Rail passengers arriving at Stansted are slapped with £100 penalties

Thousands of travellers arriving at London Stansted by prepare who believed they might pay with contactless playing cards are being handed £100 penalty fares.

Travellers are capable of faucet in with contactless playing cards at Liverpool Street and Tottenham Hale stations and board a prepare to Stansted Airport.

However, upon arrival at Stansted, passengers aren’t allowed to faucet out with London Oyster playing cards or contactless financial institution playing cards.

London TravelWatch, who revealed in 2019 that 16,000 individuals have been handed penalty fares at Stansted, mentioned the apply by prepare operator Greater Anglia was ‘unfair’. 

Michael Roberts, chief govt of the impartial journey watchdog, mentioned: ‘It’s plainly improper that passengers proceed to be unfairly penalised for not realizing that contactless fee is not accepted at London Stansted Airport.

‘With ‘London’ in its title, individuals fairly moderately assume they’re going to be capable of faucet out utilizing a contactless card, particularly once they have been allowed to faucet in utilizing one firstly of their journey.’

Keith Prince, London Conservatives’ transport spokesman, accused Greater Anglia of taking advantage of the penalty fares.

The London Assembly member mentioned: ‘The prepare operator is making tens of millions by imposing penalty fares on passengers arriving at Stansted with no legitimate ticket.

‘While the prepare operator says it has signage warning passengers, clearly this signage is not working. It’s unfair.’

If handed a penalty fare, the person should pay £100 plus the price of an relevant ticket.

For instance, an anytime fare from Liverpool Street to Stansted prices £21.40 which implies passengers mistakenly utilizing a contactless card must pay £121.40 in whole.

If paid inside 21 days, penalty fares are usually discounted to £50 plus the ticket value.

Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch, who’s the MP for the Saffron Walden constituency protecting Stansted, has been urged to step in.

Her spokesman advised The Telegraph that Ms Badenoch can be ‘making enquiries on to Greater Anglia and the Department for Transport relating to contactless card readers at Stansted Airport station.’

A spokesman for Greater Anglia mentioned: ‘We’re eager to see the extension of contactless ticketing to Stansted Airport, as that will simplify the place and be extra handy for patrons, however such a step relies on receipt of the mandatory funding and approvals from the Department for Transport.’

A Department for Transport spokesman mentioned: ‘It is the duty of Greater Anglia to tell its prospects how you can pay its fares, and we advise passengers to at all times verify earlier than they journey.’

In comparability, prepare journeys to different airports within the London space, comparable to London Heathrow and London Gatwick, will be paid for utilizing contactless playing cards.

It comes simply weeks after Greater Anglia elevated its Stansted Express service to four-trains-per-hour having beforehand been restricted to peak hours solely.

Typically, journeys now take a median 48 minutes, with most off-peak providers scheduled for 47 minutes.

Around 9.7 million individuals used London Stansted Airport prepare station final 12 months, with nearly all of passengers travelling from London.