{"id":4331,"date":"2024-01-22T13:36:37","date_gmt":"2024-01-22T03:36:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=4331"},"modified":"2024-01-22T13:36:37","modified_gmt":"2024-01-22T03:36:37","slug":"penalty-fares-down-20-in-first-year-since-government-increased-fine-to-100-says-northern","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=4331","title":{"rendered":"Penalty fares DOWN 20% in first year since government increased fine to \u00a3100, says Northern"},"content":{"rendered":"

The train operator Northern<\/a> issued 41,234 penalty fares between 23rd January and 23rd December 2023 compared to 52,394 for the same period in 2022.<\/p>\n

The \u00a3100 penalty fare came into effect on 23rd January 2023, one year ago tomorrow.<\/p>\n

Mark Powles, commercial and customer director at Northern<\/a>, said: \u201cThis is a significant and much welcomed drop in the number of penalty fares issued.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe appetite for \u2018risking it\u2019 has clearly taken a hit in the past 12 months \u2013 and the increase in the penalty fare is no doubt a factor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Northern<\/a> has taken a multi-faceted approach to the issue of fare evasion in recent years, deploying revenue protection teams to known hotspots; introducing new technology to help expedite ticket checks at stations and on-board its trains; and clamping down on cases of digital fraud.<\/p>\n

Powles added: \u201cIt\u2019s worth remembering that upwards of 95% of our customers do the right thing and buy a ticket before they travel.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reduction in attempted fare evasion is a victory for taxpayers who ultimately foot the bill for those that try not to pay.\u201d<\/p>\n

Between 2005 and the price rise in 2023, the penalty fare had been just \u00a320 \u2013 but it was felt by the industry that that figure was too low and was no longer an effective deterrent to would-be fare evaders.<\/p>\n

As part of the government\u2019s public consultation, 69% of respondents agreed that \u00a320 was too low as a penalty fare.<\/p>\n

Money raised through penalty fares issued by Northern will, in-line with other revenue income streams, be re-invested in the rail industry to improve the service offered to all customers.<\/p>\n

Northern<\/a> has invested in the largest network of digital ticket infrastructure of any train operator in the country, making it easier than ever to buy a ticket via their app, website or one of more than 600 ticket machines across the network.<\/p>\n

Fare evaders are prosecuted under the provisions of the Regulation of Railways Act 1889 and the Railway Byelaws made pursuant to the Transport Act 2000. In cases of ticket fraud, perpetrators are prosecuted under the Fraud Act 2006.<\/p>\n

Northern<\/a> is the second largest train operator in the UK, with 2,500 services a day to more than 500 stations across the North of England.<\/p>\n

\n

More Like This<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Northern seeks the engineers of the future<\/a><\/h3>\n

SilverRail\u2019s Vice President of UK Rail, David Pitt, shares top industry predictions for 2024<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The train operator Northern issued 41,234 penalty fares between 23rd January and 23rd December 2023 compared to 52,394 for the same period in 2022. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":4332,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,47,488],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-opinion","category-rail-news","category-railway-stations"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}