The Western Railway has recovered ₹3,50,69,07,815 in penalties from passengers caught travelling without tickets between 2019–20 and 2023–24, according to information obtained through an RTI query.

The Traffic Accounts Office of Western Railway in Ajmer provided this data in response to a Right to Information (RTI) Act application. The fines collected saw a significant increase from ₹7.37 crore in 2020–21, during the COVID-19 pandemic when many trains were cancelled, to ₹145.42 crore in 2022–23 and ₹128.98 crore in 2023–24.

Passengers caught without a ticket face a minimum fine of ₹250 plus the actual ticket cost. Those refusing to pay may be handed over to the Railway Protection Force (RPF) and booked under Section 137 of the Railway Act.

The Western Railway zone, headquartered at Mumbai's Churchgate station, serves Gujarat, parts of Western Madhya Pradesh, coastal Maharashtra, and some areas of Rajasthan. It comprises six divisions: Mumbai, Vadodara, Ahmedabad, Ratlam, Rajkot, and Bhavnagar, with Mumbai and Ahmedabad being the largest.

While the RTI response provided data on fine collection, it did not include information on the number of ticketless passengers, stating that such data is not compiled by Western Railway authorities.

The RTI query also sought information on online ticketing income, station booking revenue, income from other sources, and state government taxes paid to Gujarat from April 2019 to March 2024. However, the authorities only responded to the query about fine collection.