The Ashton Vale to Temple Meads and Bristol City Centre Rapid Transit Order 2013

Penalty fares

50.—(1) If a passenger, on being required to do so by an authorised person, fails to produce a fare ticket or a general travel authority, the passenger is liable to pay a penalty fare if required to do so by an authorised person.

(2) A passenger is not liable to pay a penalty fare if, at any time when fare tickets are generally made available for sale at rapid transit stops or on rapid transit vehicles, there were no facilities for the sale of the necessary ticket for the passenger’s journey at the rapid transit stop where, and the time when, the passenger boarded the rapid transit vehicle, or on the rapid transit vehicle.

(3) Paragraphs (4) and (5) have effect with respect to the burden of proof, in any action for the recovery of a penalty fare under this article, so far as concerns the question whether the facts of the case fall within paragraph (2).

(4) In any case where the passenger has provided the authorised person with a relevant statement in due time it is for the authorised person to show that the facts of the case do not fall within paragraph (2), and in any other case it is for the passenger to show that the facts of the case fall within that provision.

(5) For the purposes of paragraph (4)—

(a) a relevant statement is a statement giving an explanation of the passenger’s failure to produce a fare ticket or general travel authority, together with any information as to the passenger’s journey relevant to that explanation (including, in every case, an indication of the rapid transit stop where the passenger boarded the rapid transit vehicle); and

(b) a statement is provided in due time if it is provided when the passenger is required to produce a fare ticket or general travel authority, or at any later time before the expiration of the period of 21 days beginning with the day following the day on which the journey is completed.