Compass Cards preventing fare evasion
Posted June 23, 2016 3:13 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
NEW WESTMINSTER (NEWS 1130) – There’s evidence in TransLink’s annual report to prove the Compass Card program is preventing some fare evasion. There was a jump in revenue right after the fare gates closed.
The annual report shows an increase in revenue of between seven and nine per cent over April and May. CEO Kevin Desmond is “absolutely” linking at least part of that change to the closure of the fare gates around the same time.
But Desmond says they can’t be totally sure how much of that difference is directly linked to thwarted fare evasion.
“Teasing out what portion of that increase in revenue is just from fare evasion as well as other behaviors in the system will take time. I believe ridership is up, but because we’re now in an apples to oranges comparison, prior to the fare gates closing, TransLink did a series of estimates on what the boardings were in the SkyTrain system. Now with the fare gates, it’s very, very precise information so it’s going to take us time to analyze how much of it was fare evasion, how much of it is ridership gain, how much is it just people using the system in a different way using their Compass Cards and paying the full fare on their zone trips?”
He says analysts will check out data being collected and we should have a clear picture of the impact the fare gates are having by the end of the year.
