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Comment by j_w | Hacker News Reader

Yeah comments like the parents are typical from people that don't use public transit. The people who can't/aren't going to pay that some people "don't want" on public transit are always going to not pay and still use it, so why not make it free for everybody?

I live in an area that had outdated payment systems on their bus network. They determined that the cost to upgrade the payment systems would be higher than the revenue of fares, so they just made the buses free.

Edit: A lot of replies associate fare payment with behaviors (and smell?) of riders. I think that it's important to recognize that ones ability to pay a fare does not inherently indicate that they are "undesirable" in some way. Could their be a correlation? Possibly. But dedicate the policing to things that actually matter - an unruly passenger should get policing efforts, not a non-paying one (or smelly, really? Obviously homeless people can be putrid but seriously people smelling bad is not a crime).

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I use public transit (mostly SF BART) on a regular basis. It's not a matter of "don't want," it's a matter of public safety. People won't use public transit if they have to deal with mentally ill people or hucksters.

This is very basic economics of public transit. I completely agree with the comment about having a minimum payment and enforcement.

> People won't use public transit if they have to deal with mentally ill people or hucksters.

Do they also not use the streets in that case? There's nothing preventing "mentally ill people or hucksters" from being there.

Yes, they avoid streets too. That's one of the reasons that San Francisco shopping around Union Square has collapsed. [0] There were other reasons like COVID as well.

[0] https://www.businessinsider.com/san-franciscos-union-square-...

Nah, I’ve rode a bus to work most days forever. It’s my calm place when I go home.

Tragedy of the commons is real, even a nominal stake in a service, thing or place impacts behavior. If you’ve ever shopped at Aldi, they make you put a quarter in each shopping cart. Most people wouldn’t pick a quarter up from the ground, but they almost always put their carts back at Aldi.

Personally, I could care less if a dude smells or is poor. We’re all the same. But I have tolerance for boorish behavior that scares people who are trying to go about their business.

> I live in an area that had outdated payment systems on their bus network. They determined that the cost to upgrade the payment systems would be higher than the revenue of fares, so they just made the buses free.

I'm strongly in favour of free transit, but this boggles my mind. If your payment system is just a box where people drop in tickets/change, it's pretty low cost, never gets outdated, and pretty high compliance.

Selling tickets and collecting change from thousands of boxes is actually quite expensive in terms of manual labor and machines. The boxes themselves are expensive, as they have to be able to sort and count coins. And then the vending machines for the tickets.

And it doesn't raise compliance at all. Why would it?

> The boxes themselves are expensive, as they have to be able to sort and count coins.

The boxes in my city of ~1.7 million don't do this. They're just boxes. Presumably they have some big box at the bus HQ they dump them in to sort the change.

> And it doesn't raise compliance at all. Why would it?

I'm not saying they raise compliance over other systems, I'm saying that observationally, compliance is pretty good. When I take the bus, I see basically everyone either put something that looks like a fare/ticket in the box or show a transit pass to the driver.

Who counts that the coins all add up to the fare then?

Do you have to show the coins to the driver that they add up to the fare, before putting them in the box?

I've only ever seen systems that count and display the amount of coins dropped in, until it adds up to a fare, and then there's an indication that it's sufficient and it beeps and then resets for the next person.

The box is clear, the driver can see what people drop in.

There’s nothing stopping you from putting half the fare amount in nickels in, but really, there’s nothing stopping you from putting nothing in and just taking a seat - bus drivers aren’t equipped to police fare evasion in either case.

In practice, 80-90% of riders have monthly passes that are just pieces of paper that you wave in front of the driver as you get on.

I’m not oblivious to the downsides of such a system, but there are real upsides around low cost, and no technology to ever go out of date.

Seriously? On hackernews you're acting like a "box where you drop in tickets" would be an adequate description for modern bus/transit fare? Obviously they need a system that integrates with the other transit options in the area (the trains and other localities bus providers), and accept electronic payment.

What about transfers? Transfers between buses are supposed to be free, but how would you track that? There is also a reduced price from going from train -> bus. How would you track that? Obviously the system is significantly more complex than "drop some change in a bucket."

I'm not claiming it's modern, I'm just saying that it worked for decades, and it's not like it's a system that's started working less well now that more modern systems exist.

This is literally how my city of ~1.7 million operates now, and it seems... fine? Like it's obviously worse than free transit or a snazzy FeLiCa-based system, but it clearly works to collect fares and move people around.

> What about transfers?

The bus driver tears off a paper slip with a time on it that's good for 90 minutes.

> There is also a reduced price from going from train -> bus. How would you track that?

You don't, all routes/transfers are the same cost.

Again, I'm not saying this is the best system, but it's a false dichotomy to assume that "expensive new fare system" and "no fare system" are the only options. For some cost-value analysis, a basic/cheap fare system beats an expensive system even if it has fewer capabilities.

> The people who can't/aren't going to pay that some people "don't want" on public transit are always going to not pay and still use it, so why not make it free for everybody?

Why? We are excluding non-paying passengers from planes just fine. Why not busses and trains?

And over in many other parts of the world, they also manage this just fine, too. It's not exactly rocket science.

It's because the fare and boarding latency on planes is much higher, which funds the cost of having security guards around and amortizes the check-in time penalty.

Maybe. But in any case, you don't need to re-invent the wheel to check that passengers on busses and trains pay their fare. Just learn from any of the countless successful systems around the world today, or in the US's own past: streetcars used to be widely profitable, and that only worked because they actually managed to collect fares.

(Careful: I'm not suggesting that collecting fares would make streetcars widely profitable again. I am merely suggesting that whatever mechanisms they used to enforce fares can be learned from.)

See eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar_suburb

It's a tradeoff you can make. The US is far from the only country in the world where fare evasion is a problem. I've lived in countries with similarly high inequality and homelessness where fare evasion was such a problem despite enforcement that the bus drivers would simply refuse to pick up certain passengers, and conversely people would then hitch a hike on roller skates behind the bus.

I don't doubt that there are countries worse than the US (in this regard). But that doesn't mean you can't learn from the success stories. Especially since they are really common in a variety of places that don't have much in common otherwise, so it can't be too hard to clamp down on most fare evasion.

> [...] and conversely people would then hitch a hike on roller skates behind the bus.

I assume there's not much overlap between the really problematic passengers (often loud, drunk, aggressive and/or mentally ill) and the skaters? Mostly just because you need a minimum level of physical fitness to pull this feat off, and you need to be organised enough to both have skates and have them at the ready?

In most places I lived in, the traffic police (if nothing else) would nab you for trying to pull this stunt.

> Yeah comments like the parents are typical from people that don't use public transit. The people who can't/aren't going to pay that some people "don't want" on public transit are always going to not pay and still use it, so why not make it free for everybody?

Huh? I never owned a car and taken public transport all my live, and it's never been much of a problem kicking non-paying people off. What kind of lawless hellholes are you guys living in?

(I lived in Germany, Turkey, Britain, Singapore and Australia.)

I can't tell if you're feigning not realizing the thread about San Francisco under a post referencing "Iowa City" is probably referring to the US.

Feels like a coy way of getting to say something as inflammatory as "the US a lawless hellhole" on HN: which is fine enough... but there's also a reason YC isn't a Singaporean or Turkish or British or German institution.

It very well might be genuine surprise. Most people from other countries have an extremely hard time understanding why most U.S. cities allow people to openly break the law in front of authorities with zero consequences.

The U.S. is a pretty far outlier in this regard. It's strange how many people in the U.S. don't realize this at all, and become appalled at when foreigners are shocked by the way things are done in U.S. cities.

Shit HN says....

American exceptionalism is just as silly when it’s “America bad.”

The US is pretty average I'd say, not an outlier at all.

It's obvious nowhere near e.g. Switzerland or Singapore, for example.

But then on the other hand, people obey the rules a ton more than in places like Brazil or India.

Just as many foreigners are shocked at how polite and orderly Americans are, compared to back home.

The world is a vast and diverse place.

I suspect the US is an outlier amongst rich countries. Especially amongst the richest countries (as measured by GDP per capita).

Well I now I think it might be genuine ignorance because you managed to read my pretty clear comment ("everyone is mentioning US cities, so obviously they're talking about the US") and contort it into whatever you're on about.

Once might be a coincidence, twice might be me overestimating how carefully people read other comments before jumping into conversations.

What level of punishment should somebody who is trying to move between place to place receive for their lack of paying $1-3? The service was already going to operate, regardless of their lack of payment.

Some public transit has a much more rigid fare collection structure - trains are typically much more controlled entry points. But buses? It's in their best interest to get everyone on as quickly as possible and get everyone off as quickly as passive. Are you going to have gates that block you if you don't scan your card/phone from exiting? Same for boarding. Do you dedicate policing resources to ensuring the collection of what is certainly less than the cost to employ the police officer? Seems wasteful until you hit a very high ridership.

When I was last in London, I took the tube. Officers were at the exit gates, I presume to arrest anyone jumping the gates. I didn't see any fare evaders.

That was definitely an exception. Enforcement is low. You will occasionally see a team deployed to hot spots but they are spread thin

I see fare evasion almost every time I take the tube

I suspect people want fare enforcement basically because it helps keeps the aggressive/crazy/assholes off. Not because they want to collect more money.

Anecdotally, the bart gates seem to have improved the riding experience.

Some data from LA:

> Of the 153 violent crimes perpetrated on Metro between May 2023 and April 2024, 143 of them — more than 93% — were believed to be committed by people who did not pay a valid fare and were using the transit system illegally.

https://ktla.com/news/local-news/metro-violence-largely-perp...

> I suspect people want fare enforcement basically because it helps keeps the aggressive/crazy/assholes off. Not because they want to collect more money.

Well, it's also a matter of fairness: I'm a law-abiding citizen, and I pay for my bus fare. It's the Right Think to do. But if I'm paying, I want the other guys to pay as well.

I get that; the cost of enforcement makes that likely negative (possibly even very negative) to the system.

My claim is letting trash act like, well, trash and street people wild out on the system drives lots of commuters off. And ime, the worst riders are disproportionally fare thieves.

> I get that; the cost of enforcement makes that likely negative (possibly even very negative) to the system.

Depends on prevailing social norms, I guess?

Oh it certainly does. America has let the requirements for behavior in our larger cities decay to openly allowing criminal behavior. It's wild.

> What level of punishment should somebody who is trying to move between place to place receive for their lack of paying $1-3? The service was already going to operate, regardless of their lack of payment.

In Germany it's typically something like max(2 * regular fare price, 60 Euro).

I know you asked a 'should' question and this is an 'is' answer, but I hope it's still useful.

Google Translate on https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bef%C3%B6rderungserschleichung... might be useful.

It's fascinating seeing your questions about something that's an everyday thing in all of the places I lived.

So in Germany it's typically the (public) companies running the transit systems that have teams that check that you've paid. Gates are almost unheard of for neither bus nor train. (I couldn't name one place in Germany that has gates for public transport at the top of my head.) The police would only get involved, if a passenger is getting violent or threatening to get violent, or won't get off the bus.

In Britain (and Singapore etc) you board the bus at the front, where the bus driver checks your ticket and otherwise will kick you off the bus. The bus driver itself won't get into a physical fight with you. But the bus driver can definitely call for backup and will (presumably) stop the bus and refuse to drive until a recalcitrant passenger has been dealt with. The social contract seems to that all the other passengers will blame the would-be fare evader for the stoppage and back up the driver. But I've never actually seen that acted out completely.

Trains in Singapore and many parts of Britain have gates, and there are usually either some people monitoring the gates for jumpers or at least cameras.

> Do you dedicate policing resources to ensuring the collection of what is certainly less than the cost to employ the police officer? Seems wasteful until you hit a very high ridership.

It's all pretty similar to how parking regulations are enforced: there's some dedicated people who write tickets (not police officers), and the tickets are typically a few dozen dollars.

Just New York City.

The bus driver's union doesn't want drivers engaging in fare enforcement -- they're hired to drive, not to get into physical altercations. This was especially after a bus driver was stabbed to death in 2008 in a fare dispute.

There are fare enforcement teams that partner up with cops to catch people evading the fare, that are trained for this kind of thing. But obviously the chances are miniscule you'd ever encounter them on any single bus trip, and all that's going to happen is you get a summons with a $50-100 fine. So it's quite rational not to pay.

And I mean, as a bus rider, the last thing I want is my bus being delayed by 15 minutes while the driver stops and waits for the cops to come to evict someone who didn't pay. I just want to get to where I'm going.

So how do they handle it in the cities you've lived in? How do they kick them off without putting the driver in danger and without massively delaying the bus for everyone else? (And to be clear, we're talking about buses, not trains where monitoring entry and exit turnstiles is vastly more realistic.)

In the subway in NYC I see some people go out the emergency exits (alarm sounds but who cares?) while other people are queued up waiting for somebody to come out the emergency exit so they can come in. It’s a kind of antisocial social behavior like torrenting pirate files.

I actually had a dude yell at me and basically say “are you stupid? Why would you pay?” While holding the gate open.

I told him my boss is an asshole and was paying. That made him happy, he said “f that guy” and wished me a good day.

> And I mean, as a bus rider, the last thing I want is my bus being delayed by 15 minutes while the driver stops and waits for the cops

There's absolutely no need to wait for the cops. They can drive to a stop in front of the bus.

You have an extremely optimistic view of the level of timely and accurate communication and coordination required for that.

Not to mention, you know, the person might have gotten off by that point since they got to their destination already.

It's about the same level of coordination as waiting, just deployed differently.

If they get off the bus right away then no big deal in the first place.

No it's not, because the cops get there and the bus already left. Or the cops wait around but the bus is stuck in traffic and another call comes in so the cops give up and leave. Trying to pick some arbitrary bus stop somewhere between 10 and 30 minutes ahead based on how fast they think the bus is going and how long some cop (and which one?) will take to get from where they are to that bus stop depending on traffic is just a recipe for missing each other. And cops are a scarcer resource than buses.

Like, if there's a serious crime is being committed in a moving vehicle then sure they'll have someone constantly monitoring and redirecting in order to intercept. It's possible, with high enough priority. But someone not paying a fare does not have that priority.

And the point is the person refuses to get off the bus right away. They stay on it till they get to their destination and then get off.

The most visible enforcement I’ve seen was in Rome. They have people issuing tickets on the bus at random.

It was noticeable in that as a tourist, it seemed like a chill place, but there are lots of police of various stripes and they seemed very serious when enforcing things.

I live in Italy and this is common on the trains and busses. I ride the train a lot and have my ticket checked maybe 1:10 times. The tickets are cheap (~2 euro) and the fines are high (50-200 euro), so it makes sense to buy them. I have seen people get fined though.

See my answer to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46031217

Main reason normal people do not use public transport is this attitude and police giving up on enforcing basic public order on transport. Personally I am voting against any public transport funding until all homeless/druggies are kicked off public transport (even if they are willing to pay). You have to pass certain very low behavior bar to use public transport (no intoxication, no aggression to other passengers, no smell, no shouting random things).

It's not rocket science and other countries figured out how to do it.

It's not a policing problem, it's a homelessness and mental health problem.

You'll never have enough police for regular enforcement on buses. The numbers don't add up, not even remotely.

Other countries do a better job when they're able to keep people off the streets in the first place. Which then becomes a much more complicated question about social spending and the civil liberties of mentally ill people who don't want to be institutionalized.

Same here -- except for roads. I'm opposed to all road funding until all drivers follow the letter of the law.

Car-related taxes (vehicle sales, gas tax, yearly registration fees, in some cases tolls) have historically covered the majority of roadway infrastructure costs. I don't think free buses are going to be able to maintain the roadways.

A common misconception; usage fees only covered about 50% of highway-related expenses a few years ago. Feel free to find the latest numbers. This is less than the fare box recovery ratio of many transit systems, though not all.

And that, of course, does not include all the unpriced externalities of roads. For example, if you value a life at $1M, then the 40,000 people killed by drivers each year cost us collectively another $40B.

> "Normal people do not use public transit... kick all homeless off (even if they are willing to pay)"

At the risk of feeding the trolls, I have to object to this ignorant, callous, brutal bs. Please, read this account^1 of NBA player Chris Boucher staying alive by riding public transit, and try to put yourself in his shoes for a moment.

[1] https://www.theplayerstribune.com/chris-boucher-nba-boston-c...

Thank you to share that article. It is chilling.

> Personally I am voting against any public transport funding until all homeless

Statistically you're just a few days of bad luck from being both homeless and carless. What's your plan for getting to work to not be in that situation?

> Statistically you're just a few days of bad luck from being both homeless and carless.

What makes you think so? The poster you replied to might be sitting on a decent nest egg, have supportive friends and family, and insurance against all contingencies.

And some people are willing to bite the bullet and even say: 'Well, in that case, I shouldn't be on the bus, either.

Though it's fairly clear from context that the commenter you replied to doesn't want to check every person's home address before they are let on the bus. They want to ban anti-social behaviour on the bus, and 'homeless' is just a short hand for that, unfortunate as it is.

And a few days of bad luck might make you lose your home, but won't necessarily turn you into a drunk who shouts a lot.

> What makes you think so?

"In effect, more than half of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and one crisis away from homelessness." https://www.usich.gov/guidance-reports-data/data-trends

I don't know the commenter specifically - that's why I said statistically.

> Though it's fairly clear from context

Ah, the classic "didn't mean the well presented part of group X when I said X". That's a cliche way to mask prejudice. No, if they didn't actually mean homeless, I'm calling them out on writing "homeless".

> "In effect, more than half of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and one crisis away from homelessness."

They say that, but they don't really substantiate that on the page you linked to.

If only we could follow links and had some form of search for similar text to find multiple studies published on that topic...

> Personally I am voting against any public transport funding until all homeless/druggies are kicked off public transport (even if they are willing to pay).

That's a bit silly. I have sympathies for your views, but you can't have a policy of literally 0. Even spotless places like Singapore don't achieve that, even though they come pretty close.

I kind of agree. I grew up with a well-funded, well-staffed railway which has suffered slow managed decline, so I've got pretty good frames of reference.

A big problem now is people playing loud music, loud TikToks, phonecalls and videocalls on speaker phone (almost the default), feet on seats, vaping, bags on seats etc.

There are now no staff who enforce the norms and laws (Yup some of that legally could land you a prosecution if the railway chooses that).

Yes, society was less anti-social 20-30 years ago but IMO with strict enforcement of heavy punishment, the issues could be stamped out.

What's interesting is that one fairly large section of the railway does still have lots of staff who enforce anti-social behaviour (Merseyrail – they operate somewhat independently) and from what I've read and heard is that there tend to be far fewer issues in that network than the rest of the network. It's interesting to have the two areas to compare.

Unfortunately this governments want to continue defunding the railways, and so are happy with the cycle of managed decline and people opting to drive instead.

I used to be extremely pro public transport but it's fighting a losing battle. Trains are overpriced, delayed, cramped and anti-social

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