A penalty fare, standard fare, or fixed penalty notice is a special, usually higher, fare charged because a passenger using public transport did not comply with the normal ticket purchasing rules. It should not be confused with an unpaid fares notice.
Penalty fares are incurred when a ticket or a rail pass cannot be produced on request. If, for example a mobile device is inoperative and the ticket cannot be displayed a penalty fare can be issued.
Contrary to popular belief, penalty fares cannot solely be avoided if tickets are purchased before commencing the journey; the offence under the (British) Railway Byelaws has nothing to do with purchase of tickets, it consists solely in the failure to produce a ticket and, where necessary a rail pass, at the time of request. Evidence of ticket purchase other than the ticket itself, is not relevant to the offence.
Penalty fares are a civil debt, not a fine, and a person whose penalty fare is paid is not considered to have committed a criminal offence. Penalty fares are used to discourage casual fare evasion and disregard for the ticketing rules without resorting to (in the case of railways in Great Britain) the drastic and costly step of prosecution under the Regulation of Railways Act 1889 or other laws dealing with theft and fraud. More egregious fare avoiders can still be prosecuted and fined or imprisoned if convicted.
Situation by country United Kingdom National Rail services in Great Britain History and legal status
Penalty fares were first introduced on British Rail's Network SouthEast services under the British Rail (Penalty Fares) Act 1989 (c. xvii). Over time they have been extended to cover many parts of the National Rail network. Initially the penalty fare was set at £10 or twice the full single fare to the next station (whichever was higher) in addition to the full single fare for the rest of the journey. In respect of England the amount is £100 plus the full single fare applicable, reduced to £50 plus that fare if paid before the end of the period of 21 days beginning with the day after the penalty fare was charged; no account is taken of time spent on appeal in calculating that period. Those amounts were substituted for England by the Railways (Penalty Fares) (Amendment) Regulations 2022 with effect from 23 January 2023; in Wales the amount remains £20 or twice the full single fare applicable, whichever is greater.
Penalty fares on the National Rail network are authorised by section 130 of the Railways Act 1993 and are governed by the Railways (Penalty Fares) Regulations 2018, which came into force on 6 April 2018 and revoked the Railways (Penalty Fares) Regulations 1994 and the Penalty Fares Rules made under them. The Regulations do not apply to services provided under a Scottish franchise agreement, to Scotland-only services, or to services provided by Transport for London or its subsidiaries. A penalty fare may be charged whether or not the passenger intended to travel without paying.
From January 2023, following a public consultation, the Department for Transport increased the penalty fare to £100 in England plus the cost of the unpaid ticket, under the Railways (Penalty Fares) (Amendment) Regulations 2022 (SI 2022/1094). This is reduced to £50 plus the cost of the ticket if paid within 21 days.
Operation
Penalty fares can only be issued by authorised collectors, commonly known as revenue protection inspectors (RPIs), either on the train or at the destination station. Some RPIs receive commission on each penalty issued. RPIs are different from regular train conductors, who cannot issue penalty fares. Passengers unable to pay the fare on the spot are allowed to pay within 21 days.
Where a collector proposes to charge a penalty fare, the passenger must give their name and address, and in England their date of birth, when required to do so; failing to do so is an offence punishable on summary conviction by a fine not exceeding level 2 on the standard scale. The date-of-birth requirement was added for England with effect from 23 January 2023.
Penalty fares cannot be issued in some circumstances, including: if passengers were unable to purchase a ticket due to faulty ticket machines or closed ticket offices, if warning notices are not displayed correctly, if the train or station is excluded from a penalty fares scheme, or if the National Rail Conditions of Carriage allow an excess fare to be paid.
RPIs can use their discretion not to give penalty fares to passengers who may have greater difficulty in purchasing tickets e.g. elderly, disabled or pregnant passengers, those with learning difficulties, or those who do not understand English.
Penalty Fares are only operated by certain Train Operating Companies (TOCs), these include C2C, Chiltern Railways, East Midlands Railway, Govia Thameslink Railway (including Southern, Gatwick Express, Thameslink and Great Northern), Greater Anglia, Great Western Railway, Merseyrail, Northern, Southeastern, South Western Railway, TransPennine Express(Excluding Scotland), Transport for Wales (Between Shrewsbury and Birmingham and Carmarthen and Severn Tunnel Junction only) and West Midlands Trains (includes London Northwestern Railway and West Midlands Trains)
Appeals An operator may not charge penalty fares at all unless it has arranged for an Appeal Panel and a Final Appeal Panel to hear appeals against them and has agreed to meet the cost of those appeals; a penalty fare charged when the operator does not satisfy those requirements is not payable. A body may act as an Appeal Panel only if it is managerially and organisationally independent of any operator and of any affiliate of an operator, and a Final Appeal Panel must in addition be independent of the panels that heard the earlier stages.
There are three stages. A first-stage appeal must reach the Appeal Panel within 21 days of the day after the penalty fare was charged; a second-stage appeal within 14 days of receiving the first decision; and a final-stage appeal to the Final Appeal Panel within 14 days of receiving the second. Appeals must be made in writing, and a panel must decide within 21 days of receiving one.
The grounds of appeal are exhaustive: that the penalty fare was not charged in accordance with the Regulations; that the appellant is not the person liable to pay it; that the appellant holds a season ticket valid for the journey but did not have it at the time; or that there are compelling reasons why the appellant should not be liable in the particular circumstances. A panel that finds a ground made out must allow the appeal, and one that does not must refuse it; there is no general discretion. Where the appellant makes representations about certain factual matterswhich train they were on, where they boarded and intended to alight, and whether the exceptions in the Regulations appliedit is for the operator to provide evidence reasonably demonstrating that the appellant's account is untrue.
If a panel allows an appeal, or fails to decide within its 21 days, the appellant is not liable to pay the penalty fare, and any amount already paid must be refunded within ten working days. For penalty fares charged at the England rates, however, the appellant remains liable for the full single fare for the journey.
Lodging a first-stage appeal also restricts prosecution: proceedings for the offences listed in the Regulationsincluding those under section 5(3)(a) and (b) of the Regulation of Railways Act 1889, the railway byelaws, and in England section 11 of the Fraud Act 2006may then be brought for the same failure to produce a ticket only if the operator cancels the penalty fare before the panel decides or its time expires.
Appeals are administered for the train operators by two companies: Penalty Services Ltd, which hears appeals for operators including East Midlands Railway, Govia Thameslink Railway, Merseyrail, Northern, Southeastern, TransPennine Express, Transport for Wales, South Western Railway and the Tyne and Wear Metro, and the Appeal Service, operated by ITAL Group Limited, which also trades as the payment and collection service IRCAS. A passenger dissatisfied with the handling of an appeal may raise it with Transport Focus or London TravelWatch, neither of which can overturn the decision.
A notice headed "Unpaid Fare Notice" is not a penalty fare and is not issued under the Regulations at all: it is a contractual notice raised under the operator's own conditions of carriage, so the exhaustive grounds, the independent panels, the reversed burden of proof and the time limits described above do not apply to it, and the statutory appeal route is not open to the person who receives one.
Compulsory ticket areas Some penalty fares schemes include stations with compulsory ticket areas (CTAs), in which people without valid tickets or other authorities may be charged a penalty fare even if they have not travelled and if they do not intend to travel. These include Amersham, Aylesbury, Beaconsfield, Birmingham Moor Street, Birmingham Snow Hill, Chalfont and Latimer, Chorleywood, Derby, Ealing Broadway, Gerrards Cross, Greenford TfL station, Harrow on the Hill, High Wycombe, Leicester, London Marylebone, London St Pancras, Maidenhead, Nottingham, Rickmansworth, Sheffield, South Ruislip
Transport For London services
The London Regional Transport (Penalty Fares) Act 1992 and the Greater London Authority Act 1999 allows Transport for London to charge penalty fares under similar but not identical rules to those on National Rail services.
Initially, the maximum penalty fare was set at £10 (£5 on buses and trams) or twice the full single fare to the next station (whichever is higher) in addition to the full single fare for the rest of the journey. It was later raised to £20 for all transport modes.
On 11 January 2009, it was further raised to £50 on TfL services (Docklands Light Railway, the Emirates Air Line, London Buses, Tramlink, London Overground and London Underground) although like many other civil penalties in the UK, a 50% discount is applied for early payments (within 21 days). On 2 January 2012, all TfL modes have had a penalty fare of £80. From 4 March 2024, the penalty fare for all TfL services was raised from £80 to £100.
Light rail systems In addition to the London services mentioned above, penalty fares apply on several other tram and metro systems in Great Britain, including the Midland Metro, Nottingham Express Transit (NET), and the Tyne and Wear Metro (NEXUS). NET have confirmed that their penalty fares are authorised by byelaws.
Variations on the penalty fare are used by the Manchester Metrolink, which it calls a "standard fare", and by Edinburgh Trams, which calls it an "on-board fare".
Northern Ireland
Penalty Fares on buses and trains in Northern Ireland are applied in accordance with regulations made under the Transport Act (Northern Ireland) 1967.
Scotland
Scotland has its own legal system, and train services are overseen by a separate government body (Transport Scotland).
ScotRail, the franchise that operates most of the trains in Scotland, does not issue penalty fares. ScotRail may collect details and send a bill for a ticket, plus an administration fee, but it rarely does so. Ticket inspectors are found on most trains, and passengers travelling without a ticket are expected to buy a ticket on the train.
If a passenger had the opportunity to buy a ticket before they boarded the train (the station had a ticket machine or open ticket office), ScotRail's policy is that the passenger must buy a full-priced single ticket for their journey and not buy cheaper tickets such as cheap-day returns, senior citizen's tickets or use a Railcard to get a discount.
However, Scotland has many unstaffed train stations that do not have ticket machines or with ticket offices sometimes closed. Then, the full range of tickets is available on the train.