Fare evasion - a hot topic for 2009

[ozbob]

RAIL Back On Track does not support fare evasion. 
A fair fare is only fair!  Public transport is subsidised and fare revenue is about one third of the costs.

This is going to be an important issue in 2009.  Paper tickets can be copied unfortunately.  Perhaps technology such as the Melbourne tickets with a magnetic strip would be useful for none go card users.

From the Queensland Times, 3rd January 2009, page 9

Buy train ticket or face $150 fine

Buy train ticket or face $150 fine

QUEENSLAND Transport will start a fare evasion rail blitz next Friday.

Commuters who fail to buy tickets to board QR Citytrains will be hit with a $150 penalty notice as
part of the fare evasion crackdown.

Transport Minister John Mickel has warned people not to risk a fine by ensuring they have a
ticket before they travel.

[Mozz]

Is it only criminal rail users being targeted or does the "blitz" extend to other public transport methods also on the translink network?

[ozbob]

There have been a few reports of TTOs on buses of late.  One would expect all modes targeted.

There shouldn't be problems with the TTOs checking go cards on bus/ferries either.  The other day I had my go card checked on rail, and it is just a simple matter of the user touching their go card to the mobile reader. 

[ButFli]

Two Translink Officers were spotted on an inbound 411 bus service before Christmas.

We must remember that Transit Officers are not as important on buses as they are on other forms of transport because the driver of the bus can easily check tickets.

[Arnz]

TTOs can still basically bust people for "fare evading" on the bus if they flog off a "concession" ticket when they dont have their concession cards on them. 

But at the same time it could be fault of the driver on their previous service that failed to ask them for their conc cards.

[ButFli]

TTOs can still basically bust people for "fare evading" on the bus if they flog off a "concession" ticket when they dont have their concession cards on them. 

I did not mean to suggest that there was nothing for a Transit Officer to do on a bus. All I meant was that there is less opportunity for fare evasion on a bus because there is already a staff member present whose job it is to check tickets. Compare that to a train where if a passenger is traveling between two non-CBD stations their ticket will not be checked unless they are accosted by a Transit Officer. For this reason it is appropriate that Transit Officers concentrate more on trains and less on buses.

[Otto]

A point to keep in mind is with the changeover to Cubic ticketing equipment on buses, The ticket font is now smaller (for tik sold on BT buses).
Drivers like myself who have no difficulty with the job of driving and observing the conditions around us, Do have difficulty reading the tickets as they are presented and at night we have no hope of checking the validity of tickets. Some passengers take objection to us taking tickets from them to read as some are presented upside down or flashed at a speed greater than light or scrunched up or faded to a point where we just cant read them at all.
There are many passengers that we do notice overriding day to day but we just don't have the time to do anything about it due to the tight schdules we must keep. It seems TTO's are reluctant to ride on buses due to their unfamiliarity of the services and tend to only ride on high frequency services so as not to end up in the middle of woop woop for a prolonged time.
Keep in mind I am driving a bus for 40 hours each week around the City area, and for the entire 2008 year, have only seen TTO's board my bus 5 times. How many times would a passenger who travels on a train for an average 5 - 7 hours per week see TTO's checking tickets ? Certainly more than 5 times a year !!

[ozbob]

From the Brisbane mX 20th February 2009 page 1

Fares crackdown

[mark_from_briz]

Some time ago i used to catch the bus on a semi regular basis, i used a weekly ticket (this was for clarks buses).
on one occasion the ticked had faded significantly (but was still readable) with in the week. One driver "told me off" for it stating that it wasnt acceptable and wouldnt let me on. I was quite cranky at this, after all its not my fault, i paid the relevant fare, if the ticketing infrastructure/printed medium is so feeble as to fade in your wallet after a week in queensland then i suggested that the buss company had issues to deal with.

I took it up with the operation manager at clarkes, and he very decently suggested that i send him a photo copy and they would re issue the weekly. I send him the photocopy copy but didnt take up his offer as i was on the last day of the ticket anyhow.

So as for cracking down on avoidance im all for it, but dont make it hard for legitimate users

[stephenk]

Whilst I have a strong dislike of fair evasion, there are genuine cases when people do not have a valid ticket.

For example yesterday I bought a weekly, which had an expiry date on the day of purchase!

A relative also recently turned up to a station 6 mins before the timetabled departure time. Unfortunately instead of the usual queue of 1 or 2 people at the ticket machine, there was a large group of 22 people who were pretty clueless at using the machine making the queue move slowly. The train then arrived 2 mins early. With an off-peak frequency of 30mins, there was little option but to board the train without a ticket.

[dwb]

Quite frankly the whole idea is silly and targetted at those people who never catch public transport and know little about it and feel morally outraged that their money is being stolen. It is, how shall I put it, directed at the Today Tonight TV audience.

Everytime I ride on a bus and pay a fare and see a single driver in a car blocking the bus with 65 passengers on it I feel angry that more state money is spent on roads for cars than public transport. I feel angry that the likelihood is that person only paid outright $300 in rego to be able to use public roads as much as they like without ever paying another fee. I feel angry that I have to not only contribute in taxes to the provision of those roads, but knowing so that I've doubly paid for the bus with the fare each and every time I board.

If it were free so many people would get it they'd be able to stop spending so much money on roads and tunnels for cars, and the increase in productivity and social equity would far outweigh the cost in providing the improved services. There would be no "theft" because we'd start to realise PT was the true public resource that should be (upfront) free... not just the roads.

Translink also needs to think of students as customers (both now and into the future) and not as ripoff merchants. It is no wonder after being yelled at, abused, left at stops and made late for five years through school and 3-4 through uni that once people get a job they turn away from PT and never ever use it again unless they absolutely totally have to!  People have long memories and every little indignation adds up to a horrific perception of public transport that is almost impossible to overcome.

[ozbob]

From the Courier Mail click here!

Fare evaders cost Translink about $16 million a year

Fare evaders cost Translink about $16 million a year
Article from: The Courier-Mail

Ursula Heger

March 24, 2009 12:00am

MORE than 14,000 fare evaders are taking a free ride on trains, buses and ferries each day in southeast Queensland, costing taxpayers millions.

On some train lines, such as Beenleigh, one in every 10 commuters is travelling without paying.

An attempt by TransLink to crack down on fare evaders by boosting the number of ticket inspectors has had little impact on the problem.

Figures obtained by The Courier-Mail show 7.2 per cent of train commuters, 3.4 per cent of bus passengers and 1.9 per cent of those travelling on ferries are cheating the system.

The chronic fare evasion is costing authorities about $16 million a year - equivalent to 7 per cent of the $239 million in fare revenue collected across the network in the last financial year.

Some of the worst fare evasion takes place on the busiest routes, including the Beenleigh (12.2 per cent), Gold Coast (8.2 per cent), Shorncliffe (6.8 per cent) and Ferny Grove (6.8 per cent) lines.

The figures are detailed in the annual Translink public transport survey, which includes bus and ferry passengers for the first time, giving a clearer picture of the extent of evasion across the network.

TransLink Transit Authority spokesman Adam Nicholson yesterday said fare dodgers would be punished.

In January, 2175 people were fined and 1413 were warned for fare evasion across the network.

"Those who break the law on public transport continue to be caught, with (TransLink Transit officers) handing out 10,400 fines for fare evasion in the last six months of 2008," he said.

"The message is clear: those who aren't doing the right thing risk a $200 on-the-spot fine which could be easily avoided by paying a few dollars for the correct fare before commencing a journey."

While acknowledging fare evaders were stealing from the system, a spokesman for the commuter advocacy group Rail Back on Track, Robert Dow, said some commuters were confused about whether they could buy their tickets at the end of the journey.

"About six to eight years ago people used to be able to reverse ticket in Queensland - buying a ticket at the end of a journey," he said.

Some people still believed they could reverse ticket which, combined with running late, led to more being caught on the inbound services, he said.

The figures show those travelling inbound were nearly twice as likely to offend than those on the outbound service.

Those travelling longer distances, more than six rail zones were also more likely to evade.

Fare evaders are given warnings for their first offence and their details go into a database.

Fare revenue covers less than a third of the $960 million annual cost of running SEQ's public transport network.

[ozbob]

No one condones fare evasion. Fining passengers who are buying reverse tickets at CBD stations is just punishing people for system wide problems of not providing proper ticketing resources.

The real fare evaders are riding outer suburban services regularly, and often buy 1 zone tickets within the inner city to traverse the Transit Officer gauntlet, and then travel system wide for free.

Rather than fining people who are not arguably fare evading, catching the real cheats should be the the priority. Reverse ticket buyers are soft targets, and they are not guilty of theft IMHO. They have every intention of paying their fare, just have problems with the mediocre ticket machines and often the lack of  staff at stations.  The other day at Oxley the AVVM had correct coins, no change.  This is rather common these days, and combined with unstaffed stations makes it difficult.

I can remember buying tickets on board north of Caboolture not so long ago, and I think in some cases people are confused.  More education and proper prompt maintenance of ticketing facilities is needed as well.

The fact there are reverse ticket windows at the major stations also is confusing for some.

[Mozz]

I suspect that authorities forgo anywhere between $.05m - $4.0M in fare revenue yearly due to faulty gocard system. It is understood that many public transport commuters trying to use the new gocard system are receiving free travel due to faulty equipment and some equipment which is patently not fit for purpose, primarily on buses and ferries however also extending to the rail network.

Combined with the cattle gate sytem at major railway stations at Roma Street and Central which regularly fail to such an extent that it has been reported at some stages all, that is every gate being in a failed state, resulting in all commuters using a gocard at Roma street being unable to touch on resulting in forgone revenue.

Despite the widespread introduction and takeup of the gocard there are precious little portable gocard readers in use on the public transport network for use by transit officers leaving most transit officer teams unable to verify the validity of a presented gocard potentially forgoing further revenue.

The implementation of this system cost anywhere between $50.0M and $150.0M and it is not unreasonable to expect that it and the associated equipment actually work properly here in Queensland.

Suggestions for improvement include ensuring the company responsible for the gocard implementation properly repair or replace chronically failing equipment with equipment which is fit for purpose. Readers exposed to sun and rain should not become unusable after a few weeks or months.

The current cattle gates at major stations are obviously not fit for purpose with the large number of failures occuring on a daily basis and should be replaced with equipment that works.

Authorities should investigate ways of increasing revenue from the existing public transport network and infrastructure beyond highlighting fare evasion. Incentive ticketing would act as a enabler of increasing the numbers of commuters onto public transport thus increasing the revenue base. (incentive ticking including off peak fares - which disappeared without trace with the new ticket machines and introduction of gocard; daily/weekly capped fares to encourage people out of their cars onto public transport; free public transport for seniors on sundays thus encouraging public transport use on other days)

Highlighting potentially forgone revenue from fare evaders is appropriate however in this day and age it would be great to see the authorities provide clear information on what they are doing to increase revenue beyond hiring more transit officers to write more tickets.

If you always do what you always did you will always get what you always got.

[ozbob]

From Brisbane mX 24th March 2009 page 2

Fare go, pay up

[ozbob]

From the Queensland Times 25th March 2009 page 9

Free Riders condemned

[ozbob]

From the Courier Mail click here!

Cheats fare well on public transport

Cheats fare well on public transport
Article from: The Courier-Mail

By Terry Sweetman

March 26, 2009 11:00pm

NO MATTER how many times I see it, I can't get over the fatuous anti-piracy spiel that comes before the roaring MGM lion and the interminable credits on a home DVD.

You must have seen this appeal to our innate goodness - "You wouldn't steal a car, you wouldn't steal a handbag, you wouldn't steal a phone ..." - before Miss Goody Twoshoes stops downloading a pirate movie and rushes off to do something wholesome.

However, the evidence is that people do steal cars, phones, handbags, or anything else that isn't nailed down. If nothing else, those sorts of thefts are technologically a lot less challenging than downloading a pirate movie.

People steal for many reasons but high among them are; because they can, they judge the odds of being caught are long and chances of serious penalties are slight. When it comes to public transport, we can tick all three temptation boxes.

And when we consider that our rail system, in particular, can actually make honesty inconvenient, we shouldn't be at all surprised that fare evasion in southeast Queensland costs us an estimated $16 million a year.

That, according to figures published by this paper, represents 14,000 freeloaders on our trains, buses and ferries each day.

As a statistical innocent, I wonder how it is that TransLink knows so much but achieves so little when it comes to fare enforcement.

However it arrives at its determination, it estimates 7.2 per cent of train commuters, 3.4 per cent of bus passengers and 1.9 per cent of ferry travellers cheat the system.

That works out at about 7 per cent of the $239 million in fares collected across the network last financial year.

However, it is obvious to anyone who uses the system that the percentage of freeloaders is directly proportionate to the ease of evasion.

For the serial fare-dodger, ferries are a tough call because passengers are channelled across one gangplank and the ratio of staff to passengers is fairly high.

Buses are a bit easier, depending on the diligence of the driver, but the fragile Go Card system and the conflicting roles of driver and ticket seller are sometimes incompatible.

But the rail system remains a positive invitation to fare-dodgers, posing no more difficulty for the morally challenged than taking candy from babies.

The system of fare collection is flawed, compliance relies on an honesty box mentality and enforcement is thin on the ground, predictable and ponderous.

I can think of few other businesses that make it so difficult for honest customers to do business.

Go Card remains shaky anywhere that the scanners aren't set in concrete, long queues are the price of honesty, anything larger than a $20 note is about as welcome as a handful of pesos, ticket machines are often less than friendly, and the number of off-site paper ticket sellers is disgracefully small (no doubt to arm-twist people into buying Go Cards).

However, the biggest problem is that Citytrain tries to graft a 21st-century underground ticketing and enforcement system on to a 19th-century overground network.

Apart from half a dozen major stations, largely unattended suburban stops are about as watertight as a string bag. Even where passenger-channelling is relatively easy, a chaotic mix of electronic and non-compatible paper tickets makes enforcement pretty well impossible.

When it comes to Go Card, our transport planners put a multi-multimillion-dollar cart before the bargain-basement horse. Electronic cards without real barriers are pointless and turnstiles don't work if people can walk around them or if they are disabled.

And it is all compounded by a lackadaisical work culture that turns jobs into mindless chores.

It's not as if this is new. A prowl through our files shows that fare-evasion reports and crackdown warnings are at least as frequent as some of our train services.

But do we really take it seriously? Taking the figure of 14,000 fare dodgers a day and charitably applying it to only working days, that's 280,000 crooked commuters a month. In January just 2175 people were fined and 1413 were warned, a grand total of 3588.

Still, fare evaders are expected to tremble in their boots over a warning from TransLink Transit Authority spokesman Adam Nicholson that they will be punished.

"The message is clear," he said. But just what is the message from statistics that seem to make fare dodging a worthwhile gamble?

No other business - except one that is drip-fed by the taxpayer - could support larceny on such a scale. Any department store that allowed 7 per cent of its customers to walk out the door with something stuffed up their jumpers would be out of business pronto.

Instead of bleating about the undoubted dishonesty of some of its customers (many of whom have little to be happy about), our transport authorities would be better off looking at how they do business and closing some loopholes of their own making.

A good - if only symbolic - start might to be to divert the $1 million a year that goes into sponsoring the Queensland Reds rugby union team back into Queensland Rail's core business.

[dwb]

Predictable twiddle from one of the Couriermail's finest punters. About the only sensible thing he seems to say is that we should be making it easier to buy a ticket.

[mufreight]

Part of the solution would be ticket machines that actually work reliably, same for the Go card readers and more staffed stations.
Other things that would help are the design of new stations, an island platform has a greater degree of security and coupled with a subway rather than an overbridge would also be more passenger friendly 4 metres down and 5 metres up is a better option than 7 plus metres up and 6 metres down to a platform but this is not rocket science and would be beyond the expertise of some self serving boffin.

[dwb]

Actually if you're thinking safety then overpasses are probably better even if it is a little further up and down.

Busway stations all have two lifts with surrounding stairwells with lots of glass allowing surveillance all round, I don't see why something similar couldn't be utilised here.

QR rail station engineers/architects have a long way to go before they'll be anywhere near rivaling the busway architects success in safety, design, CPTED, comfort and convenience.

[Arnz]

There has been some effort at the QR refurbished stations lately (depending on contractor).  Trackstar with the Beeburrum and Elimbah Stations and the contractors with the new Varsity Lakes and Richland Stations are fairly good in design and ease of convenience.  Brunswick Street, although a building, was also another good effort.

On the other hand, there is that shocker which is Indooroopilly Station (which iirc, was a QR-only project).

[Fares_Fair]

From the Courier Mail click here!

By Terry Sweetman
March 26, 2009 11:00pm

A good - if only symbolic - start might to be to divert the $1 million a year that goes into sponsoring the Queensland Reds rugby union team back into Queensland Rail's core business.

Hear hear, it is truly astonishing that public moneys are wasted on the sponsorship of a Rugby Union team,
or any other sporting group for that matter.
It's not as if there is any competition against QR.

Sure, give them a sporting grant - under appropriate rules for disbursement if they so desperately need it (and they probably don't).
The former federal Sports Minister's white board comes to mind ..
did the State Minister for Sport have a white board too?

It is indeed appalling that such a gross waste of Government resources is squandered on the elite. 
I'd be interested to know who originally authorised this practise and under what circumstances it occurred.

There's an immediate $1 million monetary saving for Anna Bligh right there.

Regards,
Fares_Fair

[ozbob]

Not withstanding  the well known recent exception, the new railway stations are getting better.  What I have seen of Elimbah/Beerburrum (they are identical essentially) is good (except for the lack of toilets).

The new bus stations are well done I agree Dwb.

Oxley is kind of cute too.  Hard ask to blend the new with the old there.

[mufreight]

DWB has like many missed the point on a subway as an alternative to an overbridge, the numbers of aged and disabled is increasing and while lifts can be provided, they can and do fail then you have situations like two LOL's one of whom was in a wheelchair being stuck in a lift for a couple of hours when the lift failed with considerable trumatic impact on both.
With a subway it is possible to provide ramps due to the shorter height vatiations and adequate lighting and CCTV provide a high level of security regardless of if it is a subway or an overbridge.
As to the policing of fares island platforms are much more functional and station facilities such as ticket office, card readers, ticket machines and toilets can service both platforms, not only one as is the case with most locations where side platforms are in place.

[ozbob]

From the Courier Mail click here!

Fare dodging commuters default on $4 million in fines

Fare dodging commuters default on $4 million in fines
Article from: The Courier-Mail

Ursula Heger

April 01, 2009 11:00pm

MORE than four out of five public transport fare dodgers did not bother to pay their $200-on-the-spot fine last year, new figures reveal.
Figures released by TransLink show almost 20,000 outstanding fare evasion fines, totalling about $4 million, were not paid last year and had to be chased by the State Government.

The data shows of the 22,600 fines handed out by TransLink transit officers more than 19,300 had to be referred to the State Penalties Enforcement Registry after the 28-day payment period elapsed. A further 65 offenders were taken to court, while 243 successfully protested.

The Courier-Mail last week revealed that more than 14,000 commuters a day across the city's bus, ferry and train network avoided paying fares, costing the State Government about $16 million a year.

Comment on this article:  More of the same in terms of enforcement is not working.  We need to ramp up go card uptake, and by doing that a more closed ticketing system can be implemented.  The present hybrid ticketing system is causing many issues.  One only has to watch the farcical proceedings at the main go card gate array at Central.  Gates open, punters waltzing through willy-nilly.  Contrast to the go carders punting through the side gate arrays.  No one without a ticket gets through there (unless they trail, but I haven't observed that for some time now.)

To get the punters to use the go card it MUST be made fare equitable.  Capping is a key requirement, once that is done there is little reason not to use it.  The flow on effects in terms of improved loading efficiency for buses is also a major gain.  It is time we moved forward with the go card.  How about it TL?