Ring of Steel: Fare Gates at BOS, BON, & BBY

I'm sure they'd want to see your ticket activated at the gate, no?

Who? At the gate, you show the paper ticket - the same one every day. On the train, you show an activated ticket. You just activated it, but how can the conductor tell as they are moving through a crowded train?

There is a way to solve that too. Eventually they will want to replace the humans with automated gates similar to the subway. Then you cannot scan the same paper ticket every day as long as the machine performs a cancellation based on some technology such as bar code or magnetic strip. NJT kind of has a similar system at Secaucus because they cannot possibly check the tickets between NYP and Secaucus. With humans you need an alternative cancellation. Maybe the agents can clip a corner of a paper ticket?

That is not to say that there will be no fare evaders any more, but if the fare evasion reduction covers the cost of the agents anything extra is good news for the operations budget.

How did the first day go? Was still on vacation so I will get to experience it for the first time tonight.

Do I want to plan extra time to get passed them to board my train or does it move relatively quickly?

SEPTA has a similar system to what you are proposing - when boarding center city in the afternoon peak, agents punch the corner of your ticket. You then present that ticket on board for collection. (This also has flaws - if on-board collection is really rare, one can just buy a zone 1 pass instead of one paper ticket to show every time. I'm not advocating this.)

Electronic gate checks at SEC work pretty well, though if such a change were made here then it would make sense to equip conductors with ticket scanners to verify the ticket had been activated before boarding. (If you go that far - why not add validators at outlying stations, acknowledge that conductors check infrequently, and call it Proof of Payment? )

Looks like they started checking at north station this week.

I can't figure out yet if they are doing it on random trains or or call it quits at the tail end of rush hour.

There are all kinds of people there that appear to be ticket checkers when I arrive at the station at 5:45 to catch my 6:05 train. But by 6 they all leave. Not sure if it's for the day or what. I only saw them checking the 5:55 Fitchburg train once this week.


Also, noticed they are removing / re locating all the permanent wooden benches. You know the curved solid wood ones on either side of dunkin'

It would be very frustrating if they only check during rush hour... from my experience riding the trains I (anecdotally) feel like the majority of fare evasion happens off-peak. 99% of rush hour trains I've ridden I've had my ticket checked, but that drops to only maybe 75% for off-peak trains. Off-peak is also pretty much the only time you see people arguing with the conductor about paying their fare.

RenegadeMonster wrote:Looks like they started checking at north station this week.

I can't figure out yet if they are doing it on random trains or or call it quits at the tail end of rush hour.

There are all kinds of people there that appear to be ticket checkers when I arrive at the station at 5:45 to catch my 6:05 train. But by 6 they all leave. Not sure if it's for the day or what. I only saw them checking the 5:55 Fitchburg train once this week.


Also, noticed they are removing / re locating all the permanent wooden benches. You know the curved solid wood ones on either side of dunkin'

Yep. was on the 430 express to Wachusett last night, and they had ticket checkers as we got through the cordon. Then after we got past Porter Square, the conductors came through and checked everyone's tickets again. Not sure exactly what that bought them in terms of time or efficiency...

It appears that they were at Ruggles this morning during rush hour. There was probably 10-15 Keolis employees, and at least one MBTA Transit Police officer. Given how few outbound trains stop there in the AM rush, this really doesn't seem like a cost effective effort.

Tell me about it.

Last night at North Station they had enough staffers for 10 people per group, 4 groups.

They also had 4 transit officers standing by the door they were checking.

The perk that irks me is they sound like drill sergeants hearing cows. I could hear them shouting from the line on Track 10 all the way over on track 1.

"Passes Out", "Activate your mobile tickets", "Form A line".

Wonder if the Transit police are there to deter people from ignoring the ticket checkers.

When there were no transit police, one of my co workers was running late to catch her train and just ran by them saying "Yup, have a good day" when they were yelling at her to get her ticket out / get in line. She just barely made that train and is sure that people in line may have missed the train. She has a monthly pass anyways so no where close to fare evasion. But wonder if they will treat it like that and what the penalty would be if you run passed them especially with the transit police are there now.

Heh, I'm sure the transit police are there so that the ticket checkers don't end up in the track pit when they board an evening rush Fitchburg train.

Tonight was the first night they checked my train at north station.

Even though the app displayed the 6:05 Newburyport train on track 2 / now bearding at 5:55 after everyone on the inbound train had disembarked the ticket checkers would not let us enter the platform until they announced the train over the PA as now boarding at 6:02pm.

This whole speak about it being a safety issue and that you can only board the train at a door attended by a crew member and that just recently they had a conducted break his arm on a door.

Well, all the conductors were standing outside the door of the control car when they let us enter the platform. You know the door we can’t enter. None were attending any of the other doors.

Lots of people talking / complaining about it on the train now and quite a few people are saying that they refused to show the ticket checkers their passes and told them off as they walked by.

No transit police I can see why they need them.

Was also surprised to see the ticket checkers for forcfukly blocking anyone trying to board the train before it was announced on the PA. Arms out pushing people back trying to sneak by them.

Fare Is Fare checks on 329 (4:45 to Lowell) today. Within my sight, the conductor sold two cash fares after departing North Station despite it being an extremely crowded, shorter-than-normal train. The conductor did his job well, under less than ideal circumstances.

RenegadeMonster wrote:Was also surprised to see the ticket checkers for forcfukly blocking anyone trying to board the train before it was announced on the PA. Arms out pushing people back trying to sneak by them.

I'm no lawyer, but if a Keolis employee touches you to forcefully stop you from proceeding, is that not assault?

There was one cash collection for a ticket on the car I was in tonight as well.

And of course it’s a guy who sets a perfect example of why they need the ticket checkers. He was arguing his fare with the conductor and disputing the surcharge. The conductor was like we have had this conversation before and was persistent any collecting the full fare including surcharge.

Lots of people complaining to the conductor though about the ticket checks as he walked through the train.