By Campbell Finlayson

ScotRail have defended their ‘Buy Before You Board’ policy, after coming under fire from a number of irate customers.

A tweet from the organisation’s official Twitter page on Monday night urged customers to buy their tickets before boarding trains, however, many customers voiced their concerns, only to be met by what many deemed to be threatening replies.

A Scotrail spokesperson said; “Revenue protection and reducing ticketless travel have always been priorities for ScotRail.

“It’s a small minority of passengers who deliberately try to avoid paying the proper fare but it’s honest, fare-paying customers who bear the burden of lost investment on Scotland’s Railway.

“We have implemented a number of measures to make it easier for customers to buy before boarding, including ScotRail smartcards and new and upgraded self-service ticket machines across the network.”

The franchise, operated by Dutch company Abellio, say they now have over 295 self-service ticket machines across Scotland’s Railway as well as 143 staffed ticket offices to help customers before boarding. They also encourage people to buy their ticket online or use a Smartcard, to save waiting in queues.

As well as this, the rollout of SMART ticketing across all routes gives customers the option to buy tickets online and load them onto their smartcard by validating the purchase at any of the 665 platform validators or self-service machines across the country.

On their official website, they provide a set of guidelines to their BBYB policy, describing it as “The hassle-free way to travel.” They say it’s always a good idea to buy your ticket before you get on board and that travelling without buying a ticket is fare evasion and we’re clamping down.