The TTC has announced that effective Monday, March 17, fare inspection will occur on bus routes. However, unlike the streetcar system, this will be done at locations where bus passengers enter subway stations at fare-paid interchanges.
To maximize efficiency, inspections will be carried out on bus platforms at integrated stations where customers could be required to show proof-of-payment between exiting buses and entering the subway system.
Fare inspection on board buses is more challenging than on streetcars due to tighter circulation space, and on both modes is particularly difficult on crowded vehicles. A further wrinkle will be added when the new Lines 5 and 6 open because their cars have no on board fare equipment, and riders are expected to “tap on” using machines on platforms at surface stops unlike existing streetcar lines where riders can tap as they enter vehicles.
This type of inspection already occurs at streetcar/subway interchanges. While the tactic is “efficient”, it will not address fare evasion for trips that do not end at a station. The TTC regularly cites a $140-million annual loss to evasion. They give no estimate of the proportion of losses bus-to-subway transfer trips represent, nor the net revenue they expect to obtain after allowing for the cost of inspectors.
Steve Munro 
About time. The only time I’ve seen fare inspection was on a streetcar (singular) in the past 10 years. Never seen it on the buses.
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When I visited Toruń & Grudziądz Poland last year, I rode on their buses and trams. The fare inspectors were a common sight. Seen an inspector ask a student for her proof of age when she showed her ticket. They both got off at the next stop.
Another time, the inspector recognized the person we were with, heads nodded, and continued on. They knew each other. BTW. Seniors over 70 years old travel free on local transit, with proof of age. We had our Canadian driver’s license or passport with use, but we “looked” over 70 and weren’t asked.
If the same inspectors travelled on the same TTC routes, they could recognize who would try to slip by not paying their fares.
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Fare evasion is rampant on streetcars (e.g., King, Queen). Typically, 4 people board and 2 pay, in my experience.
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Steve, expanding the fare inspection program on the TTC makes sense, and extending it to buses is a step in.the right direction.
There has been many incidents in which people dodge paying their fares when boarding TTC buses. Some try to get on the bus with expired transfers.
Steve: Yes, this is quite common. However, many trips on bus routes do not end at subway stations, and inspecting riders when they get off at those locations does not address the full problem.
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Will they turn off the on-board validators one stop prior to arrive at the terminus? Whenever streetcars are delayed entering Spadina station, many people would validate their presto cards because they guessed the delay was due to fare inspection!
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If someone taps their presto card within the 2 hour window (2 hours is often enough time to do a roundtrip), then get their fare checked after the 2 hour window expires (not sure how they check presto fares, I assume by having passengers scan their presto card), does that mean their presto card would be charged an extra fare?
Steve: No. The readers check when the card has been used, and don’t count as an extra tap. The card would show you boarding the bus within the two-hour window as a free tranefer.
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Will the fare inspectors be hanging around the bus/streetcar entrances to the stations to nab the people who wander in that way? It’s a pretty popular move at some stations.
I’d ask them to do something about the smoking in the stations, but I don’t think fare enforcement powers extend that far.
Steve: I have seen them checking passengers getting off streetcars at Broadview, but other than the deterrent effect of their presence, no, not watching for walk-ins off of the street. There isn’t too much of that at Broadview, but at Bathurst the evasion rate is very high.
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A transit system that relies so heavily on fare box recovery needs robust fare enforcement. When you ride the streetcar you can tell not even half of people are paying for their ride. The social stigma of not paying has disappeared and will need strong enforcement to bring it back.
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Just a few questions for the fare hawks:
Will vehicles be pulled out of service if a fare machine is offline? If the vehicle is crowded so that getting to another fare machine is infeasible? Are riders expected to stay near the machine until it might reboot, blocking everyone else’s way in and out? Are there uptime statistics available for the fare machines? Has the policy of “you must tap every time even if you have a valid pass or transfer” been tested legally, or in court of public opinion for that matter?
Steve: The lengthy reboot appears to have been substantially reduced since the newer machines were installed. I used to see them regularly on the old machines, not with the new ones.
There are not uptime stats per se, but there are availability stats based on, I believe, a poll of devices daily or more often. See the current KPI report at page 33.
The “always tap” policy is intended to catch people who go beyond the two hour limit. Fare Inspectors can see that a rider is within the two-hour limit even if they did not tap on to the current vehicle. That said, in a borderline case where the two hours expired during the most recent segment of the journey, the tap would prove that the rider boarded while the two hour transfer was still active. This policy and the related idea of seeing the trip history in the Presto taps fails, of course, for the millions of free-body transfers at subway stations. The policy also reinforces the visual inspection that everyone taps and is not, therefore, assumed to be a freeloader. There is no legal question here because you are not subject to a fine if you paid a fare within the allowed window.
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So… what _is_ the TTC’s official policy on this? If I pay a fare at 12:00, enter a subway station and tap at 13:50, ride the subway, enter a surface vehicle at a fare-paid area at 14:30, then get fare-checked at 14:40?
Is that okay, or am I actually expected to tap on the vehicle when entering it in the fare-paid area?
Surely they gave guidance on this to their newly hired fare checkers… right?
Steve: Strictly speaking, your fare expired before you boarded the surface vehicle in a subway station, and you would have paid again if you tapped on to that vehicle. The idea of tap-ons in “paid” areas comes up from time to time, but getting riders to change behaviour patterns in place since the subway opened in 1954 would be .. er .. challenging.
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Shh. Don’t tell anyone. When I board a return trip bus at 1 hour 55 minutes after I first use the Presto card, then transfer at the subway station within the fare-paid area (after the 2 hours has expired), but then I tap the transfer machine. Transfer shows I’m “good” for another >2 hours.
Steve: I will take your word for it, but have enough experience with tapping after the 2-hour line to doubt this is a general case.
BTW there is no “transfer machine” in subway stations.
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In response to Jarek’s question about boarding vehicles in fare-paid areas after the 2-hour transfer window has expired, I had that experience recently. I boarded a bus heading to Broadview station with 2 minutes left on the transfer window, then boarded a King car at Broadview station (after the 2-hour window had expired) and did not tap. Had my Presto card inspected onboard the streetcar. The fare inspector said I was OK but that I should tap when boarding the streetcar.
However, the TTC’s own webpage does not say that you should tap on at every boarding: “You must tap your card every time you enter a station and when you board a vehicle on the street.”
My take on that is that you do not have to tap when boarding vehicles in fare-paid areas (and nobody ever does this anyway). If I had been ticketed, I would have challenged it in court.
Steve: The TTC’s website is inconsistent. The page about Proof of Payment states that (a) it applies only to streetcar routes and (b) that you should “Tap your card or PRESTO Ticket on a reader every time you transfer between vehicles or a subway station.” Obviously whoever wrote this did not think about paid areas, and the page says POP applies only to streetcars. This bumps into provisions in By-Law 1 which refers to the need to have POP (e.g. a valid tap, fare receipt or transfer) on POP routes. The bus routes are not officially POP and so in theory someone who pays with a ticket or cash does not need to take a transfer as their POP. This is one of many examples of how the TTC’s public information is fragmented and not properly maintained.
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About your comment that “there is no “transfer machine” in subway stations. What are those red boxes that say “Transfers” on them?
Steve: You said that you “tap” on the transfer machine, and in context that implies you tapped your Presto card. Also paper transfers do not have a two-hour validity and are only good for a one-way continuous ride (the old, pre-two-hour-transfer rules).
TTC is looking into machine readable transfers that would be dispensed by fareboxes on buses. As for subway stations, cash fares can be paid at a fare machine to buy a Presto ticket. Those red transfer machines will not be needed.
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This past Monday, fare inspection has been expanded to include buses. It has been already in effect on streetcars for the past year or two.
A month ago, the southern part of the 511 Bathurst route and the western part of the 509 Harbourfront route began operating with shuttle buses, ahead of the current Bathurst-Fleet-Lakeshore project; the affected stretches of route are branded “511B Bathurst” and “509B Harbourfront” officially.
It wouldn’t be surprising to see fare inspectors aboard these shuttle buses in operation.
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How much money is being spent on fare inspectors? Do you even “recover” anywhere close to what they cost. And would it not make more sense to use that money to staff subway entrances and provide other service would potentially could increase revenue?
My second question is how would the TTC be able to measure how much money is truly being lost to fare evasion in the first place?
Steve: The TTC Operating Budget is not entirely clear on this. They show $2.6 million to fund “56 fare inspection staff deployed in the bus network with the support of 10 Special Constables and 3 program staff”. That’s only about $37.7k per person, but reflects that these are part year numbers as the staffing won’t be complete over the full 12 months. It will be higher next year, but by then it’s baked into the base budget. TTC claims they will get $12m in new revenue, but they only allocate $7.5m against the fare enforcement program cost. The other $4.5m goes against the general budget. It’s weird accounting, but TTC does things like this.
The net effect is that they spend $2.6m to get a total of $12m in otherwise lost revenue. There is no overall tracking of the success of this program, and there are so many other variables affecting ridership and revenue that it is impossible to figure out the contribution of such a small line in the budget. The TTC does not report on the supposed ongoing revenue improvement from fare enforcement activities. I think that a 78% recovery versus enforcement cost is likely generous, and reflects the proposed deployment checking riders getting off buses at stations, a relatively controlled environment. Also, inspectors can check a large number of riders in a short time. Expanding the program to checks along routes would have a much lower rate of return.
The supposed loss is based on field work done by auditors. However, there is a constant reference to a total loss of around $140m when it is physically impossible to recoup all of this, and certainly at zero cost. By the way, the TTC does not get the revenue from fare evasion tickets. It goes into City accounts and helps pay for Court Services. I will be astounded if the TTC can demonstrate a recovery of half of that amount. This should also show up in a better-than-expected revenue growth, but as I said the amount involved is rather small and can get lost in the “noise” of many other budgetary effects.
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As an operator, we need more fare inspection everywhere on all routes. Most of the troublemakers who cause security incidents start off with not paying. I’ve never seen a fare-paying passenger cause problems.
And for those activists who will scream this is a war on the poor, racism or some other slogans by activists can get lost.
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I support that. People who want improved service across the TTC should pay their fares.
Steve: You are conflating two issues. Many people want improved service, but doing this does not mean they also condone fare evasion.
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I don’t want to pay, I will happily pay the fine if your inept inspectors can catch me.
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Many, many, many years ago, when I was small and still living in Hong Kong, I remember there were (supposed to be) fare inspectors, on buses (they’re mentioned on the public notices), and you know, buses in Hong Kong are often super crowded. I was too small to know how often there were inspections or how effective the inspections were.
I don’t know how they came up with their estimate, and I don’t know how many years they’re going back to get at that claim of a “$140 million annual loss”. I’ll admit I considered skipping fares multiple times in the past; every time it was me forgetting my Metropass at home, every time I ended up paying a double fare (the Metropass I had already paid for, and the cash fare I ended up paying).
Oh yeah, there was also that one time I deposited a token into the farebox, and the driver did not see it and accused me of fare evasion, and I also had to pay a double fare that time (one token he did not see, then a second token I made sure he saw).
So I’d say fare evasion doesn’t always mean someone did not pay. Obviously, the Metropass does not exist any more, and tokens soon won’t exist either, so my point is moot.
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