Over £14,000 in fines and costs were recently imposed on 44 fare dodgers who travelled on Greater Anglia trains without buying a ticket.
At a hearing of Essex Magistrates' Court Single Justice Procedure session at Hastings on Friday, 11th March. 38 fare dodgers were fined £220 each and ordered to pay costs of £150 each, while two others were fined £40 each, with £65 costs .
The company's Revenue Protection ticket inspectors caught the offenders for travelling on Greater Anglia trains, either without a ticket and no means to buy a ticket, or with a wrong ticket. The offences took place between 9th September and 13th October 2021 The Revenue Protection team can also issue passengers with penalty fares to be paid on the spot.
Greater Anglia's revenue protection teams use their discretion when inspecting tickets. They know if ticket machines are out of order or ticket offices are closed, so when offenders use those reasons as excuses, the teams know if the claims are genuine.
As well as uniformed revenue protection inspectors, the company also employs plain clothes fraud investigations officers who use the latest technology and systems to detect fraudulent travel activity, such as delay repay fraud rings.
Last year, fare dodgers and delay repay fraudsters on Greater Anglia paid over £4 million in fines from fare evasion and repayment for claiming compensation or refunds for journeys they didn't make, including £1.79 million from prosecutions.
Kim Bucknell, head of revenue protection at Greater Anglia, said: “We have a team of over 130 revenue protection staff, both uniformed and plain-clothes, who regularly go through our trains checking people's tickets.
“The majority of our customers are travelling with the right ticket, but when we come across people without a ticket or the wrong ticket, then we will take action.
“It's easy to buy a ticket, either from a ticket office, ticket machine, online or via our app, so there is no excuse for travelling without a ticket.
“We have a range of great value fares and offers available – especially if you book in advance, and it's cheaper to buy a ticket than pay a fine.
“The railway is now entirely funded by the Government and so ultimately taxpayers. By not buying a ticket, fares go up further for everyone and there is less money to invest in the railway.”
You can listen to Kim Bucknell talking about the work of her team in this episode of Greater Anglia's Life on Rails below:
