MBTA Winter 2015: Failure and Recovery

How does PoP deal with "Sorry, I'm from out of town and don't have any ID on me."?
 
statler said:
How does PoP deal with "Sorry, I'm from out of town and don't have any ID on me."?
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In Berlin, the enforcers carry similar handheld devices that traffic departments use to write tickets. They will mail a fine anywhere in the world. It's also illegal in Germany to be without ID.
 
Same way the police deal with any lawbreaker from "out of town with no ID."

In the present day, under the status quo, there's nothing stopping you from boarding a bus or trolley and refusing to pay the operator up front. Or hopping a fare gate. The operator/attendant might call the police, and then the procedure will be the same as with a PoP system.

Except that, under a PoP system, the operator of the vehicle will not have to concern themselves with chasing down lawbreakers, or putting themselves in harm's way. The operator can focus on safely driving the vehicle and serving the other customers properly, while the fare enforcement official takes care of the problem.
 
statler said:
How does PoP deal with "Sorry, I'm from out of town and don't have any ID on me."?
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Violating PoP is the same as jumping the turnstile. Or even shoplifting for that matter. If a person doesn't comply with the ticket-checker to accept their fine, they can and should be arrested.

Years ago I got caught jumping the turnstile by a plainclothes cop in New York. I gave him shit because I thought he couldn't do anything. He took me by the arm to a police office in the station and almost certainly would have cuffed me if I had done anything worse than mouth-off to him.

I was issued a fine for jumping and a fine for disobeying a police officer. I successfully argued against the disobeying because he was in plainclothes and it was late at night.
 
I don't believe there's any real chance of faregates going away on the subway stations; when you have grade separation and they're maintained, faregates are a pretty easy way to force near-100% payment.

Are there any systems that mix POP and traditional faregates? The rest of the world seems to be split between farebox-and-faregates (SEPTA), faregates (DLR etc), and POP (all over).
 
davem said:
How much is the maintance contract on the fare gates? Considering how often they're broken, just getting rid of them alone would probably make up for the cost difference.
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Gates in heavy rail are a maintenance and station-space problem, it is true, but it is also true (as noted) that at least faregates are a form of off-board fare collection.

On board fare collection is doubly painful: an expensive machine that, worse, slows every vehicle and every rider's trip.

The real cost benefit of POP is on the capital-cost-of-bus/LRV side of the ledger: that by freeing buses/LRV from the one-rider-at-a-time chore fare-collection duty, you use all-door boarding and the buses move faster (improving service for "Free" or being killer in combination with signal priority), and the same number of buses work like a larger fleet (it is like you get a bigger bus/LRV fleet for free...free of acquisition costs, ops costs, free of yard space, free of maintenance)
 
POP is only needed on the GL, buses, & Commuter Rail. The fare gates do not need to be removed in the heavy rail stations.
 
statler said:
How does PoP deal with "Sorry, I'm from out of town and don't have any ID on me."?
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In San Francisco transit police would get on the bus or trolley and ask to see PoP (your receipt gives you a 90 minute transfer period) or scan Clipper Cards. They would board from all doors so nobody could slip by. Tickets were $200 and were printed on the spot. I saw this happen quite a bit on the 38. I was impressed.

MUNI isn't truly PoP in that you can (and are supposed to) pay on board (or at the station in the central stations). However, the transfer slips and transfer times built into Clipper Cards make it function similarly in many respects.
 
datadyne007 said:
In Berlin, the enforcers carry similar handheld devices that traffic departments use to write tickets. They will mail a fine anywhere in the world. It's also illegal in Germany to be without ID.
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Your Papers Please!

Zeigen Sie mir Ihre Papiere bitte

Mach schnell

-- or something stronger -- that's the kind of "its been a German tradition" which I don't think we would tolerate
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Matthew said:
Same way the police deal with any lawbreaker from "out of town with no ID."
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This is the point. POP is just as enforceable as many other non-criminal, non-driving offenses. You get caught in MA with a non-criminal amount of marijuana? They write you a ticket. It does not matter where you are from.
 
The EGE said:
I don't believe there's any real chance of faregates going away on the subway stations; when you have grade separation and they're maintained, faregates are a pretty easy way to force near-100% payment.

Are there any systems that mix POP and traditional faregates? The rest of the world seems to be split between farebox-and-faregates (SEPTA), faregates (DLR etc), and POP (all over).
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Melbourne is POP but has fare gates at all the central stations.
 
The EGE said:
I don't believe there's any real chance of faregates going away on the subway stations; when you have grade separation and they're maintained, faregates are a pretty easy way to force near-100% payment.

Are there any systems that mix POP and traditional faregates? The rest of the world seems to be split between farebox-and-faregates (SEPTA), faregates (DLR etc), and POP (all over).
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SF MUNI uses proof of payment AND faregates.

By the way, faregates are not an easy way to force 100% payment. They require constant baby-sitting, or else people do this (from SF):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tp5-DKWTh_Y


Add it up. Is it really worth the upfront hundreds of millions in capital costs, plus the millions of dollars in maintenance costs AND the millions of dollars in annual salaries for station attendants? Maybe it is in some cases, but I bet not in all.
 
Matthew said:
SF MUNI uses proof of payment AND faregates.

By the way, faregates are not an easy way to force 100% payment. They require constant baby-sitting, or else people do this (from SF):


Add it up. Is it really worth the upfront hundreds of millions in capital costs, plus the millions of dollars in maintenance costs AND the millions of dollars in annual salaries for station attendants? Maybe it is in some cases, but I bet not in all.
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That's just really bad design. The T's gates are harder to trip from the opposite side because the sensors are lower and a bit smarter than that.
 
MUNI's design is particularly incompetent (which makes you wonder, how is it that we can't get this right after a century?) but the MBTA fare gates aren't really any better. Plenty of people seem to have figured out how to defeat them. And if they're not being watched by an attendant ($$$) then they easily get away with it too.

What's the expected value of a station attendant? Does paying their salary result in a positive value proposition for the MBTA? Or does it cost more than the loss from fare evasion? Is there a better way to do all this?

These are the questions that should be asked.
 
Matthew said:
MUNI's design is particularly incompetent (which makes you wonder, how is it that we can't get this right after a century?) but the MBTA fare gates aren't really any better. Plenty of people seem to have figured out how to defeat them. And if they're not being watched by an attendant ($$$) then they easily get away with it too.

What's the expected value of a station attendant? Does paying their salary result in a positive value proposition for the MBTA? Or does it cost more than the loss from fare evasion? Is there a better way to do all this?

These are the questions that should be asked.
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Watch the Downtown stations -- kids double-up through the gates all the time. Fare collection is no where near 100%.
 
I rode San Francisco's Muni for the first time since the Pleistocene Era, during which I lived in SF. I knew they had gone PoP, so I was stunned to be handed one of those little slips of paper showing time left. It was the exact same kind of little slip of paper they were using back in the Pleistocene. It was downright quaint, not to mention nostalgic. The other PoP systems I've ridden used higher tech cards.

I'd advocate for the maximum possible shift to prepaid hard cards, i.e. the Charlie Card, blended with PoP. For those not buying monthly, make it as easy for them as possible to update online before leaving home, or to pay using debit cards at as many bus stops as possible, and perhaps put ATM-like machines into 7-11s and so on. Have those machines at bus stops or stores not accept cash and have cameras that feed to a server that stores video for a few days, to cut down on vandalism, and not have Brinks driving around serving them. Same for low-income people: if someone qualifies for assistance, give them a monthly pass and have it auto-renew for twelve months until they recertify income.

Out of town visitors have no excuse, they have to figure it out. I've figured out widely differing systems in multiple US cities and in at least six countries, several of which used languages that I couldn't speak. I am willing to be as flexible as possible for low-income locals, to make sure they get access to the system (and I mean flexible in how they get a card, get it refilled, what they pay, how they recert income, etc). For visitors, I say no mercy: it's my job to figure it out when I'm visiting their cities, their job to figure it out when they come here. Any tourist unwilling to learn a destination's transit system ought just stay home or use cabs.
 
Matthew said:
By the way, faregates are not an easy way to force 100% payment. They require constant baby-sitting, or else people do this (from SF):
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I see this at Central Square regularly: guy entering swings backpack or jacket over/through gap in the wheelchair gate (on an entrance that has only stairs....) to trigger the exit sensor. Fare Control officers would stop that guy more often than faregates.
 
Matthew said:
SF MUNI uses proof of payment AND faregates.

By the way, faregates are not an easy way to force 100% payment. They require constant baby-sitting, or else people do this (from SF):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tp5-DKWTh_Y


Add it up. Is it really worth the upfront hundreds of millions in capital costs, plus the millions of dollars in maintenance costs AND the millions of dollars in annual salaries for station attendants? Maybe it is in some cases, but I bet not in all.
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There is DEFINITELY a design flaw in that system!!

Looks so high-tech, also, but it's just not the way that it's supposed to operate!! :eek:
 
Arlington said:
I see this at Central Square regularly: guy entering swings backpack or jacket over/through gap in the wheelchair gate (on an entrance that has only stairs....) to trigger the exit sensor. Fare Control officers would stop that guy more often than faregates.
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It's quite simple to use internal logic and read/write to make fare evasion essentially impossible -- it also enables the use of varying fares for time of day and direction of travel with a minimal investment

  • 1. You approach the entry point in the system:
    • 1. the gate interrogates your card for:
      • 1. your customer class [reduced fares for seniors and juniors students, etc]
      • 2. card balance
      • 3. presence of a T entry tag
    • 2. the gate then:
      • 1. checks with the clock for time of day / day of the week including Free T Day
      • 2. consults the database of fares
      • 3. calculates the card remaining balance
        • 1. -- signals deficiency if negative
        • 2. --otherwise if non negative:
          • 1. opens the gate
          • 2. writes to the card the remaining balance
          • 3. marks the Card with Entry Tag
  • 2. you ride around anywhere on the system at your pleasure
  • 3. as you prepare to exit:
    • 1. the system interrogates your card for:
      • 1. the Entry Token
        • 1. -- if there is not an outstanding entry token -- the system Alarms
        • 2. -- otherwise the system repeats 1.1.1., 1.1.2, 1.2.1., 1.2.2., 1.2.3.,
          • 1. if insufficient informs the customer and indicates the closest point to refill the card {Charlie on the MTA Effect} :)
          • 2. --otherwise if non negative:
            • 1. opens the gate
            • 2. writes to the card the remaining balance
            • 3. marks the Card with Exit Tag

There are at least a couple of minor negatives that might need to be accommodated with extra effort:
  • you can not easily legitimately charge the Charlie Card for two fares if you and your sweetie are traveling together
  • if you exit the system say from the Silver Line at Logan and later re-enter via the free Silver Line at Logan -- you will have an outstanding Entry Tag unless the Silver Line bus clears you as you are exiting

So all that is really needed is a Charlie Card Reader located everywhere a person would enter or exit the system -- these needn't be very expensive if all they are doing is the RF and compute functions as hand-held RFID Tag Reader / Writer can be purchased for a few thousand dollars or less
 
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