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Chicago Transit System Fooled By Federal ID Cards
New submitter johnslater writes "The Chicago Transit Authority's new 'Ventra' stored-value fare card system has another big problem. It had a difficult birth, with troubles earlier this fall when legitimate cards failed to allow passage, or sometimes double-billed the holders. Last week a server failure disabled a large portion of the system at rush hour. Now it is reported that some federal government employee ID cards allow free rides on the system. The system is being implemented by Cubic Transportation Systems for the bargain price of $454 million."
For that amount, they could have failed at health care for most of the country. How does one city get that far lost?
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
Well-connected corporations don't get paid hundreds of millions for existing, functional systems.
Why are all cities moving from easy-to-use tokens to these expensive, complicated systems?
Cities move away from tokens to fare cards so they can charge variable rates based on supply and demand. During peak usage, they can make the fee higher and during times of lower ridership, fares can be made cheaper to encourage more ridership. Also general rate hikes cannot be done as quickly with tokens because people can buy a mass of tokens just before the rate hike yet still ride with their pre-hike token after the hike goes into effect.
The Chicago Transit Authority provided 620 million rides in 2011. A $454 million system thus represents a cost of just 7 cents per ride over 10 years, compared to the typical $2-$5 fare per ride. I think the vast majority of public transport riders would say an extra 7 cents per ride is worth it for the convenience of a card which they can buy/refill online vs tokens they have to stand in line to buy. Even if the average rider has to fumble around just 10 seconds per trip to buy a token, that represents over two hours per person in lost time each year, and a staggering 196 man-years lost each year for the entire city.
I just now hopped over to the CTA website and checked out their budget.
In broad terms, they take in about $650 million from fares, $650 million in public funding (from taxes), and an operating budget of $1.3 billion.
Hypothetically speaking, what would the budget be if they eliminated fares? The budget doesn't break out the expenses in a way to examine this (at least - I couldn't find it), but it would eliminate a big chunk of the expenses. Not only are there turnstyles and fare sellers, but collection and counting of the money, maintenance on the styles and ticket machines, and so on. Even the financial cost of maintaining a bank account and driving the money to the bank for deposit could be eliminated.
On the flip side, a person making $15/hr delayed by waiting in line at the turnstyle or purchasing tokens/tickets loses $0.25 worth of time for each minute of delay. A commuter would lose this much twice a day, and the loss would be more valuable if the commuter made more money.
And this change would benefit poor people the most. It's an efficient way to preferentially give them the benefit of a public service.
It seems like a more efficient method might be to eliminate the fares and increase public support to cover the difference. The net gain in customer time plus eliminating the fare network might be more than the increase in taxes. Just eliminating the fare mechanisms alone might reduce expenses enough to cover the loss of revenue.
Has anyone looked into this?