Fare evasion is costing the New South Wales transport system a lot of money. Some people simply fail to buy a ticket, but checks by the newly appointed " Transport Officers " reveal a cunning ploy to avoid detection when ticket checks are in operation. Some travellers buy a " concession " ticket to which they are not entitled, but which sends the right signal when they pass through a point where ticket scrutiny is operating. In a short space of time, demanding to see the authority for concession use has resulted in 1,834 people being fined $ 200 for falsely travelling on an invalid rail ticket. This scam is much greater than the rail authorities realised.
It has been decided that the concession button on all ticket machines will be disabled. Legitimate concession ticket users will be required to present themselves at the ticket window to buy a ticket and they will have to show the correct concession authority to the ticket seller for that to be issued.
This is a heavy handed solution to the problem. It ignores the fact that many stations are unattended and others only have a ticket seller on duty at peak times. The very nature of automatic ticket machines was supposed to overcome this deficiency and speed up the ticket process. It seems inevitable that some people entitled to a concession fare will find it impossible to obtain a legal ticket unless they pay full fare. We already have existing problems when malfunctioning ticket machines fail to issue tickets and this leads to confrontation between travellers and transport officers. Transport officers tend to disbelieve such claims.
The logical solution would be for the concession traveller who had to pay full fare to present at the ticket office at the station of destination and present both the ticket and the concession authority for a refund. The problem with that solution is that it could introduce a new scam where discarded tickets are used to gain a financial benefit. It opens an avenue of claim that would be hard to discredit.
Closing off the concession button on ticket machines is probably an over reaction. Many concession holders may lack sufficient funds to pay for a full fare ticket and the sheer inconvienience will not make rail travel more polular. It makes more sense to utilise the new technology coming on line to make concession fare cheating too risky to contemplate.
The " Opal " card seems certain to replace banknotes as the way tickets will be purchased by most people and the new turnstyle gates at stations not only " reads " the nature of tickets presented, but alerts station staff by illuminating a coloured light whenever a concession ticket passes through the machine. It is not necessary to inspect all tickets to identify concession ticket travellers - and obviously a healthy looking young person travelling on a concession ticket would alert a transport officer to conduct a concession authority inspection. In that manner, a small number of ticket inspectors could make using that scam unrewarding.
It is a fact of life that otherwise law abiding people will be tempted to save money if the odds of getting away with it is heavily in their favour. Once the risk ratio moves to the other side of the scale, the risk is no longer worth the small amount saved - and the practice is discontinued.
Making that concession button inoperative is similar to taking a sledge hammer to crack a walnut. There are other - and better - ways available !.
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