Updated July 22 at 11:10am: A section has been added at the end detailing the discussion and actions taken at the TTC Board meeting of July 17.

At its meeting of July 15, the TTC’s Audit & Risk Management Committee considered a staff report on the efforts underway and proposed to deal with the problem of fare evasion. This report, with amended recommendations, goes to the full TTC Board on July 17.

• Fare Compliance Action Plan

The debate video goes on for nearly three hours, and it revealed some troubling issues with the ARMC:

• There is an overwhelming emphasis on recovering “lost” revenue with little sense of what target might actually be achieved, or the cost of reaching that level.
• At least one member of the committee, a Commissioner since early 2021, does not know how the “Fair Pass” program for low income riders works.
• In response to a question about how the Two Hour Transfer works, something any Board member or transit rider should know, management provided incorrect information about riding past the two hour line. In turn, that interpretation appeared to justify actions by Fare Inspectors that violate TTC policy.
• There was no acknowledgement that the TTC Board, when it acquired vehicles with multiple entrances (including articulated buses and streetcars) and implemented Proof of Payment (aka POP), was quite aware of the tradeoff between vehicle utilization, service efficiency, labour costs and potential fare evasion. Some Commissioners act as if they just discovered this problem.
• It was quite clear that some Board members have little sense of the dynamics of passenger movements on TTC vehicles, notably problems with congestion at the front of buses due to baby carriages, shopping carts and other impediments, and the need for centre door loading simply to allow riders onto vehicles.
• There was also no acknowledgement that some riders do not tap immediately on entry because they do not have their card at hand, but do so after they have boarded, and not necessarily at the location where they entered. Discussions about ways to increase payment rates through constrained entry and monitoring were based on a faulty view of actual passenger behaviour.

Overall, the level of day-to-day knowledge of the transit experience was poor, and management was not particularly helpful in correcting assumptions made by Board members.