Auckland Transport say they are cracking down on fare evading in their most sternly worded statement to date, here is the press release:

Auckland Transport and Veolia crack down on train fare theft

Auckland Transport (AT) and its operator Veolia Transport are cracking down even further on fare evaders to make it fair on the majority of honest customers. Part of the programme will involve a rolling “blitz” at suburban train stations. The initiative has been trialled in recent weeks before being introduced across the network from today.

At one station 113 people were caught trying to evade paying in the first check; in a subsequent check the number had dropped to 17.

Auckland Transport’s Chief Operating Officer, Greg Edmonds says, “Those who steal travel on our trains make it unfair for those who pay their way which means potential increases in rates and taxes to compensate . You must pay to travel on Auckland’s trains. Not to do so is theft.

“Auckland Transport and Veolia have been trialling a rolling blitz on fare evaders at selected suburban train stations and from today we will introduce the programme across the whole train network. The focus of this exercise is to ensure that everyone who gets on a train service has a valid ticket or a tagged on AT HOP card”.

Mr Edmonds adds, “From time to time we do experience vandalism and technical issues with our Ticket and Top-Up machines just as any banking system machine does. If customers are unable to purchase a ticket for any reason, that can be discussed with Veolia’s ticket inspectors.

“The measures we are introducing coupled with on-board checks has proved highly effective in the UK and Australia. We are losing revenue through people stealing our services. Every dollar lost to fare cheats is a dollar less to renew public transport infrastructure.

A recent report from the Ministry of Transport in Victoria says fare evasion cost the state approximately $90 million last year.

AT HOP cards can be purchased from ticket inspection staff on trains and at ticket offices at Britomart, Newmarket, New Lynn and Papakura train stations. Train tickets can be purchased from ticket machines at all stations.

Well I rode the trains a few times today and noticed a visibly larger staff presence, in fact it was almost like the old days with staff on trains permanently and checking tickets of everyone on board. On my way into town there were at least two people who didn’t have a ticket. One lady said the machine wasn’t working and another guy said he left his HOP card at home and refused to pay, both were left to continue their journey without paying anything (although I think the first one was told to buy a ticket at Newmarket). One guy who did have a paper ticket brought a hop card from the inspectors though so that is a small positive.

On my way home there were also two people without tickets, one lady who said the machine wasn’t accepting coins  and was allowed to continue her journey and amazingly one guy who claimed to have never even have heard about the HOP system. I suspect he was putting it on but in both cases they were allowed to continue travelling without paying a cent. The thing that really annoys me in all of these situations is not even that they have been allowed to travel free but that Veolia staff made no attempt whatsoever to even tell these people about HOP cards, let alone sell them. To me these are the perfect opportunities for Veolia staff to be really telling people about the benefits of HOP cards, especially to those that say they were honestly trying to buy a ticket but that the machine wasn’t working.

Have you travelled on the trains today? Did you notice the increased staff presence and how did they deal with customers without tickets?

Share this

84 comments

  1. People will do anything to avoid their responsibilities. Enforcement is going to be a problem if people are determined to not pay as the poor staff have to deal with either chucking them of the traim at the next station or wasting police time getting them evicted or tresspassed.
    Hey matt you may be able to help. I put my daughter on the ferry the other day to visit a relative and found that I had to give her my hop card because of swiping off the other end. Why is there a need to swipe off. I understand that with buses but for a point to point destination I dont get at all. I also had to pay adult fare for my daughter who is 13 because she didnt have her own card.. I probably do not understand the system well because I only travel on PT infrequently.

    1. Swipe off is necessary so the system knows what wharf you went to and can charge you the right fare. Not strictly necessary if you are only going to the downtown terminal (although you could swap ferries downtown to do something like Half Moon Bay to Devonport, where it is necessary). But it’s definitely needed leaving town to know what wharf you went to.

  2. I noticed the inspectors, but they somehow didn’t notice me, and didn’t check my ticket. No harm done, as I had of course paid, but still. That was the Western Line service that arrives at Britomart at 10.

    Incidentally, what’s the point in having the guard remind you to take your belongings when you leave the train – if he says it just when you leave Newmarket, several minutes before you actually arrive at Britomart? If I was that absent-minded, I’d have forgotten the reminder as well.

  3. So what is the solution? I think fare evasion should be enforced hard, but on the other hand I’m not in favour of giving untrained ticket inspectors police-like powers to detain people. I was on a Wellington train once where they held the train at a station while an evader refused to pay or to leave the train. That just punished the rest of the passengers and we were all pissed off after 15 minutes of delay. What powers do store security people have, since they are the closest analogues to ticket inspectors? I suspect very little, since they can’t detain people either and at the end of the day shoplifters can just walk away when caught.

    Traffic police are employed by NZ Police, but funded out of road taxes and charges. I wonder if it would be economic for Auckland Council to fund rail police who would have enforcement powers but would be employed by NZ Police, properly trained, and employ proper law enforcement standards and processes?

    1. I agree with the idea of properly mandated inspectors. They have the same thing overseas, in places like Melbourne for example. Transport inspectors have the authority to detain you until you pay the fare, or until the police arrive if you refuse to comply. We wouldn’t necessarily need rail ‘police’, just a change to legislation to allow specially trained officers these powers.

      1. I’m opposed to much (or any?) increase in the number of groups that have police-type powers to detain people. Look at the US where every man and his dog have a police force, usually including a SWAT team. Universities have university police, the Library of Congress have a police force, and I even saw a photo of a car marked up as DC Public Library Police (although it seems this group may have merged with another police force recently). If people have police-like powers, I’d prefer they were employed by the NZ Police.

        1. Totally agree. Plus, anyone with police powers should at the very least be employed by the central government. The current inspectors are AFAIK employed by Veolia, a private company under contract to Auckland Transport/Auckland Council, which itself doesn’t have any sort of policing power. I’m not happy with having a private company run a prison, and no more with a private company employing a quasi-police.

          The real question is whether having police (or quasi-police) riding the trains to catch people stealing a couple of dollars worth of train ride, is the best possible use of police time?

          And no matter how it’s legally structured, giving ticket inspectors the power to detain people means training and equipping them to correctly and legally use force, and paying them to reflect the danger they’ll face. It will also create the expectation that they are able to handle other crime and disorder on the trains. All up it seems like it would cost far more than it could possibly recover in fines and fares.

        2. Railway cops are a pretty common phenomena overseas, mostly with jurisdiction over all offences committed within the railway corridor and station precincts of their employing railway. That includes vandalism, crimes against the person, and fare evasion. Auckland’s transport network has a pretty iffy security reputation in places, particularly at night, and I think the cost of training and employing a couple of dozen transport cops (put them on buses as well as trains) would pay massive dividends in both reduced fare evasion and improved public perceptions of the safety of public transport.

          It would actually be very straightforward for AT to contract with NZ Police for the provision of a number of officers whose duty is to enforce the law within the transport network (with or without creating a specific class of public transport enforcement officer in the Policing Act). The Commissioner has absolute power to put any class of officer in whatever uniform the Commissioner sees fit, so transport cops could be given a distinct uniform (or just no uniform at all, though a uniform has its own effect) so that there’s no “Why aren’t you off doing real work and catching real criminals?” bollocks from arrested proles.

        3. Matt: I agree that the regular police – in whatever uniform – should be present on buses and trains from time to time to keep the peace. I don’t think Auckland Transport should have to pay them to – it’s the job of the police to deter crime in public places everywhere. But when police are present at sports events, concerts and the like the organisers often do have to pay, so I guess AT would have to pony up as well.

          But as for checking tickets – when the police head to stadiums, they don’t go around checking tickets. It’s not really a good use of time, even for tickets that cost ten times more than any train trip. The police let the organisers check tickets, and once they’ve done that legwork, the police would only assist in throwing the gatecrashers out.

          Nick: Parking wardens are radically different to the police. They don’t have the power to detain people. They “observe and report”, just like mall security guards.

        4. Nick, that would necessarily include powers to require proof of identity and to detain, both of which are not powers given to parking officers. Parking officers deal with cars, not people, and cars are legally required to display their unique identifiers at all times. Enforcing the law against people is not anything like the same thing as enforcing the law against cars.

        5. Nick, I agree that they shouldn’t be checking tickets; for one thing there’d be only a handful on duty at any one time, far too few to be effective at policing tickets across the whole network. Their random presence would help deter offending, and they should be relatively close to any given location across the transport network should it be necessary to deal with an evader.

          As for paid for by AT, enforcing fares is currently the duty of the operating authority rather than of the government. Because of this it’s AT’s cost to wear. If evading public transport fares became part of the Summary Offences Act or the Crimes Act then it would be reasonable for the Crown to pick up the cost of enforcement, but it would also remain an appropriately low priority compared to addressing higher-value property crime and crimes against the person. Want better levels of enforcement? Pay for it. It might cost AT $600k/year, maybe even a mil, but that should be completely offset by reduced fare evasion and also by, hopefully, reduced costs in dealing with vandalised property. The bus operators could be charged a levy if the wished to have the officers ride buses at random to deter vandalism, which would help offset the cost to AT of having the officers largely focusing on the rails.

        6. The parking enforcement analogy doesn’t work. Cars have external identification so you can slap a ticket on them and follow it up for collection. If a public transport enforcement officer doesn’t have the ability to require identification from an offender, then there is no way of issuing a ticket.

          “It would actually be very straightforward for AT to contract with NZ Police for the provision of a number of officers whose duty is to enforce the law within the transport network (with or without creating a specific class of public transport enforcement officer in the Policing Act).”

          Yes. Road transport policing is paid for out of petrol taxes, presumably via NZTA or some other intermediate group. Nothing to stop any other government or council agency contracting enforcement services from the NZ Police. You could have a dedicated group of public transport police. Or AT could “purchase” a certain number of enforcement hours every year and the Police could resource this however they want. This is a model used by other government agencies. MPI contract the Navy to provide a certain number of fishery protection hours each year… Some of their officers join a patrol boat and they sail around the EEZ checking fishing boats, but MPI pay out of their budget and the Navy are just service providers. MPI are also free to contract patrol services from private suppliers if they wish.

        7. I wasn’t drawing an analogy with parking wardens, I was suggesting their role could be extended to cover transit fare enforcement. Give them basic powers to require proof of identification to issue fines, or to detain those who refuse to comply until police arrive. Call them transport officers or whatever.

          We don’t need sworn police officers checking tickets in trains, we need them only to be called in as a last resort for the 1% of cases that escalate beyond the reasonable.

          I say that because I would prefer a system where tickets are checked quite regularly, and fines are moderate. It’s a basic evaluation of risk and reward. With infrequent checking the fines have to be huge to provide a suitable deterrent. In Melbourne they are $270, but you might only be checked a couple of times a year. With regular checking the fines need not be so large, because the risk of being caught is much higher. I’d hope we could get a regular user checked a couple times a month.

          Can’t afford to use police for that, but certainly could with persons trained and empowered just for the purpose.

        8. Matt – oh definitely, AT should pay the cost of checking the tickets, since it’s AT who gets the benefit from that. I was saying that I thought the central government rather than AT should pay for a police presence to deter crimes against the person, and against the property of the customers. I realise that the government fairly consistently applies the opposite principle though, where the police get paid from all sorts of different sources to do various sorts of policing. But it’s ultimately an accounting exercise between government departments, and not something worth losing sleep over.

          I like your idea to provide free PT to police as well. Or, I wonder if Police and DHBs (for similar reasons) could do heavily discounted “group buys” for their staff. Now that the government’s ruled out fringe-benefit tax for carparks, the least they could do is exempt PT passes, and start setting a good example.

        9. Nick – detaining people is not a “basic power”. It’s not something that you ask parking wardens or ex-clippies to just pick up. It’s one of the most dangerous and difficult things police have to do. It requires people who’ve volunteered for that sort of work, who are suited to it, and who have been trained, equipped, and paid for it.

    2. Store security guards are generally pretty successful at just asking people to stay. A theft needs to be of goods with a value in excess of $1000 before a citizen’s arrest is legal (offence carrying at least a one-year prison sentence, or any Crimes Act offence committed at night), so you need to be trying to walk out with some pretty valuable stuff before they can do anything more. Clearly transport fare evasion isn’t anywhere close.

      I think that offering all sworn police staff free public transport – with much fanfare – on production of their ID card would be very effective. It’d encourage them to use public transport, and it’d ensure that any service might just have a police officer (or few) aboard in the event of someone getting done for fare evasion.
      At the least beat cops should be taking irregular rides on services while in uniform, which would also be incredibly effective at discouraging fare evasion.

  4. a) The fine needs to actually be large enough to deter.
    b) IDs should be taken, esp. for people who “have left their ticket at home” as above. This creates a database so people who constantly give these excuses can be identified as fare dodgers, maybe have a 3 strikes rule or something before an automatic fine is sent out. This means the staff don’t have to deal with aggro themselves.
    Seriously how is leaving a card at home a valid excuse? Do ATMs give you money when you say I left my card at home? These people pray on peoples forgiving nature.
    c) Staff should check machines periodically and have an online database so outages are known across the network. Newer machines should be able to self-diagnose faults and report automatically.

  5. Maybe add a police officer or 2 for this sweep to be in the background. If people get the idea that police may accompany ticket inspectors, it would add another layer of deterrent?

    1. Sure, if you want the policemen to be arresting people for theft every day. Now, that might be a good way to crack down on fare evasion, but it’s a bit over the top in my opinion – in my opinion, the offense should be roughly analogous to the fine one gets for parking in a paid carpark without paying. In that case, drivers receive fines – something similar should be done for AT. The ‘penalty fare’ is a nice attempt given the current legal situation, but has problems in execution that parking tickets don’t.

      1. The fines have the same problems in execution that the penalty fare has – people who refuse to pay. People don’t have numberplates, and they can’t be towed nearly as easily as a car. Where do you send the fine if they won’t take it? How do you chase them up when it goes unpaid?

        The one truly effective tool that AT has right now is trespassing repeat offenders, and since they’re not using it, I don’t think they’ll be keen for anything even more ambitious. NZTA don’t bother prosecuting most of the people who drive the tolled part of the Northern Motorway, because they recognise that it’s not worth it.

      2. Drivers don’t get parking fines. Cars get parking fines, and those fines are tied back to the car’s registered owner. We know who owns pretty much every vehicle on the road, and where they live. Requiring ID from people who are evading fares is the only analogy possible; think of it as someone being pulled over (as opposed to photographed) for exceeding the posted speed limit. A police officer establishes the driver’s identity to their satisfaction before issuing the ticket.

        1. Sure, and I’d be fine if a policeman / person with the appropriate legal power did this on the train when checking fares. My problem with the initial suggestion that there be a police officer checking tickets is that, coupled with the wording used in the press release, is that fare evasion is treated as theft; I’m sure that this is legally sound, but the law can be a donkey sometimes, and arresting somebody for not paying a train fare is overkill.

        2. At some point the maximum legal sanction needs to be imposed. If someone has been trespassed and re-enters the public transport network, that legal sanction is prosecution for trespass with the appropriate penalty. Arrest and prosecution might be overkill for an offence where the penalty is only $20 (or even $200), but if that penalty is accompanied by a trespass notice it requires the police to enforce that law to the fullest in order to be effective. Issuing trespass notices effectively also requires the input of the police in order to correctly identify the evader in the first place. Since the penalties for breaching the Trespass Act 1980 are below the threshold for legal citizen’s arrest it is not possible for train staff to detain someone who has been trespassed and ignores the notice.

        3. Precisely Matt, the comparison with parking wardens is way off base. Some people think too highly of bus and train ticket evasion, regarding it as a major crime worthy of ever-present police with powers of arrest and detention. Let’s get real, it’s petty crime, and won’t be gettinjg it’s own police force. Much easier to stick with the simple rule “pay your fare or get off at the next station”. It’s also ironic that some people want to have lots of highly paid staff to defend a system that is supposed to lower staffing costs.

          Furthermore, New Zealand’s legal principles do not allow for any workable transit police system. Some people seem to think it’s a simple case of changing the law, but that’s not the case at all. Legal doctrine cannot be legislated.

        4. ‘Get off at the next station’ is a functionally useless rule when trains run every ten minutes.

          If an occasional delay of ten minutes is the only deterrent you might as well declare the system free of charge now and be done with it. People put up with much worse day to day already!

          I disagree it is petty theft too, a single fare evader could clock up to thousands of dollars a year in stolen travel. It’s not dissimilar to embezzling from an employer every day for years, just because you might steal a few dollars each time doesn’t mean your crime is the theft of a few dollars.

        5. Any petty theft could be repeated into big losses, it doesn’t change that it remains petty theft. It also doesn’t change the fact that the law already is in place to deal with such problems. Your desire to change the way it is enforced, if taken to all petty theft, would leave us as a police state. Very few people would agree with you that a police state should be established in NZ.

        6. Of course it changes! Didn’t you see the recent case of the woman who spent years defrauding her employer of ten or twenty dollars at a time. They didn’t charger with the theft of ten dollars, the charged her with the full amount.

          And a police state, are you serious or just scaremongering? Sydney isn’t a police state, nor is Melbourne, or London, or Copenhagen, or Zurich, or any number of other places in the world that have revenue protection officers who are actually empowered to protect revenue. If the fact they have staff who can detain you if you don’t prove your identity for a fine doesn’t make them a police state, then why would Auckland become one?

        7. Yes Nick, you have correctly understood what I wrote, i.e., that petty theft can build, and that the existing law can deal with it. Glad you understand and agree with me.

          Your desire is to harsly police petty theft while it is still petty theft. If we applied your thinking to all other forms of petty theft, the end result would be a police state.

  6. I don’t think there is anything more galling to paying passengers than watching inspectors not do their job, but it seems to be the norm that any old excuse will do.

    It does seem a problem that most of the inspectors are people who were formerly conductors. I mean, I really like many of them – when they were selling tickets and there for help to passengers they were great, and they often remain polite, approachable, genuinely helpful. I want them to continue to have jobs – but that is probably the source of the problem – employment obligations etc.

    They are not the right people for enforcement. I used to live in Newastle-upon-Tyne, where the Metro was patrolled by burly, bouncer-like inspectors. I don’t really want to use a blunt approach, but we’re clearly allowing Veolia to pussyfoot around on this one. Silly, as it’s their revenue they are not protecting.

    1. No, I think that’s the problem, veolia gets a set amount and fares go to Council. Is that right? I think that explains a lot

  7. Recently in Istanbul I noticed the use of gates at tram and train stations. Pay stations on the outside with a observer/helper at each gate. It was well used and most had only one or two gates with a barrier on platforms. On the tram stops people could walk down the track to get into the station if there was no guard, however this never happened. Isn’t paying station attendents (probely bearly above minimum wage) better than this 90 million in fare evasion? Good to see some sort of change happening at AT!

    1. That 90 million is in Victoria Australia, not Auckland, a state with massively higher PT usage than we have. And no I don’t think the Instanbul solution is at all desirable, it’s ugly and expensive to install. Germany and Switzerland make do with no gates anywhere on their system and simply have roaming checks, which are high enough that no one bothers not to ride without a ticket.

  8. If they can’t do anything, why bother checking.

    Evaders should at least be kicked off the train immediately and inconvenienced by having to fare evade on the next train that comes long 😉

  9. I live out of Auckland now and have a Gold card. How does one make a casual trip on the trains? Overseas from, my experience, whilst regulars use smart cards it’s still possible to purchase a ticket on the train if boarding at an un-maned station but this doesn’t seem to be an option in Auckland? Why are there not swipe machines on the trains like the trams in Melbourne

    1. Richard. Very easily; as a Gold Card holder all you have to do is go to one of the automated ticket machines located on every platform and via the touch screen enter your destination. Doesn’t cost you a cent, but it does help AT to understand the way we move around our city which is, I guess, how they’re going to be planning the future. The best thing however would be for you to invest in an AT Hop Card and to have your Gold Card concession applied to it via the AT Hop offices (Britomart, Newmarket, New Lynn and Papakura); then all you will have to do is tag on and off. Simple.

      1. Christopher T, your last suggestion is an excellent idea as it means a Gold Card holder can also readily travel prior to the concession time (9am?), provided of course he or she has loaded a few dollars onto the HOP card for that purpose.

  10. My radical solution is to employ ticket-sellers on the train, just like previously.

    Last time I was in town I had a family pass so didn’t need to pay at Britomart. The next train was leaving in 4 minutes when we got there, so we would have been delayed if we had to queue up to buy tickets. Absolute madness. Of course, no-one checked any tickets on that train.

    These pretend Police do not have the power to demand ID. They can request it and you just refuse. Do you seriously think they will grab your wallet? Unbelieveable that people don’t know their basic rights.

    1. For that matter, real Police can’t demand ID from someone on foot unless they already have grounds to arrest him.

        1. Or occupying? I didn’t know that, I thought it was just the driver, who obviously also has to also produce his licence on demand as well, if the vehicle is something that requires a licence.

    2. Indeed, if they have decided to keep onboard staff checking tickets, they may as well just sell them as well. Every other town and city gives you the option of a pre-purchased ticket or an onboard sale, and so should Auckland.

  11. Hi this is unrelated but I’ve heard no news and I don’t know where to find any information on this subject. So apparently buses were supposed to have AT Hop cards phased in this month. Has this happened at all? I just recently got both a purple Hop card and an AT Hop card, but I don’t know which one I should top up at the moment as I only use buses. I take Auckland and North Shore buses such as NEX, 881, 891X, 905, 891, e.t.c. Should I be topping up my purple card or AT card?

    1. AT HOP machines have been spotted on NEX buses. The level of information put out by AT about the bus rollout is consistent with their ability to communicate on any other issue: utterly, utterly useless.

      1. I heard some NEX bus have the new and the old installed (note old is not snapper as they aren’t NZBus). There are some user interface issues from the drivers perspective so assume they will want this fixed before the full roll out.

        1. All NEX have ritchies cards still, all nz bus have snapper.

          All NEX have had AT readers installed but they are still being tested.

          Asked the driver and the Albany ticket office today, both suggested that May is the likely roll out time.

    2. NEX are going to be first – not sure how close but probably a month at least.

      The others will follow in a staged roll out with NZBus being last. I’d top up your snapper hop now and do the AT hop once installed as you will still need the snapper one for a while.

  12. Mayor Giuliani introduced zero tolerance to subway fare evasion and other minor crimes in the 90s, based on the broken windows theory, with considerable success. The main criticism was that petty crimes are not worth pursuing, while the counter argument is that small crimes lead to bigger crimes. It has been suggested on this blog that school children are major fare-evaders, so if successful are encouraged to flout the law further, ie their behaviour is reinforced. In New York under this policy both petty and more serious crime dropped spectacularly almost immediately. Sadly, NZ seems to be a nation of crim-huggers so I don’t see any mayor or even police commissioner following up on this any time soon.

    1. We had stern words with our own intermediate school age kids when we noticed how long it took for the balance on their HOP cards to fall and realised that they were (like most of their mates) not tagging on and off. They seem to have reformed now – but it’s definitely important that they be made to see that not paying = stealing, and isn’t just ‘a laugh’. I’m sure lots of other kids think they’re idiots for paying, but so it goes.

      Meanwhile, the real problem as noted many times is the ludicrous largely ungated system. I simply don’t buy the argument that nearly all passengers are caught by gates at New Lynn, Newmarket and Britomart. On the Western Line there are large numbers of riders entering and/or exiting in the mornings at Mt Albert, Baldwin Ave, Kingsland, and Grafton, and that’s only the part of the network I am aware of.

      In the absence of gates, it is hard to imagine an affordable enforcement regime that is legally watertight and recourse to the police is a non-starter. Can you imagine the outrage if police were taken off more important duties to hand out fines on public transport?! (Justifiable outrage, I might add)

      If it’s true that Veolia get paid regardless of how they go about collecting fares then that seems like something that could be changed that might improve matters.

    2. If you read more than just the hype you’ll find that experts are very divided on whether it was “Broken Windows” that actually had the major effect. Experts being criminologists and others who study criminal behaviour for a living.There was certainly a significant decline in crime in NYC that coincided with the policy’s introduction, but just as with the rest of the Western world NYC was also starting to see the effects of an aging population (older people just aren’t big on being serious criminals) – effects that are also being seen in NZ, the attempts by politicians to claim credit notwithstanding.

      1. New York’s murder rate has dropped from about 25 in 1990 to 5 per 100,000 with similar decreases for other major & minor crimes. While the ‘Broken Windows’ philosophy isn’t the entire reason for the drop this was the major change at the time so it deserves credit as does Mayor Giuliani.

        1. It’s a huge bow to draw that a policy change targeting the bottom end of offending had a significant impact across all offending. Hence why there’s such dubiousness. Particularly since other areas of the US have seen big drops without such policies.

  13. In a closed/barrier-based system such as London Underground, you obviously have few problems, although if you DO try to scam the system (buses especially), you end up with a criminal record, a fact that they advertise prominently. Open systems (such as the one I use in Germany) depend on occasional enforcement and rigorously enforced penalties. You’re (ahem… “one is”) taken off the train, details taken down, €80 fine. Get caught frequently and you end up in court. Lovely short film from the 1990s on the subject. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=il2wnw5CgLI

    1. I always paid in London. It wasn’t ever an issue because I always had a monthly ticket. However I was out in a group once when one of my friends found she’d left her monthly pass at home. She tail gated one of us. The gate staff noticed and called out to her. She ignored them, carried on, and nothing happened. I suspect that it isn’t worth pressing this sort of matter for ticket staff. They’re not trained for a physical encounter and why would they want to mess up their day with a potentially bad situation. The London Underground TV series that was available a couple of years ago showed a group of ticket inspectors who do investigations seriously using CCTV and Oyster Card tracking. They know where their targets are likely to be and are ready for them, and they’re quite happy to handle the situation if it gets violent.

      1. If you are caught on CCTV evading fares then you are liable to be criminally prosecuted.
        No presumption of guilt there.

        1. No, CCTV cameras do not prove intent. You need to go to court and have a judge and jury decide that. Why do you think that out of tens of thousands of people who have evaded paying the Northern gateway road toll, only ONE person has been prosecuted? You MUST prove intent in New Zealand, and you MUST do it through the courts. Applying this process to train fare evasion would cost tens of millions per year. Much easier to stick with the simple rule “pay the onboard fare or get off at the next station”.

      2. That’s bull Geoff, we have exactly the same legal principles as England. We imported our legal system from there. If they can do it in London they can do it here.

        1. No, we don’t have the same legal doctrine at all. No two countries have exactly the same legal doctrine. An example: Shoplifting is equally illegal in NZ and the US, but in NZ you cannot prosecute a shoplifter you stop instore, whereas in the US you can. Equally illegal, but the ability to prosecute is determined not by laws, but by legal doctrine. The same principles that prevent prosecution of a shoplifter stopped instore will also stop prosecution of a road toll evader or train fare evader in NZ. That’s why only one out of 14,000 road toll evaders at Orewa has ever been prosecuted. They only got him because he admitted it.

  14. Why is everything to do with Auckland transport like reinventing the wheel? There are plenty of overseas examples of ways to mitigate fare evasion, it’s pretty simple. Broadly a ‘fare paid zone’ system with rigourous enforcement if you step over the line w/o a ticket, i.e. consequences. Or else a gated system, with more random inspections, CCTV etc.
    As for the issues with sale of tickets really?
    The swiss system has a mobile app where you can make the purchase on your phone, charge to c/c, it generates a barcode for scanning. How easy is that, very little capital outlay required also. And we can’t be that many years away from NFC making it even easier.

    Why does everything have to be made so difficult. Oh we can’t do this ….. can’t do that, etc etc etc

  15. “The Swiss system has a mobile app where you can make the purchase on your phone, charge to c/c, it generates a barcode for scanning.”
    Exactly. The Northern Gateway Toll Road is a classic example. If I can pay for parking in AKL via SMS, why can’t I pay my toll via SMS? “Txt your registration to 1234” Just so simple.

    1. Hmmm… maybe it’s the potential for encouraging people for texting while driving?

      I still don’t understand anyone who used the road more than twice – why they wouldn’t set up an account. So many people just constantly whine about the system, but the reality is that it’s the best system there is for tolling. No booths, no loose change, no transponders… I’ve travelled a bit and I can vouch for it. I use the road maybe 5-10 times in a year, and I have account. I never had a problem with it. Others, who attempt to pay by cash or via telephone always seem to be in the news… Pathetic.

  16. I overheard some people on the train one day discussing how he simply prints a ticket each day with the date altered and gets away with it (and has done for quite some time), since the tickets contain no barcode they’re easy to fake. If you have similar looking paper it’s quite easy to fool the guards with an at home printed ticket.

    1. Tried the idea BBC proposed this morning, worked a treat.
      Have already printed off next months train journeys this morning.
      Thanks BBC. will pass this on to everyone I know.
      Genius

      1. It’s scum like you Dave that is the reason we need to have Police on trains. Preferably armed with a bad attitude and a desire for doling out some physical punishment. People making liver livered appologetic comments on this website are also part of the problem. In my day growing up in S A if we were caught messing around an adult would give us a bloody good hiding. It’s not rocket science, rough up the fare dodges a couple of times, the message will soon spread.

      2. Riding the train without paying isn’t a crime in itself, and if you’re caught you’ll probably just be warned or thrown off the train. But counterfeiting tickets is “dishonestly using a document” – i.e. fraud. You’d get a criminal record, and depending on the scale of the offending you could even get prison time. And here you are confessing on the Internet. Smooth. Maybe quit while you’re ahead, eh?

  17. From what I am reading here it seems the train operator does not deserve to be paid. They should invest in a better system, and stop wasting police time!

  18. AT will work out how to run a small rail network over time. They’ll be a fair bit of pain involved in the process. I hope the inspection army doesn’t chase commuters away in the meantime.

    More helpfully, I wonder if this 50% fare recovery isn’t making life more difficult. If the perception is that train fares are not cheap in Auckland then the policy may be contributing to evasion.

    1. The only people who should be “chased away” are those who aren’t paying for journeys at present. All the law-abiding folks should be cheering loudly. If the only reason people use public transport is that they’ve figured out how to do it for free (ignoring those who are legally allowed to do so), we don’t actually want them as passengers.

  19. as for asking a police office to step up and help if there is someone not paying we have had police on board they show there badges for the free ride but dont step up when something happens with a fare evader

    1. It’s not the place of the New Zealand Police to enforce the rules of a private company, and it never will be. If a Police Officer attempted to do so, they would face a disciplinary hearing and could be sacked.

  20. I know someone who caught a train with their children the other day after a long time using them – had no idea about HOP at all
    and got on the train – they were not stopped and spent the time wondering why no-one came around to sell them a ticket. When they went for the return journey they realised ohh shit
    I was supposed to pay prior ………ironically the ticket booth at that end was not working !!!!!!!! This person is highly honest – so a genuine mistake – as a former but now not regular PT user (since kids) and not one to watch the news she had not realised and was a bit mortified when she did. Anyway I say they cannot be too hard-line if they cannot keep their booths functional – to be quite honest I am the sort of person who would probably never even hop on the train if I could not buy a valid ticket prior- and it annoys me that these new ticket machines seem to have regular issues as its an inconvenience to me if I cannot board the train as the machine is not working. I am sure I will get many disagreements but seriously – the positioning also of some of the ticket machines have been called into question by older people I know as a long walk at ome stations, and 1 booth per station is a bit poor if they are not working. Use some of the revenue gathered from evaders to put back into maintenance of the system. Personally too can they put more booths at britomart ? I have queued there several times for 10-15 mins with some machines out of order and that is in the middle of the day – both times I missed a train due to it – 4 machines is not a lot given the numbers of people through there. To get people to use PT and to pay to use PT then there needs to be a commitment to making paying and using as easy, practical and reliable as possible not just penalties. WOULD be good to see AT set up some focus groups with users to get feedback on how they could make their new ticketing system all of those things – ironing out the teething problems etc.

    1. Availability and location of machines is definitely an issue – esp at Britomart. Given the relatively low traffic on the Auckland rail system the queues for tickets at Britomart are absurd.

  21. Auckland transport is fucking shit in every way possible, but especially their ass busses alongside incompetent drivers that almost always fail to arrive on time. What’s more is I just happened to HOP aboard one of the poorly managed buses (that needless to say was 10 minutes late) to find out my newly purchased HOP card ($15) doesn’t work. Get with it AT, your still as shit as ever, and until changes begin to occur, I would recommend not paying for this inadequate service, as New Zealand legislation allows you to do so without it being an offence. They steel your time, so by all means feel no wrong-doing in riding for free

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *