Why can you get a free ride (literally) using LA's subway?

September 30, 2008 7:14 PM

Why is LA's Metro subway line on the "honor system?" What possible benefits, financial and otherwise, could arise from not checking to see if everyone is a paying customer?

I've seen officials checking tickets at Union Station, but never on a daily basis - and even so, that's just one stop. This baffles me to no end. Why would the City of Los Angeles and/or the MTA decide to not enforce payment?

posted by invisible ink to travel & transportation (28 comments total)

Off the top of my head:
Increased ridership.
Lower staff costs.
Faster loading and unloading.
posted by Good Brain at 7:17 PM on September 30, 2008

It costs money to collect fares- to pay the people in the booths, to service the machines, to print the tickets. You save money not doing so. You might even save more money by not collecting fares than you would save by collecting them in the first place.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 7:17 PM on September 30, 2008 [1 favorite]

And it can cost a bunch of money when the goons who may police the cars and give out infraction tickets go beyond where they should physically (as they have in Vancouver), which can result in a criminal charge against the staff.
posted by Listener at 7:21 PM on September 30, 2008

Tangentially related is the idea that they might not do that badly. There's anecdotal evidence that 'pay-what-you-wish' shops do well enough to keep it up, at least. LA's metro, as a public utility (right?), will have as its mandate 'to provide the people in the metro area with affordable service', or some such hogwash. So beyond the (very true) points that those above me made, they might just not care. Kind of a 'if you're willing to steal this, you need the money more' deal.
posted by Lemurrhea at 7:24 PM on September 30, 2008

They do spot-check tickets. It's rare, but if you ride the trains for long enough, you'll get checked. The $250 fine (and fear of that fine) helps keep loss low. Especially if you compare to the ticket enforcing equipment involved in a system like New York (or even worse, D.C.)
posted by specialfriend at 7:29 PM on September 30, 2008

Parts of the London overground train network have little to no enforcement 80 - 90% of the time. But most people buy tickets because the one day you don't will be the day that the ticket checkers turn up at your station.

Essentially, the costs of 100% ticket checks outweigh the benefits of roving teams and relying on the possibility of ticket checks rather than the constant reality.
posted by Happy Dave at 7:39 PM on September 30, 2008

I've never been to LA, so I don't know what the trains are like, but I imagine the more people they can get on a train, paying or not, the more they can charge advertisers.
posted by Plug Dub In at 7:41 PM on September 30, 2008 [1 favorite]

I just figured they didn't want to buy machines to check your ticket. Actually, to be specific, I figured that knowing Los Angeles they ran out of money in the budget to buy ticket machines and decided not to bother.

Caltrain (in the Bay Area) is also on the honor system, but they seem to have ticket checking more often than the LA Metro. I rode the Red Line down there quite often when I was in high school and only once did someone check my ticket. It was pretty scary too, because I had a transfer from the bus and wasn't entirely convinced of its kosher-ness as subway admission media. Happily, the conductor seemed fine with it.

I think they probably make decent bank on ticketing violators. Also, a lot of commuters in the Bay Area buy monthly passes - I assume this is the case in LA too - which means that the Metro is guaranteed revenue from pass renewals every month whether those folks ride or not. There are definitely some months when it would be cheaper for me to use a ten-ride than buy a pass (like if I'm on vacation for a week or something) but ten-rides are such a pain that I just get a pass anyway. I'm sure they did market research and determined that a fare system that allowed for monthly passes was attractive to a lot of people, more so than a purely mileage based system.
posted by crinklebat at 7:55 PM on September 30, 2008

The reason that system exists is to try to encourage people to use it, so that they don't drive their cars. The more of a hassle you make it for riders, the more likely they are to decide it isn't worth it, and to drive instead.

The main benefit of not having the kind of every-rider-checked-every-ride system you're talking about it that it makes the system nicer for the riders, which encourages more of them, which reduces the load on the highways.
posted by Class Goat at 7:59 PM on September 30, 2008

In case you haven't heard, the honor system will be no more soon for most of the LA Metro. (News release) The news release says, "The agency loses $5.5 million per year due to fare evasion." As for why they started with the honor system at all, you've got me.
posted by Uncle Glendinning at 8:02 PM on September 30, 2008

I wonder if they just wanted to get people out of their cars to ease congestion on the roads?
posted by lottie at 8:20 PM on September 30, 2008

Actually, given the figures in that press release, installing gates will cost them $66 million dollars over 10 years. If we are charitable and subtract the $10 million in capital expenses, that means they're going to pay $5.6 million a year to get back $5.5 million, as well as some unspecified fare inspector costs. They aren't going to make a lot of extra money on this. And it will reduce the public amenity, which is bad.
posted by grouse at 8:23 PM on September 30, 2008 [1 favorite]

I grew up in Chicago. Every stop, on every line, at every hour of the day and night, there's someone manning the gate. Sometimes two, for security purposes.

Those people, and the facilities they spend their time in, require money. Money for salaries, money for the original construction, and money for upkeep.

Yet, just the same, the number of people (kids, usually) who jumped the turnstyles when a train was pulling into the station was ridiculous. So it wasn't a guarantee.

Contrast that with the busier stations in Chicago, or in New York, or in London, where there are staff, but also big gates and such to keep people from jumping. Those are even more expensive to install and maintain.

So it must have seemed like a great way to save money on the initial build of the LA Metro. And on some level, it probably made sense in the same way it made sense for Microsoft to tolerate piracy until their products were ubiquitous, then start cracking down: I'm sure lots of people took advantage of the lax security and are now dependent on the rail, and so they'll start coughing up rather than looking for alternatives.

That, plus the odds: when the fine is $250 (which it is in LA if you're caught) that's a hefty fee against the fare. When I was riding the red line regularly, LA's finest would board the train I was on at least once a week.
posted by davejay at 8:34 PM on September 30, 2008

What possible benefits, financial and otherwise, could arise from not checking to see if everyone is a paying customer?

Quite simply: the value of (ticket revenue less enforcement costs) is going to vary according to the effort put into enforcement. The function determining this variance probably (OK, almost certainly) demonstrates diminishing returns as more tickets are checked (past a minimum level where it seems, to each rider, silly to buy a ticket).

The point of maximum net revenue is unlikely to match precisely the level of enforcement practiced, but it is probably closer to that than it is to the point at 100% enforcement, where your ticket-checking costs are going to be huge.
posted by pompomtom at 8:36 PM on September 30, 2008

I've read, too, that open, ungated stations are more efficient -- people get into and out of them more quickly, so when you need to clear a crowd, say as a concert or game lets out, it happens much more easily if people don't have to stop an insert tokens, cards, or money.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:44 PM on September 30, 2008

As for why they started with the honor system at all, you've got me.

it's because we suck at this sort of efficiency and applied technology, and we're apparently incapable of learning from more advanced systems, so we just bumblefuck around with half-assed shit.

The Tokyo system qualifies as the 8th Wonder of the World these days. It wasn't half-bad when I got there in 1992, but the advances they did since then have been awesome.
posted by troy at 8:52 PM on September 30, 2008 [1 favorite]

Because the alternative is some banty-rooster spit-shined shit on the VTA light rail in San Jose enforcing ticketing when you -cannot even buy- a ticket sometimes. I saw this once and never rode the damned things again. What an uncivilized system, when you can't buy a ticket at the platform and can't pay on board.

Now, BART - there's something else again. That system (and Atlanta's MARTA, and whatever the DC system's called) make it -easy- for you to pay your fare and they don't have a bunch of agents crawling around.
posted by jet_silver at 9:00 PM on September 30, 2008

Ticket collection and fare evaders are an interesting balancing act.

This is an example from my own city (Brisbane, Australia), numbers have been rounded to make the math easier:

I pay $5 a day for travel, and I travel 5 days a week. A fine for not having a ticket is $150 dollars. Tickets are checked at core stations, and by roving ticket checkers who travel on the trains and say, "Tickets Please".

If I travel without a ticket habitually, I know I will be picked up by the ticket collectors, but I also know that the frequency at which I will see the ticket collectors is very low. Out of a month of travel, I might see them once, which means that it's only marginally more expensive to pay fines instead of ticket fees.

The trick is for the train system to increase the ticket enforcement to exactly the point where revenue isn't lost through ticket evasion, but no further.

i.e: Cost Per Trip / Chance of Being Caught = Fine Amount

If that equation is right, then there's no reason to be any more vigilant with your ticket purchase enforcement.

As a datapoint, I would rate my chance of being caught as being higher than 1 in 60 in my city, so my train system should either reduce enforcement, or increase the fine amount. :)
posted by Jerub at 9:08 PM on September 30, 2008 [1 favorite]

As I understand it, the honor system basically goes for the LA Metro Bus system as well.

I have several times seen patrons board and try to explain to the driver that they don't have enough money for the fare. The driver simply says something along the lines of "You have to pay the fare." When the patron argues, they just keep repeating this. Usually, after hearing this a few times, the patron realizes that the driver can't (or won't) do anything about their failure to pay, the patron clears the doorway, the driver closes the door, and we all drive on.

Though enforcement of the fares might theoretically be nice, the potential delays (and chance of physical altercations) simply wouldn't make this cost-effective.

(As an indication of the public utility's commitment to increasing ridership, there are also [seemingly random] days on which the fare is waved - signaled by some item draped over the fare box.)
posted by reader-writer at 9:26 PM on September 30, 2008

Wikipedia has a bunch of info on this sort of system.
posted by ManInSuit at 10:27 PM on September 30, 2008 [1 favorite]

I have been using the TAP card (I have a monthly pass) in the rail stations to validate my ride, even though it's never enforced and I've never seen anyone else tap their card to the reader. My main reason is that I support the Metro system and I like letting them know that I'm out there! I think it's a good way for them to be able to track their ridership numbers -- and we as riders should definitely want to stand up and be counted.
posted by mirepoix at 10:58 PM on September 30, 2008

I think Davejay has both parts of this: it was cheaper and easier to build up the system that way, and as a brilliant move in a transit-allergic city like L.A., it helped to get everyone hooked on the system before charging for it. (First one's free.)

Also, remember that the transit system is not something the city built in order to produce revenue as its priority. Increased use of transit has many other benefits to the city, including reduced pollution and traffic congestion.
posted by rokusan at 1:16 AM on October 1, 2008

davejay also pointed out that police handle the ticket checking, meaning the metro doesn't need any ticket checkers on the payrole, cops will just check tickets when they've some spare time. I imagine that $250 gets split between the LAPD and the LA Metro.
posted by jeffburdges at 8:49 AM on October 1, 2008

Yeah at $1.25 for a single ride a $250 fine is hefty. I always buy a ticket in the LA Metro but I rarely see others do so. Some must have passes but there are a huge amount of people that evade the fare. Once the ridership gets to a certain point they're sure to crack down. This seems to happen everywhere I've lived that once had an honor system.
posted by ob at 10:34 AM on October 1, 2008

with a $250 fine, you only come out ahead if you managed to ride 200 times without being caught.

the spot-checking of tickets is done by the los angeles county sheriff's department, not lapd (because metro is a regional system), and is almost certainly not cost-free for the mta. i assume that the safety and ticket checking is contracted out to the sheriff's department. it's certainly not done on anyone's spare time.

there are plans to install turnstiles throughout the light rail system. as stephen's piece speculates, this may be a precursor to distance-based fares.
posted by jimw at 3:46 PM on October 1, 2008

i'm too lazy to dig up the links, but mta has said that something like 95-97% of riders are paying to ride. don't be fooled just because you don't see people pay -- there are a lot of people riding on monthly (or weekly or daily) passes.
posted by jimw at 3:48 PM on October 1, 2008

jeffburdges: Actually, it's the LA County Sheriff that handles the Metro. They underbid the LAPD 5 years ago or so and got the contract.

Also, I noticed that in the last year there have been a lot more "Fare Inspectors" writing tickets rather than sworn peace officers. Real cops are too expensive to have sitting around checking tickets I'm sure.
posted by sideshow at 10:09 AM on October 2, 2008

There is a similar system where I live. I see the ticket collectors on average once a month. A monthly pass is still cheaper than getting caught without a ticket just once.
posted by qvtqht at 4:53 PM on October 2, 2008