ScotRail reveals how many extra train journeys have been paid for on eve of new £10 minimum fares
New move to cut fare dodging and anti-social behaviour starts on Wednesday
ScotRail has announced a significant reduction in fare dodging on the eve of hitting passengers who travel without tickets with £10 minimum fares.
Scotland's main train operator said publicity over the impending move had prompted passengers to buy tickets for more than 36,000 journeys for which they would not previously have paid.
The new minimum fare will be introduced on Wednesday after a three-month "period of education", and follows The Scotsman revealing last August that ScotRail was considering the move.
It will mean passengers caught travelling on some short journeys without a ticket having to pay significantly more than their normal fare if it is less than £10.
Passengers likely to be most affected are those on the suburban network in the Glasgow area - the largest outside London - where many journeys cost less than £10.
ScotRail gave as an example a return ticket between Bishopbriggs and Glasgow costing £3 - less than a third of what those making the trip without a ticket will face having to pay.
The Scottish Government-owned operator said the 36,000 journeys were among 743,000 extra journeys taken by passengers with a ticket bought before travelling during the education phase.
It said: “The data suggests at least 36,000 of those journeys would have been taken by people dodging their fare and deliberately avoiding paying.”
The new policy applies to passengers who have boarded trains at stations with ticket-buying facilities, such as an open ticket office or working ticket machines.
It comes as the latest crackdown on “fare evasion” which is estimated to cost ScotRail more than £11 million a year.
However, the move is also seen as likely to reduce anti-social behaviour which ScotRail said is “often linked” to people travelling without tickets.
ScotRail said its revenue protection team recovered around £2m a year, helping to cut ticketless travel from 8.8 per cent in April 2022 to 2.6 per cent.
It said independent analysis of ticketless travel showed many such passengers could have bought one before boarding.
The study found station ticket offices were open in 74 per cent of cases, while 90 per cent of journeys involved stations with working ticket vending machines.
ScotRail said minimum fares would not apply for certain concession tickets, some ticket offers such as Kids for a Quid and where passengers have disabilities preventing them from using ticket machines or accessing booking offices.
Customer operations director Phil Campbell said: “We want to say thank you to customers who have learned from our education campaign prior to the minimum fare being introduced on July 1.
“We know most people are honest and pay the correct fare but the minority who don’t are costing the railway millions of pounds each year.
“There are lots of different ways customers can pay for their ticket before they start their journey, and ScotRail staff will continue to help people understand how to do this.
“The success of our new policy will not be measured by the number of minimum fares we hand out, but by the amount of people who buy a ticket before getting on board a train.”