Inspection blitz uncovers widespread free travel pass fraud

[James Howard]

I should think that Irish Rail's approach is driven by culture. The fact is that there is a significant section in Irish society that tends to be extremely aggressive and who basically believe in getting their retaliation in first. This tends to correlate strongly with those who don't pay for their train tickets. So if Irish Rail don't turn up in force and behave assertively, they will get walked all over and may end up putting staff in danger.

It is unfortunate that the law-abiding majority have to get their noses put of of joint by this behaviour but I can't see a way around it. This is similar to how the loud aggressive drunks tend to get treated more quickly at A&E on a Friday night. The alternative for those of us who pay is to suffer a worse service and basically subsidise the scumbags who won't pay. I don't personally find them rude but then I always have my ticket to hand and can show it promptly when asked.

The opposite applies to other cultures. I don't know if the same system still applies but when I was in Tokyo about 15 years ago, they had this system called "Fare Adjustment" where if you didn't know what your fare was, you paid the minimum and then put your ticket into a machine at your destination and paid the difference. Of course, ever single Irish person I knew used to buy the minimum fare ticket and use their point-to-point work pass to get out at their home station. Our Japanese colleagues would be utterly horrified at this behaviour and there was never a ticket inspector to be seen anywhere because honour and honesty are basically core values in Japanese culture.

[grainne whale]

Maybe IR should consider changing the timing of their checks to out of hours when apparently fare evasion is rife.

[Jamie2k9]

I would expect that RPU will be out in force until close of service tonight especially on the DART services are at busy locations like Howth etc and everyday until weather returns to normal.

Its days like this where fare dogging will be high unless checks are in place.

[AD11]

Originally Posted by grainne whale

Maybe IR should consider changing the timing of their checks to out of hours when apparently fare evasion is rife.

I'd love it if trains were rife 'out of hours' never mind ticket evaders!

[James Howard]

Well, maybe if Irish Rail could reliably collect the revenue, they might be able to stretch to a 2005 or 2105 to Mullingar or Longford. Chance would be a fine thing.

They were out in force at Connolly at about 5 PM yesterday. Probably more of a visibility operation than a serious attempt to catch people.

[Thomas Ralph]

Originally Posted by James Howard

The opposite applies to other cultures. I don't know if the same system still applies but when I was in Tokyo about 15 years ago, they had this system called "Fare Adjustment" where if you didn't know what your fare was, you paid the minimum and then put your ticket into a machine at your destination and paid the difference. Of course, ever single Irish person I knew used to buy the minimum fare ticket and use their point-to-point work pass to get out at their home station. Our Japanese colleagues would be utterly horrified at this behaviour and there was never a ticket inspector to be seen anywhere because honour and honesty are basically core values in Japanese culture.

Yes the fare adjustment system is still in place.

Tickets are regularly and consistently inspected on long-distance services in Japan, and stamped.

[grainne whale]

Originally Posted by Thomas Ralph

Yes the fare adjustment system is still in place.

Tickets are regularly and consistently inspected on long-distance services in Japan, and stamped.

That sounds a more civilized way of doing things. However Irish Rail have a more confrontational attitude to their passengers.

[Thomas Ralph]

Originally Posted by grainne whale

That sounds a more civilized way of doing things. However Irish Rail have a more confrontational attitude to their passengers.

It's as much, if not more, that Irish passengers have less inclination to pay their fare than Japanese.

But on the other hand, every Japanese station of any size has a manned gateline all day.

[grainne whale]

Originally Posted by Thomas Ralph

It's as much, if not more, that Irish passengers have less inclination to pay their fare than Japanese.

But on the other hand, every Japanese station of any size has a manned gateline all day.

Now that's a very unfair (sweeping) statement. Please fill me in as where the Irish fare evading passengers are, in all my years commuting I have only seen the fare doggers once or twice( who got on at Clondalkin) - and they just legged it over the railing at Hazelhatch. Of course if there was a ticket checker on board, they would have had to pay their fare. The average Irish train passenger is no worse nor better than any passenger in any other country.

[James Howard]

This article states that the evasion rate on the inspections so far has been around 6%. But the reality is that it probably isn't so high as they will be targeting anywhere they have reason to believe is a hot-spot.

6% of revenue is more than 9 million euro. Which I believe is of the order of 3 times the amount of money saved by last autumn's capacity cutbacks.

From personal observation, it is demonstrably true that the Irish are more likely to fare-dodge than the Japanese. While racial stereotypes are a bit crude, honesty and honour would be regarded as core traits for Japanese people. I would think that is fair to say that this would not be the case for us Irish.

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news...-29455487.html

[grainne whale]

Originally Posted by James Howard

This article states that the evasion rate on the inspections so far has been around 6%. But the reality is that it probably isn't so high as they will be targeting anywhere they have reason to believe is a hot-spot.

6% of revenue is more than 9 million euro. Which I believe is of the order of 3 times the amount of money saved by last autumn's capacity cutbacks.

From personal observation, it is demonstrably true that the Irish are more likely to fare-dodge than the Japanese. While racial stereotypes are a bit crude, honesty and honour would be regarded as core traits for Japanese people. I would think that is fair to say that this would not be the case for us Irish.

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news...-29455487.html

Ah James, I don't think that you are quite correct about Japan in the light a recent scandals( honour/honesty). The Irish are no different to any other nationality. Actually I've seen more fare evasion in Germany - 3 people travelling on ticket and a total stranger ties to claim that he is the 4th passenger on the same ticket.
I agree €9m is a lot of money but I'm sure there is a more efficient way of collecting it, rather than the bullyboy tactics of RPU. If it (this article) is correct that 1 in 16 passengers is a fare evader and I, a regular commuter hasn't noticed (regular fare evasion) then there must be hordes of passenger travelling the country without paying a fare. - some how I don't think so.

[dowlingm]

Originally Posted by Thomas Ralph

Yes the fare adjustment system is still in place.

Tickets are regularly and consistently inspected on long-distance services in Japan, and stamped.

In Japan though the operators are private companies. Maybe being at least notionally removed from government gives them more licence to chase revenue leakage without cries of "oppression!" from people who think public transport should be free if you don't feel like paying?

The other thing is that maybe Japan is not as fixated on ever decreasing headcount as a measure of how well a company does its business. This is a company that manually turns seats and replaces headrest-cloths at each turnback.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p020xlm1

[Jamie2k9]

That sounds a more civilized way of doing things. However Irish Rail have a more confrontational attitude to their passengers.

This system is done in intercity journeys here. They only travel in two's on IC services where they know people can be caught and other than this its just a single checker.

They only target commuter stations in large numbers.

As for fare adjustment, passengers here know the exact fares from the TMV's or ticket offices and it would be abused by people taking chances of paying a shorter fare and hoping for the best not to be caught.