Rail firm losing £45.5m revenue from fare evasion

South Western Railway operates services in London, Surrey, Hampshire, Berkshire, Dorset, Devon, Somerset and Wiltshire

An estimated £45.5m of annual revenue is being lost from passengers not paying for tickets, South Western Railway (SWR) has said.

The data was released after a campaign group submitted a Freedom of Information request to SWR, which said the overall rate of ticketless travel was about 3.9%.

The rail operator runs services in London, Surrey, Hampshire, Berkshire, Dorset, Devon, Somerset and Wiltshire.

An SWR spokesperson said: "Our revenue protection team is focused on effectively deterring fare evasion and bringing down the rate of ticketless travel."

It said ticketless travel had reduced by 40% since 2017 and was now at its lowest ever level.

The figure appears to be £5m higher than what SWR said in May, while across the rail industry in the UK, it is estimated fare evasion costs nearly £240m a year.

The Freedom of Information request also said that SWR spent more than £370,000 reimbursing passengers for hotels and taxis due to delays and cancellations.

Additionally, 7,293 trains in the last year were short formed and had fewer carriages than planned, due to train faults and other issues.

South Western Railway was the first company to be renationalised by the Labour government in May

Jeremy Varns, who is part of the SWR Watch travel group which campaigns for improved rail services, said he believed the service had got worse since May, when it became the first to be renationalised by the Labour government.

He said: "My primary concern is a lack of accountability.

"There's still no publicly accessible contract between the operator and government and Department for Transport."

SWR said it was in a transitional arrangement and subject to amendments.

It added that a copy of the final Service Agreement would be published in due course.

'Duty of care'

Mr Varns added: "It's crucial that people have a positive experience when using the railway.

"SWR also needs to ensure that operational decisions are not made at the expense of passengers who have already been inconvenienced.

"Station skipping continues to occur too often."

The SWR spokesperson said it had a "duty of care to customers, and in times of significant disruption, we make every effort to ensure customers can complete their journeys".

"In line with the National Rail Conditions of Travel, we are obliged to provide customers with alternative means of travel to their destination, such as refundable taxis, or to provide overnight accommodation where we reasonably can," they added.

The firm added that 0.18% of services were short formed in the last 12 months and the new trains would add resilience to the current fleet.