18.1Fare System Functionality
Customers require the effective integration of technologies to simplify their workflow and boost efficiency.Anne M. Mulcahy, businesswoman, 1952–
Rapid transit systems are designed to cater to large passenger volumes. Managing peak-hour volumes has been a challenge for public transport agencies around the world. While paper tickets were historically the primary mode of fare collection, public transport agencies have increasingly turned to electronic fare collection to cater to increasing demand, and to solve the problem of long passenger lines at ticket counters.
Any fare collection system must incorporate a mechanism to ensure payment by users. There are two primary means of ensuring compliance:
- Barrier control: Users need to pass through some kind of physical barrier to access the system. Typically this implies turnstiles on vehicles or at stations, sliding doors, or other such mechanisms. The users present a payment medium (e.g., a smart card or magnetic-strip card) for the barrier to open, and a payment is deducted from the medium;
- Proof-of-payment: There are no physical barriers to enter the system. Users either enter freely (an “open system”) or show proof of payment upon entry and/or exit. In such systems, public transport staff conduct occasional checks to control fare evasion. For those caught without a valid fare during the random inspection process, a penalty is applied. Proof-of-payment systems entail pre-board fare collection, usually through a vending machine or kiosk. From the fare payment point onward, the customers proceed directly to the public transport vehicle without inspection.
Barrier control is common on trunk corridors of many BRT systems, as it minimizes stress of human work and labor to maintain records and data. Proof-of-payment systems are typical in many European public transport systems, but are not very common in BRT systems due to the difficulty of coping with high demand levels and the costs of enforcement personnel necessary to reduce leakage to an acceptable level. Rigorous enforcement of fare evasion is something of an unpleasant business. Enforcement authorities have to be quasi police, either armed or physically large. Sometimes people are unable to figure out how to pay the fare, either because the cash point was not working, or it was closed, or it failed to punch the fare card properly. People need to retain the fare card, and sometimes it gets lost. When one of these things happens, it is highly unsettling for passengers, for they face a stiff penalty, and a humiliating encounter with enforcement agents.
Proof-of-payment systems are prevalent in subsidized public transport systems where there is less direct institutional concern about collecting the fare revenue. This kind of system also requires a legal framework that allows verification staff (that usually are not police staff) to have de facto police powers in the collection of penalties from violators, and a procedure for collecting when the passenger does not have the money to pay the fine. This legal framework is absent in many developing countries. Fare verification by personnel walking through the buses is also difficult on very crowded systems. Even with stringent verification requirements, cities can face significant amounts of fare evasion. As such, the viability of operating an effective honor system is questionable.
Some BRT systems with direct services that extend beyond trunk corridors sometimes make use of both compliance mechanisms: fares are collected off-board at trunk stations, but the system relies on proof-of-payment on service extensions. Other systems require paying the driver when the vehicles operate outside of the trunk corridor, as in Guangzhou, China, and Cali, Colombia. Thus, different components of a BRT system may require varying fare collection solutions.
Fare collection systems are also a factor of the fare structure. Fare collection is fairly straightforward in the case of flat fares, whereas distance-based or zonal fare systems typically require a more intricate solution. The following sections describe common approaches for typical BRT service types.
18.1.1Fare Collection on Trunk Corridors
Off-board fare collection is generally the most suitable process for BRT trunk corridors. Successful BRTs worldwide have adopted off-board fare collection systems to reduce boarding times and facilitate the use of electronic fare media. Bus frequencies on BRT trunk corridors are often so high that only electronic fare collection is a viable mechanism for handling fare payments during peak hours. For systems in which drivers are responsible for fare collection, passengers take as long as two to four seconds to pay the driver while entering the vehicle. Once passenger flows reach a certain threshold, the delays and time loss associated with onboard fare collection become a significant system liability.
By contrast, in a BRT system with pre-board fare collection, boarding and alighting is conducted from all doors at once. When fares are collected off the vehicle, there is no delay in boarding and alighting related to the fare collection and fare verification processes. A pre-board fare collection and verification process will reduce boarding times from 3 seconds per passenger to 0.3 seconds per passenger. In turn, the reduction in station dwell time greatly reduces vehicle congestion at the stopping bay.
The introduction of contactless smart cards and other modern payment systems can reduce onboard payment to fewer than two seconds per passenger. Systems such as the Seoul, South Korea, busway make use of onboard fare collection using smart card technology. However, any time the driver is responsible for verifying fares, the speed of the service is highly compromised, particularly if there is a large volume of passengers.
In the case of the Seoul busway system, passengers must remember to swipe their smart cards both upon entering the vehicle and when existing as well. Delays can occur simply if a person enters the vehicle and must search through their belongings to find the fare card. Onboard payment and verification psychologically also creates a lower-market image for the service. Off-board payment and verification gives the sense of a more metro-like system.
Table 18.1Observed Boarding and Alighting Times for Different Vehicle Configurations. Table courtesy of ITDP.
| Configuration characteristcs | Boarding and alighting times | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fare collection method | Doorway width (meters) | Stairway boarding or level boarding | Vehicle floor height | Observed; boarding time; | Observed alighting time |
| Onboard, manually by driver | 0.6 | Stairway | High | 3.01 | NA |
| Onboard, contactless smart card (no turnstile) | 0.6 | Stairway | High | 2.02 | NA |
| Off-board | 0.6 | Stairway | High | 23 | 1.53 |
| Off-board | 0.6 | Stairway | Low | 1.5 | 1.2 |
| Off-board | 1.1 | Stairway | High | 1.5 | 1.0 |
| Off-board | 1.1 | Stairway | Low | 1.1 | 0.9 |
| Off-board | 1.1 | Level | High | 0.751 | 0.51 |
Where:
- Colombia/Mexico;
- China;
- Brazil;
NA not available.
Off-board payment collection is not necessarily the only way to reduce boarding and alighting times, but there are institutional reasons why this approach is generally more successful in the developing-country context. Passengers can also enter through all doors at once if there are sufficient conductors to check tickets once on board. Alternatively, many European light-rail systems utilize an honor system, where it is the responsibility of passengers to punch their own tickets that they purchase at shops and kiosks. Enforcement is then the responsibility of the police or contracted security personnel. However, in developing countries such enforcement is usually ineffective.
Off-board fare collection also reduces the potential for leakage because there are fewer points of cash collection in the system. When passengers pay on board, and do not have to pass through a turnstile, there is no clear count of how many passengers boarded the vehicle. Off-board fare sales to a third party make it easier to separate the fare collection process from the bus operators. By having an open and transparent fare collection system, there is less opportunity for circumstances in which individuals withhold funds. Further, by removing the handling of cash by drivers, incidents of onboard robbery are reduced.
Off-board payment also facilitates free transfers within the system. The enclosed, controlled stations also give the system another level of security, as the stations can be better protected by security personnel, thus discouraging theft and other undesirable activities. Payment off board also is more comfortable than juggling change within a moving vehicle.
The main disadvantage to off-board fare collection is the need to construct and operate off-board fare facilities. Fare vending machines, sales booths, verification devices, and turnstiles all require both financial investment and physical space. The average station cost in the TransMilenio system was approximately US$500,000 each. Of course, it is also possible to construct simpler closed stations for less; the stations on the Ecovía line in Quito, Ecuador, cost in the area of US$35,000 each. Closed stations, though, also bring other benefits besides increased system efficiency. Such stations provide more protection from inclement weather, such as rain, wind, cold, and strong sun. Also, closed stations hold advantages in terms of providing security from crime as well as discouraging loitering.
In a BRT system with limited physical space for stations in a center median, accommodating the fare collection and verification infrastructure can be a challenge. Depending on how the fare system is configured, there may be some time loss while paying off board, whereas paying on board theoretically means that the payment time occurs while the bus is moving. Of course, this type of activity can create safety issues if the driver is both handling fares and driving at the same time. Customers can also be uncomfortably jostled about when trying to pay at the same time the vehicle is accelerating.
Some systems employ a reservoir area within the vehicle to hold passengers while they go through the fare payment and verification process. This system is utilized in Brazil to allow the passenger queue to quickly file into the vehicle, which can then accelerate to the next station without waiting for passengers to complete the fare-verification process. However, this technique often requires onboard fare collection staff, which in turn raises operational labor costs.
There is no one precise point at which a system’s capacity will determine if onboard or off-board fare collection is more cost effective. Much depends on demand figures from individual stations, station physical configurations, and average labor costs. However, the advantage of off-board payment clearly increases as the level of boardings and alightings at the station increases. In Goiânia, Brazil, the local public transport agency estimates that an off-board fare system is cost justified when the system capacity reaches 2,500 passengers per hour per direction. The development of a cost-benefit analysis may help determine this capacity point, provided the costing data is available.
BRT systems with off-board fare collection may use manned points of sale, automatic ticket vending machines, or a combination of both. Paper tickets can be issued during initial stages from ticket counters at stations, but the system should move toward paperless operations by introducing and promoting the use of cashless travel by means of automatic access control barriers.
18.1.2Fare Collection on Feeders
Depending on the system typology, feeder services can have onboard fare collection with conductors or proof-of-payment with electronic or paper tickets. Many BRT systems integrate fares between trunk and feeder services; feeder travel is discounted or free for passengers transferring to a trunk bus. In Bogotá’s TransMilenio, the user gets a complimentary feeder bus ride once he or she pays the fare to travel in the trunk bus. Transfer discounts are facilitated through the use of cashless fare collection systems in both trunk and feeder systems. For example, there can be a common smart card that can be used in the BRT as well as feeder services.
The operating costs of fare collection in feeder services are generally higher than on-station, since additional personnel and communication costs are incurred. Revenue from trunk fares helps cover not only the increased cost of collection but potentially the cost of the feeder services themselves.
18.1.3Fare Collection on Direct Services
Some BRT systems have special services and routes that connect trunk corridors with high-demand areas located a short distance from the segregated corridors. While these systems may employ off-board fare collection at trunk stations, an alternate solution is necessary on the extensions. One possibility is to employ electronic fare cards. Passengers tap onboard smart card readers when boarding from an extension, while fare collection is still accomplished off-board at the trunk stations. Monitoring by the driver or some other proof-of-payment mechanism is necessary to ensure fare payment on the service extensions.
18.1.4Integration with Other Public Transport Services
Integration of BRT fares with that of other forms of public transport has many advantages for passengers, reducing the need for cash payments and the inconvenience of learning multiple fare structures for different modes. In Guangzhou, China, customers may use the same fare card on the BRT, metro, and bicycle sharing systems.