Instant fine for fare dodgers call
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ON-THE-SPOT fines to curb fare-dodging in buses and trains, are put forward by Mr Ronald Cox, director-general of the Greater Glasgow Passenger Transport Executive in a report to Strathclyde Regional Council highways committee.
He said last week : "Fraudulent travel by passengers deprives public transport operators of an unknown but large amount of revenue every year."
At present, a bus inspector or a railway ticket checker can only require a passenger to purchase a ticket for the journey he is making—there i's no penalty for the attempt to defraud.
"The situation would be improved considerably by the introduction of a system by which inspectors and ticket checkers could impose a fine on the offending passenger on the spot," he added.
Mr Cox, whose report will be considered by the committee this week, said that one of the causes of high costs of operation and poor use of resources was the heavily peaked nature of urban bus and rail traffic.
A solution, which has been tried with success in some foreign cities, was to stagger starting and finishing times. But to achieve this, a strong lead would have to be given by central and local government, which has been lacking so far.