dwlt.thinksOutLoud

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Not A Good Name

Mon 06 Feb 02006 05:17 AM
Thoughts
4 comments

This morning at the train station, I noticed some GNER staff who were checking the tickets of people boarding the 9.30 train to London King’s Cross. Not an uncommon sight really, but on the back of the orange visibility waistcoats that the staff wear was their team name:

GNER Revenue Protection

Now, that might be an accurate reflection on what they are doing when they are double checking valid tickets; however, it seems to me that the message they are giving is one along the lines of “we think you’re all stealing from us, you dirty low-life varmints”.

Martin Little wrote at 10:37 AM on 06 Feb 2006

Did you jump the barrier in protest? ;-)

dwlt wrote at 04:28 PM on 06 Feb 2006

I decided against it. :-)

Les Savine wrote at 06:14 AM on 08 Feb 2006

Just a note to say that, as a revenue protection inspector for GNER at Kings Cross, in the past month we have caught over 600 people with either invalid tickets or without a ticket at all. The purpose of the exercise is not to accuse all passengers of stealing but to in fact make travelling a safer and more enjoyable experience.

To add a footnote, last year GNER lost ¬£9.9 million in revenue from people without valid tickets which has unfortunately led to decent fare paying passengers enduring increases of up to 8% on their fare price.

If we do not carry out our jobs, this increase could well top 10 to 12% which I am certain will go down well with people who will suddenly start moaning that nothing is being done about it.

Best Regards

Les Savine
GNER Revenue Protection Inspector, Kings Cross

dwlt wrote at 09:32 AM on 08 Feb 2006

Hi Les,

Thanks for your comment. Just to be clear, I didn’t mean to say that I thought the job was unnecessary. The wording on the jackets just struck me as being harsh, but maybe that’s the intention.

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