[PRCo] Re: Fares Please

[John Swindler]

SEPTA calls their ridership numbers "heuristically derived".  It is from an 
internal memo to the board members warning them not to quote ridership 
numbers as actual.  This memo dates from mid-70s.

It is for same reason as West Penn.  SEPTA knows how much cash was deposited 
from fare boxes at each garage, and then used a formula to derive ridership.

Reminds me of the "Frank and Ernest" cartoon, where they ask the boss:  "do 
you want our generally accepted accounting standards to show a profit or a 
loss for the year?"

Some things never change.  We still have some people in this office who 
think depreciation is real money.

John, bureaucrat





>From: Fred Schneider <fwschneider at comcast.net>
>Reply-To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>Subject: [PRCo] Re: Fares Please
>Date: Sun, 2 Sep 2007 16:39:36 -0400
>
>The Railways Company didn't care about anything other than money and
>the fare box took care of that.   The annual reports to the state
>required a count of how many passengers boarded the cars, hence the
>fare register was used to count passengers.
>
>Fare registers were there to make sure the conductors were honest.
>After the fare boxes were installed, such a redundant devise was
>there usually because governments wanted information.   When UMTA
>started paying the bills in the 1970s, they too demanded passenger
>count data nationwide.
>
>There was a charming case that Ed Lybarger found in the state DIA
>reports where West Penn Railways had refused to fill in the passenger
>counts, claiming that they knew all about how many dollars they had
>but knew nothing about how many people rode.   West Penn's letter to
>the DIA explained that they had zone fares, single ride tickets,
>clergy fares, round trip tickets, etc., etc., and they knew how many
>dollars they received but they hadn't clue how many passengers
>rode.   They received a very bureaucratic letter in return saying, in
>essence, "The state doesn't care about your excuses, we need to know
>how many riders you had.   You will fill in the number."   West Penn
>filled in the number and said it was concocted.   At least for the
>remaining years the concocted numbers looked about the same.   They
>had made an attempt and come up with a valid number.
>
>Lancaster, Pennsylvania had a total of about 11 million riders in
>their best year.  That probably placed them around eighth or ninth
>largest in the state in spite of having the 6th largest fleet and 6th
>largest mileage.  Were their numbers also concocted?   Maybe but if
>you alter them in any way, they only get worse.   It shows something
>very interesting.   At 11 million riders a year, the average fare was
>only 6 cents and the first zone was 5 cents and the maximum zone fare
>was 45 cents from Lancaster to Coatesville.  You cannot increase the
>number of riders without lower the number of zone fares and it is
>already at a rock bottom level.   It shows that most people only rode
>from the farm to the nearest general store to buy work pants, a bolt
>of cloth or a bag of sugar and then went home again.   Going all the
>way into Lancaster was something reserved for Christmas or a Sunday
>School Picnic at Rocky Springs Park in July.   We are accustomed to
>taking long trips ... to 15,000 miles a year in our cars.  Americans
>of 1910 or 1915 lived out their entire lives seldom going more than
>10 miles from home.   The fare data from your local trolley company
>proves that.
>
>f3
>
>
>On Sep 1, 2007, at 10:19 PM, Jim Holland wrote:
>
> >  Good Morning!
> > http://tinyurl.com/2ykzmf[1]  --
> > http://lists.dementia.org/files/pittsburgh
> > -railways/03%20Fare%20Register%20Manual%2019830101%20JBHolland.jpg
> > [2]  --
> > Manual Fare register mounted to the left side of the destination
> > sign with
> > rope attached in one of the holes on the left.     Motorman would
> > manually
> > ring up each cash fare in accordance with PRCo rules.     The
> > bottom number
> > is cumulative - upper number reflects a portion of a trip.     When
> > the
> > motorman arrived at the turning point downtown, he would turn the
> > knob on
> > theleft which would reset the upper number to Zero and change  IN
> > to  OUT
> > (motorman first recorded the number of fares as well as the number of
> > transfers collected on his trip card.)     I also have the electric
> > register
> > which was operated by a dash toggle and was mounted near the
> > ceiling behind
> > the front doors in 1200s  --  1100s also had same  (or some of the
> > fleet
> > did)  but these apparently changed to manual at some point for some
> > reason
> > --  12s kept the electrical registers to the end.
> > .
> > .
> > .
> > Jim__Holland
> >
> >
> > --- Links ---
> >    1 http://tinyurl.com/2ykzmf
> >    2 http://lists.dementia.org/files/pittsburgh-railways/03%20Fare%
> > 20Register%20Manual%2019830101%20JBHolland.jpg
> >
>
>

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