Jarrett Walker has a post over on Human Transit about all-door boarding being added to buses in San Francisco.
He makes the point that the perception of fare evasion is often much worse than the reality. I’ve experienced that many times over the years in discussions of streetcar fare policy.
The honor system means that you can’t tell if someone has a fare instrument in their pocket, which seems to lead many to the impression that everyone but them is cheating!
In fact, we know that about half our riders have some kind of pass, and a significant number of the balance have a transfer. But it often seems that folks would be happy to have a fare inspection program that could easily cost more than any additional revenue it could generate through fare revenue or fines.
Why kind of marketing or education effort would allow us to prioritize actual budget realities (and faster service) over a perception of fairness to allow all-door boarding on TriMet’s buses?
25 responses to “All-door Boarding and Fare Evasion”
Instead of trying to convince people that fare evasion isn’t a big deal and that scruffy guy getting on in the back in a crappy part of town isn’t cheating, why not just wait for the technological fix that not only can allow this without fare evasion rising, but also fix perceptions? With electronic fares you can people enter in the back if they want and wave/swipe their pass, and everyone on board can see the green light.
Two Points:
TriMet had such a system years ago on the articulated buses. Why did they eliminate it?
Why does TriMet make passengers push open rear doors? It is a time-wasting impediment.
An important step that SF took before doing this had nothing to do with marketing — they implemented the Bay Area’s shared electronic fare system, the Clipper card. I don’t think this would have ever happened without that.
Also, the crowding on MUNI is so bad people were already trying to board through the read doors. So there was a lot of demand. I haven’t seen that kind of demand in Portland very often.
I agree with the above comments. The solution is to do implement an electronic fare system, something that should have been done years ago and should certainly be done very soon. With card readers at every door, the honor system will work better because everyone can see if someone is not paying and there is an element of public responsibility at play. Sure, some people will never pay, and that is a fine price to pay for a convenient fare system. Most people, however, will pay out of a sense of responsibility or to avoid feeling public shame.
The facts are that most people do pay the fare-and the ones that don’t actually don’t have any money (or very little of it)
Too much is being made out of this fare evasion nonsense.
When its all said and done Trimet gets virtually nothing but spends hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to enforce it.
So they caught 1000 people that didnt pay $2.10 last month, big F@#$ING deal.
Doesn’t even come close to paying for fare inspectors/police.
for me, the issue of fare evasion is about safety and comfort…it’s an assumption, but I believe that certain groups of people (drug dealers, young people up to no good, people with serious, untreated mental health issues, gutter punks/road warriors rank with BO and often accompanied by a pit bull, etc) provide a higher than average percentage of fare evaders. For Tri-Met to succeed it needs the support of the middle class and lax fare enforcement does the opposite.
The solution is to do implement an electronic fare system, something that should have been done years ago and should certainly be done very soon.
It should at least be an option. It’s annoying needing to wait for a store to open to buy a TriMet pass to take a bus. Any type of system that lets me pay by card on a bus would be a nice upgrade.
The TVM’s don’t even work!
The whole thing is a disgrace as far as I am concerned.
It’s just a cover for police state intrusion into our lives.
I’m with Al on this one! I think “fare evasion” is code for “get rid of those others!” Long term, we should have paid parking in one form or another on every street, yes even in front of my house, with the money going to TriMet in lieu of fares. The goal should be free transit, just like we have free libraries, free schools and free parks. Everyone benefits from good transit and everyone should pay.
The goal should be free transit, just like we have free libraries, free schools and free parks. Everyone benefits from good transit and everyone should pay.
ABSOLUTELY!
Gawd I love it when me and Lenny agree on something, it’s so rare an event, but it does happen occasionally.
I guess Lenny and Al never heard of the “tragedy of the commons.” Google it.
Really Nick-I don’t think Transit really applies to this theory.
This is more like everybody should have access to everybody’s bank account
Getting a ride somewhere doesn’t meet this criteria:
Tragedy of the commons defined
I think that the “tragedy of the commons” applies more to free parking than free transit… I don’t see crush loads in fareless square very much (certainly not solely because of free riders) but it sure is hard finding a parking spot near NW 23rd!
Tragedy of the commons more easily applies to goods (which can be hoarded) than services (which cannot). I can try and take all the water out of the well for myself, or all the beer out of the keg; but I can only take one seat on the bus.
Wouldn’t it be better to have a cheaper bus fare, even if it had to be subsidized, than to subsidize other, less efficient mass transit? Would a vastly larger number of people use a bus if the fare was down to something like a dollar? Then we would also feel less cheated by freeloaders.
In Sheffield England the bus fare was 5p (in 1985) and lots of people rode the buses and seemed happy about it. You wouldn’t have to go that cheap, but could there be a tipping point at which cheap fares cause a shift in attitudes? I.e. to use the bus. Also, I would forget the “Equity” philosophy (except possibly for handicapped or elderly) and plan the bus routes from a profit standpoint. Most “equity” strategies are obsolete, because modern technology and communications have eliminated earlier social disadvantages…or even created new ones. Social disadvantage is largely a 1960’s concept and not very relevant today.
Would a vastly larger number of people use a bus if the fare was down to something like a dollasr?
YUP!
The structure of transit in this country is the problem-from the six figure execs to the union workers-it’s a cash machine for the people that work there.
Until the structure gets changed transit will continue to be controlled by special interest and the riders will keep getting the shaft.
If you made transit free or very low cost, the law of unintended consequences would probably take effect.
Look at the free wi-fi offered by Starbucks. We have folks camping out there all day, and other customers can’t get a seat. It’s overuse and abuse of a free public service. Hear that Scotty? Free wi-fi is a service, not a ‘good.’
When I’m at a stop on the bus and see how much time and effort are consumed to collect fares, I figure fareless transit would be a wash as buses could move along that more quickly and haul more people cutting cost per ride as much as the fare recovery that would be lost.
There’s a difference between “overuse” and “hoarding”. One cannot wander into Starbucks, suck up the restaurant’s monthly allotment of Internet bandwidth into his laptop or iPad, and then take it home with him for his exclusive use and enjoyment, leaving none for everyone else.
Obviously, one can use the bus to make frivolous trips, whether it be riding one stop (when one is perfectly able to walk the distance), joy-riding, etc. But one still cannot commandeer the entire bus for himself, and deny everyone else the right to use it.
At any rate, there are ways to discourage overuse, if it’s a problem. (Homeless people using transit as a shelter is the textbook problem caused by free bus service). Starbucks is perfectly free to boot people from the premises, if they squat on the network all day without buying coffee. Riders can be kicked off the bus between runs. Etc.
Some things should be operated for the public good!
Intercity transit should be one of those things.
If they did have that it would completely change the entire culture-immediately.
I should be able to jump on the 15 bus across the street and go down to city hall-FOR FREE-
TRANSIT SHOULD BE FREE!
The military is completely subsidized to do a whole heap a bunch of killing innocents, so why can’t citizens have free transit?
How much of the defense budget would you have to cut to make every transit system in the US fareless?
Considering the defense budget is 700 BILLION and that Trimet’s operating budget is $458 million, medium size transit agency.
So you could run 2 Trimet size districts for 1 billion.
NY’s MTA budget is 13.1 billion.
I dunno but I bet it would be 1/2 the defense budget.
“If you made transit free or very low cost, the law of unintended consequences would probably take effect.”
But who would want to ride the bus all day? I guess it could be a way to profile troublemakers, though (among other factors, of course).
“When I’m at a stop on the bus and see how much time and effort are consumed to collect fares….”
BTW, couldn’t they have an electronic card with a certain amount of value and you could just scan your card?
See, with the money we can get for transit we should be spending it on ways to make it more cost effective, efficient and pleasant.—-not on mega projects that suck up the dollars and leave us with new Rockwood-type neighborhoods. If you forgot the “equity” requirements and start thinking about how to make the routes start paying for themselves I think it would become clear that buses, because of their routing flexibility, would have a much better ROI.
Ron, I agree with you. For Portland’s density, buses have been and always will be a much better fit.
Just rode the Green Line to Clackamas from Gateway, admittedly just for fun. To suggest that this service is less suited to Portland’s transit needs than the 72 bus is absurd; both are essential but serve very different purposes. One can get to a good job on Swan Island from CTC in 45 mintues via the Green Line and 85 bus. The 72 takes well over an hour and is a non-starter, especially for a “choice” rider. Anyone who rode the old 5 bus on Interstate and now rides the Yellow Line will most certainly agree.
The failure of the Green Line is its location next to a big, wide suburban freeway; not much chance for TOD and still too many emplty P&R slots. Intertate MAX was wisely put down the middle of a wide street instead of up next to I-5 and is now seeing TOD at many stations with more to come. Its a totally different experience with the same relatively fast and very reliable service…20 minutes Expo to Rose Quarter vs 14 minutes from CTC to Gateway on the Green Line.