48 penalty fares handed out to ticketless travellers at Wolverhampton this afternoon

Tuesday, 5 February 2019

48 penalty fares have been issued to ticketless travellers at Wolverhampton station this afternoon (5 Feb).

Revenue protection and security managers from West Midlands Railway were checking tickets as passengers made their way in and out of the station, whilst supporting a knife arch exercise taking place at the same time.

Steven Fisher, head of on board experience for West Midlands Railway, said "We want to reassure our fare paying passengers that we are doing all we can to make sure everyone has a ticket when travelling on our trains and that all customers and staff can travel safely across our network.

"We advise all passengers to purchase a ticket before travelling – either from station staff, ticket vending machines, online, or via the West Midlands Railway app. Passengers who don't buy a ticket before travelling from a station where ticket buying facilities are available, may be issued with a penalty fare. Penalty fares are £20 or twice the full single ticket price for a journey, whichever is greater."

A Safer Travel Police team, involving officers from both West Midlands Police and the British Transport Police, had a metal detecting arch (knife arch) in place both at Wolverhampton railway station and the nearby bus station throughout the day.

Five people were stopped and searched after an indication from the knife arch and one male handed in a knife before walking through the arch.

ENDS

About West Midlands Trains

For further information on this release, call our press office on 03300 955150 or email [email protected]

West Midlands Trains operates both West Midlands Railway and London Northwestern Railway services.

• London Northwestern Railway services operate between Liverpool and Birmingham, and on the West Coast mainline to and from London Euston.

• West Midlands Railway services operate to destinations across the West Midlands via Birmingham New Street.

For more information on these services visit westmidlandsrailway.co.uk or londonnorthwesternrailway.co.uk

The West Midlands Trains franchise started on 10 December 2017 and will run until 2025/26.

West Midlands Trains operates 1,300 services a day, manages 150 stations and provides over 70 million passenger journeys a year. Over the course of the franchise, West Midlands Trains will be investing £1 billion into the rail network to deliver new trains, improved routes and station upgrades. This will include 400 new train carriages across the network and space for an extra 85,000 passengers into Birmingham and London at peak times.

The franchise is a joint venture between Abellio (70.1% share) and East Japan Railway Company / Mitsui & Co., Ltd (29.9% share in a 50:50 split). Abellio is the international passenger transport subsidiary of the Dutch national railway company, Nederlandse Spoorwegen. In the UK, Abelllio operates ScotRail and Greater Anglia train services, Merseyrail services in a joint venture with Serco and buses through Abellio London. For more information visit www.abellio.com

If you have been sent this press release, this is because we believe this to be of interest to you.

To sign up for all future releases, visit our newsroom and subscribe to our updates. You can unsubscribe to our releases at any time.