The SEPTA Youth Advisory and Citizens Advisory Councils are supportive of SEPTA’s new full-length gates installation. Fare evasion on SEPTA has risen to levels rarely seen before, eroding a sense of order on the system and treating paying passengers unfairly. We believe that SEPTA should tailor its reporting to the many benefits fare enforcement brings, and fully embody saved costs in its calculation.
SEPTA’s current reporting revolves around the amount of money spent installing these fare gates, and an estimated increase in annual sales. With $6.96 million reportedly being spent on the entire initiative and only one quantitative benefit being reported, a yearly $300,000 revenue recovery at 69th Street Station, this can come across as a bad investment.
Agencies like BART are taking second and third order effects of fare enforcement into their reporting. Some BART stations went from 100+ hours of maintenance work in a 6-month span to less than 1 hour, with 961 maintenance hours saved in total. These facts highlight the importance of this investment for SEPTA’s riders.
Other transit agencies are framing fare enforcement as beyond revenue capture. NS Netherlands built its nationwide 260-station fare gate program around worker safety, having estimated that roughly 60% of all violence on Dutch trains was directly tied to fare evasion. LA Metro saw a 75% reduction in incidents reported through its TransitWatch app at newly gated stations, with surveyed riders reporting cleaner and safer environments.
SEPTA should adopt this broader lens in its own reporting. The YAC and CAC encourage SEPTA to publicly track and report the following metrics on a regular basis:
- Changes in the number of interactions between transit police and riders, as well as citations issued at gated stations
- Changes in customer experience ratings, including perceived safety, cleanliness, and comfort of the station environment
- Hours and costs saved from reduced station cleaning and corrective maintenance
- Increases in the use of zero-fare cards, senior cards, and other discounted fare media
- Changes in fare revenue attributable to reduced evasion, including total dollars recovered and percentage drop in fare evasion
With SEPTA’s customer satisfaction survey underway, this is a perfect time for SEPTA to establish a benchmark to analyze future changes. When rider satisfaction, maintenance, cleaning costs, and rider safety are taken into account, investment into full-length fare gates is the clear solution.
Thank you for your consideration of our suggestions.
Thomas Pyle and Jeff Friedman
Chairs of the SEPTA Youth and Citizens Advisory Councils