Fare evasion is not only a matter of public transport economic sustainability, but also of safety and security. In some networks, skipping the fare can be a very dangerous act and can even cause victims. This is the case of the public bus system TransMilenio in Bogotá, where fare dodgers climb the walls and...
Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) is estimated to lose $50 million annually to fare evasion. An internal report made public a year ago suggested that the fare evasion rate was 4.4% instead of the official 2% figure. It also stated that a 2% reduction of this rate would save the agency more than $29 million...
Decriminalizing fare evasion in public transport is becoming a tendency. Many cities in the United States have recently moved from court citations to administrative fines to speed up the judicial process. Now, Berlin suggests switching to a fully punishment-free system. Currently, fare evasion is a crime with potentially significant consequences such as large fines...
Australia’s Transport for New South Wales (TfNSW) has announced that all passengers travelling to and from Sydney’s Airport station are required to top up their Opal cards to a minimum $35 as of January 7, 2019. This solution is to prevent revenue losses caused by a loophole which allowed passengers to travel with negative...
The Metropolitan Transport Authority (MTA) in New York expects to lose $215 million to fare evasion in 2018. This is double the amount lost in 2015. The transport agency estimates fare dodgers in buses cost $119 million. People who jump the turnstiles amount to $96 million loses. According to MTA officials, paying bus ridership...
Last October, Prague Public Transit Company (DPP) implemented an innovative ticket fine reprieve called “Nejedeš načerno?”(Not black riding, are you?). When caught travelling without a valid ticket, fare-dodgers can reduce the fine by half by buying an annual public transport pass. Since then, more than 4,500 people have turned from ticketless passengers to annual...
Travellers on Brussels Metro must now validate their tickets both at entry and at exit points at stations, similar to the city’s Premetro system. Starting this month, Brussels’ public transport operator STIB-MIVB installed new gates at one station, with 15 more stations planned to be ready by the end of 2018. The Metro a...
Fare evasion rate in SNCF Occitanie trains is 11%. This amounts to an annual loss of 8 million euros, equivalent to a TER of last generation. In order to tackle this issue, the French operator will reinforce its anti-fraud strategy. Starting December 9th, SNCF will set up a new customer service organization at stations...
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...
Beau Giles https://bit.ly/2ya538m
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...