You can hardly travel on trains without noticing the Penalty Fare signs warning of the fines for those who try to travel without paying.

All law-abiding passengers agree it’s right that people who evade their fares should be made to pay.

What’s emerged from a consultation document on penalty fares from the Department for Transport is that the system needs a radical overhaul and to be made more consistent across the network.

The penalty fare of £20 (or twice the single fare to the next station) was introduced in 2005 and has not increased since then. One of the suggestions is not only increasing the amount but also allowing for variable penalties depending on the circumstances of the offence. This makes sense to me and is in line with the normal procedure in the criminal justice system that the punishment should fit the crime – a ‘one size fits all’ approach is outdated.

The DfT says: “We want to update the value of the Penalty Fare to ensure the system remains an effective deterrent and the primary method by which the majority of TOCs (Train Operating Companies) manage fare evasion across their networks. By acting as an effective deterrent, more revenue will be generated by the railway, which can be re-invested to improve the quality of passenger services.”

Surely it’s time to increase the level of penalty fares. I suspect many would-be fare evaders calculate that it’s worth taking the risk at the moment because the cost of getting caught is so low.

Ticket inspectors used to be a regular sight on the railways and acted as a visible deterrent. Many a time I saw groups of schoolkids moving swiftly down the carriages or rushing to get off at the next stop to avoid the on-board inspectors.

The introduction of ticket barriers at many stations meant fewer opportunities for fare evaders and so ticket inspectors have become a less common sight on the trains.

So I would advocate that greater – and more visible – enforcement has to go alongside higher – and a sliding scale of – penalties to create confidence in any revised penalty fare system.

One other aspect of the consultation is asking whether the name ‘Penalty Fare’ should be changed to something else. There are no suggestions for other names and Whitehall seems to be asking the public to come up with alternatives. Surely ministers have learned the lesson from letting the public loose on choosing names. What are the chances of someone suggesting ‘Ticket McTicketface’?

The DfT consultation started on 11 March runs until 3 June.