Ignoring Fare Evaders Can Make Transit Faster And Richer

[M II A II R II K]

Ignoring Fare Evaders Can Make Mass Transit Faster—And Richer


12.08.16

By AARIAN MARSHALL

Read More: https://www.wired.com/2016/12/ignori...faster-richer/

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By nixing fare gates, public transit agencies emphasize ease of access over making every last rider pay. Europe got into “proof of payment” systems—where wandering personnel request evidence you paid your way—in the 1960s. They made it to American shores, mostly in light rail systems, by the 1990s.

- Modernized, cash-free fare payment methods—like reloadable tap-and-go cards, or apps that let riders use smartphones to get tickets, Apple Pay-style—speed up boarding. Passengers don’t have to struggle past fare gates. They can board through any door, instead of pushing through a bus’s front entrance to pay the driver. --- The result: Faster vehicles, less crowding, and thus more frequent service, leading (hopefully) to more riders overall. Meanwhile, data collected from systems using modernized proof of payment methods don’t show fare evasion skyrocketing. People, it turns out, mostly follow the rules—especially if they know getting caught in a spot check carries a hefty fine.

- Today, bus, tram, and rail passengers in Oslo can use a tap card or smartphone app to pay their fares before the trip, without risking the howls of a gate-pinched toddler. The city’s transit agency is “moving away from trying to keep the non-paying passengers away to catering for the paying passengers,” Fjær said last month. In Oslo and cities trying to update their fare payment systems, the general attitude toward transit scofflaws is, whatevs. --- San Francisco’s Muni system is one of the most the recent to fling open the fare gates and make the switch to all-door boarding. After the city’s light rail started letting people hop into any door in the 1990s, its buses got in on the act in 2012.

- The cheaters are still along for the ride, according to Muni’s latest data. But the agency’s surveys found fare evasion dropped from nearly 10 percent in 2009 to 7.9 percent in 2014. The resulting estimated loss in revenue fell from $19.2 million to $17.1 million. --- That tracks with Oslo’s experience, where the public transit system also liberated all metros from fare gates. By making it easier for riders to pay for tickets through their phones, the system halved its fare evasion rates, to five percent. Trains are moving faster, too, which encourages more people to use the service. The agency has calculated the cost of slower operations versus what it’s losing through fare evasion. It makes more financial sense to let the cheaters cheat, it says.

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[ardecila]

Not all European systems have proof-of-payment. It's mostly Nordic cities that provide a pretty strong social safety net. The poor people who would be fare evaders are already getting a free pass from the government, so they don't get counted as scofflaws.

We should note that there's a difference between metro systems and bus/tram systems. On buses/trams, cutting out the farebox can speed up trip times dramatically, because fare collection (or verification) has to happen on board the vehicle. So there's a good planning reason to do it even if it leads to increased fare evasion. This really only applies to busy bus lines, though, which are pretty rare in low-density US cities, especially outside of the coasts and Chicago.

In metro systems, there is very little planning benefit to taking out the faregates... people already on the train are not slowed down by the faregates. LA and Vancouver both started out with POP systems and switched over to a traditional faregate model, because there was very little cost to doing so and lots of revenue to be gained.

[Crawford]

Eh, I see lots of "honor system" metros in Germany and Scandinavia, but that's about it. Cities like Paris, Rome, Prague don't have such systems. And these systems don't "ignore" fare evaders; they have roving teams of fare-checkers, and they will chase and pursue you if you flee (I know because I did this as a kid on the Frankfurt Metro, and I got caught, was held at a police station, and my parents were furious and paid a huge fine).

And fare gates don't slow anything down if you have smart systems, which most metros are moving towards. All the big systems will have discarded farecards within a few years.

Also, there's a deterrent effect. Riders are less likely to bring weapons or to have ill intent if they know they're being tracked. Maybe in certain societies with uniform social norms, this isn't an issue, but in a Paris or New York I prefer that riders are monitored, just in case.

[mrnyc]

meanwhile, faregates were added at the nyc tompkinsville metro station, thus ending mta's most well known free ride for many staten island commuters, as it is an easy walk to the ferry.