More than 600.000 people fare evade every day at TransMilenio, the metropolitan transport system in Bogotá. In order to reduce the amount of people using the public transport without paying, TransMilenio is deploying new pedagogical actions. The latest was punishing fare dodgers with cleaning the floors of stations. They also had to write slogans...
TransMilenio punishes fare dodgers with cleaning duties
PRESTO fare card system shows “continued performance below targets”
The electronic payment system in Ontario (Canada) is costing millions and does not achieve the expected reliability rates to fully eliminate tickets, passes, tokens and cash
The electronic payment system PRESTO, which works across local transit in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA) and Ottawa, has a long way to go. According to an internal Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) briefing obtained by Toronto Star newspaper, PRESTO shows “continued performance below targets”. Problems with operating transactions and card readers keep...
Fare evasion crackdown in Rome
Rome's public transport operator ATAC issued a record 16,000 fines in one month
Rome’s public transport agency ATAC is running a new round of ticket checks aimed to reduce fare evasion rates on its fleet of vehicles. Since the start of the year controllers have verified around 2 million passengers, 8,5% more than last year. In a new coordinated effort in September 2018, the agency issued a record...
MBTA postpones fare gates deployment in commuter rail platforms
The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority will wait until 2021 to make it coincide with the installation of the all-electronic payment
The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) is postponing its plan to install new fare gates in commuter rail platforms. The reason is the all-electronic payment system scheduled for 2021. The transport agency believes it makes more sense to wait and deploy both systems at the same time. Fare gates were scheduled for early this...
Negative balances on Opal cards amount to $2.9 million loss
Card system upgrades and a crackdown on fare evaders have provided a partial solution for the issue
An Opal card loophole at Transport for New South Wales (TfNSW), Australia allowed travellers to obtain new cards at no cost whilst ditching used unregistered cards that had outstanding negative balances. In the financial year of 2018-2019, this amounted to about $2.9 million in losses, $1 million less than the previous financial year. $2.9...