'Hundreds, if not thousands' would still represent a relatively small number of passengers travelling on these services. Most people using the trains at busy times will be paying because they are honest or, if you have a low view of the human condition, because being caught evading fares might put them at risk of losing their job. I travel often enough to see that at arrival the barriers are up at Waterloo and haven't noticed people not scanning out on a large scale.
On buses, my observation is that drivers will let children and the elderly get on if they appear that they would have qualified for free travel but they will challenge other people, even at some risk to themselves. Of course it might be the case that I miss far more cases in which a passenger doesn't swipe on and the driver ignores this - but as I don't have eyes on the machine, I couldn't say for sure. |