists who did the prosecution work. It was seen as an "easy" area to save money in compared to trying to cut station staff. The £100M figure is astounding. Revenue inspectors used to be far more frequent on buses than they are these days. The drivers on this forum would probably be best placed to make a call on that, but under red Ken inspectors were a regular occurrence. Under this mayor and previous, they are rare. There is also no doubt that ticket gates at are left open more often, due to the lack of station staff. Question is how is that £100M evasion distributed across the different transport modes and does £100M outweigh the cost of deploying resources or technology to close those gaps?
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Post by sid on Mar 1, 2019 13:36:31 GMT
I doubt that has much to do with it. I suspect a great deal is to do with minimal staffing levels on the Tube which results in ticket gates now being left open when in the past they'd have been closed. The other issue is that with declining bus use you'd expect there to be less fraud on the bus network. Some of the people who may be aggrieved at being forced to use the tube at higher cost to them may be tempted to avoid their fare if they can. People learn when loopholes appear in the network and they exploit them. I'd also like to know how many revenue protection staff have been allowed to leave / been sacked. TfL is obsessed with reducing staff and removing staff and substituting technology is a key part of what they've been doing. I was told what's happened to a number of departments (not revenue protection) recently and, for me anyway, it was unbelieveable. Complete loss of skill and experience with people replaced by automated systems or outsourced staff. In my years of involvement in revenue stuff there was always downward pressure on staff numbers - both inspectors but also specialists who did the prosecution work. It was seen as an "easy" area to save money in compared to trying to cut station staff. The £100M figure is astounding. Revenue inspectors used to be far more frequent on buses than they are these days. The drivers on this forum would probably be best placed to make a call on that, but under red Ken inspectors were a regular occurrence. Under this mayor and previous, they are rare. There is also no doubt that ticket gates at are left open more often, due to the lack of station staff. Question is how is that £100M evasion distributed across the different transport modes and does £100M outweigh the cost of deploying resources or technology to close those gaps? This figure must be some sort of 'guesstimate', how can anybody know exactly? The tube network seems just about as secure as it can be, I know sometimes gates are left open but it would seem unlikely that gates will be open at the start and finish of anybody's journey. There is probably a lot of tailgating other passengers through the barriers as happens at NR stations and the wide gates are ideal for this. The DLR and tramlink are wide open and no doubt fare evasion is rife there and on LT's?
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Post by snoggle on Mar 1, 2019 13:55:24 GMT
The £100M figure is astounding. Revenue inspectors used to be far more frequent on buses than they are these days. The drivers on this forum would probably be best placed to make a call on that, but under red Ken inspectors were a regular occurrence. Under this mayor and previous, they are rare. There is also no doubt that ticket gates at are left open more often, due to the lack of station staff. Question is how is that £100M evasion distributed across the different transport modes and does £100M outweigh the cost of deploying resources or technology to close those gaps? It's not that astounding when you consider how huge TfL's revenue base. It's a multi-billion business which I don't think registers with the public. I am not saying a loss of £100m is acceptable - it clearly isn't. I agree a modal breakdown would be worth seeing but all my knowledge would point to the rail based modes - LUL, DLR, Overground and TfL Rail being the main part of it. Buses will have a chunk. Rail mode budgeted revenue is £3.254bn for 2018/19 while buses are £1.451bn. I'd be surprised if buses were losing more than £30m through evasion and revenue fraud looking at it in roughly proportional shares (ignores the fact that the average fare will be far higher on rail than bus). Clearly the things that TfL do have in their control are staffing levels but also equipment reliability. One of the biggest problems on buses is card reader reliability - that is often why people are waved on to the bus. Now to be honest I wouldn't class the revenue lost in this instance as fraud. If people are queuing up to tap cards but the reader can't read them that's not the passenger's issue nor have they shown intend to defraud. That's a system fault that TfL need to stop happening by working with their suppliers. I understand a new generation of card reader is under development to improve reliability even further. Clearly there are problems when people do the old "oh please driver just one stop down the road so I can top up my Oyster" routine and then vanish upstairs and stay on for 20 stops. Also the obvious things like using someone else's card, misuse of a concession / discounted pass etc. Some of that can be stopped electronically but only if the loss is reported. Some people who hold concessions are perfectly willing to let others use their pass seemingly unaware that two "crimes" are being committed - one by the person using the card and the other by the actual owner of the card in permitting the misuse. I'd argue strongly that the bigger problem is on rail modes. Yes there are more ticket gates around but they must be kept in use for the whole traffic day to be of full value. We had this battle with the station operators from the day the first ticket gate was installed. Once all the ticket issuing had gone over to mag stripe tickets there was no need for a "paper tickets" open walkway but getting past that and instilling the need to keep all gates closed all day took years. It was only when station management teams found they had tougher targets on revenue numbers and then started to be measured on how long gates were in use for that things changed. Once we put the gates in Brixton and Stockwell (first two stns outside zone 1) and the revenue skyrocketed did the managers suddenly think "oh those gates might be useful to help us bring in more cash" and "we really should make sure they are operated properly". Thankfully at the time I had a decent director who could see that giving us some budget each year to install more gates made sense because they were one of the few projects that were genuinely profitable. They brought in more cash than they cost to run. They helped give us some momentum so we had a rolling programme and also meant we got better prices from a larger build of equipment. The only downside was that it was inevitable you cherry picked the worst evasion areas first which meant it got harder to justify the rest of the network. Thankfully though one of legacies to the rail industry and London is almost total gating on LUL plus the extension of gating to TOCs (I met with a number of TOC bidders and TOC managers to persuade them of the benefits). It also helpfully provided a validation network for smartcard ticketing for LU and parts of TOCs. The rest is reliant on validators - not ideal but not a disaster either. Smart ticketing allows a lot of clever fraud checking to go on. I'm not going to detail it for obvious reasons but it's a useful weapon. Smart tickets on buses also relieve the driver of a previously nigh impossible task of visually inspecting every pass as it zooms past the cab door security screen. I suspect some younger drivers have no experience at all of ever having to visually check hundreds of tickets in the same of a couple of minutes. I've done it on stations and it is immensely difficult to do well. You do, though, still need experienced and skilled revenue inspectors out on the ground and I'd always argue they are a worthwhile element of the overall revenue protection system.
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Post by Pilot on Mar 1, 2019 15:51:35 GMT
Lost at rail for most part for sure, and when it comes to buses drivers have no rights to deny passengers boarding so anyone can just walk in without any consequence apart from temporary embarrassment from people around who know he/she hasn't paid.
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Post by kmkcheng on Mar 4, 2019 14:26:35 GMT
Lost at rail for most part for sure, and when it comes to buses drivers have no rights to deny passengers boarding so anyone can just walk in without any consequence apart from temporary embarrassment from people around who know he/she hasn't paid. Had just that scenario today on the 57. Driver turned the engine off and refused to move until the person left the bus. After a few minutes, the person gave up and left the bus. At least the driver made an announcement explaining why he was not moving. He even said he was under ‘orders’ from higher up not to move the bus if someone didn’t pay. At least once we were under way, we had a speedy journey and none of that regulation of service nonsense.
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Post by lonmark on Mar 4, 2019 14:46:16 GMT
Lost at rail for most part for sure, and when it comes to buses drivers have no rights to deny passengers boarding so anyone can just walk in without any consequence apart from temporary embarrassment from people around who know he/she hasn't paid. Had just that scenario today on the 57. Driver turned the engine off and refused to move until the person left the bus. After a few minutes, the person gave up and left the bus. At least the driver made an announcement explaining why he was not moving. He even said he was under ‘orders’ from higher up not to move the bus if someone didn’t pay. At least once we were under way, we had a speedy journey and none of that regulation of service nonsense. I had twice experience on same bus of route 162 toward Eltham Station on Saturday. Two girls get on and one of them don't have one, they explain on and on. Driver refuse to let them on it so they get off. Then few stops away along, other two boys get on it and one of them don't have one and they try to explain and allowed one to travel free on bus. Bus driver refuse to let them on and decide to turn the engine off. In the end, they get off the bus. We move on along. Question is, both of then look in teenages and one of them may not have zipcard on them?
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Post by met120 on Mar 4, 2019 17:40:29 GMT
About 30 mins I saw a driver refuse to let some passengers on because they didn’t have an oyster.
Only for them to get on another route behind (different company) and he didn’t say anything.
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Post by ServerKing on Mar 4, 2019 18:15:05 GMT
I wonder how much of this is down to abolishing cash fares? People with invalid oysters used to pay cash but now they often travel for free. More likely a mix of the fares freeze from Sadiq, plus people may not want to sit on a bus that's stuck in traffic with no creature comforts like WiFi like everywhere else. The driver only LT's only adds to the problem. 3 possible exits, very few revenue teams and the ones you can see stick out like a sore thumb. What't not to like in making off without paying? (I do pay, BTW ) Also factor in broken readers... most pax won't be arsed to go to the front of the bus and tell the driver one of the readers is not working, let alone try another. Also some drivers, not wanting any beef with pax, code reds etc will just wave you on if the Wayfarer is knackered
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Post by Deleted on Mar 4, 2019 18:32:25 GMT
About 30 mins I saw a driver refuse to let some passengers on because they didn’t have an oyster. Only for them to get on another route behind (different company) and he didn’t say anything. I don't bother challenging people anymore. I used to, but if they ignore me, what can I do? CentreComm just tell you to carry on, so now I don't challenge them. That's revenue's job. I got spat at recently because I challenged someone. He got on my bus with a friend. The friend paid. Then he just walked straight on. I called him back. Had a big argument, then the friend said 'If he's going to get off, you need to give me a transfer ticket as I need to get off as well'. I refused, and said that I wasn't kicking him off, just his friend, because I knew if I gave him a ticket, he'd just give it to his friend and get on the next bus. Eventually, his friend paid for him, and they went and sat down. Then when he got off the bus, he came up to me and said 'By the way driver, just so you know, you're a pusssy' and spat at me. Since then I don't bother challenging anyone.
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Post by Pilot on Mar 4, 2019 21:15:29 GMT
Lost at rail for most part for sure, and when it comes to buses drivers have no rights to deny passengers boarding so anyone can just walk in without any consequence apart from temporary embarrassment from people around who know he/she hasn't paid. Had just that scenario today on the 57. Driver turned the engine off and refused to move until the person left the bus. After a few minutes, the person gave up and left the bus. At least the driver made an announcement explaining why he was not moving. He even said he was under ‘orders’ from higher up not to move the bus if someone didn’t pay. At least once we were under way, we had a speedy journey and none of that regulation of service nonsense. That's horlicks there is no such authority, iBus will never say that and other than that nobody else can say anything...driver just made that up and just hope it works.
I tried that myself, 4 out of 5 times it will not work and will only cost your own time, gave up trying so now considering writing tickets non stop so at least if I lose mileage it's by doing the right thing? Lol...
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Post by met120 on Mar 5, 2019 17:58:46 GMT
About 30 mins I saw a driver refuse to let some passengers on because they didn’t have an oyster. Only for them to get on another route behind (different company) and he didn’t say anything. I don't bother challenging people anymore. I used to, but if they ignore me, what can I do? CentreComm just tell you to carry on, so now I don't challenge them. That's revenue's job. I got spat at recently because I challenged someone. He got on my bus with a friend. The friend paid. Then he just walked straight on. I called him back. Had a big argument, then the friend said 'If he's going to get off, you need to give me a transfer ticket as I need to get off as well'. I refused, and said that I wasn't kicking him off, just his friend, because I knew if I gave him a ticket, he'd just give it to his friend and get on the next bus. Eventually, his friend paid for him, and they went and sat down. Then when he got off the bus, he came up to me and said 'By the way driver, just so you know, you're a pusssy' and spat at me. Since then I don't bother challenging anyone. I don’t blame you. Some passengers think they are entitled to freebies. Luckily some passengers came to the rescue with the driver yesterday.
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