Why do people fare evade? A global shift in fare evasion research

ABSTRACT

Fare evasion is a significant concern for most transit authorities. The traditional approach to fare compliance has focussed on modifying the physical control of ticketing or ticket inspection rates. Yet recently the perspective on fare evasion has begun to shift toward profiling the fare evader or understanding the customer motivations to fare evade. This paper uses a literature review method to document the characteristics of these three perspectives on fare evasion: the conventional transit system perspective, the customer profiling perspective and the customer motivations perspective. We find that the conventional transit system perspective, although straightforward to measure and control, has its limits particularly in “open” transit systems. The customer profiling perspective attempts to identify, based on demographics, which customers are more likely to fare evade. However this perspective has little use beyond profiling and is ethically questionable. The customer motivations perspective provides a richer understanding of how customers define fare evasion and what attitudes, social norms and circumstances motivates them to fare evade. Considering that between 20% and 40% of a city’s residents admit to fare evading at some point, understanding these complex motivations can help improve revenue compliance at a time when most governments heavily subsidise their transit systems.     

北京市轨道交通自动售检票系统的设计及实现

本文主要介绍了北京市轨道交通自动售检票系统的总体构架、网络结构、系统组成及系统实现,对未来城市轨道交通线路的建设和发展具有一定的参考意义.     

城市轨道交通自动售检票系统监理要点

轨道交通自动售检票系统(AFC),是近年来随着城市轨道交通的发展而形成的高新技术,是集计算机技术、通信技术、网络技术、数据库技术、系统集成技术和信息处理技术等的综合性系统在轨道交通领域的典型应用,而自动售检票系统监理是随之产生的集建筑监理、设备监理和信息系统监理于一体的新型工程监理.本文就实际监理过程中遇到的问题谈谈工作体会,并总结、归纳自动售检票系统监理的若干工作要点.     

快速原型法在深圳地铁AFC系统中的应用

系统地描述快速原型法在深圳地铁AFC应用系统实施过程中的应用,分析深圳地铁AFC应用系统在改进更新过程中遇到客观阻力的原因,并对采用快速原型法的两种分类途径解决实际应用情况进行阐述.     

A robust method for estimating transit passenger trajectories using automated data

Development of an origin-destination demand matrix is crucial for transit planning. The development process is facilitated by automated transit smart card data, making it possible to mine boarding and alighting patterns on an individual basis. This research proposes a novel trip chaining method which uses Automatic Fare Collection (AFC) and General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) data to infer the most likely trajectory of individual transit passengers. The method relaxes the assumptions on various parameters used in the existing trip chaining algorithms such as transfer walking distance threshold, buffer distance for selecting the boarding location, time window for selecting the vehicle trip, etc. The method also resolves issues related to errors in GPS location recorded by AFC systems or selection of incorrect sub-route from GTFS data. The proposed trip chaining method generates a set of candidate trajectories for each AFC tag to reach the next tag, calculates the probability of each trajectory, and selects the most likely trajectory to infer the boarding and alighting stops. The method is applied to transit data from the Twin Cities, MN, which has an open transit system where passengers tap smart cards only once when boarding (or when alighting on pay-exit buses). Based on the consecutive tags of the passenger, the proposed algorithm is also modified for pay-exit cases. The method is compared to previous methods developed by the researchers and shows improvement in the number of inferred cases. Finally, results are visualized to understand the route ridership and geographical pattern of trips.     

Methods for pre-processing smartcard data to improve data quality

In recent years smartcards have been implemented in many transit systems around the world as a means by which passengers pay for travel. In addition to allowing speedier boardings there are many secondary benefits of smartcard systems including better understanding of travel patterns and behaviour of travellers. Such research is dependent on the smartcard correctly recording the boarding stop, and where available the alighting stop. It is also dependent on the smartcard system correctly aggregating individual rides into trips.This paper identifies causes for why smartcard systems may not correctly record such information. The first contribution of the paper is to propose a set of rules to aggregate individual rides into a single trip. This is critical in the research of activity based modelling as well as for correctly charging the passenger. The second contribution of the paper is to provide an approach to identify erroneous tap-out data, either caused by system problems or by the user. An approach to detecting this phenomenon is provided. The output from this analysis is then used to identify faulty vehicles or data supply using the “comparison against peers approach”. This third contribution of the paper identifies where transit agencies and operators should target resources to improve performance of their Automatic Vehicle Location systems. This method could also be used to identify users who appear to be tapping out too early.The approaches are tested using smartcard data from the Singapore public transport network from one week in April 2011. The results suggest that approximately 7.7% of all smartcard rides recorded the passenger as alighting one stop before the bus stop that they most probably alighted at. A further 0.7% of smartcard rides recorded the passenger as alighting more than one stop before the bus stop that they most probably alighted at. There was no evidence that smartcards overestimated the distance travelled by the passenger.     

公路项目"代建制" 运行机制关键问题研究

针对我国目前公路项目代建制发展的现状和存在的问题,系统分析了代建制运行机制中的代建制企业资质、取费标准和招投标制度三个关键问题,并分别提出了具体建议,对代建制的健康发展有一定的推动作用。     

城轨交通自动售检票系统的研究

对城轨自动售检票系统(AFC)的构成、主要功能、设计技术要求等进行了较为详细的描述,并对城市轨道交通自动售检票系统的建设和发展提出了自己的见解.     

Putting our money to good use: Can we attract more passengers without increasing subsidies?

This paper evaluates the policy of Swedish public transport authorities, determining whether the number of trips on local public transport could have been increased without increasing subsidies. Based on annual data from Swedish counties, the evaluation found that between 1986 and 2001 public transport fares exceeded the passenger-maximising fare most of the time in all but two counties, the average deviation being 1-215%. Evaluating the alternative, passenger-maximising policy, including both fare and service changes for 2001, demonstrated that demand for local public transport in Swedish counties could have been increased by 0-178% without increasing subsidies. Aggregated, this represents a 2.3% increase in the number of trips on local public transport in Sweden.     

清分子系统在广州地铁AFC系统中的应用

阐述清分子系统的构成和特点,以广州地铁清分体系建设为基础,对它在城市轨道交通自动售检票(AFC)系统中所发挥的作用进行探讨.重点介绍清分子系统在轨道交通自动售检票系统中对交易数据合法性验证的多种方法.为方便维护升级,提出搭建适应票务政策变化的清分体系的灵活思路和方法.