PERTIS Machines and possible issues related to Penalty Fares

[whole diary]

[thetrout]

I was looking up some information on Unpaid Fares Notices earlier today over a problem I had when purchasing a ticket on board a train a week or so ago. (Totally seperate incident now resolved)

I've looked into the use of PERTIS^▸ (Permit to travel) Machines and whether or not that are a practical solution to deterring Fare Evasion.

An example of this from the FGW^▸ (First Great Western) Penalty Fares Booklet explains that a permit to travel is valid for 2 hours, which IMHO^▸ (in my humble opinion) is fine. However I looked further into this and use an extract from the GreaterAnglia guide which details the advice conditions of which they should used, which includes from my point of view, this rather worrying extract:

Just like a passenger must pay on boarding a bus, you are responsible for ensuring that you are carrying sufficient funds to purchase a Permit to Travel or ticket before travelling, otherwise you may have to pay a Penalty Fare.

Now I may be completely missing the point here. But I think that is out of order to even suggest this.

I can think of a few reasons as to why you may not have any 'change' to pay the fare in this situation:

1) You have a fear for your personal safety carrying cash because you're either vunerable or have been the victim of a mugging. < Sorry to be dramatic, but it happens

2) You have available funds, but only in the form of notes (^5, ^10, ^20 etc). Well the Bus argument is perfectly plausible comparison, but in Frome (My current home town) if you wanted to take the Bus to Bath you'd be looking at at least ^6.40 which is MORE than a notes worth. So in Frome, that argument is shot down as it is a very common site to see passengers paying with ^5 or ^10 notes... You'll even get away with a ^20 but you *might* have to ask for a change ticket. (They won't offer them, that's another rant though)

3) You've taken a Taxi to the station and the fare was ^4, You find you have ^4.50 in your wallet, so rather than give the Driver the ^20 you've just taken out of the ATM^‡(resolve) because it wasn't giving out ^10 notes (Happens all too often) you hand over the ^4 coinage. Leaving you with 50p or a ^20. I'll explain shortly how that could be a problem.

4) You don't have any cash; neither notes nor coinage, but have a plastic with more than enough available funds for the journey you wish to make.

5) Going along slightly with BNM's story here in the thread, you start your journey at a station such as Bruton for example (Doesn't have a PERTIS but for this example, it does) heading for Plymouth. You insert ^5 for the journey and you don't get ticket checked onboard between Bruton and Castle Cary. On arrival at Castle Cary the Ticket Office is closed. You also wished to Travel First Class from Castle Cary to Plymouth. However on the HST^▸ (High Speed Train) the guards Avantix^▸ (Ticket Issuing System used on board trains) is broken... OK i'm going a bit silly there but as an aside to that example:

Who is going to have anywhere near enough Coinage for a First Anytime Return from Bruton to Plymouth?
Assuming you did get to PLY^» (Plymouth - next trains), your PERTIS would be long expired...

I've heard you could in theory insert 10 pence into a PERTIS to gain a Permit to Travel. But it may be considered as avoiding paying the fare. I'd love to see any TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) try and uphold that in the situation of option 5.

Also the Bus Analogy doesn't work for me personally i'm afraid... I have a Bus Pass.

My final point then comes down to "Contactless Payments" - If the banks have given us this technology to essentially not require "hard cash" < (I say that as in coin and note media). Then doesn't that make the whole PERTIS use redundant? I don't know if anyone here has used Contactless, but it's a brilliant system and saves a huge amount of hassle and being slowed down at the POS (Point of Sale)

I'll leave it there, but does anyone have any views on this and do you think that the wording in GA^▸ (Greater Anglia)'s policy should be taken with a pinch of salt?

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Sources for quotes:

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CE8QFjAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ircas.co.uk%2Fdocs%2FGA_Penalty_Fares_Leaflet.pdf&ei=TdYvUIGbLKiu0QXFwoDoDA&usg=AFQjCNFolDcdI5MWdKhkhYxBkgZUVuRGCg&cad=rja

http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/Train-times-and-tickets/Ticket-types//~/media/PDF/Tickets%20and%20train%20times/Season%20tickets/Buy%20Before%20You%20Board%20WEST%20%20March%202007%2032934700.pdf

[EBrown]

Byelaw 18 - Ticketless Travel

Cut and dry case, you have no ticket or PERTIS^▸ (Permit to travel) where the facilities exist to get one.

You could, quite feasibly, depending on your response to questioning, you could be prosecuted under RoRA.

I have further information I may add to this at a later date; which BNM is aware of.

[thetrout]

Understood.

But surely if you have the means to pay, but the device that gives you the authority to travel doesn't accept the method of payment you have... Surely there needs to be some sort of counter clause, this was the exact point I was trying to raise (Not meaning to be harsh or rude)

I certainly wouldn't be at all impressed if I found myself with a PF^▸ (Penalty Fare) when I had a ^10 note or Credit Card with available funds to pay the fare.

Fortunately, I have never found myself in this situation as no station I have used has a PERTIS^▸ (Permit to travel) Machine. (Well to my knowledge anyway) However the majority of journeys I make normally start at Frome or Bruton which isn't in the PF area. Frome does have a ticket machine, but it hardly ever works and when it does, it causes no end of problems as it never accepts my Business Credit Card (Barclaycard Business) however on train payment is fine

[Brucey]

Earlier in the document, it says "Insert the maximum amount of coins that you have to the value of your journey".  If 5p is all you have in coins, then you've satisfied this condition.

Provided you offer to pay at the first opportunity, then there can be no intent to avoid payment of a fare.

I've used PERTIS^▸ (Permit to travel) a few times.  Always put in 5p/10p/20p and pay the rest by credit/debit card on-board/at the barriers.  Never had any issues.

[JayMac]

The requirement to buy a ticket within two hours of purchase of a PTT^▸ (Public Time-Table) isn't a legal one as far as I can see.

NRCoC^▸ (National Rail Conditions of Carriage) only says, "as soon as is reasonably practicable, buy an appropriate ticket to complete your journey."

Railway Byelaws are silent on the matter of PTTs

[ChrisB]

The 2-hour guidance is there to stop you 'borrowing' someone else's that didn't hand it over on buying their ticket.....

[BerkshireBugsy]

I'm going to start my reply by stating that I dislike passengers who board a train with the  intention of avoiding paying a fare - but I have some questions rearding the PERTIS^▸ (Permit to travel) machines.

At my local station,Thatcham there is a ticket office which is scheduled to open in the morning on working days and saturdays. In reality the real opening hours are less regular than this.

There is a TVM^▸ (Ticket Vending Machine) at this station but it is not reliable. In addition the ability to pay  by cash has been removed "Due to vandalism and theft". Having never seen one of these PERTIS machines would a TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) install one in an area where they have disabled the cash facility on the TVM? Won't the PERTIS machine itself  be a target for vandelism?

Dave

[ChrisB]

Usually only holds a few coins, and amazingly is built of sterner stuff too

[paul7575]

The general problem with the PERTIS^▸ (Permit to travel) machines, is that if they are switched on at the same time as the full (albeit card only) TVM^▸ (Ticket Vending Machine), then there'll always be a few people who'll stick 10p in them on the off chance they'll get away without paying the rest of the fare.

I believe that's why they generally seem to be being removed from the railway, rather than new ones being installed.

Paul