Surprise, People Not Paying For Honor-System SBS Tickets

A few weeks ago, the MTA introduced a new Select Bus Service on the M15 line, where riders are required to buy tickets on the street to board. In an effort to keep things moving quickly, nobody actually checks or scans that you have a ticket, you're just expected to have one in case someone asks, or risk a $100 fine. Bloomberg assured the public that most people are good, upstanding citizens who would never dream of cheating the MTA out of a $2.25 fare. Raise your hand if you can guess what happened when enforcement agents were dispatched on the bus this week.

If you guessed that they gave out 40 tickets a day along the First and Second Avenue bus line, congratulations, your jaded outlook is actually realistic. For the first two weeks of the bus service agents just gave warnings, giving riders who claimed to not know how the new ticketing system worked the benefit of the doubt. MTA Security VP Vincent DeMarino said agents will continue to help those who seem to not understand the system, but will write tickets for anyone found trying to catch a free ride. "This is not by any stretch of the imagination zero-tolerance enforcement," he told the Daily News. "We teach our people to use common sense, good judgment and discretion."

While the first few days of the SBS service were generally slow and messy, the MTA insisted that once the initial kinks were worked out, service could be up to 20% faster. When that proved wrong, because changing a payment system that already works doesn't equal progress, they decided to add more buses to the line. However, while waiting for the downtown M15 on Thursday around 3 p.m., we can tell you that it didn't seem like they were coming any faster than they used to. In 2009, the MTA lost $8 million to fare-beaters on the bus.

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By Jaya Saxena in News on October 30, 2010 9:38 AM

Comments [rss]

Såkandulæredet

The system definitely works, I've done a second trip from Chinatown to 86th st and 1st during rush hour and it's taken around 41 minutes both times. Speeds up the slow stops at the hospital by so much. I will continue experimenting with it.

newyorkcitygal

PS- I've been here a year and a half, and have only witnessed 1 check on buses.

The trains have a sort of honor system as well (you pay for a ticket but then have to timber it in a little machine before boarding), but tickets get checked more frequently.

newyorkcitygal

I live in Italy right now and we have the honor system on our buses, both inside the city and out. I think it's a horrible system because here hardly anyone ever pays, and it's not like the honor system makes things faster here (everything here is mind-numbingly slow and aggravating... trains are never on time either, but I digress). The state could make so much more money if people were forced to buy a ticket beforehand and put it into a little machine or something in front of the driver. As it is, nobody ever pays and nobody ever gets caught because 'i controllori' are usually on break all day.

However, the honor system might just work in NY. When I go back to visit family, I'll have to try it out. :)

OSN!

Asinine system. Who thinks up this crap?

luke*

The vast majority of cities in the western world that have bus systems? In Copenhagen, even the subway is run on the honor system.

OSN!

The 'Vast Majority' of transit systems in the 'Western' world DO NOT use the honor system. Can you verify your claim with a respectable online link? Have you actually used the 'Vast Majority' of 'Western' transit systems? No, of course you haven't.

Stop using the Scandinavians as models of what I'm assuming you believe to be civility. They are what I call unique 'Boutique' nation states with small, homogeneous populations and culture in no way compatible with a huge, extremely diverse nation and society as the U.S.

BDS=(Boycott.Divest.Sanction)

Berlin too has an open system too.

When people feel aligned with their govt and believe it has their interests at heart, they see the system as being extension of themselves and treat it with more respect....they litter less, dont vandalise as much and dont try to get over on the system by not paying their fares.

This is far and away from how things are in America

BrianW

When that proved wrong, because changing a payment system that already works doesn't equal progress...

No, the SBS payment system IS progress. It is much better.

However, while waiting for the downtown M15 on Thursday around 3 p.m., we can tell you that it didn't seem like they were coming any faster than they used to.

No, the idea was to speed up service (to make the buses move faster) - not to improve frequencies (to make them come faster)

Såkandulæredet

I don't know why Gothamist seems to have it in for this new system. I did an experiment, I went from Chinatown around Madison St. and Catherine, all the way to 86th and 1st avenue on the SBS. Took me 42 minutes at Rush hour. The system can work, the 2nd avenue construction is screwing it up.

Uptown works great, downtown has problems. The problems aren't because of the new system but because of 2nd avenue subway construction. Try the uptown before you blast it.

And people will start to pay their fares when they hear of others getting slammed with the fines.

Neverhaditsogood

Now tell me again how everyone in NYC should have the opinion that MTA doesn't ever need a fare increase. I suppose muggers shouldn't have cops or dopers shouldn't have undertakers either.

aydiosmio

And this is how it should be. Lose a little in revenue for an increase in service speed you can't buy. Be hilarious if every subway turnstile was full-height to prevent all fare jumpers, imagine the bottleneck that would cause.

Hoping at least all buses go honor.

Xwendekar

I've been living in Athens for about a month now. I have ridden the bus nearly every day, and I've had my ticket checked about 10 times (once happened twice in one day). They seem to take enforcement pretty seriously, especially on the lines in the center, although I'm told there was a huge increase in enforcement around the time the deficit was revealed.

The fine is 30x whatever the cost of your ticket (if you're on full-price fare, that's 30 euros), and as a warning I've witnessed two different people trying to play the 'dumb tourist' card to get out of the fine- no dice.

Xwendekar

My bad, that was meant to be in reply to EastRiver.

EastRiver

The honor-system is big in Europe and yet I have never seen anyone checking fares. An unscientific sampling of my friends yielded only one instance of seeing this and it was in a college town in Germany. The same elderly man rode the buses all day and harassed the students. Anyone here ever encounter a fare checker in Europe?

exnyer

Rode the buses plenty of times in London never got checked but they have drivers checking travel cards as you board and the famous hop on hop off have an additional checker in the back, honor system seems to work well if you don`t rely on it!

Sassafras75

I saw it happen in London once. The Tube stopped running for the night. We managed to catch a bus and they actually checked tickets. Some guy in the back refuse to show a ticket. It started to get really ugly. As presumably the only Americans on the bus, we (me, my husband and our friend) tried to lay low. The other riders were getting very riled up and the bus driver refused to drive any further. After about five or ten minutes the rider pulled a ticket out, which he had all along. The other passengers started hurling insults at him and we got off at the next stop and managed to get a cab.

Steven RH

I did that a couple times on the BX12 in the bronx and they have NYPD do random checks for tickets during off-peak hours.. I got fined $100 for it - But here's the kicker, the dude who wrote my ticket didn't write the bus number clear enough, so i didn't have to pay : )

Steven RH

the reason why they installed that on the BX12 is because at Fordham Plaza everyone sneaks on through the back door, even the jackass teens who have student metro cards

Stevennnn

People are on Metro-North and LIRR also act like idiots when it comes to paying the fare. Young people buying senior citizen tickets or people in their teens buying child tickets. Then you have the people who try to hide in the bathrooms.

A few weeks ago a couple of girls probably around 16-17 bought child tickets tried they tried to act dumb like they didn't know.

nycnewsjunkie

They used to be understanding, now theyll throw you off at the next stop.

Dont argue or fight with the conductor, next stop, the mta police station. I've seen the mta police arrest people over a simple $8 fare.