No battery, no excuse: The fare-dodger defence that won't be accepted by Northern ticket inspectors

“I’ve got a ticket but my phone has died” is an increasingly popular excuse given by those unable to satisfy ticket checks.

Unable to distinguish between genuine customers caught ‘power short’ and those deliberately attempting to fare-evade, the train operator’s conductors and revenue officers have no option but to issue the national penalty fare, which has ]increased to £100.

In the last 12 months, Northern has installed more than 11,800 plugs and 17,200 USB sockets on-board their trains – providing ample opportunity for customers to charge their devices.

And now, Northern has begun a trial with a company called BattPoint to provide power packs at stations for those travelling without their phone charger or power cable.

They cost 99p for the first ten minutes or £3.99 for the day.

Mark Powles, commercial and customer director at Northern, said: “Customers not only have a duty to buy a ticket before they board one of our trains – but also to be able to present it for inspection.

“We were fascinated by research from BattPoint which suggests 50 per cent of smartphone and tablet users run out of battery at least once a day and 96 per cent carrying no form of backup power with them.

“Through this trial – and the roll-out of out of nearly 30,000 plugs and USB sockets on our trains – we’re doing our bit to make sure no-one finds themselves ‘out of juice’ when they hear the words ‘tickets please’.”