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Metro operator Nexus says its name and shame campaign continues to be a major success in the war on fare evaders. People’s willingness to cheat the system has gone down since last Summer, say Nexus, and May’s penalty fare increase from £10 to £20 has also had a major impact. Since July 2004 fraud levels have halved – and some of the blitzes by ticket inspection teams have show fraud has dropped by as much as 75 per cent. Nexus’ Commercial Director, Andy Bairstow, said: "The name and shame campaign continues in all of our stations, in the press and by word of mouth and has become a very effective fraud deterrent. "One of the many benefits of this is that our research tells us that people’s propensity to defraud us is going down. "Before the summer of 2004 more than 30 per cent of our users were happy not to pay if they could get away with it. "Now, that number has halved, meaning we are getting the message across that fare evaders will be caught and prosecuted." Nexus is aiming to reduce fare evasion by another third in the next 12 months. And as well as the success of the increased penalty fare, Nexus has other high profile initiatives to crackdown on the cheats. These include handheld computers to check a person’s name and address within three seconds, making it easier and quicker to issue fines. It also means that persistent cheats will have a ‘profile’ built up and can be targeted more easily through the courts.
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