
Tech recommendations for transit systems (2018) - pchristensen
https://pedestrianobservations.com/2018/08/15/fare-payment-without-the-stasi/
======
dahdum
> There are approximately three first-world Western cities that have any
> business having faregates on their urban rail networks: London, Paris, New
> York. Even there, I am skeptical that the faregates are truly necessary.

Not sure I agree with this, Tokyo has well designed faregates and with
contactless it's really fast. Since fare evasion is usually a minor crime
and/or comes with steep penalties, I'd rather structurally reduce it instead
of making it easier and punishing after the fact.

~~~
diffset
Seriously, I take BART daily and it would benefit greatly from the biggest
gates they can find. So many of BART's problems are caused by fare evasion.

~~~
Animats
Taller fare gates are in test at Richmond BART station right now.[1][2] The
regular lane works OK, but the fat people/wheelchair lane has problems.

NYC just puts in very strong stainless steel turnstile cages 8 feet high.[3]

[1] [https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/BART-s-new-
stack...](https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/BART-s-new-stacked-
gates-meant-to-deter-14083809.php) [2]
[https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/BART-Fare-Evaders-
Caug...](https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/BART-Fare-Evaders-Caught-on-
Video-Scuffling-With-Police-512558982.html) [3]
[https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/cagelike-subway-
turnsti...](https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/cagelike-subway-turnstiles-
bambooze-experienced-straphangers-paying-fare-article-1.474935)

~~~
betterunix2
NYC has some of the most annoying faregates ever conceived of. The "cages"
have bizarre mechanics that makes pushing them annoying, and the "normal"
turnstiles make it hard to push even a small suitcase through.

Tokyo has probably the best-designed faregates I have ever seen and I wish NYC
would copy them.

~~~
Animats
_NYC has some of the most annoying faregates ever conceived of. The "cages"_

That's so New York, to have an in-your-face un-jumpable turnstile.

------
clairity
> "To discourage fare evasion, the agency should set up regular inspections
> (on moving vehicles, with unarmed civilian inspectors)."

no, no, no, no, no. we do this in LA and it sucks. fare-paying riders (i.e.,
most riders) are regularly accosted by transit police for fare checks and thus
pay most of the cost of this in time and humiliation. instead, costs should
primarily accrue to fare evaders, not fare payers.

for instance (off the top of my head), technology should be used to
(anonymously) deduct fares at a distance while simultaneously detecting fare
evaders (maybe triangulated from multiple NFC readers). transit police can
then choose to fine the evader. to incentivize getting it right, give the
rider free rides if the system pinpoints the wrong person. or even just allow
cards to go negative (to repay later) and save on transit policing.

~~~
kelnos
We have that on buses in SF. During the 4-5 years when I heavily rode the bus,
fare inspectors came aboard exactly three times. When it does happen, it's no
big deal, takes very little time, and there's no "humiliation" aspect (well,
except for fare evaders, but they deserve what they get).

(Given the lack of frequency, I expect that there's a decent amount of
uncaught fare evasion.)

~~~
natalyarostova
My favorite part of seeing that in SF was the gaggle of homeless and fare
evaders who would immediately just walk away, while the inspectors weren't
paid enough to physically accost them and force them to suffer for their
theft. As a result the thieves walk away while muttering to themselves, and
the law-abiding citizens line up. The system works!

------
bifrost
"To discourage fare evasion, the agency should set up regular inspections (on
moving vehicles, with unarmed civilian inspectors),"

This absolutely does not work in a lot of the US urban areas, there is a ton
of fare evasion.

BART (SF Bay Area) released their "unpaid citation" numbers, it was in the
tens of thousands. San Francisco MUNI is similar. There are existing low-
cost/free passes for people available, they're apparently "too hard" for
people to get and use.

~~~
mayneack
Los Angeles has mostly inspection based fare enforcement and it looks like ~5%
evasion rate. Doesn't seem too bad for higher throughput.

[http://metro.legistar1.com/metro/attachments/94807457-8593-4...](http://metro.legistar1.com/metro/attachments/94807457-8593-4f7c-a336-7c5180f96f9a.pdf)

~~~
beowulfey
Actually LA metro switched to faregates everywhere a few years ago. Busses
still have some hopons though

~~~
riffic
There are many stations that lack fare gates, it is not universal throughout
the system.

------
gok
Unmentioned is the insanely obvious: there should just be a way to use a
standard contactless credit/debit card for occasional riders. Works in London,
Singapore, Chicago, a few other cities.

~~~
bobthepanda
The technology was only recently developed, and transit systems are usually
not flush with cash to keep upgrading payment systems more than maybe once a
decade, if that.

~~~
r00fus
Uh, Hong Kong had Octopus cards since I visited in 2003. Probably sooner.

That the western CC industry was reticent to pick up innovation from Asia is
not news either.

Transit systems being underfunded is a governmental problem, they should not
be seen as being revenue neutral as they facilitate commerce.

~~~
bobthepanda
Octopus is a debit/credit card in and of itself, but you can't use regular
bank contactless cards for payment. There are bank Octopus cards but those
have to be specifically compatible with Octopus. And it's availble in Samsung
Pay but as a distinct card, you can't just use any credit card in your mobile
wallet.

The system the OP is describing is compatible with standard contactless
technologies (bank cards, Apple/Android/Samsung Pay). It cuts out the need for
separate Octopus entirely.

------
niftich
Coins, cash, and disability-accessible faregates solve most dimensions of this
problem -- portability, scalability, no vendor lock, security, privacy, and
equal access -- but even that isn't universally deployed.

If you want to support distance-based, or otherwise complex fare structures,
have both entrance and exit gates demand a fixed payment, and give a one-time-
use token, ticket, or rebate code that identifies the origin, which, when
inserted at the exit, reduces the price if it's below the default amount. Non-
payment at exit gates is a similar issue to being caught with fare evasion by
roving inspectors, and has similar societal answers (or lack thereof).

If you want to reduce entrance friction, you can additionally deploy faster
payment methods for those who opt in, or reconsider the funding model of
transit entirely. Roads are a similar public good, yet rarely are 'usage fees'
deployed for roads; instead, the funding model of roads is complex, but fees
designed to somewhat correlate with road usage, like fuel taxes, are deployed
widely for this purpose. Both transit and roads are extensively subsidized
from general government revenues as well.

The effect is that roads are generally used without individual purchasing
decisions needing to be expended for every trip, and together with cars'
intrinsic point-to-point routing, it vastly reduces friction compared to
transit. Rethinking the funding model of transit, in places where the road
network is under strain and transit is a viable contender, would be
worthwhile.

------
cardamomo
New York is slowly rolling out a new payment service called OMNY.

I was curious to see what data privacy looked like in the new system. OMNY's
Terms of Service does not say anything about how they might access your
personal data from a NFC or contactless card payment _until_ you register your
account, which is optional. In that case, the following policy applies:

> In providing us with OMNY Account registration information, you confirm that
> the information is current, accurate and authentic. You agree to keep us
> updated if any of the information you provide changes. You authorize us to
> make inquiries, whether directly or through third parties, that we consider
> necessary to verify your identity or protect you and/or us against money
> laundering, the financing of terrorism, fraud, or any other illegal or
> suspicious activity, and to take action we reasonably deem necessary based
> on the results of such inquiries or investigations. When we carry out these
> inquiries or investigations, you acknowledge and agree that your personal
> information may be disclosed to prevent money laundering, fraud, the
> financing of terrorism, or any other illegal or suspicious activity to the
> appropriate authorities.

Curiously, it's unclear from anywhere on OMNY's website what the program's
name stands for: [https://omny.info](https://omny.info)

~~~
otoburb
>> _Curiously, it 's unclear from anywhere on OMNY's website what the
program's name stands for: [https://omny.info](https://omny.info) _

Figured out from the wikipedia article[1] that the acronym stands for One
Metro New York. You're right that they should really have that listed
somewhere on the MTA OMNY homepage.

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OMNY](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OMNY)

------
papln
"fare evasion" is a fictional concept in any city where the massively
subsidized automobile culture exists: fuel cost + pollution externality,
parking and roads giveaway of real estate.

~~~
rayiner
The math doesn’t really work out for your argument. For the DC metro, for
example, the cost is about $1 per passenger mile.
[https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/docs/300...](https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/docs/30030.pdf).
Fare revenue brings that down to a $0.53 cent per mile subsidy. One
calculation of driving subsidies (relying on various studies that estimate the
cost of parking, pollution, etc.) brings the driving subsidy to about $0.43
per passenger mile: [https://ggwash.org/view/10891/funding-amtrak-is-more-
cost-ef...](https://ggwash.org/view/10891/funding-amtrak-is-more-cost-
effective-than-subsidizing-roads). (That’s from an urbanist, pro-transit
website.) Electric cars cut that by more than half. (The direct subsidy for
driving is just $0.02 cents per passenger mile.)

So if you didn’t have far revenue, each passenger mile of subway would receive
about 4x the subsidy of a passenger mile of electric car travel. As it is, the
subsidy is slightly higher for the subway than a gasoline car.

~~~
papln
Increasing ridership (at any time except peak) would lower the cost per
passenger mile, at trivial additional cost. would. Does that $0.43 calculation
include the effects of reduced ridership due to auto subsidy? I don't see
thatin th ggwash article. Nor do I see a line item in the DOT info for the
economic value generated by transit but 0% captured by the transit system (as
constasted against Tokyo where the real estate system is part of the transit
economic model.)

------
ardit33
Good article, I wonder if the solution is something akin the Amazon store....
you just hop in, and perhaps tag you card, either in the station, or inside
the train/bus, which contains some kind of (one way) hash of your face....

The card buying process can be anonymous, and the hash is a card/face
combination, (i.e. you can't repro the hash, unless you have both).

The card is only needed for tourist/people that want privacy. For the rest,
you can just create an account, and have money deducted automatically when you
step in a train. No tagging necessary.

This requires: 1. Great face recognition. 2. Strict privacy rules 3. People
being ok with it

~~~
stefco_
Why would you need the facial recognition if you're already using your card?

~~~
gigaftp
To identify your account and allow the system to take a snapshot of your face
for the session.

~~~
stefco_
Why would the card not identify your account? We already have cards that can
do this. It seems that the only point of using facial ID is if you want to
_avoid_ forcing people to use cards (or if you want to collect and sell their
biometrics, but lets assume altruism).

------
Kurtz79
"In Germany, the population is more concerned about privacy. Despite being
targeted by a string of communist terrorist attacks in the 1970s and 80s, it
maintained an open system, without any faregates at any train station
(including subways); fare enforcement in German cities relies on proof of
payment with roving inspectors. "

A lot of systems have faregates that work also using anonymous tickets or fare
cards.

But kudos to Germany for using such a system, I cannot imagine it working
without massive fare evasion in many other countries.

~~~
rsynnott
Most bus and light rail systems use something like this, don't they? Kind of
impractical otherwise.

------
topkai22
I’m not sure I follow the dislike of fate gates, especially how the author
believes the largest rail transit systems in the world should use them but no
one else.

My experience has mostly been with Washington DC transit and I don’t ever
remember having an issue at the fare gate. They also let you buy an rfid card
from a machine kiosk with cash.

------
timidiceball
Oslo uses roving fare inspectors and has a wonderfully-unified time-based card
system that applies to all subways, trams, buses and ferries. No gates
anywhere.

