The data I would like to see is that which supports your premise: "high-tech and nearly unjumpable gates would pay dividends around the clock."
Is there any data that shows an increase in fare revenue (or a decrease in operating expenses exclusive of additional enforcement) for a train system that installs harder gating?
My guess is the data would show a curve of diminishing returns of revenue improvement and/or enforcement expense reduction as a municipality spends more on hardening gates, and maybe DC is best served by status quo with the gates while quietly phasing out other enforcement expenses to improve the bottom line.
>The data I would like to see is that which supports your premise: "high-tech and nearly unjumpable gates would pay dividends around the clock."
N.b.: I essentially meant that the benefit pays off over time and is always “on”—much less whack a mole than individual officers trying to be everywhere at once.
Diminishing marginal returns is absolutely real, but there are also huge costs to evasion both from safety as well as direct financial costs. I also think gate hardening at difficult stations is a better way that systemwide iterative retrofits as I mentioned above.
Someone else brought up NYC's $1.1 billion dollar program to really crack down, and in their modeling even a program at that level of expense had benefits of ~$100 million/yr, which is pretty effective.
The above is another example of a lot of the operational and ancillary costs outside of just the initial revenue from fares. Zero evasion is an unreasonable standard, but a few inches here and there makes a difference, and the current levels aren’t a rounding error.
Thanks for this article.
The data I would like to see is that which supports your premise: "high-tech and nearly unjumpable gates would pay dividends around the clock."
Is there any data that shows an increase in fare revenue (or a decrease in operating expenses exclusive of additional enforcement) for a train system that installs harder gating?
My guess is the data would show a curve of diminishing returns of revenue improvement and/or enforcement expense reduction as a municipality spends more on hardening gates, and maybe DC is best served by status quo with the gates while quietly phasing out other enforcement expenses to improve the bottom line.
>The data I would like to see is that which supports your premise: "high-tech and nearly unjumpable gates would pay dividends around the clock."
N.b.: I essentially meant that the benefit pays off over time and is always “on”—much less whack a mole than individual officers trying to be everywhere at once.
Diminishing marginal returns is absolutely real, but there are also huge costs to evasion both from safety as well as direct financial costs. I also think gate hardening at difficult stations is a better way that systemwide iterative retrofits as I mentioned above.
Someone else brought up NYC's $1.1 billion dollar program to really crack down, and in their modeling even a program at that level of expense had benefits of ~$100 million/yr, which is pretty effective.
https://ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2026/10/06/new-subway-fare-gates-cut-evasion-by-73--at-some-stations-mta
https://growsf.org/news/2026-02-12-bart-fare-gates-10-million/
The above is another example of a lot of the operational and ancillary costs outside of just the initial revenue from fares. Zero evasion is an unreasonable standard, but a few inches here and there makes a difference, and the current levels aren’t a rounding error.
What caused such ineffective purchases to be made the first two go-rounds?