CharlieCard / Ticket discussion

Passing through North Station today I noticed that most if not all of the faregates' fare collection mechanism has been replaced with a new one. Currently it is signed with a big "CharlieCard only" sign but It has a pad for CharlieCards as well as normal contactless from what I saw.

https://www.mbta.com/news/2020-10-02/fa ... -october-1

Starting Thursday, October 1, the MBTA begins to upgrade fare gates within the rapid transit system. The work begins at Oak Grove Station on the Orange Line and advances throughout the remainder of the system through December.
...
The MBTA anticipates completing 50 percent of the fare gate upgrades by December 2020 with the remaining gates expected to be completed by late 2021. Once a fare gate is upgraded, it will only accept CharlieCards and paper CharlieTickets will no longer be accepted at the upgraded gates. All stations will continue to have fare gates that accept CharlieTickets throughout this transition. Paper CharlieTickets are expected to be phased out in late 2021.

These upgrades are necessary to ensure the reliability of the existing fare collection system. They will also allow for the introduction of the new tappable CharlieTicket, which will be introduced in early 2021.

Heading into Boston tonight,

Can you load a 1 Day Pass on a Charlie Card these days, or is it still only limited to the Monthly Pass.

I have my Charlie Card still hanging around and ready to use if I can put a day pass on it verses getting the paper ticket with the magnetic strip.

I don't remember if they added it to the vending machines, but it's definitely doable at a retail sales outlet and at North/South/Back Bay stations as they all use the same machines.

The answer is yes, you can add a 1-day link pass or a weekly pass to a Charlie Card at the vending machines.

Though it didn't work for me with my existing Charlie Card. It was cancelled for "inactivity" and told me to contact customer support when I tapped it. Damn covid, haven't used the T since March of 2020 until last night. I was able to get a new Charlie Card from T personnel though at Wonderland.

Same thing happened to me...the card was deactivated, but I'm pretty sure it had a balance...they told me I need to go to DTX to get the balance transferred to the new card, but I wasn't going anywhere near there.

I really hope that once charlie 2.0 is fully rolled out they adopt a system with automatic fare capping so you don't need to bother figuring out if a pass is worth it for you or front the money all at once. I spent a couple days in Portland, OR this past summer and combined with open loop payments it's a real game changer in terms of making transit easy to use.

Assembly station's north mezzanine currently has the new fare machines that dispense both Cards & Tickets.

Of note regarding the tickets, they use a contactless system rather than having a magnetic stripe. Furthermore, the balance is displayed as trips rather than a proper monetary balance when tapping at the gates themselves.

What happens then if you use one on a bus? Or do they not work on the old fareboxes?

Here is an article about how the new fare system could lose the MBTA an additional $35 million to fare evaders.

https://www.salemnews.com/news/report-m ... c498f.html

According to "the Pioneer Institute" - a quick Google search will make it clear that they might not have the best interests of urban transportation infrastructure at heart.

I had the same reaction, andrewjw. An organization whose key goal is to expand the use of markets starts out looking like it won't be on board with subsidized anything. To the Pioneer Institute'fas credit, it does suggest that the T shouldn't always cut low-ridership bus routes through poor neighborhoods, but instead should find ways to run those routes more cheaply (smaller vehicles, for example).

They have their whole report up on their website. I haven't had time to dig into it, but when I do I'll be looking to see whether their calculations and predictions show that the new fare-collection methods could result in a net loss of $34 million (a year, I assume), or whether they only show that the value of evaded fares could go up by that amount. If ridership increases, and most of the old and new riders pay their fares, the total value of fares evaded could go up by $34 million, but the total value of fares collected (the total farebox revenue) could stay the same. Or go up. Or go down.

Simple example:

100 people currently ride a given system for $1 per ride. 5% of them evade the fares, for fare evasion of $5. Total revenue $95.

Scenario 1:
A new fare collection system has no effect on ridership and costs exactly the same as the current system. 7% of riders evade the fares, for fare evasion of $7. Total revenue $93.

Scenario 2:
A new fare collection system makes boarding a little quicker, so the schedules can be a little faster and the same number of vehicles and operators can offer more trips. Boarding is also more pleasant and wait times are less, making service more attractive. 110 people now ride. 7% of riders evade the fares, for a total of $7.7 in fares evaded; round it up to $8. But 102 people pay the fares, so total fare revenue is $102. The system comes out ahead.

And a whole bunch of other possible outcomes. Just making a big deal about the dollar amount of fares that might be evaded, without considering how many people are riding and paying before and after, could be misleading.

On the other hand, a POP system probably requires a lot of enforcement and fairly high fines, and creating more opportunities for people to commit and then be caught in a very petty offense (when there's already a steady flow of poor people who can't pay things like traffic tickets into jail all over the country) might not be the best plan.

One of the best fare-evasion stories I ever heard wasn't exactly transit-related. It had to do with EZ-Pass during it's initial rollout in the NY/NJ area - in this case, the NJ Turnpike.

Apparently, budgets had to undergo some serious recalibrating after a while because they weren't getting the revenue that they expected from EZ-Pass. Oh - it wasn't that people didn't USE it - they did - usage numbers were a smashing success. What they got wrong was the fact that revenue was short because they weren't getting enough FINES from people using EZ-Pass lanes without a transponder. In other words, the people of New Jersey were MORE HONEST than the planning team gave them credit for.

The recent repeat of the Haymarket shutdown reinforces the usefulness of a tap aggregation mechanism for the Charlie fare collection system. Ticket lifts by commuter rail conductors and card taps at fare gates all within a certain time period that could make sense as a single journey would be interpreted using some artificial intelligence as a single fare to be deducted from a stored value card. Aggregating taps would also eliminate any questions if a commuter rail rider were accosted by more than one conductor or had to transfer to another train due to irregular operations.

At this moment, among other sections, the entirety of the Orange Line still operating is orphaned from the rest of the system and there is no easy way to collect fares correctly. The typical procedure is for riders to pay fares only in the "core", namely inbound at Copley or Government Center respectively to continue their journeys.

If you take a shuttle bus you presumably bypass faregates, but if you walk between BBY & copley you pay twice. I think the present system you get one free charlie transfer but if you have to transfer twice you also pay twice (ex: bus to express bus to subway).