Northern Railway has said 97% of passengers are "with us on this issue” of fare dodgers on its network following the annual figures released from its Debt Recovery and Prosecutions Unit.
Ticketless travel accounted for only 3% of journeys during the last twelve months on the network, the lowest on record.
However, during the same period, 57,302 reports of attempted far evasion were investigated and almost 42,000 fines and 172 court sittings were issued to recover almost £4 million of lost revenue for the taxpayer. Commercial and customer director Mark Powles said “clearly, with almost 97% of people boarding our trains doing the right thing and buying a ticket for their journey, they are with us on this issue.”