[article] Scammers beat new CIE ticket gates

[Mark Gleeson]

Of course this is so easy to demonstrate


NIAMH HORAN
THEY cost more than €9m to install, but Irish Rail's new electronic ticket checkers have been hit by a "Noah's Ark" scam with fraudsters beating the system by going in "two by two". The new validation machines for Dart and commuter rail services are being effortlessly outsmarted by those who want to get away without purchasing a ticket.

The problem is the time lag of two seconds when the doors are left open after a paying customer walks through. Others can then take advantage by rushing through the still-open turnstile without having to insert a valid ticket.

Security at the station have confirmed that commuters of all ages, including groups of friends and even entire families are trying to outsmart the newly installed devices.

One security man at a city station said "I'm seeing dozens of people trying to do it every day, families and everything, all types of people. But we catch them once they're on the platform because we have two or three people waiting there to check that everyone has their tickets. And when we do, we send them straight over to the desk where they get fined €50."

Although a number of security staff have been posted to keep an eye on commuters as they use the machines, he admitted peak times are proving to be the most difficult period to spot scammers among the crowds.

"At rush hour it's harder to see them doing it. Some of them are a lot cleverer than you'd think but others don't even know where to put the ticket."

Another staff member said that clever commuters are also wising up to another way of dodging the machines.

"Quite a lot of people have copped on to the fact that if you block the beam [which controls the gates], the doors stay open, so you sometimes catch two or three people trying to come through at a time, while their friend stands in front of the beam. You could stand there for ages and let loads of people through."

But Jane Cregan, a spokeswoman for Iarnrod Eireann, denied that the company has been experiencing significant problems with people taking advantage of the expensive new machines.

"We have a person assigned to each validation area so it is not a problem that we are experiencing and, although tailgating is hard to quantify, there has been a noted reduction since the machines were first introduced," she said.

© Sunday Independent 2007
http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=1821750&issue_id=15572

[James Shields]

This sort of thing just doesn't work on the London Underground gates. They are really "doors" rather than gates, and they're designed to open in the direction of travel, so that the person who has put in a valid ticket and they spring open out of the way, but if someone tries to follow, they spring shut again, catching them, like a mousetrap. The one thing that can catch them out is that if you enter an invalid ticket it spits it out the top without opening the gates. The person following won't realise and will enter their ticket, letting you through.

One thing that annoys me about the IE gates is the slight delay before they open, which means you can't enter your ticket and keep going without breaking stride, which you can with the (much older) LU ones.

[zag]

Not only do people follow through behind, but they now also (more than once) come straight through in the opposite direction and force their way through against the flow. It's quite bizarre - what other system in the world would have this situation ? It's plain straight forward fare evasion, happening every day, in manned stations with closed cicruit TV.

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[ThomasJ]

Not only do people follow through behind, but they now also (more than once) come straight through in the opposite direction and force their way through against the flow. It's quite bizarre - what other system in the world would have this situation ? It's plain straight forward fare evasion, happening every day, in manned stations with closed cicruit TV.

You should see Blackrock when people are exiting and you are trying to enter, it is a nightmare! a busy station and only 4 turnstiles!

The problem is the time lag of two seconds when the doors are left open after a paying customer walks through. Others can then take advantage by rushing through the still-open turnstile without having to insert a valid ticket.


There are a number of schoolgirls in Blackrock that do that all the time! Originally when the exit validation started they were climbing over the station walls/fencing. Now they follow you through and even think its a good laugh! The thing is when they are doing it there is a big crowd exiting at the same time so they cant be spotted!

Are schoolchildren/students checked for their ID atall?

[Mark Hennessy]

The one thing that can catch them out is that if you enter an invalid ticket it spits it out the top without opening the gates. The person following won't realise and will enter their ticket, letting you through.


Happened to me in Blackrock a few weeks back.
I hadn't noticed the clown in front of me had no ticket and was just following along with the crowd so when I put my ticket in he got through and I was blocked :mad:

[James Shields]

Happened to me in Blackrock a few weeks back.
I hadn't noticed the clown in front of me had no ticket and was just following along with the crowd so when I put my ticket in he got through and I was blocked :mad:

Well the one thing our machines do better than LU's is that when they reject a ticket they spit it back out the front rather than the top, so the following person won't put in a ticket by mistake.

Not so easy when they don't pit in a ticket at all, though!

[clonsilladart]

Where did IE get these Gates from.... are they used anywhere else in the World???

Seems like a complete waste of money. These gates are not fit for purpose!!!

[Mark Gleeson]

The gates come from a very reputable German outfit

http://www.scheidt-bachmann.com/content/blogcategory/171/180/

I think the software configuration is just wrong. London Underground do actually have a problem with people doing this but its more difficult

Given its the Sunday Indo the story has been hyped up, the big question is are fewer people without tickets getting out of the station than before? I'd say the new gates are seriously cutting down on fare evasion

[James Shields]

Their logo looks suspiciously like Scooby Doo's coller tag!

Perhaps the gates could be set up in a more aggressive mode. From a user perspective, you can't get through them as quickly as the London underground ones.

Also, allowing bidirectional travel may be okay when it's quiet, but at peak times they really need to set up all machines to only allow passage in one direction.

[dowlingm]

So let me get this straight - we got rid of ticket checkers in favour of autogates, the autogates are being scammed but don't worry because on the platform are... ticketcheckers? :p

[Colm Donoghue]

I don't think they got rid of the ticket checkers.
There were 2 checkers before exit validation and there's 4 nowadays that machines have eased their workload.

[MOH]

I love the way "another staff member" told everyone in a national newspaper exactly how to scam the machines.

Aside from scammers, I've gone through a couple of times behind someone else, ticket in hand, because if I arrive in Tara St on a DART that's late and I'm trying to catch a bus, I don't have time to wait two seconds for the gate to shut, take my ticket, and open again. I'd be surprised is quite a few people don't do this regularly, even if they have valid tickets, so the estimate of scammer numbers might be overstated.

Second that Blackrock is a disaster. Trying to get through in the evening to make a train when people are coming out is a nightmare. They should just make the two nearest the door outbound, and the other two inbound.

[James Shields]

Aside from scammers, I've gone through a couple of times behind someone else, ticket in hand, because if I arrive in Tara St on a DART that's late and I'm trying to catch a bus, I don't have time to wait two seconds for the gate to shut, take my ticket, and open again. I'd be surprised is quite a few people don't do this regularly, even if they have valid tickets, so the estimate of scammer numbers might be overstated.

You don't have to wait for the gates to shut before putting your ticket in - if you insert your ticket as the person in front goes through, the gates stay open and let you through too (with no horrible choo-choo noise either). Just make sure the gates have opened for them or you'll be letting them through.

I saw something I didn't understand this evening in Connolly - a guy going through a machine put his ticket in, the gates opened, he went through, but as he did the machine made the choo-choo noise. I presume his ticket was valid or the gates wouldn't have opened, and there was nobody ahead or behind.

[dowlingm]

I don't understand journos. Fair enough to tell people that gates are scammable and that the journalist has verified what the IE staffer told him, but why detail it?

It's a bit like security bugs in software. Most of the time a researcher will give a company a headsup to let them work on a patch before publishing proof of concept.

[al2637]

Just get rid of the validation and go for open platforms! Make everyones life easier.

[James Shields]

I think the exit validation system will always be flawed as long as we have lines open at one end. And while we have a mixed Intercity and commuter system, we are unlikely to ever eliminate that, as it will probably never be viable to install the gates in small rural system.

[philip]

Just get rid of the validation and go for open platforms! Make everyones life easier.

Yup. Put the money into human checkers on trains/platforms and sting people with hefty standard fares and name and shame policies.

[dowlingm]

Vancouver's Skytrain works like that - automatic operation and open platform - but there is continual doubt that they are doing enough checks to keep evasion at an acceptable level.