Train tickets: Northern urges passengers to have sufficient battery on their phone or risk £100 fine

The rail operator has urged customers to ensure their phones and mobile devices are charged before travelling, or else they could be hit with the penalty fine. They have said that “I’ve got a ticket but my phone has died” is becoming an increasingly popular excuse given by those unable to satisfy ticket checks.

Due to conductors being unable to know who has genuinely been caught out by low battery or not, Northern has said they now have “no option” but to issue the national penalty fare, which was recently increased to £100.

Mark Powles, commercial and customer director at Northern, said: “Customers not only have a duty to buy a ticket before they board one of our trains – but also to be able to present it for inspection."

As a result of this, the operator has launched a trial with BattPoint, which will provide power packs at stations for those travelling without a phone charger or power cable. These power packs will cost 99p for the first ten minutes, or £3.99 for the day, and come with Micro USB, type-c and iOS adapters.

The trial comes after Northern have rolled out 11,800 plug sockets and 17,200 USB sockets on their trains over the last 12 months, so that those with chargers have the opportunity to power up their devices.

Mr Powles said: “We were fascinated by research from BattPoint which suggests 50% of smartphone and tablet users run out of battery at least once a day and 96% carrying no form of backup power with them.

“Through this trial – and the roll-out of out of nearly 30,000 plugs and USB sockets on our trains – we’re doing our bit to make sure no-one finds themselves ‘out of juice’ when they hear the words ‘tickets please’.”Northern operate the station at Meadowhall in Sheffield, which is not included in the trial but will likely have the BattPoint power packs added if the trial is successful.