Fare evasion must be rife in the evenings
 

I took the 2039 from Thurles to Heuston last night with my wife who is a free pass holder. The booking office was closed, which seems to be standard practice in Thurles for evening departures with a notice directing people to the TVM. SW tickets cannot be obtained from the TVM.

We got on the train and expected to see a ticket inspector but there was none. On arrival in Heuston we expected to have to ask for the barrier to be opened as we had no tickets. However on arrival the ticket barriers were left open.

Now this carry on is facilitating fare evasion. It doesn't take a genius to work out when booking offices are closed and which trains to use to evade fares.

Is it normal for barriers to be left open in Heuston in the evenings?

What is the correct procedure for SW pass holders where the booking office is closed?

Obtain a ticket at the earliest opportunity.

Which was impossible last night.

There is usually someone at the barriers in Heuston, and pass holders couldn't be classed as fare evasion because they don't have a ticket. Having a ticket on a pass won't change the amount IE receive per year for passes so its not a problem for them.

I think the point was that it was not possible to buy a ticket between the departing station and passing the barriers at Heuston. It is possible that there would have been somewhere to buy a ticket in Heuston but given that you would be free and clear once past the barriers why bother if you had gotten away with it.

In general fare enforcement is too predictable to work. By way of example, I haven't seen somebody checking tickets on the 1805 to Longford for at least 5 years and I take this train about 180 times per year. So if you wanted to go from Dublin to Longford for a bargain price, a single to Maynooth (or indeed to Tara St.) will serve quite well if you want to get it from Connolly at 18:05. From my experience, there is a less than 0.2% chance of being caught which is odds I'll take for 100 euro fine.

Note that I'm not condoning this, and I pay handsomely for my annual pass so I am a bit annoyed that it is so easy to avoid paying a fare.

Which is why the recent ticket checking blitzes are a good idea.

The new CEO has made revenue protection a major objective and rightly so. It isn't fair on honest people such as yourself who has paid your fare that others are getting away with not paying.

Hopefully there will be a move to have more RPU staff to check tickets on a regular basis.

It isn't regular checking that is needed. Deploying the existing resources a bit more randomly would help enormously as that would mean that you couldn't depend on not getting caught.

Going 5 years on the same service without seeing a ticket checker is not sensible. Also the standard 100 euro fine needs to be a lot more to be a proper deterrent - at least double, if not 500 euro. There is no real excuse for not having a ticket now that there are TVMs working everywhere.

For the record I didn't mean regular checking on the same trains - I said checking blitzes (which by their nature would be random) and more RPU staff (which would again mean more random checking). My use of the word "regular" was meant in the sense of more people out checking tickets every day!

What I would like to know - Where are ALL these fare evaders ?. In all my years commuting I've seen very few.

Perhaps one sees very few that get caught. Seeing someone getting caught requires (a) the ticket to be checked (b) the ticket (if present) seen to be invalid (c) this to be within ear-shot / sight of observers and (d) it has to be obvious (which can be quite subjective) that there is a dispute between passenger and staff member that there is a ticket discrepancy.

I've used about 20 National Rail trains in Britain over the last few years and invariably have had my ticket checked - a mix of at stations and on-board, sometimes both.

Yes, I've travelled extensively in UK, Spain and Italy and tickets are checked as you say, however IR prefer not to use ticket checkers and use 'ambush tactics' instead. Surely it is more effective to employ ticket checkers.

grainne whale

There is certain black spots know around the network, while action is taken many are being stopped, with the increase in RPU checks etc passengers will now think twice about taking the chance.

Personally I believe the fines for fare avoidance need to be revised and what needs to happen is a system similar to the UK, where they start off from €20 + fare and if you name is listed they increase. May not be workable over here but a 60 euro fine and fare is more reasonable.

Ambush tactics are far more expensive and ineffective to run than employing ticket checkers.

How do you reckon that having a roving RPU staff is more expensive than a ticket checker on every single train?

They travel in droves 10/15 in number often on expensive overtime rates, they operate on a hit and miss basis. A ticket checker will be familiar with regular passengers and be far more effective in catching fare evaders, then issue a €500 fine, that will certainly solve the problem of fare evasion :D

I suspect that the RPU staff work on shifts - so overtime wouldn't arise.

There are no overtime or premium payments.

Normal team is 3 when onboard, at a large scale station check it could be up to 20 (half of which are management drafted in either on there way to or from there office job)

The rate of detection has increased significantly in recent months and while most will not believe it many of the checks on intercity services are intelligence driven. We can't reveal how this works, but there are internal controls which mean the RPU team are notified in advance of possible high risk trains.

Compared to Luas, Irish Rail fare evasion detection is poor.

Managers are paid nothing to undertake the ticket checks. Managers up to CEO level have chased fare evaders down platforms in recent months.

It is not uncommon elsewhere to deploy management to beef up numbers on a short term basis to minimise costs.

I suggest you try Germany when an entire squad of checkers will appear out of nowhere, blocking all exits to check tickets. Most likely have armed police in tow as well.

International practice on suburban services the world over is for random spot checks. This is nothing unusual. As Mark says, I've experienced the same several times on the Barcelona metro, where a blitzes have taken place backed up by guardia civil officers.

There is no overtime cost as everyone is either on shift or managers who don't get paid overtime.

Frankly - the more checks the better as it will dissuade those who are contributing to your and my fares having to rise.

From what I've heard the recent blitzes in Dublin have resulted in significant numbers of evaders being caught.

Revenue protection is a problem - just because you don't see it, doesn't mean it isn't happening. Staff are hardly going to yell at the top of their voices "I've got one". While Irish Rail statistics are not published, in Q1 of 2013 on Dublin Bus there were nearly 1,100 standard fares issued out of 26,000 tickets checked. That to me would suggest it is far more widespread than you seem to think.

And I would suggest that the travelling (fare paying) public are treated with some some sort of dignity rather than be herded into a corral to have a 'Gestapo like' ticket checks. For that matter, most police forces throughout Europe ARE armed, this is the norm. However these 'Brinks' in paramilitary uniform are used by Irish Rail in an offensive manner rather than to protect RPU staff as they (IR) claim.