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Q&A
Effectiveness of new fare evasion prevention measures
1:11:30
ยท
3 min
Council Member Chris Banks inquires about the effectiveness of new fare evasion prevention measures implemented by the MTA. MTA President Demetrius Crichlow provides a detailed explanation of the various interventions and their impact.
- Multiple interventions target different types of fare evasion (gate entry, turnstile jumping, back cocking, stepping over)
- Interventions include sleeves, mechanical devices, fins, gate guards, and delayed egress mechanisms
- 26% reduction in fare evasion in subways alone
- Three locations system-wide now have all interventions implemented
- Measures aim to deter opportunistic fare evaders while acknowledging some hardcore evaders may persist
Chris Banks
1:11:30
I wanted to say something about congestive pricing but I'll actually go to fare evasion.
1:11:35
We know that the new apparatus that has been put in place by the MTA with the flaps and then I think the extra.
1:11:45
How effective have they been in stopping fare evasions?
1:11:51
What's the course?
1:11:53
I know it's been exploited on social media of how easy it is to breach them and I heard early on that there was a decrease decrease in fear of Asians.
1:12:06
So, I just wanna you know dive a little deeper into that to see how those particular apparatuses that put in place are working and what was the course of putting that in place?
Demetrius Crichlow
1:12:19
Sure.
1:12:19
So obviously the solution is is new turnstiles.
1:12:23
Right?
1:12:24
But that's a very very expensive solution.
1:12:27
The next capital program includes a lot of money in investing in new fare into new fare gates.
1:12:36
But we didn't want to sit and rest on our laurels while that comes along.
1:12:40
So we said what can we do now that can reduce the number of fare evasion.
1:12:44
So we focused on several different types of fare evasion.
1:12:47
We focused on those that go in through the gate, those who jump the turnstiles, those who back cock against the turnstiles, and those who step over.
1:12:56
We did interventions for each of them.
1:12:59
A sleeve to stop people who who step over, we put a mechanical device to prevent those from back cocking, and then we did fins to prevent those who normally jump over device.
1:13:10
And we have gate guards that are at the locations to prevent those who go through the gate.
Chris Banks
1:13:15
So those are boots physical bodies that are there.
Demetrius Crichlow
1:13:18
Yes.
1:13:19
In addition to delayed egress which is a timing mechanism for those who actually don't need to actually use the gate on a regular basis.
1:13:28
So I say that to say we use that at different locations to trial out to see if that mechanism reduces that type of fare evasion.
1:13:36
Now the goal is to take all of those interventions and roll them out to single individual areas.
1:13:42
So if you can reduce those four things at one location, fare evasion continues to go down.
1:13:47
So now we have three locations system wide that we just rolled out which have all of those interventions Adam.
1:13:55
But as a whole each of those interventions even before we got there, each of those interventions have resulted in the subways alone in a 26% reduction in fare evasion.
1:14:04
26% right off the bat.
1:14:07
Are we done?
1:14:08
Absolutely not.
1:14:09
But you know I real I'm really confident that with each of these interventions being put out there are go always going to be people who are like hardcore fare evaders.
1:14:18
But we will prevent those individuals who have the money, have that coffee in the hand, and just jumping it as an opportunity to jump it.
1:14:25
They they normally would not be the fare evader for anything else.
1:14:29
They would pay for every single avenue that they can, but in this instance they're just opportunistic.
1:14:34
It'll stop those individuals.
Ydanis Rodriguez
1:14:35
And and