ScotRail is set to introduce a new minimum fare in a bid to educate and reduce the number of passengers who choose to travel without first buying a ticket.
Fare evasion is estimated to cost Scotland’s Railway more than £11million each year and those who purposely board without a valid ticket will be charged a £10 minimum fare.
The fare will in many cases be more than the standard fare ticket, particularly for short journeys. As an example, a return ticket for someone travelling from Bishopbriggs to Glasgow Queen Street costs £3 and so the £10 minimum fare would be applied to someone who purposefully didn’t buy their ticket before boarding.
There is no additional charge where the cost of the ticket for the journey is already more than £10, however, there is still a requirement for customers to buy before they board to qualify for any other discounted rail travel.
The introduction of a minimum fare follows independent analysis of ticketless travel which has shown that customers who did not purchase a ticket before boarding and travelling had either a ticket office that was open at the time of their travel (74 per cent) or an operating ticket vending machine (90 per cent) but opted not to use those facilities.
It is anticipated that this change will also help to reduce anti-social behaviour on the railway, which is often caused by a small minority travelling without a ticket.
There are exclusions:
- For customers who hold a national entitlement card.
- If a ticket office in a station is closed.
- If a station doesn’t have a ticket office or ticket vending machine (TVM).
- If a customer has a registered disability that prevents them from using TVMs.
- Staff will have the discretion to issue the minimum fare depending on the customer’s circumstances.
- Customers who can only pay with cash would obtain a ‘promise to pay’ ticket from a TVM and then purchase a ticket from on train staff.
A period of education will be implemented from 1 April 2026 until July 2026, following which a £10 minimum fare will be put in place. Our revenue protection team will be tasked with targeting customers claiming short journeys and embedding the minimum fare.
Since its return to public ownership in 2022, ScotRail has enhanced its revenue protection practices by introducing a team of Revenue Protection Officers across the country, focussing on known routes and offenders, and providing frontline staff with improved tools to deal with and report fare evasion.
ScotRail’s Revenue Protection team generates around £2million per year, which would otherwise have been lost through people travelling without a valid ticket.
The train operator monitors ticketless travel annually, and since April 2022, this has dropped from 8.8 per cent to 3.7 per cent.
Since 2022, some of the changes made include:
- A dedicated channel for staff to report ticketless travel and fraud.
- Briefing sessions and increased engagement with frontline teams.
- Renewed on-train mobile equipment for staff, improving reliability and speed.
ScotRail recognises that there are a range of tickets available with differing terms and conditions. Staff are trained to support customers who have made genuine mistakes, only taking more formal action where deliberate evasion is suspected.
Image credit: iStockphoto.com / georgeclerk
