[PRCo] Re: quick reply...The Clock

[Joshua Dunfield]

> Fred Schneider <fwschneider at comcast.net> wrote:

> It works as well as it's enforced. There was a rather large brew-ha 
> in Los Angeles last year or this year when SCRTD suggested 
> installing turnstiles because the fare evasion rate was too high. 
> Of course the do gooders felt that this was criminal on the part of 
> the transit authority ... we should not be forcing our riders to pay 
> fares ... we should allow them to pay if the choose to.

Never mind the "do gooders"; there are good reasons for not subjecting
LRT to either onboard fare collection or pre-boarding fare collection.
Onboard is simply too slow.  I could see turnstiles on the LA Red Line;
you need to staff subway stations anyway.  But otherwise you're looking
at rebuilding every surface station for a limited (if any) cut in
payroll (instead of dozens of people inspecting fares you'll have dozens
of people sitting in fare booths).

[...]
> Now, if Cleveland wants to come on to its trains with an 82nd 
> Airborne style group of uniformed officers, one at each door, the 
> system will work quite well. Otherwise, you will have one percent 
> published evasion, and the revenue will probably drop by about 30 
> percent

Which US systems have done what Cleveland is doing? i.e., go from pre-
or on-board fare collection to POP?  Of course it's impossible to
know the actual number of fare evaders (the best way might be an anonymous
survey), and it must be higher than the number they catch, but that
doesn't mean it's even close to 30%.

(It could be higher, of course.  A friend of mine visited Melbourne
a few years back and said the trams were full of fare evaders -- when
an inspector came into view the entire tram would empty out, except
the tourists...who didn't know any better!)

-j.