Author: Jules Hollows

Executive Summary

The ORR’s publication of its report into Revenue Protection and Fraud (May 2025) has caused an element of disruption across Train Operating Companies (TOCS) in the UK. 

Its findings have been fully supported and sanctioned by both the DfT and indeed the Secretary of State, Heidi Alexander MP. 

Revenue Protection and Fraud practices need to be standardised across the UK rail industry. 

The way to achieve this is relatively straightforward and requires the following: 

1. Legislation – needs to be changed to reduce contradiction across current (and older) byelaws
2. People – an industry standard code of conduct and associated training 
3. Technology – standardised technology to support:  compliance, auditability, consistent processes and data to support pro-active intelligence.

The Problem

One of the clear recommendations from the ORR’s report was that there needs to be a “common framework for handling fare evasion and irregular travel”. The findings then go on to state that “definitions, processes, and outcomes to reduce variation across operators”

Whilst “National-level coordination is recommended”, we all know there is a lot of transition happening across the industry. 

Currently, we have a number of organisations that are involved with revenue protection and fraud within the railway industry. In one capacity or another, they include: The Department for Transport, the Rail Delivery Group, the ORR and Shadow GBR. 

As we know, elements of the above will of course ultimately form GBR.

So whilst there is current uncertainty surrounding revenue protection and fraud practices across the rail industry, what we do know is: 

• Most TOC’s (not all) are using similar methodologies but with differing levels of success and efficiencies
• Nationalisation not likely to be completed for another 2 years
• GBR is unlikely to be formed until mid-2027 
• All TOC’s will have to adhere to the ORR’s recommendations
• UK TOC’s will need to standardise processes and outcomes 
• Legislation needs to be tweaked
• Ticket pricing needs to be standardised to avoid passenger confusion
• A certain decision needs to be made/reversed immediately prior to said information  falling into the public domain – the financial impact will be catastrophic!
• This growing £1 billion problem needs to be addressed through collaboration.

The Current Approach 

For the last few months, the current DFTO owned TOC’s (Northern, Southeastern Trains, South Western Trains & TransPennine Trains) have taken the initiative to collaboratively steer industry standards in line with the ORR’s recommendations. 

Unsurprisingly, these TOC’s are ahead of the game in a number of areas in that they have already been deploying similar methodologies, business processes and levels of compliance, however, there is still a little way to go. 

Going Forward

Fraud across the industry is rife and growing. To combat it, fraud teams across all TOC’s are growing in size exponentially. Two years ago, one TOC had 2 people in its fraud team, today it has 12!! 

However, increasing the size of a fraud team as a standalone strategy doesn’t work. It requires innovative technology, data analysis and cross-industry collaboration to support any kind of impact. 

Strategy  

Stopping revenue leakage from fraud and ticketless travel is often the fastest, most impactful, and most controllable way to improve financial performance in the rail industry. 

Other areas of revenue growth (premium services, ancillary products, advertising, customer experience improvements, promotions) are still important, but they usually provide longer-term, incremental benefits rather than immediate recovery of lost income.

Tackling fraud and ticketless travel, therefore, addresses one of the largest and most controllable revenue risks and should be a lot higher up the list of priorities in some TOC’s strategy’s than it currently is. 

Conclusion 

Recently, DFTO owned TOC’s have concluded that collaboration and the sharing of industry best practice is working well. Compliance to some of the ORR’s recommendations is in the main, already in situ. However, the remaining recommendations will be achievable with slight amendments to current practices, supported by training and technology.  

Why Do you Need Raspberry Software’s Help? 

We are industry thought leaders, as well as a leading revenue protection and fraud technology company. 

• We launched the industry’s first annual Revenue Protection & Fraud Seminar to initiate cross TOC collaboration and innovation
• Our pedigree and credibility is such, that the ORR and DfT ask us to consult them on numerous revenue protection and fraud challenges
• We are pivotal in supporting the DFTO TOC’s through the current and future delivery of technology and data to ensure that compliance and innovation is supporting their strategic direction. 

To find out more about the unique methodologies that we are deploying to support industry standardisation in revenue protection and fraud, please contact jules.hollows@raspberrysoftware.com 

Measuring Ticketless Travel

The current methodologies used to estimate the impact of ticketless travel and associated fraud across UK rail and tram networks are outdated and fail to leverage the modern technologies readily available to the industry. These legacy systems—prone to significant human error and inherent inaccuracies—continue to produce figures that may satisfy limited stakeholder needs but grossly underrepresent the true scale of the problem.

Digital Transformation & Data

Today’s train operating companies (TOCs) possess the digital infrastructure and data capabilities necessary to conduct far more accurate and meaningful assessments of lost revenue due to fare evasion and fraud. Yet, this potential remains largely untapped.

Driving Change

It is imperative that new, technology-driven methodologies are introduced. These would empower entities such as the Department for Transport (DfT) and the future Great British Railways (GBR) to audit loss estimates with greater precision. Only then can effective policies and legislative frameworks be implemented to support TOCs in tackling this growing challenge.

Revenue Loss – Outdated Figures

The oft-cited figure of £240 million per annum in losses—an estimate that has persisted since 2012—is not only outdated, it is fundamentally inaccurate.

Consider the following developments since 2012:

• Passenger growth: Annual rail journeys have increased by approximately 150 million, representing a 10% rise (source: Office of Rail and Road).
• Fare increases: UK rail fares have risen by approximately 46% over the same period, based on year-on-year regulated fare hikes tracked via the Retail Price Index (RPI) by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
• Payment innovation: The introduction of multiple payment options has enhanced the passenger experience and, in some cases, improved revenue capture. However, these advancements have also given rise to more sophisticated and elusive forms of fare fraud.

Given these factors—and additional data to which we have access—it is reasonable to argue that the true annual cost of ticketless travel and fraud to the UK rail industry exceeds £1 billion.

This is not merely a revenue protection issue; it is a strategic challenge that demands immediate attention, investment, and innovation.

The recent series on C5 has demonstrated some very successful outcomes.

Serial fare dodgers have learned that buying tickets for ‘shortened’ journeys is not a methodology that can be deployed in order to escape capture through fare evasion and defrauding the Train Operating Company’s (TOC’s).

The TOCs all now have clever analytical people working in Fraud teams who have access to a minefield of data.

This data, has led to a number of high profile (and not so high profile) prosecutions, with the culprits losing careers and sometimes being very close to being imprisoned.

I have no doubt that with the increasing complexities of fare evasion methods being deployed, the size of these fraud teams will grow exponentially.

However, TOC’s need to be proactive in accelerating the size of their Fraud teams, before the problem dwarfs them, resulting in the ability to continue to re-invest at current levels.

As a source of reference, it is of course Raspberrys’ TIPS revenue protection system that is deployed by South Western Rail.