Train operators to crack down on ‘donutters’ and other digital ticket cheats

South Western and GTR announce fightback after move away from paper tickets increases fare dodging There is more than one way to commit fraud and, for some rail travellers, it has been as simple as a couple of taps on their phone as their train approaches its destination. That telltale last-minute purchase of a digital ticket – for the shortest journey that will allow them to bleep through the gates, regardless of how far they have travelled – is one of a number of illegal wheezes that train operators are trying to eliminate, with the enthusiastic backing of the government department that will directly oversee most of England’s rail services when they are renationalised next year. Two rail companies, South Western Railway (SWR) and GTR, which operates Thameslink, Southern and other services, this week introduced measures to clamp down on “short-faring” – a trick by which passengers buy a last-minute digital ticket only for the final part of their journey, even if they boarded in a station without barriers much further away. Don’t bother trying to download a digital ticket from Vauxhall to Waterloo, the terminus for many trains to London from the west – or on a numbe