In Paris, a number of German cities and probably other locations in Europe, there’s very nearly an honor system to paying for riding the subway or even regional rail. (Or at least there was several years ago, last time I was there.) There are ticket checkers roaming in different locations who can fine you steeply, but most of the time it’s safe to assume that if you don’t have a ticket you’ll be able to sneak through the system without paying.
In Germany it appeared there usually weren’t any physical barriers you needed a ticket to pass, so I couldn’t really tell how many Germans were paying by observing. But the Paris metro, which had some physical barriers that opened with the aid of a vaild ticket (or if you did some combo of hopping and kicking them), were very interesting and funny to observe. I spent almost an hour in a metro stop watching peoples’ various methods of defeating the system and came to the conclusion that a good half the population was avoiding paying full fares (cheaper than a subway ride in the US to begin with!) by either jumping/ crashing the barriers, going in the out door/squeezing past people leaving, going halfsies on a ticket w/ a friend who activates the out door to let you in, etc etc.
So is the system still paying for itself, or do the European local governments expect to operate at a loss? Do they even operate at a loss, or is half a paying population enough to support the budget? (Seeing how popular public transport is there vs most cities here I could believe that.) Is it just still cheaper to have gate crashers than to hire fare takers?
I was always curious about this, any light shed upon it would answer one of life’s little mysteries for me. Thanks in advance.
On the train system in Los Angeles (which is the only one I’m familiar with), there are ticket stations near the tracks, but no barrier of any kind to getting on the train without a ticket. I’ve only had my ticket checked once every five trips or so (and I made long trips. People going shorter distances might only have been checked one in twenty times), but the cost of the fine (about $200 I think) is considerably more than the price of the ticket ($5 or so), and they do give them out.
You don’t have to check everyone’s ticket all the time to enforce the system.
Yes, usually public transportation operates at a loss, but not so much because of that but because they operate many inefficient routes.
There are checks in the trains. e.g. here the cost of getting caught is 40 euro, the equivalent of 20-something single city-wide trips, possibly more if you had used monthly or similar tickets. In the long run freeloading probably still pays off, but not as much as it seems at first. Repeated offenses can also cause you legal problems.
In buses you are checked every time by the driver.
Here in Switzerland they have the same system as in LA. There are no barriers on the trams, busses and short distance trains (at least in what we consider short distance). The fines are not quite as hefty for first time offenders though, you pay like 55$ for failing to produce a ticket when they control you. But they also keep your name in a database and if they catch you again, the fine goes up considerably, plus they can file a complaint too.
From my short 3 month stay in Europe, everyone purchased/stamped their tickets. We saw the inspectors not terribly often, but no one the ever asked didn’t have a ticket (except for tourists who had no idea what was going on). I can’t recall what the fine was, but it obviously was enough to make not using a ticket not worthwhile. I also recall seeing the same inspectors on the same routes which means that they’d probably recognize you after a couple infractions and then start harrassing you.
One thing to remember is that locals generally have monthly passes. So they don’t even use the same system as the tourists who have single ride tickets that need to be validated. It has the side effect of making it look like everyone is cheating.
Also, as a fun fact, in Germany this is called “Schwarzfahren”. Black riding.
Thanks for the responses thus far. I understand how the system works and that the fines are punitive. My observation of watching people hop the turnstiles and such in Paris told me most people didn’t have passes of any sort, but were just cheating (also, and I haven’t been to France since 1996, but at the time there were selling carnets of 10 tickets and I really didn’t see monthly passes).
Rephrasing my question, perhaps more simply: What is the ‘tipping point’ of percentages of people paying for using the subway making the system operate at a loss or not, and which side of that are systems like the Paris metro or Berlin U-Bahn (to pick 2 large systems) operating at?
Here in Vancouver we also have checked fares on buses and an open Skytrain system with fare-checkers either riding or watching the entrances. I mostly see them when they are handing out tickets, but maybe I just don’t notice them much. When they’re checking a car I’m on, they don’t seem to get many freeloaders. As SmackFu says, most of the regular riders have monthly passes and just walk past the fare machines.
The transit system here does run at a loss, but I recall one article in the paper long ago* pointing out that drivers are subsidized too, by the city building roads and other traffic facilities out of tax money. I think the author claimed the subsidy was larger for cars than for transit, but I have no idea what the figures really are.
Here is a Sierra Club “Summary of Subsidies”, with some links. Other auto-related subsidies include police, fire, ambulance needed for road accidents, lost property taxes, pollution-related costs, etc.
With very few exceptions, every major public transit entity in the world runs with a “farebox recovery” (fares received as a percentage of operating costs) of considerably less than 100%, hence is subsidized, and this is an accepted fact. Paris and Berlin almost certainly fall into this category. They crack down on scofflaws because they want to make it closer to 100% than to 0%.
Google “farebox recovery” + city name for more details.
[For example, Dallas, TX has “a mere 3% ridership in Dallas and a farebox recovery of less than 10%”.]
It’s possible that you were just an a bad place at a wrong time, when the authorities give up attempting to enforce regulations. It happens on the London Underground too, where a late-evening station manager will ‘accidentally’ leave the gates open.
None of these systems operate at a profit. All of their income is an offset against the loss of the system in general.
There’s no single point at which a percentage of fraudulent tickets would cause meltdown. Many things would have to happen before then, by which point the state of public transport wouldn’t be a worry.
However, people know that the Underground doesn’t supply them with what it should, but they still use it. They know it’s overpriced, but they still pay their fare.
Crandolph You’re right that a lot of people cheat on the Paris subway, you used to hear jokes about making turnstile-leaping an Olympic event. There have been monthly passes since the dawn of time - but all those kids you see jumping the barriers don’t have tickets or passes. OTOH, this is more of a tradition or a game than a real financial issue, since ticket revenue only constitutes a small part of the transportation network’s financing.
This site claims that ticket revenue only makes up 15% of the annual budget of the Paris public transportation system. I’ve never heard any numbers higher than 20%. There’s been some talk of making it a non-paying system, based on the contention that the cost of issuing and checking tickets added to the cost of collecting delinquent fines is higher than the revenue generated.
One of JP Huchon’s campaign promises (he was recently re-elected as president of the Paris regional govt) was to introduce a flat rate ticket for the whole of the regional system - no sign of it so far…
I personally believe we should be taking a look at some of those dotcom business models from 1999, and figuring out how to pay for the sytem with advertising revenue, sponsored stations, VIP cars, merchandise, affiliate programs - ok, maybe not.
That’s about the cost of the fine on the Manchester tram system, when I used it. And I saw plenty of people being fined. They seemed to accept it as a part of not paying their fare…whether they understood the statistics, ummmmm, well,ummm…
Has any city done this? Simply given free rides for everyone? Given how little is collected via fares as a percentage of the total expense, it sounds worthwhile.
In my experience, rather than being ‘accidental’, this happens when they don’t have enough staff on shift to man the particular station’s ticket office. Once thay can’t guarantee that they can sell you a ticket, they’ll let you on without a ticket by opening the barriers. (There are also machines, but the policy does seem to recognise that people will often not have the exact change or credit cards that these may require - if they’re working.)
The thing is that you’ll probably run into a barrier at the end of your journey (and occasionally - at Kings Cross - along the way). That may be insisting on a ticket. However, if that barrier is closed, there will be staff on hand, usually at windows on the end of the ticket office, to sell you the required ticket. Again in my experience, they never question your explanation when you say why you don’t have a ticket. Indeed there will usually have been the sign at the original station telling you to buy your ticket at your destination. (Though there can be the issue of season tickets; if you wanted to renew one before travelling then they won’t officially do so at the far end. Complaining that they’re costing you money by not opening a ticket office will however usually work.)
Clearly, there are margins that can be abused. You obviously can lie about which station you got on at. The station you’re going to may also not have its barriers in operation, though you won’t know this in advance. If you’re quick, you can just jump through after someone else. Finally, because of fire regulations, the barriers can be forced open quite easily. But, I presume, that London Underground have estimated that their losses due to these factors are offset by the costs of having to man all the ticket offices at all times. Most of the users, after all, will either have prepaid Oyster cards or be unfamiliar with the dodges.
Most certainly not. I don’t know where you where and when, but I’m certain way more than half the population actually pay the fare. I would guestimate the %age of people who don’t pay is below 5%.
I assume it depends on the countries and on the the towns/cities. But I can tell you that the public transportation system in Paris and its subburbs definitely runs at a significant loss. It receives large subventions from the region and the state. I doubt the freeloaders make a very significant difference in the grand scheme of things.
I believe Hong Kong’s MTR Corporation is one of those “very few” exceptions. If you look at this page (warning PDF file), you’ll see the MTR Corporation’s consolidated profit and loss statement for the six months up to June 30, 2004.
Fare revenue on the MTR and Airport Express lines was HK$2,871,000,000.
Operating expenses before depreciation were only HK$1,769,000,00.
Thanks for the link, chukhung. I guess that Hong Kong is so densely populated that if public transit is going to be profitable anywhere, HK is the place.
On further research, this site claims that several transit operators in Japan run at a profit, which confirms what I’d heard elsewhere. I wonder if anyone knows of a “true” transit operator (i.e the Disneyland Monorail doesn’t count) outside of HK and Japan that operates at a profit?