Contact emilia@chancellors.com to see how we can assist you. New Yorks 46 is still similar, esp. Theres a bunch of other stuff I could go into about fine levels vs fare levels vs chance of being caught, value of ticket sales at airports, balancing the disruption of checks against frequency, the value of uniform vs non-uniform etc. The (old) UK system was the opposite of frictionless and it used to raise my temperature from rubbing up against it (not in a lacivious or frottage way! You are thinking of financial performance rather than transit performance. Appellant provided an unsigned copy of the revised settlement agreement to the district court at the summary-judgment hearing on September 27, 2005. We offer a fixed fee service, which includes: If you have been invited to attend an interview regarding an allegation of Fare Evasion, we strongly recommend you have the benefit of a criminal defence solicitors presence. And its part of the largest train franchise in Britain, Govia Thameslink. In the vast majority of cities, no excuse exists to have any kind of overt fare control. Not being American I dont know my semi-automatic high-powered weapons at all well. This is why the big % of habituals are male. Theres no monthly fare capping in London, but the travel card has a breakeven point of 48 in zones 1-3, which means that commuters who dont take the Tube off-peak will rarely hit the cap. > I more or less agree but then if we compare Greater Paris with Tokyo, the former with very affordable transit and the latter with more expensive transit, then clearly it doesnt always follow, ie. Sure. Because the casuals (or potential casuals) will be outraged. The second is FAR easier to deal with than the first., This is because habitual evaders will ALWAYS try to evade. Change). The turnstile acts as a reminder to everyone to pay their fare, since its not possible to fare-dodge without actively jumping it. Cities in both Germany and France, for example, are even trialling free public transport, with huge increases in passenger rates recorded. The MTA has also mentioned a higher figure, $300 million; I do not know if the higher figure includes just urban transit or also commuter rail, where conductors routinely miss inspections, giving people free rides. In New York, the SBS system uses proof of payment (POP), but passengers still have to validate fares at bus stops, even if they already have paid, for example if they have a valid monthly pass. Affordable transit, along with affordable housing, is just one thing in not only creating an equitable society, but as economists now realise (doh!) No one asking for M16s. What if those exit-only turnstiles are actually supplementary to those where the entrance and swipe-card machines are? TfL will only be getting costs in court (120), they will be making probably twice that setting out of court and will do less work to get it or even more if people offer to pay If the goal is to get people to stop driving to work, then making driving more expensive and housing cheaper, and promoting denser inner suburbs, seems like the much better choice, as politically difficult as that is. Efficiency is usually both environmental and fair. See Santa Con and other events for affluent proud dysfunction. American transit agencies and activists resist calls for large monthly discounts, on a variety of excuses. I guess it helps that many German cities do have tram systems where it is impossible to build these barriers common elsewhere without making people cross the tracks instead. Transit, even expensive transit, is nearly always affordable as is. It isnt broken down for different modes, because its a single system thats mostly fare-integrated, unlike London and very unlike American cities. michaelrjames , youre rather confused. Boston, too, has its moral panic about fare evasion, in the form of campaigns like the Keolis Ring of Steel on commuter rail or Fare is Fair. Its a godsend. Americans who support immigration liberalization practically never listen when I try bringing up the liberal work visa, asylum, and naturalization policies of Germany or Sweden. This is the most farcical privatisation even by the comedic standards of British railways and the aim is to defeat one of the last holdouts of organised labour Im not sure how much they were promoting free transit (I only browsed it) but their predominant conclusion about UK policy on fares and costs was solid. And also that Caltrain may realize based on the new data whether they should be charging participating employers more or less, etc. I read that even Japan (an extreme case obviously) wants to blame Chinese immigrants for a rise in crime (linked to criminal syndicates, they claim) which may or may not be true but reveals the cultural attitude behind the phenomenon. But the real agenda is to crush the unions In lieu of treating it as a big intra-urban culture war, I am going to talk about best practices from the perspective of limiting revenue loss to a minimum. But railways, especially ones that have to cope with a giant network, hardly ever run at a profit so all it really means is a horrible choice between running fewer services, increasing fares (on routes with lower traffic than the ones chosen by the commercial entities; yeah that will work but of course it will simply force these horribly inefficient lines to close) or other kinds of cuts, slash & burn etc. Similarily just put a few machines on each bus that electronically can read transport cards, and let passengers get on and off as they like. (No doubt, partly econometric because of the cost-benefit calculation of replacing their antiquated coin-op turnstiles with something modern.). I guess the numbers on Wikipedia are old, but according to its list, neither BVG nor MVV break even on fares. We base such a policy on international examples wherein commuting costs are also born by employers, the state, or a combination of employer, state and commuter. They actually reduced the fare on the Staten Island ferry to zero. the. since New Yorkers ride off-peak so much less than Parisians. It certainly helps the use of the Metro/RER, keeps car use low (you need to be slightly insane to try to drive in Paris; I did for the first year . In fact I strongly believe they are counterproductive, and not just by making using the system very irritating and off-putting for the users. As I pointed out in a recent post, Melun which is on the other side of the river Seine to Fontainebleu about 45km from central Paris, has 50,000 residents at density 5,000/km2. Fromstartto finish, my claim was dealt veryprofessionally. Ref: Brief history of the Paris metro. I wouldnt feel comfortable hiking the monthly fare in New York at all until the pay-per-ride fare hit $3.50, maybe even $4. Fare evasion is punished in court by a fine of up to 1,000. But all rail travellers would. The entire Tokyo metro area has a population density of 2642 people per sq km, whereas Paris has a population density of 1010 people per sq km. Ill admit my attitude is very conditioned by direct experience. A postal requisition will display the date for a court hearing. Because theyre a THEM, not an US., ASIDE: This is why gate alarms are A TERRIBLE IDEA unless youre going to ALWAYS staff those gates. The British and American approach is to make it hard to break the law, even at the cost of making it hard to follow it. The justification for this scheme has varied depending on who was asking, but the primary goal appears to be to defeat fare evasion. In Vancouver, Cubic lobbying and a New Right campaign about fare evasion forced TransLink to install faregates on SkyTrain, and when the faregate project had predictable cost overruns, the campaigners took that as evidence the agency shouldnt get further funding. WebOur fare evasion solicitors are familiar working with the major train and bus companies in England. I then received a letterfrom Tfl saying that I was summoned to court forfare evasion. More analytical modelling and engineering and efficiency thinking is exactly what is needed to get the US out of their transit misery, and make it more like East Asia. On one hand by the awful British system of dozens of different fares for the same journey, and the (now superceded) horrible, and horribly expensive, LU fare structure. CNRS/INSERM or something similar, a Fondation). After a number of years of loss-leading the commercial company goes bust or worse (see UK, though admittedly there is little competition on a route basis; they have the worst of all possible worlds) and the debacle and chaos* makes more travellers choose alternatives to rail. All of this is pretty reasonable cops desperately need to treat sexual assault victims better, and getting to universal enforcement is really good at reducing sexual assault rates, and Boudins language on this makes it clear he intends to help men as well as women (in the US, men who are raped report at even lower rates than women). It is not like we are arguing about some fantasy scenarios, I am just saying that the West could adopt systems more similar to the East (where it evidently works very well). In Europe there are usually other societal goals for public transport than just fiscal efficiency. Those university students that take the bus for a 1200 meter ride, do push up the price for low-income earners that maybe cannot afford a monthly pass. ), Id like to see cameras on every train on every bus on every station on all the gate lines, Byford said in September, according to the New York Daily News. This is less of an issue on Commuter systems where its mostly the trains that get crush loaded, but revenue protection is even more important for them as fare levels are higher. BVG doesnt break even on fares, but thats because of buses, not the U-Bahn. Which brings us to casuals, Casual fare evasion is a thing done by normal people, regardless of age/money/class. 27, 2019 If you require advice you should contact a solicitor. https://www.traveller.com.au/traveller-letters-campari-spritz-is-far-superior-to-aperol-spritz-h1jm5q The dissatisfaction with Southern was legendary. Passport-size photos, applications, visiting the ticket office. Writing a letter of representations offering to settle out of court so as to prevent prosecution. Finally, monthly passes are regressive for people with very low incomes, and uncertain cash flows, as they may simply not be able to make bulk purchases.. That doesnt pay for itself. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Ridership on those marginal branch lines was cratering before. Another data shows, as of 2017-2018, among people using elderly traveler subsidy across all the public transit system in Hong Kong, only 0.11%, or 144 people, are actually abusing it. As you can imagine, any criminal record on a 27-year-olds CV would be detrimental to many future opportunities. On the other hand, the short single trip, for a person without a monthly pass, will be unreasonably expensive, for example creating cruel incentives for poor people to walk for 25 minutes in the rain, instead of taking a bus 6 stops. This is bad practice, especially for passengers who prefer to refill at a ticketing machine rather than at home or on their phone with an app, since it means passengers visit the ticketing machines more often, requiring the agency to buy more to avoid long lines. Maybe on ticket inspections on the Metro (not really, they seem to adopt the policy of everyone in a carriage or exiting the platform, will be checked). They will probably engage in Uber-like fare undercutting to get pax numbers at first, which will reduce the traffic on SNCFs most cash-generating routes. So you need to LOOK like youre going after the habituals. Then they use it for specific services, and get the data. I know that Korea manages to make all of this work at low cost, but elsewhere in Asia, those sprawling, palatial stations with many exits get really expensive. Press J to jump to the feed. though my excuse was I was working out in the suburbs; at the end of my first year the M7 extension reached Villejujif, and simultaneously my old car was vandalised and also gave up the ghost) and helps the economics of those tens of thousands of modest restos etc. It is very likely that your employer paid some part, and, depending on the size of the enterprise, it is a discount. Sometimes the police are called. It is entirely because the government refused to adequately fund public transport. > However, again one should compare the compact arrangement of Ile de France versus what happens with Japan & Tokyos laissez-faire development policies. a longer trip across town to an Ikea store or whatever. Furthermore, their consultation fees, in comparison to several others was also the most honest Id come across. As to the rest of your post, it is pure econometric thinking of the kind that gives me a headache. Right, but buses represent a small fraction of total pax, certainly in the centre but presumably more in the outer regions (where they will also be less cost-efficient). Perhaps the approach shouldnt be to offer DISincentives for riders who dont have passes but rather to offer positive incentives for more people to use electronic, cash-free payment methods even if they fall outside the middle-class demographic. Webmagistrates court. Anyway, youre getting stuck in the weeds and one would almost think that is some kind of distracting argument away from the main game: affordable and equitable transit. Today I interpret monthly passes a kind of rent-seeking among one group of transit users, who want other people to pay the cost for their transit use. If this is the case, follow the instructions carefully. Please see our reviews at the bottom of this page and contact our office on 020 7837 3456 for further details and to make an appointment. Why use the argument for a monthly pass, which only very indirectly affect the issue you highlight above (and have tons of other effects), instead of pricing off-peak and peak useage directly? about improving efficiency etc that has been utterly discredited. No one is questioning that it could be done by technology. Thats your kind of economic efficiency. 95% of users would use an electronic card that you sweep when you enter and when you exit, and only know the price when they exit. Why would a woman want to take a bus or train when she might have to watch somebody pee? To the passengers, this friction is invisible I buy tickets on the BVG app but theyre equally valid on the S-Bahn, even on S-Bahn-only trips. Theres a moralistic discourse in the United States about fare evasion on public transport that makes it about every issue other than public transport or fares. in Paris the faregates made crowd control worse in the World Cup victory celebrations. Regulation Authority, Software This, in turn, is because bus fares are enforced by drivers, who for years have complained that fare disputes lead to assaults on them and proposed off-board fare collection as an alternative. The kind of thing I imagined every time I travelled between the two mega-cities in the 80s and 90s. New York itself may have an excuse to keep the faregates: its trains are very crowded, so peak-hour inspections may not be feasible. At some level its just normal commerce. Of course it changes the math, especially since many people get to work from home every once in awhile. Its only wasteful if people are taking unnecessary rush hour trips, but even with the pricing of Zurich or the outer fare zones in Stockholm, the monthly pass is mostly subsidizing off-peak trips, when theres spare capacity. @Eric2 Some of the sprawl was developed during the bubble era , but the public transportation was scrapped after the bubble burst. Even the fragmented British railway system is able to manage fare revenue distribution for generic tickets. Whats a little food poisoning now and then? The main feature of those East Asian systems is that travel, even without any discount, is far cheaper than in the west. It is the worst performing train operator of the lot. Theres something interesting going on with Chesa Boudins campaign: he wants to decriminalize quality-of-life crimes (okay) and deprioritize prosecuting theft and redirect resources to prosecuting sexual assault (prioritize violent crime) and train cops to be more responsive to victims. I dont quite get what is hard to open . Slightly curiously Stockholm has faregates (as you certainly know). to reduce road congestion for other road users (inc. other cars). A Pew Research study (documented here: https://www.inquirer.com/transportation/septa-bus-fee-transfer-poverty-transit-pew-study-20190724.html ) notes that Philadelphia has one of the highest rates not just of working poor but of residents with limited or no access to banks and internet connections. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/19/southern-rail-failure-crush-unions 3) Is evasion hard (i.e. For the thousands working on an employment pass, youre out of luck. As part of a new campaign to combat fare evasion, the MTA hired new cops to police the subway. It seems a bit of a wasted effort otherwise, eh?, Oh, should of added, that this is why when youre designing your roaming checks youre really looking for how you can MAXIMISE the number of people that saw that check happen. If fares generally bring in X amount of revenue, then why would increasing tax revenue by X be bad. But the government still think this is a severe problem to the government budget, and is now proposing the adaption of a new ID-based system for the elderly discount, requiring elderly across the city obtain a new transit card with their name and photo printed onto it, and show the photo to drivers or ticket validators whenever they want to ride public transit, so as to avoid such sort of abuse. But if the choice would be between transit to have to look up the fare for, biking, or taking a car, Id just opt for the car. I think what we really want to do bundle an annual transit pass, annual bikeshare, street parking pass, plus a local tolls discount, airport access pass, etc into a vehicle registration fee. Britain generally overuses faregates, for example on the commuter trains in London.