
Fare Dodging Is an Organized Rebellion in Stockholm, and It’s Winning - yiedyie
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/18/world/europe/fare-dodging-is-an-organized-rebellion-in-stockholm-and-its-winning.html
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hungarian-eel
If I were the Stockholm public transit company, I'd get my employees to join
Planka, get fined every day, and send the bill to Planka. Let's see how they
like being on the receiving end of fraud for a change.

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scotty79
Why public transport is paid is beyond me. Why would city spend significant
resources to discourage usage of public transport by putting price on it? Do
they really prefer for the people to buy cars and stand in traffic for hours
on overcrowded streets and subsequently be disgruntled and pressure local
governments for more roads?

Why only public traffic commuters pay if all benefit from the fact that they
are not on the street crawling in 1.5 tonne of steel each?

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noxxten
Traveling the DC metro from baltimore literally cost me like $2 one way. It
would otherwise be a 50 mile drive.

So I could either spend roughly $5 on the metro, or $20 in gas (plus a long
ass commute and gridlock wait time). For what you get, most metro costs ARE
planned to be at a significant advantage to most people.

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sp332
For all the money they already paid to make that possible, paying an extra $2
to make your trip free would be a very small addition.

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vinkelhake
As someone who has been a paying rider in the Stockholm mass transit system
for decades, this doesn't really bother me. I'd rather have a small group of
people freeload than have the fines jacked up or HEET turnstiles installed. I
don't think having 100% paying riders in the transit system is a goal worth
pursuing.

The measures that some here advocate have downsides.

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barrkel
Increase fines and capture rates until the expected benefits of fare-dodging
are negative.

Nobody needs to run to catch the evaders. Periodically, ticket inspectors need
to check everyone on a carriage / vehicle, covering all exits.

$180 isn't much of a fine, especially since it can be covered by 50% of a
$15/month membership charge. That implies a catch chance of about 4.2% per
person per month. If an unlimited ticket is $120, then the fine should be
closer to $3000, if there is no increase in catch rates.

A $3000 fine would be unjust for people who make genuine mistakes, however.

So a different strategy should be followed: crack down on individual routes,
greatly increasing the catch rate, combined with a modest increase in the
fine; focus on changing behaviour, one route at a time.

Alternatively, fines could escalate for repeat offences.

All assuming anyone is interested in decreasing fraud, of course. It may be a
socially acceptable loss for more complex reasons.

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vacri
_$180 isn 't much of a fine, especially since it can be covered by 50% of a
$15/month membership charge._

$180 is a significant fine, if you're poor. I've always liked the idea that a
fine should be generally tied to your level of wealth, perhaps with a floor so
it's not pointlessly low. If the idea of a fine is to deter repeat activity,
wealthy people should be equally deterred.

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YokoZar
The general argument against raising fines alongside wealth is that it might
actually be "efficient" for people to break the law and incur the fine. If the
act you're trying to prevent can only cause, say, a thousand dollars of damage
then it doesn't make sense to have the price go much beyond that.

For instance if you're about to make a billion dollar deal but you have to run
through a turnstyle to do it, society as a whole might just be better off
letting you get away with a modest fine.

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vacri
That's quite a tortured hypothetical you developed there. In that case, take
it to a court and have judge rule on it. Laws are sledgehammers, not scalpels
- there's no law that can justly account for outliers without some human
oversight, letalone extreme outliers that have likely never happened in the
history of humankind.

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vacri
Fare dodging of 3% isn't that much, and shouldn't be characterised as
"winning". You could spend a lot of money to reduce it to 2% or maybe 1%, but
is it really worth it economically? Reducing it by 1% will net you $12M, but
to get that you need to train up existing employees, hire new ones, and build
more infrastructure.

The fare-dodging organisation is an interesting one, but it's worth mentioning
that it's net monetary gain each month is enough for a single employee
equivalent (on an average wage), with no overheads or other costs. It is
interesting that it's profitable, but it's not like the money is pouring in.

Edit: For comparison, fare evasion here in Melbourne hit a 5-year low point at
9% back in January.

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chrismcb
"reasoning that scofflaws might graduate to more serious crimes if left
alone." Really, is there any evidence of that? Or do they think that people
will get bored with it, and start on harder crimes? I was disappointed that
the article didn't really discuss WHY they are doing it, other than as some
sort of “collective fare strike,” and the system should be free. But if it is
free, then who will pay for it? It isn't like the fares are that outrageous.

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kd0amg
_the article didn 't really discuss WHY they are doing it, other than as some
sort of “collective fare strike,” and the system should be free. But if it is
free, then who will pay for it?_

From the article, "The transit system should be financed through taxes, they
said, ensuring that a greater share comes from affluent residents and
drivers."

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oneeyedpigeon
Don't try this kind of thing in London. There is a zero-tolerance policy in
place on public transport, not just for intentional fare evasion, but for
honest mistakes including getting on a train at the wrong time or sitting in
the wrong part of a train, even if no other seats are available. Even problems
with the ticket barriers are the responsibility of the traveller, not the
train company. And repeat 'offenders' can end up with a criminal record.

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Afforess
Clearly the fines are too low. Tripling the fines would defeat the economics
of the freeloaders little group:

 _Last year, the group took in more than twice as much money — more than
$7,500 per month — as it paid out in fines, organizers said._

Triple their fine costs, and the group is suddenly no longer economical. No
investment in infrastructure needed.

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GuiA
Triple the fines, and the poorer people who may have paid up before won't be
able to anymore. It's a delicate balance; otherwise it would be too easy
("just make the fines $10 000")

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oh_sigh
What do you mean? Why were they evading the fare in the first place?

Tripling the fine may decrease the number of people that pay it, but it would
also essentially shutdown the group that encourages people to skip fares.

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blibble
or adopt something similar to the UK's penalty fare system, which generally
allows innocent mistakes to be dealt with with a minor fine, whilst persistent
offenders end up with a potentially large fine (upto £1000) and a criminal
record:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penalty_fare](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penalty_fare)

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
Unless you're rich, in which case you can just get off by paying the original
ticket price, and avoid a criminal record altogether [1]. By punishing
innocent mistakes, and mainly operating outside rush-hour, the UK penalty
system unfairly targets tourists, the elderly, and anyone else who is
unfamiliar with the nuances of all the various rules, prices, etc. It also
treats honest citizens like dirt and is wholly regressive and outdated in my
opinion.

[1] [http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/apr/13/man-avoids-
pr...](http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/apr/13/man-avoids-prosecution-
pay-back-43000-train-fares)

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bowlofpetunias
A somewhat off-topic but honest question: why is it that the NYT gets a free
pass when it comes to linking pay-walled sites?

Others would get ignored, not upvoted, flagged or at least come with a clear
warning label in the title.

Linking to pay-walled content without warning is generally considered bad form
on open discussion platforms.

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mattraibert
Speaking of fare-evasion, try viewing the article in private-
browsing/incognito mode.

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nostromo
> If travelers keep their side of the agreement, the group will cover any of
> the roughly $180 fines that might result.

What an ingenious and devious application of risk pooling.

Imagine risk pools being created for other fines, like tax evasion penalties
or speeding tickets. I wonder if such agreements are legal?

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viraptor
I guess that the patent / IP infringement indemnity clauses in business
contracts come close to that. The company offering the service takes the risk
of being sued, but offsets that with money earned from the contract. Quite
popular and apparently legal.

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ZanyProgrammer
Being able to pay the fare really is an issue for poor people. Every time I've
seen MUNI or VTA (Santa Clara County) agents checking for fare evasion, the
perpetrators are invariably poor, homeless, look like they are mentally ill,
etc. Good luck collecting those fines.

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vegardx
We have that problem in Oslo, Norway too. Usually homeless and/or addicts are
just silently let go, without a fine, even when they have big sweeps. It costs
the company and by extension society (things end up in court) too much money
trying to collect something that, by all standards, are uncollectible.

There has been some discussion about how they can solve the issue, but so far
everything is at a stand still. Some people want to make it so that public
transport passes are a part of welfare, others mean that they should use the
welfare money to pay for the passes if they need it, etc. It's a tough
question, and I can see good arguments being made on each side.

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unicornporn
To top this off, SL (the public transit company in Stockholm) adopted the
MIFARE Classic cards which are now being hacked. Much like this:

[http://vimeo.com/49664045](http://vimeo.com/49664045)

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the_mitsuhiko
Sometimes I wonder how Vienna's metro works. The year long ticket is 360 EUR
which is not a lot and there are no gates anywhere, just manual enforcement.

The fine is also low at 103 EUR.

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Executor
Taxation is theft. These people need better values.

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al_gore
HEET turnstiles?

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vegardx
In my city they tried to install something similar, yet less invasive, ie. you
could jump over them. But it was removed pretty much just weeks after being
installed. It didn't satisfy the fire department if there had to be an
evacuation. Now - you might think that they had investigated that before it
was installed, but ... yeah.

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hellbreakslose
That also started in Greece after they announced the austerity measures.
(2008) It's still an ongoing thing, and there is an organisation called
(WeDon'tPay) that does that stuff, they'll gather and they will not let people
pay any fare. This happens also in Tolls, that have been abused by contractors
and the goverment and 60 years after the complitation of the road they still
have tolls.

