Inspection blitz uncovers widespread free travel pass fraud

[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.