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the city and county of San Francisco (and others) to adjudi- Level 2--Administrative Hearing. This hearing is normally
cate fare evasion and other minor transit violations through conducted in person with an adjudication staff, but
administrative review rather than through the court system-- a mail review can be requested. If denied at this
essentially decriminalizing the fare violations. The purpose level, an appeal may be requested in the Superior
of the new law was to improve enforcement of fare evasion Court within 30 days of the decision.
and other minor transit violations, allowing SFMTA to treat
such infractions like parking tickets. The implementing pro- Level 3--San Francisco Superior Court De Novo Hearing. The
visions of the law are contained in San Francisco Traffic Code request for a de novo hearing must be accompanied
Sections 7.2 and 7.3 and spell out the local legal basis for deal- with a $25 filing fee (note: "de novo" means the court
ing with fare evasion within the city and county: considers the case anew and no deference is given to
the hearing officer's decision, although the SFMTA
· Section 7.2.101. Fare Evasion Regulations. This sub- Hearing Section's files are received as evidence). The
section covers various aspects of fare evasion: the appeal can be done in person or by mail. If the appeal
requirement to have PoP, what constitutes a PoP area, is upheld, then the filing fee and penalty are refunded.
misuse of fare media, location, and unauthorized use
of discount fares. The area of enforcement is defined as Repeat offenders do not face increasing penalties. How-
ever, if someone supplies false information to a fare inspec-
...in or about any public transit station (including an
outdoor high-level boarding platform or station operated tor, the fine can be up to $500. Also, in some cases, fare
by the Bay Area Rapid Transit District), streetcar, cable car, inspectors may issue two citations (e.g., counterfeit passes
motor coach, trolley coach or public transit vehicle to evade and misused senior or youth passes).
any fare collection system or proof of payment program
instituted by the Municipal Transportation Agency.
Special Event Operations
· Section 7.2.102. Passenger Conduct Regulations. In
this subsection, the regulations cover committing SFMTA provides special services for sporting and special
various acts while on transit premises, such as playing events, such as the "Bay to Breakers" annual run. For San
sound equipment, smoking, willfully disturbing oth- Francisco Giants baseball games at AT&T Park, there are
ers, carrying an explosive, and willfully blocking the special ticket sales personnel and queuing barriers are set up
movement of others in a facility or on a vehicle. to organize fans on the sidewalk so as not to block the street,
· Section 7.2.103. Conversing with Operating Personnel as the stations are in the street median.
Prohibited. Conversation with any operator of a transit
vehicle, except for the purpose of procuring necessary
information, is prohibited. SUMMARY OF CASE STUDY OPERATORS
· Section 7.3. Misdemeanors. This subsection indicates
that the prohibitions shall be a misdemeanor; however, Evasion and Inspection Aspects
the court or issuing officer can have the charge reduced
to an infraction. Base ridership, evasion, and enforcement results related to the
· Section 7.3.1. Other Fare Evasion and Passenger seven case study operators are compared in Table 38. As dis-
Conduct Regulations. This subsection deals with such cussed in this chapter, the operators represent a diverse set of
offenses as knowingly providing false identification to operating conditions and a variety of modes. Six of the seven
a transit representative when engaged in enforcement, agencies operate an LRT mode, two have BRT modes, and two
interfering with a turnstile or fare register, meddling have CR operations. In one case, Phoenix, its agency essen-
with any of the transit system's facilities or structures, tially has sole operating responsibility over one LRT route. The
and duplicating fare media (42). others have multiple services and multiple modes. For three
of the entities (Buffalo, New York City, and Phoenix), PoP is
With regard to adjudication procedures, an individual applied on only a small part of the overall regional system.
with a fare citation who wants to pay the fine without con-
testing it can pay $75 by any of four options: by mail, in per- Five of the operators have fare evasion goals and, except
son, by phone, or on the Internet. The person has 21 calendar for the Dallas TRE commuter rail, the fare evasion rates
days to pay the fine. If the individual wants to protest the experienced are within the goal. NYCT's goal, at least
citation, the process has three levels: initially, is to achieve fare evasion rates below what it had
incurred prior to implementation of BRT SBS.
Level 1--Administrative Review. A protest must be received
within 21 calendar days. If the protest is denied and Three of the agencies set inspection goals for their services:
the individual wants to further the protest, he or two were set at 10% (LA Metro and MinneapolisSt. Paul
she must request an administrative hearing within Metro Transit LRT), one at 20% (Phoenix METRO), and one
21 calendar days of the denial and pay the $75 fine. at 25% (MinneapolisSt. Paul Metro Transit Northstar CR).
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TABLE 38
CASE STUDY OPERATOR FARE EVASION AND INSPECTION STATISTICS
Annual Annual Fare Evasion Rate (%) Number of Inspection Rate (%)
Ridership Citations + Inspectors
Operator Modes (1,000s) Warnings Goal Actual (FTEs) Goal Actual
Niagara Frontier Transportation LRT 6,216 4,526 2.00 <2.0 5 None 8.6
Authority (Buffalo)
LRT 17,799 2.6
Dallas Area Rapid Transit 36,106 3.75% 48 None n/a
CR 2,469 4.3
BRT 7,043 0.8 16.4
Los Angeles County Metropolitan
LRT 46,650 84,700 2.005.00 0.8 300 10 20.2
Transportation Authority
HRT 47,900 0.8 9.0
Metro Transit (MinneapolisSt. LRT 10,322 0.7 10 8.8
Paul) 4,907 5.00 18
CR 710 0.1 25 30.0
MTANew York City Transit BRT 21,200 12,037 No worse 6.1 42 None 7.0
than before
implementa-
tion (13.00)
METRO Light Rail (Phoenix) LRT 12,600 3,779 None 4.0-6.0 17 20 12.4
Bus 167,333
San Francisco Municipal
LRT 42,447 57,000 None 9.0 42 None 0.8
Transportation Agency
Streetcar 7,002
n/a = data not available.
TABLE 39
CASE STUDY OPERATORS: SUMMARY OF ENFORCEMENT AND ADJUDICATION ASPECTS
Fare Enforcement
Fine Amounts Personnel
for Evasion, Is Fare Evasion Fine Revenue Department/ Entity
Adjudication First Offense/ Offense Civil Retained by Responsible for Police
Operator Forum Maximum or Criminal? Operator (%) Fare Enforcement Position Title Powers?
Niagara Frontier Transportation Niagara $50/$280; Civil; criminal 100% NFTA Rail Opera- Metro fare No
Authority (Buffalo) Transit escalates after two or tions and Transit inspectors
Adjudication dependent on more unpaid Police
Bureau how soon citations
paid
Dallas Area Rapid Transit DART $75/$500 Civil if paid 100% if paid DART Police Fare enforce- No
within 30 days; administratively Department ment officers
Class C misde- within initial 30
meanor after 30 days; otherwise,
days with a $5 received per
court procedure citation
Los Angeles County Metropoli- LA Metro Fine schedule Civil if paid 0%* Los Angeles Sheriff's Yes
tan Transportation Authority Transit not approved within initial 45 County Sheriff deputies
Court* yet* days; after 45 Transit Services
days, criminal* Bureau Sheriff's secu- No
rity assistants
Metro Transit (MinneapolisSt. County court $190/$1,000 Civil if paid; if 0% Metro Transit Metro Transit Yes
Paul) defaults, then Police Department patrol officers
becomes mis-
demeanor; two
or more
offenses are
misdemeanor
MTANew York City Transit MTA $100/$100 Civil 100% NYCT Department Special No
NYCT Tran- of Security inspectors
sit Adjudica-
tion Bureau
Table 39 continued on p.71
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Table 39 continued from p.70
Fare Enforcement
Fine Amounts Personnel
for Evasion, Is Fare Evasion Fine Revenue Department/ Entity
Adjudication First Offense/ Offense Civil Retained by Responsible for Police
Operator Forum Maximum or Criminal? Operator (%) Fare Enforcement Position Title Powers?
METRO Light Rail (Phoenix) Municipal/ $50/$500 Civil 0% METRO Depart- City of Phoe- No
county ment of Safety and nix police
courts Security assistants
Transit No
enforcement
aides (private)
San Francisco Municipal Trans- SFMTA $75/$75 Civil 100% if paid SFMTA Security Transit fare No
portation Agency Customer administratively and Enforcement inspectors
Service through the ser- Department
Center vice center
*The Transit Court is expected to be operational by end of 2011.
In comparison to the overall evasion and inspection sta- · All of the operators employ forces specifically desig-
tistics displayed in Figures 2 and 3, the case study operators nated for fare enforcement. However, each force has
generally were found to have different titled positions for what amounts to similar
functions, mainly focused on fare enforcement.
· A modestly higher inspection rate, on average 12.4% · Fare enforcement personnel with six of seven of the
compared with 11.3%. operators do not possess police powers.
· An average fare evasion rate in the same general range, · The first fare evasion offense is treated as a civil or
2.2% compared with 2.7% overall. administrative matter. In four of the cases, the offense
becomes a misdemeanor or criminal offense in differ-
Enforcement and Adjudication Aspects ing situations (e.g., based on whether the initial fines
were paid, how fast they were paid, or how many times
As shown in Table 39, four of the seven case study operators the person received a citation).
administer their own court, and one operator (LA Metro)
will have its own transit court by 2012. One of the inconsistencies was related to the penalty
schedule. The fine for the first evasion offense ranges from
Although there are some unique differences as to how the $50 for Buffalo to $190 for Metro Transit. The maximum
adjudication process works among the seven operators, there amount has an even larger range: $75 to $1,000.
are numerous consistencies:
