Fare dodgers pay up £500,000, rail firm says

EMR said prosecutions were only started when passengers repeatedly refused to pay fares and fines

East Midlands Railway (EMR) has recovered nearly £500,000 from fare dodgers, the company has said.

The company runs trains on routes from Nottingham, Leicester and Derby to London and also serves the Lincolnshire coast.

EMR said in the past 10 months staff had issued 9,642 penalty notices and it had successfully prosecuted 1,470 cases of continued refusal to pay.

These actions helped reduce costs for taxpayers, the firm added.

Fines increased

Fines and prosecutions were made for a number of reasons, including travelling without a valid ticket, fraudulently travelling on a child's ticket, and travelling beyond the destination of their ticket.

Neil Grabham, customer services director at East Midlands Railway, said: "The vast majority of our customers always buy a ticket, and they understand that for the railway to successfully operate, improve, and secure investment, fares need to be paid for.

"Sadly though, there are a minority of determined people who always look to evade paying or look for ways to work the system.

"We have recently added to our revenue protection teams and created a totally new fraud team, all of whom will be doing everything they can to reduce ticketless travel and hold persistent offenders to account.''

Earlier this week it was announced the penalty for dodging rail fares in England would rise from £20 to £100 in January.