"Stephen Furley" wrote in message
...
On May 24, 8:48 am, "Peter Masson" wrote:
"CJB" wrote in message

...

There is increasing concern that traincos serving London (and
eslewhere around the country) are refusing to accept cash as payment
for tickets from their automatic ticket machines.

This is causing massive disrupution to potential customers especially
those youngsters who do not have a credit card, or in London those
whose Oyster card has run out and cannot be topped up. This situation
also disadvantages thousands of tourists who expect to be able to
purchase train tickets from machines with cash.

In the greater London area the National Rail stations are in what is
termed a 'Penalty Fare Zone.' Travelling within this zone without a
ticket can incur a huge penalty fine. If tickets cannot be purchased
for travel within this zone - even if the automatic ticket machines
are u/s - then 'Permit to Travel' tickets are supposed to be purchased
from another machine for a nominal amount of cash. These tickets then
make the travel legal. The balance of the fare is then supposed to be
paid at the destination. These are the ONLY tickets available for cash
- well used to be.

However despite PTTs being a legal requirement in the Penalty Fare
Zone(s) the Permits to Travel ticket issuing machines are frequently
switched off, or have been removed altogether.

Notices clearly displayed at most stations state that it is a legal
requirement to purchase these special PTT tickets. Yet many (most /
all?) traincos have closed down or removed the PTT machines.

So what is the legal situation whereas the requirement is to purchase
these PTT tickets, yet the machines that issue them have been removed?

Both the National Rail National Conditions of Carriage and the TfL Railway
Byelaws make it clear that the requirement to hold a ticket in a Penalty
Fare Area / Compulsory Ticket Area do not apply if, at the station where
the
passenger commenced his journey, there was no ticket office open and no
ticket machine in full working order.

Peter

What does 'full working order' mean? If there is a machine which
normally takes cash and cards but at that time is taking cards only
would this be considered to be not in full working order? If another
station had a machine which was only designed to take cards, and was
in full working order, then the situation would effectively be the
same as at the other station, where the machine may, or may not, be
considered to be in full working order.


I take full working order to mean that it can take cash payments in coins or
notes and give change. If it is designed also to take cards but can't it's
again not in full working order, as a passenger can reasonably expect to use
a card and may not have the requisite cash available. In either of these
circumstances I would expect a penalty fare, if issued, to be cancelled, and
I can't see a TOC or TfL daring to proceed with a prosecution as the
magistrates would make their representative look extremely small.

Peter

ian batten wrote in news:4e48f480-cbaf-4680-
:

As I explain above, legal tender is irrelevant to this
debate, as a debt doesn't exist at the point of payment.

If you offer payment, they're not going to take you to court owing to their
own failures, regardless of what the law may or may not say. They'd risk
having a judge throw the matter out as an abuse and being told to find a
better hobby.

--

Praise be to Jahbulon, holy god of Royal Arch Freemasons

On May 24, 2:39*pm, Jahbulon wrote:
ian batten wrote in news:4e48f480-cbaf-4680-
:

As I explain above, legal tender is irrelevant to this
debate, as a debt doesn't exist at the point of payment.

If you offer payment, they're not going to take you to court owing to their
own failures,

Perhaps. As I said "There are other reasons why this might not get to
court, but that isn't one of them. "

However, the Penalty Fares system quite clearly says "If you are
unable to purchase a Permit to Travel, you should obtain a ticket from
the Conductor on the train or at the first opportunity.". Are there
any PF areas which also use one-man operation? Of late, I've become
more casual about buying a ticket if there's a train stood at the
platform ready to go, because on the lines I use the conductors are
pleasant, relaxed and perfectly willing to sell me a ticket. They
take cash and cards.

ian

But this is slightly different to the situation which I described.
What happens if there are two station, one of which has a machine
which is designed to take only cards, and another station has a
machine which is designed to take both cards but due to some defect is
not able to take cash at that time? The facility then provided at
both stations is effectively the same, though while one machine is
fully working it could be argued that the other one wasn't. A
passenger couldn't be expected to know in advance what type of
machines were installed; they might never have used that station
before.

The son of somebody I know was challenged on a train for not having a
Travelcard. He replied that there was no facility to buy one at the
station where he boarded and was then told that there were newsagents
etc. not far from the station, and he should have gone there to buy
one before boarding the train.

In article
,
ian batten wrote:

On May 24, 10:50*am, Jahbulon wrote:
CJB wrote in news:16c6322c-bb02-45fb-af28-
:

So what is the legal situation whereas the requirement
is to purchase these PTT tickets, yet the machines that
issue them have been removed?

Having offered legal tender for a ticket, they would not be sufficiently
stupid to take the matter to court.

As I explain above, legal tender is irrelevant to this debate, as a
debt doesn't exist at the point of payment. There are other reasons
why this might not get to court, but that isn't one of them.

Though presumably a debt exists once the passenger travels on the train.
The debate then would be whether it should be treated as a simple debt
or an attempt to defraud punishable by a PF (which might be a fare or
might be a punitive fine levied under railway byelaws.)

Sam

--
The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.

On May 24, 3:03*pm, Sam Wilson wrote:

The debate then would be whether it should be treated as a simple debt
or an attempt to defraud punishable by a PF (which might be a fare or
might be a punitive fine levied under railway byelaws.)

In law? The latter. In practice? Who knows?

Suppose you turn up at a shop wanting a bag of crisps, and they tell
you that they only accept credit cards. You only have cash, so simply
take a bag of crisps and walk out of the shop. What's your legal
position?

Now the situation surrounding tickets is more complex, but you do not
have a right to board a train without either holding a ticket or
following whatever process is required for travel without a ticket (in
most cases, "get on board but find the conductor" works fine and
avoids all the excitement). You may think that the hoops erected by
the travel company are unreasonable (means of payment, for example),
but that's not a justification in law for ticketless travel. It
might be a reason for franchise agreements to be consulted,
politicians who provide subsidy to get excited and other longer-term
solutions, but at the point of travel, if the operator demands to be
paid with a card (or even, vide Olympics booking, a particular sort of
card) then you don't have a leg to stand on.

As with the endless wittering from people with objections to direct
debits and the removal of the cheque guarantee scheme, the legal
position is perfectly simple: vendors can insist on a particular mode
of payment (modulo situations that don't apply here, like breaches of
the 1725 Truck Act and its successors) and can charge differentially
for different modes of payment. It may be bad business, bad PR, bad
politics, bad marketing and bad common sense, but it isn't illegal.

ian

On May 24, 3:46*pm, ian batten wrote:
On May 24, 2:39*pm, Jahbulon wrote:

ian batten wrote in news:4e48f480-cbaf-4680-
:

As I explain above, legal tender is irrelevant to this
debate, as a debt doesn't exist at the point of payment.

If you offer payment, they're not going to take you to court owing to their
own failures,

Perhaps. *As I said "There are other reasons why this might not get to
court, but that isn't one of them. "

However, the Penalty Fares system quite clearly says "If you are
unable to purchase a Permit to Travel, you should obtain a ticket from
the Conductor on the train or at the first opportunity.". * *Are there
any PF areas which also use one-man operation?

Yes, lots. Much of London suburbia is served by driver only trains in
PF areas. Such areas also often suffer from ticket machine vandalism
and irregular ticket office opening times.

Robin

On May 24, 2:51*pm, Stephen Furley wrote:

What happens if there are two station, one of which has a machine
which is designed to take only cards

Then it is in full working order if it only accepts cards, although
it's not clear that such machines exist. Cranks who don't carry debit
cards are an increasingly irrelevant portion of society and, rather
like people who complain about processes which require a mobile phone,
there comes a point where it is unreasonable for the rest of us to
subsidise them. Collecting money from coin-operated machines is
savagely expensive, and makes the machines targets for theft.

The son of somebody I know was challenged on a train for not having a
Travelcard. *He replied that there was no facility to buy one at the
station where he boarded and was then told that there were newsagents
etc. not far from the station, and he should have gone there to buy
one before boarding the train.

It's unlikely that RPIs know the law any more than policemen do (cf.
the endless photography debate). Section 2 of the Conditions of
Carriage makes it absolutely clear that the only places you have to
buy a ticket from, if possible, are an open ticket office or a TVM.
You don't have to go and look elsewhere. However, if you boarded a
train without a ticket, made no effort to find the conductor, and got
gripped some time later, then fairly obvious inferences can be drawn
about your intent to pay.

ian

On May 24, 3:24*pm, bob wrote:

Yes, lots. *Much of London suburbia is served by driver only trains in
PF areas. *Such areas also often suffer from ticket machine vandalism
and irregular ticket office opening times.

A situation which is crying out for a handy, credit-card sized object
that you can purchase in many locations and use as a ticket.

ian

"ian batten" wrote in message
...
On May 24, 2:51 pm, Stephen Furley wrote:

What happens if there are two station, one of which has a machine
which is designed to take only cards

Then it is in full working order if it only accepts cards, although
it's not clear that such machines exist.

In the SWT area, there are a fair proportion of card only machines, but
AFAIAA only where multiple machines are fitted alongside one another. IMX
when there is only one machine it is card and cash, but I have heard of
remote areas of FGW's network where the dual machines were initially
installed but the cash option subsequently removed after to repeated theft
attempts..

Paul S