Fare Dodging Is an Organized Rebellion in Stockholm, and It’s Winning

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/18/world/europe/fare-dodging-is-an-organized-rebellion-in-stockholm-and-its-winning.html

by yiedyie • 12 years ago

26 55 12 years ago

nytimes.com

al_gore• 12 years ago

HEET turnstiles?

joshstrange• 12 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turnstile#Full-height_turnstile...

vegardx3• 12 years ago

In my city they tried to install something similar, yet less invasive, ie. you could jump over them. But it was removed pretty much just weeks after being installed. It didn't satisfy the fire department if there had to be an evacuation. Now - you might think that they had investigated that before it was installed, but ... yeah.

vacri5• 12 years ago

Fare dodging of 3% isn't that much, and shouldn't be characterised as "winning". You could spend a lot of money to reduce it to 2% or maybe 1%, but is it really worth it economically? Reducing it by 1% will net you $12M, but to get that you need to train up existing employees, hire new ones, and build more infrastructure.

The fare-dodging organisation is an interesting one, but it's worth mentioning that it's net monetary gain each month is enough for a single employee equivalent (on an average wage), with no overheads or other costs. It is interesting that it's profitable, but it's not like the money is pouring in.

Edit: For comparison, fare evasion here in Melbourne hit a 5-year low point at 9% back in January.

chrismcb• 12 years ago

"reasoning that scofflaws might graduate to more serious crimes if left alone." Really, is there any evidence of that? Or do they think that people will get bored with it, and start on harder crimes? I was disappointed that the article didn't really discuss WHY they are doing it, other than as some sort of “collective fare strike,” and the system should be free. But if it is free, then who will pay for it? It isn't like the fares are that outrageous.

kd0amg• 12 years ago

the article didn't really discuss WHY they are doing it, other than as some sort of “collective fare strike,” and the system should be free. But if it is free, then who will pay for it?

From the article, "The transit system should be financed through taxes, they said, ensuring that a greater share comes from affluent residents and drivers."

michaelochurch• 12 years ago

"reasoning that scofflaws might graduate to more serious crimes if left alone." Really, is there any evidence of that? Or do they think that people will get bored with it, and start on harder crimes

In New York in the 1970s, subways were dirty, unpleasant and unsafe. The panhandlers, thieves, graffiti artists and public defecators tended also to be fare-beaters. I don't think that the fare-beating caused the harder crimes, though.

If someone graduates from fare-beating to shoplifting, it doesn't really affect me as a rider. However, if it's true that the criminal or dangerous riders are likely also be fare-beaters, then I'd support a crackdown on the fare-beaters to have a cleaner and safer ride.

I doubt that Swedish high school students who beat the fares ($120 per month is a lot of money for a teenager) are going to turn into hardened criminals, though. Sweden doesn't have the deep socioeconomic problems that produce crime to the extent that the U.S. does.

vacri5• 12 years ago

NYC (and hence the NYT) is quite familiar with the Broken Windows Theory, which was used to drive law enforcement changes intended to reduce crime in the 90s under Giuliani, if I recall correctly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory

QuantumChaos• 12 years ago

According to wikipedia, they are a far-left group who "advocate self-reduction, where the price of the service is determined by the consumer. Whereas in other cases this is done in agreement with (at least some) employees of the service provider, in the case of Planka.nu fare-dodgers are encouraged to evade fares without seeking permission."

So I would guess it is mainly a matter of principle (not one that I share). Wikipedia also states "ticket fares in Stockholm have increased dramatically over time. By one measure—single ticket price for a 10-kilometre (6.2 mi) journey—Stockholm has the most expensive-to-use public transport in the world, as of March 2009"

hungarian-eel• 12 years ago

If I were the Stockholm public transit company, I'd get my employees to join Planka, get fined every day, and send the bill to Planka. Let's see how they like being on the receiving end of fraud for a change.

Afforess• 12 years ago

Clearly the fines are too low. Tripling the fines would defeat the economics of the freeloaders little group:

Last year, the group took in more than twice as much money — more than $7,500 per month — as it paid out in fines, organizers said.

Triple their fine costs, and the group is suddenly no longer economical. No investment in infrastructure needed.

GuiA• 12 years ago

Triple the fines, and the poorer people who may have paid up before won't be able to anymore. It's a delicate balance; otherwise it would be too easy ("just make the fines $10 000")

oh_sigh• 12 years ago

What do you mean? Why were they evading the fare in the first place?

Tripling the fine may decrease the number of people that pay it, but it would also essentially shutdown the group that encourages people to skip fares.

vacri5• 12 years ago

Apart from being needlessly punitive, it also changes the economics of the group not a jot - they just triple the membership rate, which is still far cheaper than paying the correct fares.

bowlofpetunias• 12 years ago

A somewhat off-topic but honest question: why is it that the NYT gets a free pass when it comes to linking pay-walled sites?

Others would get ignored, not upvoted, flagged or at least come with a clear warning label in the title.

Linking to pay-walled content without warning is generally considered bad form on open discussion platforms.

mattraibert• 12 years ago

Speaking of fare-evasion, try viewing the article in private-browsing/incognito mode.

mikeash• 12 years ago

It's not difficult to evade the paywall, especially for this (skilled with computers) group.

DanBC2• 12 years ago

Some HN users don't mind paying for decent content?

Some paywalls are leaky, so the person posting the link might not know the article is paywalled?

Maybe NYT is gaming HN? (Other souces have done this. I understand they can sometimes be large vote rings).

ZanyProgrammer• 12 years ago

Being able to pay the fare really is an issue for poor people. Every time I've seen MUNI or VTA (Santa Clara County) agents checking for fare evasion, the perpetrators are invariably poor, homeless, look like they are mentally ill, etc. Good luck collecting those fines.

enjo• 12 years ago

I was a fare evader the first time I road the MUNI. I couldn't figure out how to pay for the damn thing:)

BrainInAJar• 12 years ago

Some cities subsidize low income peoples' passes.

vegardx3• 12 years ago

We have that problem in Oslo, Norway too. Usually homeless and/or addicts are just silently let go, without a fine, even when they have big sweeps. It costs the company and by extension society (things end up in court) too much money trying to collect something that, by all standards, are uncollectible.

There has been some discussion about how they can solve the issue, but so far everything is at a stand still. Some people want to make it so that public transport passes are a part of welfare, others mean that they should use the welfare money to pay for the passes if they need it, etc. It's a tough question, and I can see good arguments being made on each side.

vinkelhake• 12 years ago

As someone who has been a paying rider in the Stockholm mass transit system for decades, this doesn't really bother me. I'd rather have a small group of people freeload than have the fines jacked up or HEET turnstiles installed. I don't think having 100% paying riders in the transit system is a goal worth pursuing.

The measures that some here advocate have downsides.

scotty79• 12 years ago

Why public transport is paid is beyond me. Why would city spend significant resources to discourage usage of public transport by putting price on it? Do they really prefer for the people to buy cars and stand in traffic for hours on overcrowded streets and subsequently be disgruntled and pressure local governments for more roads?

Why only public traffic commuters pay if all benefit from the fact that they are not on the street crawling in 1.5 tonne of steel each?

noxxten• 12 years ago

Traveling the DC metro from baltimore literally cost me like $2 one way. It would otherwise be a 50 mile drive.

So I could either spend roughly $5 on the metro, or $20 in gas (plus a long ass commute and gridlock wait time). For what you get, most metro costs ARE planned to be at a significant advantage to most people.

JeffDClark• 12 years ago

How do you only pay ~$5 for a DC-Baltimore commute?

CPLX• 12 years ago

The DC metro system does not go to/from Baltimore.

sp332• 12 years ago

For all the money they already paid to make that possible, paying an extra $2 to make your trip free would be a very small addition.

barrkel4• 12 years ago

You get other problems if it's completely free; homeless people start living on public transport, drunks using it for extended napping.

Fares also act as a congestion control mechanism. Higher rush-hour and central prices push information into the rest of the market.

Also, cars are not the only alternative to public transport. In central London where I work, cars face congestion charges that normally exceed the cost of a day ticket on public transport (if a single occupant). But bicycles and motorcycles are not charged, since they don't create congestion in the same way. Bicycles are cheaper than public transport, and governments have an incentive to encourage their use, since they hopefully have health benefits too - reducing healthcare costs.

Motorcycles can be cheaper than public transport too, but the calculation is much more complicated, owing to depreciation, maintenance, increased risk, increased fun factor, etc. A scooter is my personal choice.

zyxley• 12 years ago

homeless people start living on public transport

That isn't a problem with public transport, it's a problem with social services.

hagbardgroup2• 12 years ago

Because we use accounting to measure how equipment is used and decide how to allocate resources efficiently.

Without accounting, we can't tell where to divert resources to maintain or improve the equipment. It's also not possible to limit the use of the equipment beyond its stress limits without using money. Trains in particular require additional staff to handle high passenger loads. Some passenger trains are not set up to handle high traffic loads. Charging money limits the ridership to the people who want/need to use the train more than others. It also limits ridership of likely bad actors who will do things like key the windows or spray graffiti in the tunnels or on the trains themselves.

Why would city spend significant resources to discourage usage of public transport?

Because then they would otherwise need to rely entirely upon the political process to maintain needed funding to the system, and there would be other spill-over impacts to the quality of the rail network.

Do they really prefer for the people to buy cars and stand in traffic for hours on overcrowded streets and subsequently be disgruntled and pressure local governments for more roads?

I'm unfamiliar with road policy in Sweden. I imagine that the fares are paid through taxes on gasoline, tickets for driving violations, licensing fees for commercial vehicles, and other fees. The two transportation methods are not completely interchangeable. You can't run heavy freight on a passenger rail line. It's a bit easier to have shared freight and passenger traffic a highway. Expanding rail coverage to other regions is much more capital intensive than expanding road coverage, and much more challenging to estimate (see: the underutilized light rail projects all over the United States).

In a magical world of infinite resources and immortal human beings and infinite time, then there would be no reason to charge fees on anything. Because we live in a finite world of finite time and resources, we use money as a measurement tool to make better decisions with how we allocate our resources.

Why only public traffic commuters pay if all benefit from the fact that they are not on the street crawling in 1.5 tonne of steel each?

Not all benefit at all times to the same degree. Also, it is probably also partially funded by taxes. That people are rebelling probably indicates other problems with the system outside the scope of the article.

morsch• 12 years ago

We don't use accounting (fares) to plan local public transport, at least not exclusively as it's not at all a reliable, what with its inability to track routes, lots of unregistered riders with monthly tickets, etc. etc. To get reliable data, you need to count people in the vehicles and poll them regarding their route and other things -- which of course the public transport authorities do routinely. Automatically tracking people is an invasive technical improvement to this, and it's deployed in some places, but again it doesn't really require fares.

Trains of course do require additional staff to handle higher loads, as do all modes of transportation, but with trains the staff/passenger ratio is ridiculously low, and it gets lower as they are used more. Of course there's a resource allocation problem there, but again, fares don't seem to be very useful there, at least in the realm of local public transport.

Charging money does limit the ridership, which was GP's point, and which is the opposite of what sensible minds would want, namely less cars on the roads. Vandalising trains carries with it much harsher penalties than free-riding, so I doubt fares are a very effective deterrent; you don't need to pay a fare to spray a tunnel wall, just a disregard for the law and maybe your own safety. Other people you might describe as bad actors might be affected by fares, but I'd hold that if homeless people have no better recourse than abusing trains, you might want to solve that problem instead of making it less publicly visible.

Executor2• 12 years ago

Have you heard about resource-based economies or anarcho-communist Spain in the 1930's? No money is required to have an economy.

dingaling• 12 years ago

Why public transport is paid is beyond me.

In the UK people over 65 now receive a Senior Citizen card that permits them free use of public transport. The respective local governments pay a subsidy to the transport operators when each card is used.

Anecdotally, the result is that people take public transport for 'something to do'. Going 120 miles on the cross-border train to Dublin because it is warm and they are bored at home ( they stay on the train when it turns-around ). Catching the bus down into town to post a letter, instead of using the postal box at the end of their street.

I have been on buses to my work where I am literally the only passenger paying and I have had to stand on the journey, even at peak rush-hours.

On that basis I think that if public transport were made totally free for everyone it would also become unusable for everyone. Unfortunate as it is, paying is the only mechanism to control demand.

DanBC2• 12 years ago

The cards can't be used before 9:00am in some parts of the country. (Gloucestershire, for example).

It might be worth sending an email to your LA and local bus company to get information about their rules. (Let them know what bus route you use).

It would be nice if drivers were allowed to use a bit of discretion, but paying customers need to be actively encouraged to use public transport.

EDIT: forgot to say that the cards are sometimes given to people with a disability. So in theory it's possible for a bus full of non-paying passengers are using their cards to travel to work. I'm not sure if that is worse or better.

parennoob• 12 years ago

Anecdotally, the result is that people take public transport for 'something to do'.

If this is an extremely common problem (as you seem to say it is), it points to a deep underlying social problem. Most senior citizens I know are pretty well immersed in their own lives; which include those of their children and grandchildren.

the_mitsuhiko• 12 years ago

Sometimes I wonder how Vienna's metro works. The year long ticket is 360 EUR which is not a lot and there are no gates anywhere, just manual enforcement.

The fine is also low at 103 EUR.

barrkel4• 12 years ago

Increase fines and capture rates until the expected benefits of fare-dodging are negative.

Nobody needs to run to catch the evaders. Periodically, ticket inspectors need to check everyone on a carriage / vehicle, covering all exits.

$180 isn't much of a fine, especially since it can be covered by 50% of a $15/month membership charge. That implies a catch chance of about 4.2% per person per month. If an unlimited ticket is $120, then the fine should be closer to $3000, if there is no increase in catch rates.

A $3000 fine would be unjust for people who make genuine mistakes, however.

So a different strategy should be followed: crack down on individual routes, greatly increasing the catch rate, combined with a modest increase in the fine; focus on changing behaviour, one route at a time.

Alternatively, fines could escalate for repeat offences.

All assuming anyone is interested in decreasing fraud, of course. It may be a socially acceptable loss for more complex reasons.

vacri5• 12 years ago

$180 isn't much of a fine, especially since it can be covered by 50% of a $15/month membership charge.

$180 is a significant fine, if you're poor. I've always liked the idea that a fine should be generally tied to your level of wealth, perhaps with a floor so it's not pointlessly low. If the idea of a fine is to deter repeat activity, wealthy people should be equally deterred.

barrkel4• 12 years ago

I agree (there was a time, maybe 10 years ago, that ~$60 was my weekly rent and I still ran arrears), but my girlfriend vehemently disagrees for reasons I don't fully follow but do respect (she's an economist by profession, in healthcare microeconomics, not macroeconomic weather forecasting).

It had something to do with maximizing overall welfare / utility for society. She's very touchy about it though, finds it hard to talk to me about it because she thinks I sound condescending when discussing it :) She also rejects the declining marginal utility of money as an axiom. And she rejects the concept of irrational economic actors; economic actors are rational by definition, therefore all their actions are rational, it's just your theory of their action that is wrong. You can imagine this doesn't make discussion easy :)

YokoZar• 12 years ago

The general argument against raising fines alongside wealth is that it might actually be "efficient" for people to break the law and incur the fine. If the act you're trying to prevent can only cause, say, a thousand dollars of damage then it doesn't make sense to have the price go much beyond that.

For instance if you're about to make a billion dollar deal but you have to run through a turnstyle to do it, society as a whole might just be better off letting you get away with a modest fine.

omonra• 12 years ago

I think wealth-based fines should apply to cases when there isn't a specific financial benefit from activity in question.

Ie I can see the argument why speeding fines should be wealth-based (since we can't really quantify what the personal benefit of speeding is).

However in the case of fare-dodging, the fine should be directly tied to the benefit derived by the dodger (multiplied by an estimate of his being caught). Since that number is fixed regardless of one's wealth, I don't see why the fine should vary.

Ie you can only make that argument if you are willing to assert that metro fares themselves should vary based on one's income (and by extension all govt services). The counterpoint is that wealthy people are already paying more via taxes :)

hellbreakslose• 12 years ago

That also started in Greece after they announced the austerity measures. (2008) It's still an ongoing thing, and there is an organisation called (WeDon'tPay) that does that stuff, they'll gather and they will not let people pay any fare. This happens also in Tolls, that have been abused by contractors and the goverment and 60 years after the complitation of the road they still have tolls.

nostromo• 12 years ago

If travelers keep their side of the agreement, the group will cover any of the roughly $180 fines that might result.

What an ingenious and devious application of risk pooling.

Imagine risk pools being created for other fines, like tax evasion penalties or speeding tickets. I wonder if such agreements are legal?

viraptor2• 12 years ago

I guess that the patent / IP infringement indemnity clauses in business contracts come close to that. The company offering the service takes the risk of being sued, but offsets that with money earned from the contract. Quite popular and apparently legal.

unicornporn• 12 years ago

To top this off, SL (the public transit company in Stockholm) adopted the MIFARE Classic cards which are now being hacked. Much like this:

http://vimeo.com/49664045

oneeyedpigeon2• 12 years ago

Don't try this kind of thing in London. There is a zero-tolerance policy in place on public transport, not just for intentional fare evasion, but for honest mistakes including getting on a train at the wrong time or sitting in the wrong part of a train, even if no other seats are available. Even problems with the ticket barriers are the responsibility of the traveller, not the train company. And repeat 'offenders' can end up with a criminal record.

Executor2• 12 years ago

Taxation is theft. These people need better values.

Fare Dodging Is an Organized Rebellion in Stockholm, and It’s Winning

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