Oliver Coppard, the Mayor of South Yorkshire, recently claimed that South Yorkshire Supertram are losing £1,700 a week because of fare dodging, although the SYMCA have confirmed that this isn’t all deliberate with some down to the fact that conductors are unable to sell tickets to everyone on board busy trams.
The Mayor made the claims during a local radio phone-in and this amounts to approximately 1% of all journeys made on the network.
However, the SYMCA have said that the number of people deliberately avoiding paying fares is much smaller with just 0.2% of those travelling on board doing so. This is thought to be one of the lowest levels of fare avoidance in the UK. New handheld ticket machines used by conductors now make it easier to track fare dodging according to SYMCA.