MISC | Honor payment system, fare dodging

[Suburbanist]

I want to start another thread on an operational issue of public transit. A lot of PT systems, especially mid-to-low capacities ones, operate under an honor system, where payment is done users without any throughout control at gates/entrance points.

Of course, this leaves the road open to a variety of abuses, hence conductors and supervisors are put in place to check whether users had paid accordingly. In certain cases, like long-distance few-stoppings trains, this control is fair easy to be done: a pair of conductors can check a whole train seating 300+ withouth much hassle.

However, in case of more urban commuter systems, controlling proper ticketing is not so easy. Most subways, being closed-thight systems, put gates in place instead of honor payment collection.

Trams, buses and commuter rail have a harder time implementing either an all-gated design and throughout inspection (one that gives a high - say, >80% - probability of being inspect at any journey). As a result, fare dodging increase and put a strain on a system's finances.

In many cities, determined cronic fare-evaders know a number of tactics to doge the farebox and avoid being caught/punished. Tourist internet forums are full of information on whether tourists can play the "out of town" card or not in different cities. In some routes/services where control is rather rare, cronic evaders can even fight or harass inspectors, like late-night bus routes that usually goes unchecked, therefore generating a falsa "entitlement" perception that cash-strapped teenagers can ride them for free to/from their hangout areas. Some racial oversensitive activist even tried to sue some transit authorities claiming that it is unfair to concentrate inspectors in routes serving mostly poor minorities.

On-spot fines seem to be one of the best remedies agains fare evasion, but in some jurisdictions (countries, states, citites) transit conductors have no legal power to demand payment for alleged infractions, and in others the allegedly offender must be given an opportunity to a hearing if he/she chooses to. Nonetheless, even high on-spot fines would not deter dodgers if the chance of being caught is slim.

In those cases (like uban buses or trams) a majority of people will comply and pay the fares, yet some groups will simple ignore it. I've lived in cities with such a system, and troubled/strange teens and the extremely poor used to ride buses for extreme long journeys instead of taking the subway, because there was virtually no control on the buses. For these people, some unpaid transit citations/fines will not do any difference - they will not pay and they will keep riding transit.

There are also other problems: students usually have some kind of discount or free acess on school days, but some of them don't bother at all to use, improperly, their passes to ride transit on Sundays, or on vacation period. In one of the places I lived, inspectors paid little attention to these cases, and never bother to round up teens travelling without tickets during summer vacations (when they were supposed to pay a fare like everyone else).

With more advanced and modern controls and collection systems, such as enhanced gates, RFID card etc., wouldn't it make sense to vastly adopt gate collection systems and scrap honor systems altogether? They are not dodge-proof, but I'd say the number of people who would be willing to jump turnstiles and gates is far lower than the number of people playing cat-and-mouse evasion with fare inspectors.

What do you think about it? It fare dodging a problem in your city? Has transit autorithies come with credible plans to curb this "free rider" (literally) behavior?

[urbanfan89]

In Toronto, the subway, buses, and streetcars are one system. You can enter the turnstile at a subway station, ride the subway to another station, and then transfer onto a bus/streetcar without passing through exit turnstiles. In many cases the bus/streetcar stations are just off the street, which makes it tempting for someone to simply walk off the street into the bus/streetcar station without paying.

I did this once as a test to see whether I would get caught. I was caught by a hidden camera and a bus driver came up to me asking me to pay the fare. I showed my monthly pass and that was that. So hidden cameras are a cheap and easy way to deal with this problem.

[hkskyline]

I have a thread about fare evasion from 2007 : http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=499590

[bayviews]

This is a problem in many US cities.

During bad economic times like these, & many are jobless or homeless, fare evasion gets worse.

The best way to combat the problem is to have regular random checks by transit officers plus stiff & well publicized fines/penalties for fare evaders.

When enforcement is too lax, it just pisses off the honest fare paying riders majority of riders & encourages them to try the same.

[goldbough]

While riding the S-bahn in Munich I saw several people get busted by the undercovers for no ticket. The officials were stern and had no mercy. They would come around at any time of the day or night. I guess it wasn't often enough because people still rode without a ticket. On the contrary I've been asked for a ticket once or twice on the TRE (Fort Worth-Dallas), but more than 10 times not asked.

[K_]

Originally Posted by Suburbanist

What do you think about it? It fare dodging a problem in your city? Has transit autorithies come with credible plans to curb this "free rider" (literally) behavior?

Basically in Switzerland the entirety of the public transport system operates on the honor system. Only on long distance trains are fares always inspected. On regional and urban system there is no regular fare inspection. People board trams and buses at all doors, without needing to show a ticket.

Fare evasion is very low. (about 1% I think). This is achieved through several means.
- A tariff system that encourages people to buy a pass in stead of single tickets. Within Zürich you pay:
4,- CHF for a signle ticket
8,- CHF for a day pass.
77,- CHF for a monthly pass.
So basically as soon as you travel on public transport 10 days a month it pays to have a pass. No surprise then that most people have one. (I, btw, have one that covers all public transport in Switzerland).
The fine if you get cought without a ticket is 80,- CHF for a first offence. Second time will cost you 120,- third time will see you in court, with a fine of at least 150,- plus legal costs.

Ticket inspection is done by roving teams of about 6 fare inspectors, which will board a tram or bus at one stop and usually only need a few minutes to inspect everyone. I get inspected about twice a month. Under such a regime fare evasion doesn't pay for regular travellers.

Late at night and/or on lines where problems are expected fare inspection is sometimes done by the Public Transport Police. These are armed, and have the power to arrest you should you not co-operate...

[K_]

Originally Posted by goldbough

While riding the S-bahn in Munich I saw several people get busted by the undercovers for no ticket. The officials were stern and had no mercy. They would come around at any time of the day or night. I guess it wasn't often enough because people still rode without a ticket.

Don't asume that because you don't see people buying a ticket at the station that they travel without a ticket. Most people on the S-Bahn in Germany would be travelling with a pass of some sort.

[zaphod]

I think RFID is the way to go

I'm not comfortable with one that tracked your movement like GPS, but would like something that triggered a switch within the boundaries of the station similar to a electronic toll sticker for cars.

A simple fence or yellow stripe would be the perimeter of the station, or alternatively the door into the bus or train would have a detector. If you didn't have a pass or ticket but the sensor captured a human figure moving through the door, a camera would take your picture and an audible alarm would go off.

[Mr_Dru]

The Netherlands is currently introducing the OV-Chipkaart (Public Transportation Chipcard) The Chipkaart is used for the bus, metro, ferry, tram and trains. It's a nationwide Dutch prestigeproject currently with a lot of softwareproblems.

The OV-chipkaart is replacing all the other different tickets in the Netherlands. Currently the Chipkaart is operational in the Metro's, trams and busses. (Currently only in the largest cities, other regions will follow soon with introducing the OV-Chipkaart)

Within a couple years the train and ferries will be added. On all the Dutch railway/metrostation will be new gates build to prevent abusers who don't have a ticket.

In all the Dutch trams and busses you enter at the driver in the front. You leave the bus in the back. With the tram you could enter aswel in back at the conductorcounter.

You have to check-in with the card, and when you leave, you have to check-out with the card. You pay your travel per kilometers and not anymore per zone.

The OV-chipkaart had to introduce in 2006, but there a still a lot of problems. Universities in England and Germany hacked the system several times.

http://www.ov-chipkaart.nl/ (English version)

[goldbough]

Originally Posted by K_

Don't asume that because you don't see people buying a ticket at the station that they travel without a ticket. Most people on the S-Bahn in Germany would be travelling with a pass of some sort.

I certainly didn't mean that. I meant that even though everyone knows there are undercover ticketers, they still risk it and don't buy a ticket. You would think with the prevalence of the undercovers that people wouldn't risk it, but they do.

[K_]

Originally Posted by goldbough

I certainly didn't mean that. I meant that even though everyone knows there are undercover ticketers, they still risk it and don't buy a ticket. You would think with the prevalence of the undercovers that people wouldn't risk it, but they do.

In that case the fare and fine structure is badly designed, or (more probably) the fines are not collected from a certain segment of the population.

I you're a daily traveller on the Zürich system you'll get a check about twice a month. At that rate paying for your tickets is way cheaper than paying the fines.

[K_]

Originally Posted by Mr_Dru

The Netherlands is currently introducing the OV-Chipkaart (Public Transportation Chipcard) The Chipkaart is used for the bus, metro, ferry, tram and trains.

And I wonder what they are going to do with people with paper tickets. These will continue to be issued by other railways, and the NS will have no option but to accomodate them in some way.

[Suburbanist]

OV-Chipkaart will aply only to NS and other national operators, not for Thalys, Fyra and ICE DB. I guess they will leave access open to these platforms.

As for people connecting in local trains from international journeys, they can just put a bunch of ticket excange machines in stations where international services call (not many: Rotterdam, Schiphol, Amersfoot, Amstredam Central, Arnhem, Utrecht, Hengelo), so people will have to use some kind of code or reservation number to get a disposable OV-Chipkaart and continue to travel.

[K_]

Originally Posted by Suburbanist

OV-Chipkaart will aply only to NS and other national operators, not for Thalys, Fyra and ICE DB. I guess they will leave access open to these platforms.

As for people connecting in local trains from international journeys, they can just put a bunch of ticket excange machines in stations where international services call (not many: Rotterdam, Schiphol, Amersfoot, Amstredam Central, Arnhem, Utrecht, Hengelo), so people will have to use some kind of code or reservation number to get a disposable OV-Chipkaart and continue to travel.

And what about this situation (which happened to me several times a year over the last years).

- I travel to Belgium to visit relatives. Then onwards to the Netherlands by bus and ferry to go sailing in Zeeland, and then return via Utrecht by night train.
So I buy at my local station here:
- One Sparpreis 50 ticket from Basel to Aachen Grenze and back from Emmerich Grenze.
- One ticket from Aachen Grenze to Brugge
- One ticket from Arnemuiden to Emmerich Grenze via Utrecht.
- A sleeper supplement.

I plan this in advance to proffit from reductions (yes railways do allready some yield management and have managed to educate me).

Arnemuiden is a small unstaffed halt, but it is the place where I enter the NS system, with a paper TCV ticket issued by the SBB. The NS does not have the option no longer to honor TCV tickets.
So what will they do?
They will keep all stations open. The current plans are not for the stations to become fenced off.

Anyway, fencing off stations has a lot of issues. Where do you place the gate? At the entrances to the platforms? That is inefficient, as not all platforms are in use at the same time, but you would need to have sufficient gates at each platform entrance to let a whole train load of people through in a minute or so. (Although Japan does seem to show that it is possible, although not trivial). And for security reasons you can't do it at unmanned stations.

If you place the gate at the station entrance the tenants of the shops in the station are not going to like you. They might insist on paying less rent.

All in all the whole thing does involve a lot of costs. And that only to solve a problem that is caused (in the case of the Netherlands) mostly by society having become to tolerant to anti social behaviour.

[Suburbanist]

I don't know exactly the minor details of foreign-issued tickets in border towns, but I do know some stations are being completely fenced off, and others will have just check-in, check-out RFID validators.

For instance, Amsterdam Centraal station is being completely fenced off on the entrance of the underpass giving access to the platforms. The gates are already there, but so far they are still open.

Bijmer Arena is other station that has been completely fenced off. Schiedam Centrum, if I'm not wrong, too. New Rotterdam Centraal will be totally fenced off and is being rebuilt with this design in mind.

If you are in posession of an OV-Chipkaart, you will be able to access the "fenced" area up to 20 min. without paying nothing (a mistake, there is no reason a person without a ticket should be able to go to the platforms).

[MareCar]

In Munich there are no ticket controls upon entering Bus or Tram and also there are NO turnstiles on the Subway stations, but there are random ticket controls on trains, buses and trams. It is convenient to be able to take the Subway, Bus or Tram even if you have no ticket or money and are stranded at the other end of the town so you can get back home, other than that nearly everyone uses a monthly or weekly ticket as regular ticket evasion just doesn't pay off, you'd get caught for sure and the fine is as much or more than a monthly ticket. (Ticket cost depends on the zone you live in) Also, it's not worth the anxiety and stress you have when riding without a ticket.

[K_]

Originally Posted by Suburbanist

If you are in posession of an OV-Chipkaart, you will be able to access the "fenced" area up to 20 min. without paying nothing (a mistake, there is no reason a person without a ticket should be able to go to the platforms).

There are lots of reasons why people would want to go to the platform without the intention of travelling. Seeing people off for example. Or trainspotting :-)

From the pictures I could find on the internet (I haven't been in Amsterdam for a while) the gates are installed at both ends of the tunnels that run under the platforms. These tunnels are also used by people who just want to get from one side of the station to the other, for example when transferring from a tram to one of the IJ ferries.

But I suppose that just like in the UK they won't install gates at unstaffed halts, or in the case of stops that are sometimes staffed, leave them open when there is no staff present.

[Suburbanist]

On the renovations they are doing in Amsterdam Centraal, there will be two new tunnels linking the river/lakefront with the present "façade" side with no connections to the platforms.

[goldbough]

Originally Posted by K_

I you're a daily traveller on the Zürich system you'll get a check about twice a month. At that rate paying for your tickets is way cheaper than paying the fines.

That's the opposite of Boston's commuter system. I've read on another board that people buy 10 or 12-ride tickets and use them during the month because they get checked so infrequently; it's cheaper to not buy a monthly pass. It's not that there aren't conductors, it's that the trains are so crowded that the conductors can't walk through.

[K_]

Originally Posted by goldbough

That's the opposite of Boston's commuter system. I've read on another board that people buy 10 or 12-ride tickets and use them during the month because they get checked so infrequently; it's cheaper to not buy a monthly pass. It's not that there aren't conductors, it's that the trains are so crowded that the conductors can't walk through.

But how can this work? I suppose you have to stamp your ticket before boarding (that's how it works here with multi ride cards).