| Light rail lacks fare enforcers |
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| Why pay for a ticket to ride? |
| By Jeffrey Leib Denver Post Staff Writer denverpost.com |
For those who haven’t won Powerball lately, RTD is running a game of chance with much better odds. The Regional Transportation District has only six fare inspectors to check tickets of light-rail riders making about 60,000 daily trips on its 35-mile system. The odds of fare scofflaws getting caught on RTD’s trains are, well … you do the math. The lack of fare enforcement disturbs RTD director Bill McMullen, who’s been riding the trains since southeast light-rail service opened in November. “People need to know there is a penalty for not paying your fare, that there are consequences,” McMullen said. “I’ve ridden every day for the last four weeks and have never seen a fare checker.” RTD previously had up to 10 fare inspectors for its 16-mile rail system. The transit agency planned to add 10 more inspectors with the opening of 19 miles of southeast rail. But hiring and retaining fare checkers has been difficult, and with attrition, RTD finds itself w |
Poppa,
Think streetcars. I believe the lrv’s have no turnstiles at the platforms, generally the platforms are low and in the middle of a street so you can get around it easily. Unlike your Chicago with elevated and underground lines.
RET, the local transit operator faced the same thing here in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
The have a substantionally larger inspecting force but it was not enough. Riding “black” or “grey” (no payment or not enough, respectively) was endemic. The solution was simple, they hired a security firm to act as guards while older unemployed people were trained as conductors. The conductors and guards checked or sold tickets on board. Now every (yes, every!) tram has at least one conductor and / or guard though the number of people with guard on their shoulder patch has declined. Checking and selling tickets on the trams / streetcars is still going on and it actually givces one a safe feeling. Some lines had trouble with youths. Conductor training included how to deal with difficult people. Well before this there was a roving group of ticket inspectors with backup to arrest the difficult people. The roving groups are still here (mostly concentrating on the underground and buses) as is the backup to assist in arresting.
greetings,
Marc Immeker
Poppa Z- What a revelation to yet another group of high concept paper management types, that there is no honor system among thieves. What an irresponsible affront to be asked for a fare receipt among honorable people! Nein. We cannot afford fare boxes? This has to be a benchmark in a ongoing chronical of bureaucratic stupidity. Thanks for affirming my faith in the wellspring of paid stooges who mismanage the reality of economics with our tax dollars. Love the moniker Wackenhut…promotes a professionally slick image like German slang for Goofenhouse…
Here in San Jose, there are only three or maybe four fare checkers. When I started using light rail, I went four weeks before I saw my first fare checker. However, they seem to be sufficient for the circumstances. Most of the time, they will go through the entire coach and find no one who hasn’t paid. On those times that they do find a violator, they issue a ticket and a day pass.
Lucky you datafever.
Here in Rotterdam the chance to get caugth was less than 1 in 100, much less.
But when I did observe ticket inspections at least one was caught without a ticket, every time, be it a bus or streetcar being inspected. He or she was arrested on the spot and got a heavy fine too.
greetings,
Marc Immeker
When I was stationed at Scott AFB near St Louis, I rode the Metrolink quite a bit. There is a ticket machine at the stations, so you insert your money, and a ticket pops out. There are no turnstyles or anything of the sort. The train stops at the station, the doors open, and you board. In the 5 years I was there, I was never asked for my ticket. I would on occasion see a Metrolink employee come through and ask for tickets, but even then, it was just random. They did not ask every passenger for a ticket.
Here in Mudville, USA the metro rail system has a dedicated group of riders that refuse to pay for their trips. They may get a slap on the wrist the odd time a fare inspector catches them, but the inspectors are angry right now. Guess how they take out their frustration?[censored] Right!
When I road the Balto light rail, no one checked my ticket on the way into the city, but a very burly gentlemen with a badge and gun came onboard on the way back out to BWI to check fares… Nobody hassled him.
I forgot to mention that. Even if you did get caught, there wasn’t much to it (nothing more than a small fine if I remember correctly).
Once on the San Diego trolly,a fare inspector got on a car I was riding.There were quite a few non paying riders on that car.The inspector wrote enough tickets to almost pay for the car!
PopZ-
In Denver, all stations have an automated ticket machine. You buy your ticket for a given day and the board the train (no turnstyles). Fare checkers randomly board a train and check for tickets, but as your article states, their presence is a little on the sparse side. So it really does come down to almost an honor system style of operation. I think 4.7% is actually pretty generous.
From the few times I’ve ridden, I think that there might have been more than that. Of course, the other riders might have had monthly passes, or a pass for that day already. Still, there was only a couple other riders who purchased a ticket early in the morning from the machine.
I would guess that about 80% to 90% of light rail passengers (in San Jose) buy a monthly pass. When a fare checker does go through, very few people hold up a ticket. And the fare checker will always check everyone in the car. Sometimes they will wait at a station and request proof of valid fare as people exit the car.
I would guess (and that is all it is) that a fare checker writes up 20 to 30 people a day. The fine is $250 if you ever get caught a second time.
It’s the same way up in Minneapolis on their new light rail system. They seem to have better enforcement, though- I’ve ridden it maybe four times, and saw agents board the train and check tickets twice.
So what this amounts to is some Denver passengers pay twice (buy a ticket, and being taxed by the system) and others get away without paying at all.
If you do get caught, what is the fine? How many free rides do you need to sneak to make it more cost efficient to never pay for a ticket and suffer an occasional fine?
And what kind of morons set up a system where revenues are totally dependent on the honesty of the general public? Ho-ho-ho! In Chicago, we’re supposed to trust our elected officials (their concept, certainly NOT mine) – yet they want all of us to pay and go through turnstiles.
What do you think the IRS would collect if we all were trusted to send in the correct amount of tax we owe every April 15? [(-D]
PZ
You’re right, I live in Rogers Park and don’t think the honor system would work here.
But these new LRT systems have a heritage that makes more sense in Europe, even in cities where many citizens are not as law-abiding as they could be: The ticket-validation machine sits where the conductor did (well into the 1970s). It took the various public-transit companies a long time to convince their ridership that they needed to control operating costs, with wages a large part of that. That’s one of the reasons that under most systems, riders traditionally enter at the rear door and exit out the front. In the “olden days” Herr Schaffner would sell tickets and even make change(!) while the driver could, well, drive – unlike being a combination pay agent and driver as he is on Chicago’s CTA buses.
A few Barney Fife-level transit cops is a lot cheaper than equipping every vehicle of mass transit with two full-time employees.
al-in-chgo
I do not have the figures for Rotterdam but with a conductor on board everything is much safer now. Some lines were going downhill with regard to safety. Considering the amout of business a conductor can do I would not be surprised if the system is almost break even financially. Couple that to the fact that the city council has made safety a priority and a small loss is not a problem. Of course, training and then using people that were unemployed probably gets you a subsidy from the national government too.
greetings,
Marc Immeker
Once again, delusions of progress ( our motto: making things better by making them worse) strike at the nickle and dimes of the taxpayers. Add them up and you have a serious hole in our collective pocket. Has our collective memory completely erased olmer fare registers, the entire history of the pay as you enter cars, the conversion of interurbans to one man cars, etc? These worked just fine…not perfectly, however everyone had to face the indignity of actually paying to ride the cars. Out in Colorado, on the Denver and Interurban, one time pioneer and scout known as Rocky Mountain Joe was known as one of the early photographers of the West, forgot his ticket, and the conductor put him off the car…his local fame notwithstanding…which led to his untimely death when he fell from the grade…Much lamentation accompanied his passing as symbolic of the passing of the Old West, but no one ever questioned the conductors unqualified right to receive a ticket in exchange for a ride. Roaming Goofenhouse stooges monitoring the honor of the public…priceless.
Once, while riding the SoCal Metrolink commuter train from San Clemente to Fullerton I saw two armed LA County Sherriffs inspecting the tickets of everyone in my car just after it filled up in Irvine. I have been informed that Metrolink contracts with the LA Sheriff’s Dept. to provide security, and they will do ticket inspection too. No one hassled them.
Jack
On the NJ Transit Camden-Trenton Riverline I was sitting next to 2 gentlemen, one of whom was telling the story of how he got locked up for 30 days because of not having a valid ticket. He said it was all because the inspector had a nasty attitude.
His story was that he was a regular rider, and had a bunch of prepurchased, unstamped tickets, in fact had a few stamped tickets from a few days before, and just happened to forget to stamp one this particular trip. He tried to explain this to the inspector, who wasn’t buying his story. Then the inspector, and the cop whom the inspector summoned, “accidently saw some of my fake id”. I’m sure what happened was that the fellow produced some identification, but then was unable to recite the info that was on the identification, which probably led to a frisking.
The kicker was that this fellow had outstanding warrants against him. Yet for some reason he wanted to tell his friend that he got locked up for 30 days solely because of forgetting to get that day’s train ticket stamped.