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Revenue protection on buses I'd like to draw to the attention of your readers the inconvenience bus passengers recently experienced when a Revenue Protection Inspector felt minded to exercise his powers in a particular manner. The RPI had the driver of the number 18 bus, and all its passengers, stop for police assistance outside Paddington Green police station because he was unable to extract the address details of a fare-evading passenger. Instead of waiting indefinitely, many passengers chose to get the next available bus behind, and were encouraged to do so by the RPI. (They were probably also aware that one does not always get immediate assistance at a police station.) I, and a few others, stayed behind in order to reason with the RPI that it surely was not fair on the majority of good passengers to have their journeys frustrated for the sake of a single bad one. (Indeed, moments earlier, one good passenger had herself pleaded for the bus to continue because she had a medical appointment.) Some fifteen minutes and two police officers later, the fare-evader was simply obliged to continue her journey on foot. The RPI had simply demonstrated how easy it was to have our journey disrupted. I appreciate that we all would like to put an end to free-riding on buses; but surely not at the self-defeating end of frustrating the reliability of our own journeys? I am now in contact with Transport for London about the ridiculosity of this episode and the possibility of finding more practical solutions. I would like to hear from others if they agree that we are being taken for a ride here. Shahrar
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