SCOTRAIL has launched a campaign to tackle ticket fraud after it was revealed that 900,000 rail fares are dodged each year by Scots passengers.

The most common form of fraudulent travel is declaring a shorter journey than that actually taken.

Rail chiefs also said that 80 per cent of travellers pass booking offices or ticket vending machines at their local stations resulting in longer queues at automated gates at the end of their journey. ScotRail is now taking action to clamp down on fare fraudsters, as part of its Buy Before You Board campaign, to encourage customers to buy their tickets before getting on the train.

Customer surveys revealed passengers are fed-up with long queues at destination stations, with people waiting to buy tickets during the morning peak. They also highlighted that deliberate fare fraud is frustrating for the vast majority of honest fare-paying customers.

Phil Campbell, ScotRail’s head of revenue protection, said: “We provide a service and it’s only fair that everyone pays the correct fare for the service they use.

“We’ve invested heavily in facilities to make it much easier for our customers to buy tickets in advance. This means that staff on trains have more time to help customers with travel or other queries.

“Buying before boarding will result in much shorter queues to get through the gates at busy destination stations such as Glasgow Central.”

A ticket monitoring exercise revealed that on arrival at Glasgow Central, 19 customers lied about taking a shorter journey than the one they actually travelled, during one morning peak-time focus on the East Kilbride and Barrhead lines. It also showed 132 people travelled without a ticket on 10 services monitored and 450 flexible journey tickets were used incorrectly during four days of monitoring at Glasgow Queen Street station.

ScotRail said it had installed 26 new ticket vending machines with 20 more being installed by the end of the year, and 100 machines had been upgraded to help customers buy tickets in advance. The rail operator is also rolling out Smart ticketing.